From Tragedy
Manav Kaul
Translated from the Hindi by Shruti Sonal
A man of about forty, wearing a linen shirt and a pair of pants, sits on a bench. He looks unkempt, and his voice is riddled with sorrow and longing.
I have a sea of complaints about mothers. Carried away by love, they give us such nicknames when we are children that we have to hide them once we grow up. And what bizarre names: Chitti, Miloo, Tunni, Chhotu, Naate, Bhuri, Sunny.
My nickname was Kopal. Back in our village, everyone still calls me Kopal. Do you know what Kopal means? I had no idea either. I remember one day, Ma was walking me to school, and I was holding her hand. Just then, I asked her:
“Ma, what is the meaning of Kopal? All my friends make fun of the name, and say that Kapil would have been way better.”
My mother took me near a tree and said, “Touch these leaves.” As I went to do that, she stopped me and said, “No, not the big ones, but the small ones . . . the ones who’ve just come to life, and are yellow-ish . . . touch them.” I did as I was told.
“Oh Ma!” I was left surprised.
“Yes, this is Kopal. We call them Kopal,” Ma said.
“But they are so fragile, Ma,” I replied.
“These are not fragile . . . but soft, like you.”
I don’t know why, but at that moment, I said to her in response, “If I am these soft-looking leaves, then you’re the tree.”
I had forgotten all about that.
Now I live in Mumbai. I have a job here. Visiting my village is a habit long lost. Just yesterday, I was in my office. It was month-end, so I had a lot of work to do. A pile of files lay on my desk, while my face was buried in the computer. The phone rang. It was Soni ji calling. Soni ji was our neighbour back in the village, and I had never liked him. I picked up the phone . . .
“Hello! Ji, tell me. Hello, Soni ji, hello . . . arre, tell me.”
“Beta.”
“Arre haan, Soni ji, I can hear you. Tell me. Can you hear me?”
“Beta, your mother suddenly passed away last night. Come here as quickly as you can.”
(Pause, a long silence.)
I wanted to say, “What are you saying? What happened to Ma?” But then I thought he’d just repeat his previous sentence again, and I did not want to hear it once more. That’s why I said . . .
Then, Soni ji’s voice came.
“Are you there, beta? Hello, Kopal . . . hello beta?”
“Yes, I am . . . here.”
“Just hurry here, beta.”
“Haan haan, okay okay.”
I returned to my desk and started working. There was a lot to do. While working, it seemed that everything was fine. I looked at my office colleagues, who were having fun. I felt that amidst all of that, nothing had happened at all. No call had come. Don’t know what I keep thinking. It can’t be. Just then, while working, a strange emptiness began to fill me. I stopped. I stared at my desk for a long time. I was looking for something, something I couldn’t see. I began shuffling the things on my desk, going through the files, and opening the table drawers in order to look for it. But I could not find what I was looking for. Just then, my friend looked at me and asked, “Aye, what are you looking for?”
I looked at him and shrugged.
“And why are you sweating so much?” he asked. I looked at myself and saw that I was sweating a lot. Why was I sweating so much? My eyes were burning too. I wiped my sweat on my bush shirt. Then, I went to my friend and said, “Can you check if I have a fever?”
He checked my head, then put his hands on my neck.
“No. You don’t have a fever. What happened to you, dude?”
I don’t know what made me tell him—
“Yaar, my mom is no more.”
And then, I saw for the first time in his eyes what I had been looking for.
Then, I immediately went to my boss’s cabin and told him, “Boss, I want to take leave right away.”
When I told him the reason, he asked me to take a weeklong leave. “Or do one thing, finish the thirteen-day funeral rituals, and then come.” “No, no,” I replied, “I will come back in one or two days . . . what will I do for so long in the village?”
He looked at me with surprise and then said okay. I also said okay.
I booked a flight for the next day. The afternoon one was cheap, while the morning one was quite expensive . . . How expensive have flights become these days? But I was in a rush, so I booked the morning flight and went home.
I am not a morning person at all. To this day, I haven’t understood how people wake up early. What do they do? Bloody morning persons. Today, I have been awake since 4:00 a.m. and I have no idea what to do. My eyes are burning, my head is heavy, and look how much I am sweating. It’s not that I didn’t try to go back to sleep, but whenever I was about to close my eyes, a weird anxiety set in—what if I missed the flight? This fear made me me sit up immediately, wide awake. I have taken a bath and packed my bags. But the morning light is refusing to come in.
