AUTHOR’S NOTE:
WITH DUE RESPECT TO ALL THE RITUALS THAT FOLLOW AFTER THE DEATH OF SOMEONE IN A HINDU FAMILY, THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO ASSERT THAT NOTHING STATED IN THE STORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN TO MALIGN ANYONE OR ANY RITUAL.
12th June 1992
After an excruciating four-hour train ride from Pune to Mumbai, I reached my parent’s home along with my husband, who made no particular efforts to conceal his grumpiness. The scowl on his face and baleful look said it all.
Most of the relatives had already arrived. They were seated in the drawing room of the modest two-bedroom apartment, conversing in hushed tones.
Walking towards the adjoining room, I gazed at the mortal remains of the soul who had gone through untold hardships and adversities in life.
Balls of cotton were stuffed in both his nostrils. His hands and legs were tied, and there lay my six-foot-tall father, covered in white.
If only I had come last week when his condition had worsened! If only the in-laws back home had loosened their grip on the reins that maneuvered me!
If only my husband had had the pluck to confront his parents and drive into their egotistical brain that I had someone eagerly waiting to have a last glimpse of me before he closed his eyes!
Phew! Certain things never change.
But why blame the world? Why didn’t I have the guts to stand up for myself and throw a spanner at their efforts of dissuading me from leaving when the doctor had given the verdict?
A huge lump choked my chest as I tried to stifle the undulating sobs in vain.
‘Appa*,’ I croaked before it turned into a wail as I threw myself over the lifeless body.
My mother looked paler than ever. She hugged me and let her pent-up agony burst into the form of cascading tears.
Appa had passed away at sixty-seven.
“Not an age to die,” sobbed Kamakshi Athai*, the eldest of three siblings, my father being the youngest.
I recollected my last conversation with my father, almost a year before. After that visit, today I was only seeing his lifeless body.
“Sorry, Shraddha”, he had feebly stated. “Unknowingl,y I have pushed you into a deep abyss. Trust me, I had no inkling about the disposition of the members of that family. My poor financial status drew a veil over my eyes and coaxed me to believe in their altruistic approach, which I later realised, was fabricated.”
He gasped for breath but continued even as I implored him to calm down.
“If it wasn’t for all that financial crunch brought upon me by Rajamani, I would have analyzed their approach wisely. You are paying for my folly of having placed unparalleled trust in my brother.” His speech had already become incoherent.
I stopped him from speaking further.
“Appa, please, how many more days will you live in self-reproach like this? Haven’t I already spent eight years in that house? Please don’t harbour any guilt in your mind. I have nothing to complain about.” I sincerely tried to appease him, but my quivering voice betrayed my agony.
He sobbed, and with him cried my mother, too.
I fondly caressed his forehead while he was in his eternal sleep and prayed to God that He give my father a happy and carefree life in his next birth.
My mind raced down memory lane.
Wasn’t that nearly two decades ago?
*****************************
In contrast to the usual melodious rendition of the Lalitha Sahasranamam* that played on the Murphy radio every morning, I woke up hearing intermittent sobs.
“Amma*, why are Paati* and Vani crying?” The fourteen-year-old heart in me was beating fast.
My mother’s attempts at assuaging both of them failed miserably.
While I was still in a trance, unable to understand the reason behind the outburst, my father returned from his morning walk.
He almost slumped down, holding his head between his palms, after going through one sheet of paper that Paati handed over. Something was written on it.
It took a good part of an hour before I comprehended that my Periappa* had left the house for good, scribbling some frivolous reason on the paper.
“How am I going to repay all the money, Savitri?” My father said, holding my mother’s hands. “Vani is already 21. Rajamani has left to enjoy his life elsewhere without considering it his duty to find a groom for his daughter, but we cannot remain indifferent. We have to get her married, and then we have a daughter too to marry off.”
I felt amused that Appa was discussing my marriage.
I did not understand what repayment he was talking about but his tears touched my heart.
Soon, Paati took to bed.
Gathering bits and pieces, I concluded that Periappa was the cause of all the misery in the house.
I loved Periappa. He used to get me a lot of sweets and lovely dresses on special occasions. However, now my anger has condensed on him for making my parents sad.
I had somewhat understood earlier that Vani’s mother had died of smallpox when Vani was hardly six, and I was a just-born infant.
After Periappa left home, I eventually gathered from Amma as I grew up that Periappa had refused to remarry. He gradually got into bad company and began smoking, drinking, and gambling. Apparently, he was having an affair and squandered whatever he earned.
Periappa then started taking loans from lenders.
His profligacy had pushed him to sign documents that quoted high interest rates for the loaned amount.
However, when things reached a threshold, one fine day, he entreated my father to bail him out of the moneylenders’ clutches.
When Appa decided to repay his loans, though, under strain, Periappa had promised that he would mend his ways and regularly pay a certain amount from his salary as against the repayment of the loan.
He also promised to sever all ties with the woman who was an ultimate money sucker.
Appa had somehow amassed thirty thousand rupees. He took some as loans from his office, some from close relatives, and some from colleagues to repay all the loans that Periappa had taken.
Relatives and friends stood by Appa, knowing his sincerity well.
Periappa meticulously returned home from work every evening for the next four months and paid the stipulated amount. Then his timings started getting erratic. He used to pay the money, but it was at his own will. Sometimes, two installments would come together after a gap.
And then one day the doorbell rang in the morning bringing in a money lender demanding his loan amount.I distinctly remember that day. Appa had answered the doorbell.
“Rajamani ‘s house?” A gruff voice enquired.
“Call him. He has not paid my interest money since two months.”
Fear gripped Vani and me as a brawl ensued between my father and the man. Periappa locked himself in the washroom. Paati trembled. Amma stood beside her, worried.
I realised now why my father had reprimanded Periappa that day after the ruffian was gone.
Soon after that, Periappa left, unable to face the fresh lot of money lenders anymore.
Appa looked much older than his age as he was burdened with repaying the earlier loans and having constant altercations with money lenders looking out for Periappa.
He also had the responsibility of finding a suitable bridegroom for Vani.
“Wherever I go, the boy’s parents are enquiring about her father. They are inquisitive about why the Chittappa* has sought an alliance. I have to spin stories about him working out of Mumbai. But my concern is that when the wedding gets fixed, the groom’s party would want to meet the girl’s father.” My father’s dismal tone conveyed his helplessness.
At that moment, my heart sank seeing him bend under so much pressure and stress.
For all the adversities, a lesser man would have buckled under the strain, but Appa’s endurance and my mother’s strong support helped him endure the contours of life.
‘I will grow up and take very good care of my parents,’ my adolescent mind often aver.
It is said and staunchly believed that there is always light at the end of a dark tunnel. Vani’s wedding was soon fixed. The groom’s party had quite a few demands, but they did not probe much about the girl’s father when Appa informed them that Periappa hadn’t been staying with us for a while.
A marriage involves various expenditures, and Appa found himself in a tight spot. My mother was giving Vani whatever ornaments and silver articles she had got from her parents’ house. Paati held her hands and sobbed.”Savitri, while I gratefully appreciate your magnanimity, I am worried about Shraddha’s wedding, too. It won’t be long before she also attains marriageable age.”
Confused herself, Amma had no words of assurance, and I painfully noticed her eyes blur.
As if all the perturbations were falling short, a week before the wedding, I was taken aback to see Periappa there when I answered the doorbell. Was it a coincidence that has brought him here for Vani’s wedding?
Periappa begged for pardon and wanted to be taken back into the house.
With a marriage in the family the following week, Appa thought it would be better to let him in without any interrogation rather than open a new can of worms by denying him entry into the house. Moreover, the house belonged to all three siblings, and everyone had equal rights to stay there.
Life went on with all of us under one roof. The brothers had no communication. Periappa did not bother to repay any of the money Appa had spent to bail him from the lenders or the money he spent on Vani’s wedding.
Paati passed away soon after Periappa returned, as if she had been waiting to have a glimpse of her elder son.
Endurance has its limits. The pent-up agony of years burst out in the form of a heart attack and my father was hospitalized. It took months before he recovered and resumed work.
Like a silver lining in a dark cloud, I got a job in a bank as soon as I completed my B, com. The income helped to tide over the expenditures to some extent.
Meanwhile, Kamakshi Athai was widowed. Not willing to stay with her only daughter and son-in-law, she thrust herself into our household. She often spoke about her share in the house and picked up a fight with Periappa over that issue. She would drag my father too into it, but he was very weak for her aggressiveness.
My parents had reached the end of their tether.
*****************************
My eyes were still blurred as I looked intently at Mom. How would she tide over the remaining days of her life with Dad’s meager savings and a not-so-laudable pension? As a retired clerk whose monthly salary was nowhere close to a five-digit number during retirement and with a heavy burden at home, one couldn’t expect a man to have huge savings. He also availed of the maximum loan from his provident fund during Vani’s wedding.
Despite his dwindling health condition, he worked part-time in several housing societies after retirement, bringing in some income to run the house.
Contribution from Periappa was inconspicuous, and there was no contribution from Kamakshi Athai.
I shook my head involuntarily. No, she can’t be left in this house with two people whom I had stopped revering to long before. Will I be allowed to take her with me? It sounded like a rhetorical question that weighed like a 100 kg stone on my head.
The priest who had been summoned for my father’s last rites seemed impatient. ‘It is getting late; who is performing the rites?” He put forth the million-dollar question.
I looked at my husband, half hoping that some miracle would bring upon him a radical change and he would concede to stand by me and play the role of a son to my parents. Though predicted, his languid move towards the adjoining room as if a momentary dementia had befallen him disgruntled me.