I began to pace around my room in circles. A part of me felt that if I kept walking, then time would move more quickly. Just then, my eyes darted to a book on my shelf. What’s happening today? Today, for the first time, my eyes went to that particular book, out of so many of them. Maxim Gorky’s Mother. Gorky had written the book for his mother, Pelageya Nilovna. When I had read the novel long ago, a wistful wish had come to me. I wish! I wish my mom were also great like Pelageya Nilovna. I felt that she had betrayed me instead. She should have been great; she could have been great, then why didn’t she do so? Why do our mothers never become great?
I still remember that after I finished reading the book, I didn’t talk to my mother properly. Ma didn’t understand why I was so mad at her. She would ask me what happened, and I would say, “Leave it.” “Arre Kopal, what happened?” she’d say again, and I’d respond, “I am just a little mad.” She never got to know why I was so mad at her.
Now, I think: it’s not like I ever became Gorky myself.
I looked at the clock. It was 6:00 a.m. I picked up my luggage and hailed a rickshaw for the airport. It was raining heavily, but it was morning, and the roads were empty. As a result, I reached the airport well ahead of time. As soon as I had checked in my luggage, I knew what I needed: a hot cup of coffee would cure the burning sensation in my eyes and the heaviness in my head. I hurried to a cafe to buy a cup of piping hot coffee, and sat at the flight gate.
I looked at my watch and realised that there was still quite some time left before the flight. I was sweating so much that I began to think the airport’s AC wasn’t working. My eyes were still burning, and my head was heavy too. This coffee is a fraud: not every black drink is coffee.
For a long time, I had been staring at a woman. She was standing near the airport’s bathroom for quite some time. She was neither going inside nor anywhere else . . . just standing still in her place. She didn’t seem to know that the women’s bathroom was on the other side. I don’t know what’s going on. Nobody is even telling her.
When was the last time I spoke to my mother? Just a few days ago. Five or six days, maybe. No. I took out my phone and checked—it was fifteen days ago. I kept staring at her name on the screen. Should I call her now? Will her voice come from the other side? Why won’t it? Will her voice never come from the other side now?
I went to my inbox and checked her last message: “So, what are you writing these days?”
I had written in response, “I’m in the office, busy with work . . . will call later.” Three dry sentences that I had typed out deliberately. I hadn’t seen my mother’s face for two years. I was upset with her . . . very upset.
Does this happen to you as well? When you stand in front of a new airport’s bathroom, do you struggle to figure out which is the men’s and which is the women’s? No, I don’t know what sort of signs people design these days—it’s so difficult to figure out. Once, I almost entered the women’s bathroom myself. The woman who’s been standing in front of the bathroom for so long might be in a similar state of confusion. I put my coffee down and went to help her.
“Listen aunty, your bathroom . . . listen.”
As soon as I got close to her, I caught a smell . . . I recognised this smell . . . it was my mother’s smell. How could it come from her? It could only come from my mother; it was her smell.
Actually, my mother used to work very hard. She was a teacher at the main board school. Her salary was a total of seven hundred rupees. After finishing her classes, she would come home and tutor students, which would earn her an additional one or two hundred rupees. Then, after finishing the household chores, when she used to come towards me, I would immediately hang on to her. She would say, “Chee, what are you doing? Go away. I am drenched in sweat. Let me take a bath first.”
“No, I like this smell of yours,” I’d say.
“Smell . . . this is a smell?” She’d ask, surprised.
“Yes, Ma, tell me na, what is this smell?”
“Move, move . . . go away. Beta, this is fatigue. I get tired.”
My face would fall, and then she’d add with love, “Acha, don’t make a face. This is the smell of fatigue, that’s all.”
The smell of fatigue! I used to think it came only from my mother. But it was coming from that lady at the airport too.
When I used to feel sleepy at night, I would get into my mother’s bed, hold her aanchal, and take deep breaths. I would sleep so well after that. Aah!
The more my mother would be tired, the deeper I’d sleep.
I wanted to inhale that smell of fatigue once more.
I walked towards her quietly. As soon as I closed my eyes and breathed in, she turned around.
“Namaste . . . arre! Ma, what are you doing here? Ma, it’s me, Kopal . . . arre, what happened? Ma, Ma, I am no longer upset with you . . . I was . . . but not now . . . I was going to call you myself. Ma, where are you going? You have to go to the bathroom, right? It’s that side, you’re going in the wrong direction again. Let’s go, come . . . arre, why are you shouting? Come, Ma, stubborn as always, come. You go to the bathroom na, I am here. Give me your bag. Give . . . give it to me.”
Suddenly, I realised that a few people had gathered around us. At that moment, someone shouted.
“Oye, what are you saying to my mother?”
“Aye, brother, listen . . .”
Arre, I was not her son. He was her son. Her bag was in my hands . . . I gave it back to her immediately and turned to the crowd and said, “Sorry, sorry, I don’t know what’s happening to me today. Actually, today my mother . . .”
But it was too late by then. People started shoving me . . . some slapped me too. I fell down. And then, what followed was what a crowd usually does to a lone person.
After a while, I somehow stumbled back to my seat and sat down. I don’t know why, but I felt quite good after getting beaten up. My eyes were still burning, and I was sweating too, but after being beaten, the heaviness in my head had gone away. Wow! There are benefits to getting beaten up too.
Just then, my flight was announced, and I quickly joined the line.
*
“So what are you writing these days?” Ma would always ask.
Actually, my mother wanted with all her heart to become a writer. But this was not acceptable to my father. She wanted to write, so every time he saw a pencil in the house, he snapped it in two. I remember very little about my father. He passed away when I was very young. But every time my mother would speak of him, I used to feel that he was a soldier whose only job was to patrol her. While he was alive, my father always kept a strict watch over her, like a true soldier.
My mother was very beautiful. She had a copper-like complexion, a slim body, tall height, and thick hair. That’s why my father used to lock the door from outside before leaving for work.
I did not get along with my father at all. Cruel man, that bastard. How can a man be so cruel? Ma tells me that amidst that cruelty, I was born, and Ma experienced softness after a long time. That’s why she named me Kopal. She used to say: “Listen, you’re Kopal. Always remain Kopal.” Now, I like this name a lot . . . Kopal.
When my father passed away, I thought my mother would start writing a lot . . . but that didn’t happen. I found it quite odd, so I went to her one day and said . . . “Ma, why do you keep playing with pens in front of these blank pages? Why don’t you write? Write whatever you wish to. You have full freedom.”
She used to retort, “Is writing so easy? Years’ worth of anger is filled inside me, beta, and anger hardens people. I don’t want to write down my anger. I want to write something nice.”
There was so much anger filled inside her that my mother couldn’t ever write a single word. But she used to read a lot, my god! She was always surrounded by books.
And I was her idiot son, who had all the freedom in the world, but no desire to read or write. In fact, I never understood why people read some thick-thick books. I would use the books to fall asleep instead. I used to think they were not books, but sleeping pills. As soon as you put them in your mouth, a deep sleep would come over you. Pop them and fall asleep instantly!
But my mother was very stubborn. Every night, she used to keep a book near my head and say:
“No, no no, you have to read it before you sleep.”
“Okay, Ma, I will read it and then sleep.”
I used to open the book and go through the first page very quickly. But after reaching the second one, it used to feel like someone had put heavy stones on the top of my eyelids. I used to summon all my strength and tell myself, yaar, one sentence, a few words . . . let’s read something . . . but my eyes dared not stay open. They used to shut in an instant, and I would snore away.
In the morning, Ma would come. “So, tell me the story you read at night?”
I would say okay. I’d breeze through the first page, but by the second one, I’d start making up things. Twisting those fictitious lies, I’d somehow complete the story. Ma would enjoy those. Is this cheating? When she used to enjoy my lies, then what’s the point of reading? Therefore, I stopped reading altogether. I used to put on the blankets, then wake up and narrate to her a completely made-up story. Ma would roll around in laughter. What a laugh she had! No . . . no, she did not laugh. Some people laugh . . . but she . . . Ma would giggle.
Then one day she called me, in a heavy voice. “Kopal.”
“What, Ma?”
“Come here, come here.”
Whenever Ma used to call me like that, I knew that something was off.
“What happened, Ma?”
“Listen, the stories you tell me . . .”
“Yes.”
“You should write them down.”
“Arre! It’s so difficult to stay up all night and read them. Why should I write them down? They’re already written down in books na, so why should I write them again?”
“You liar. You think I don’t know? The stories in the books are different from the stories you tell me . . . listen na, I want to read your stories. Write them down na.”
What a smart woman she is . . . clever! Means she knew from the very beginning that I was lying. But she did not tell me and was instead pulling my leg!
“Ma, you’re completely . . .”
“What?”
“Sorry. When you know the truth that these are all made-up stories, then why should I write down the lies?”
“These are not lies.”
“Ma, these are lies.”
“No, beta.”
“Ma, I am telling you, everything I’ve said is a lie.”
“It’s not a lie, but your imagination . . . This is how everyone writes.”
“What do you mean? All books are full of these lies?” I asked her.
“Lies, fiction . . . It’s one and the same thing.”
There was an explosion in my head. Can you imagine . . . suddenly discovering that all the books in the world are simply filled with lies? Bloody hell! That means everyone is peddling lies? And if everyone is doing so, then I can make a career of it . . . I was born a liar!
After that, I’d wake up every morning, write down a fascinating lie and hand it over to Ma. She’d read it and light up. What a great understanding it was! I could complete my sleep and get rid of books and stories too!
But I never realised when I got caught in the web woven by Ma. Imagine! A stupid child like me had started writing because of this. I kept on writing, because of Ma and for Ma.
Do you know I got the window seat on the plane? I find randomly getting the window seat nothing less than a miracle, something of a sweet surprise. I have always loved airplanes. Arre . . . forget about me; my mother was crazy about them. Back in the village, whenever an airplane would fly above us in the sky, both of us would step out and look at it in awe. Ma used to say . . . “Look, airplane.” Then, we used to wave goodbye to it . . . tata tata tata tata . . . until it disappeared from view.
“Kopal,” Ma would say.
“What, Ma?”
“Beta, sighting an airplane is good luck.”
“Hain?”
“Haan, take this one rupee, go get sweets.”
Yes, sightings of airplanes were an occasion for us to get sweets. But we weren’t able to eat a lot of them, because back then, only one airplane would cross the sky above us each month. Then, I don’t know what happened, but after I grew up, the number of airplanes flying overhead started to grow. The sweets were expensive, so we came down to much cheaper candies. On top of this, sometimes, two airplanes would pass by our village in a single day! Bhai, we had to make the candies last for the entire month. We couldn’t eat one entire candy every time a plane flew overhead. We didn’t have that kind of money, after all! Faced with that second plane, Ma thought of a trick. From then on, every time the second plane flew above us, she would behave like . . . hmm . . . we couldn’t hear anything, don’t know what the sound was coming from outside? Instead, Ma used to pretend like it was a tractor passing us by. We would just not listen.
Arre, this trick was very useful. I told you right that my mother earned a total of seven hundred rupees per month. As soon as she got her salary on the first of every month, she would keep it in the safe where idols of gods were kept. Then, she would say to me, “Kopal, this is it. This time, we have to get through the entire month with this money, no matter what happens.”
I would respond, “Sure, Ma. We will make this last till the end of the month.”
That never happened, though! By the twentieth or twenty-fifth of every month, that money would be breathing its last. And by the last week, we would live like a second airplane filled with sadness was passing our house. Gr gr gr, only sadness, gr gr gr, so much sadness . . . gr gr gr. And then, the trick we had learnt proved to be of use. We would simply neither look at the sadness nor hear it. In the last week of every month, sadness would arrive like this; we would turn our backs to it, and it would pass us by. And then, the first day of a new month would arrive again, ushering in happiness, and god’s safe would be full again. Running her fingers through her hair, Ma would say: “Beta, if you don’t look at sadness, it will cease to be real.”
One day I asked her, “Ma?” in a voice as serious as hers. “What is it?”
“Come here, come here.”
“I will give you a tight slap.”
“Arre, just wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask?”
“It’s a serious question.”
“I like serious questions.”
“Okay, then listen to this. Why do we call this god’s safe? There are no idols of god in it. It’s empty.”
“Because the gods went away with your father.”
“Hain? They just got up and left?”
“Yes. I am an atheist na, that’s why.”
“Chee . . . what? You’re an atheist?”
“Yes.”
Arre, can mothers even be atheists? Whose mother is an atheist? What was happening in my house! “No . . . Ma.”
“Yes, I am an atheist.”
“But I am not one.” I instantly looked up towards the sky and told God, “No, not me; only she’s a non-believer. Don’t get offended by her words . . . You and me, our setting is fine.”
Then, Ma said, “You’re also an atheist.”
“Ma! You’ll be cursed. What are you saying? I am not an atheist.”
“In this world, we are all more atheists than believers.”
“What?”
“Haan. There are roughly ten religions in the world, right?”
“Yes.” “Out of the ten, you don’t believe in nine and only believe in one, right?”
“Yes.”
“So for those nine religions, we’re all non-believers, right? I just don’t believe in one more religion.”
Just listen to her! Look at how she twists things around. But I am also Kopal. I will not accept defeat so easily.
translated from the Hindi by Shruti Sonal
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