My husband, Srini, was the elder son in his family and, hence, was solely entitled to perform his parents’ last rites as and when they happened. Performing my father’s funeral ceremony would mean bequeathing his just rights in his house, and then his younger brother might have to step into his shoes when the situation demanded.
And as far as I knew, my better half did not have a heart as magnanimous as that to step forward during such occasions and take the reins in his hands, disregarding the coerced norms.
The priest repeated his question.
“Where is the need to even ask this? Rajamani will perform the last rites. Who else has the rights?” Kamakshi Athai stressed the homophones.
She may have given the conventional verdict, but it stung me like bees.
My face turned red as I looked to the right and saw my Periappa walking towards the dead body of his brother. At that moment, anyone unfamiliar with him would have fallen for his bashful appearance and sympathised with him.
A few were even heard saying, “Poor man, he has to perform his younger brother’s last rites at seventy-four.”
My eyes shifted towards my mother. Her agony only seemed to have exacerbated. She silently sobbed. What on earth was happening? The same man who had left my father in a quagmire was now going to perform his last rites! How would my father’s soul rest in peace?
But what could I do being in a pickle myself, drained of energy, struggling to maintain my sanity in a household full of domineering people?
*****************************
I could not blame anyone for what fate had planned for me. One fine morning, Balu Maama*, a close friend of Appa, came home with a marriage proposal.
“Sivaram, with the tight financial situation you are in now, this would be an ideal proposal for Shraddha. The boy is a B.com graduate presently working in a printing press and looking for better job prospects. I have informed them that Shraddha is working in a bank.” He continued after sipping coffee.
“He is the only son, and his father is a retired postal employee in Pune. They have been considerate enough to understand the situation in your house and have agreed to a simple wedding. And they haven’t put forth any demand. Whatever you wish to give your daughter is acceptable to them.”
It was like someone had found an oasis amidst a mirage. Everything Balu Maama portrayed about the groom’s family seemed like a fairy tale. All fairy tales are known to have a happy ending, but my married life proved an anomaly.
Soon, it became evident that the family had played philanthropists to somehow get their son, a rolling Stone, married. The conviction was that marriage would transform a vagabond into a conscientious man. But nothing changed. Srini, an irresponsible man and a spendthrift by nature, continued job hopping with no better prospects.
My mother-in-law, who had promised Balu Maama that she would take care of me as she would do to a daughter, only kept her eyes peeled for opportunities to taunt me.
Though with an albatross around my neck that prevented me from leading an everyday, happy life, I made sincere efforts to let my parents not know about my pitiable condition. However, news traveled faster than light, adding to their susceptibility and anguish.
Hell broke loose in the house on the day I feebly expressed my desire to give a concise amount to my parents from my earnings. My proposal was ruthlessly turned down, and my visits to my house were subsequently curtailed.
Days turned into weeks and months. Landlines were considered an extravaganza for middle-class people like us, so communication was only through letters. Given Appa’s poor health condition and Amma’s busy schedule with household chores, even letters between us were exchanged very rarely.
Vani, who revered my parents wholeheartedly, was the only person who kept the correspondence alive.
Then, one day, news about Appa having suffered a second attack was brought in by a telegraphic message from Vani. I was not allowed to travel home.
“There are people to take care of him,” my mother-in-law sternly said. Srini and his father were as usual mute spectators.
I learned later from Amma that Appa had been so severely hurt by Periappa’s unscrupulous gesture of returning home after a so-called ‘walk,’ in an inebriated state, that he screamed and collapsed, resulting in his second heart attack.
I could not come to terms with the fact that while Appa was grappling with issue after issue, Periappa was reveling under the influence of alcohol even at this age.
I had heard dishonest people come a cropper, but the situation in my parents’ home was a perfect paradox. Though Kamakshi Athai kept quibbling, she was perfectly fine. Periappa lived a happy and healthy life, too, but Appa’s health condition kept dwindling, and Amma was growing weaker by the day.
Hardly a month after that another telegram from Vani conveyed the news of my father’s demise.
*****************************
“Are we all set to start the rites?” The priest’s baritone sound jolted me.
“Wait, I am his daughter and will perform the rites.” I blurted without any premeditation as if it was a knee-jerk reaction. Several pairs of eyes looked at me astounded.
“What are you up to Shraddha?” Srini held my wrist tightly but not firm enough for me not to set myself free.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here.” He jeered.
“If you hadn’t brought me today, I would have come on my own,” I replied with determination in my tone. He stared at me dumbfounded.
“Let us go back,” he tried, pulling my hand. I wriggled myself freed.
“I am not coming anywhere,” I sai,d looking straight into his eyes.
“In that case, let us end our relationship here,” he snorted.
“Yes, if that has to happen, then it can’t be stopped.” My calm reply ambushed him, and he left in a flurry. Srini would get back for a compromise as his life depended on my earnings,, but I spontaneously decided to sever all ties with him.
I thanked God that I could not conceive in these nine years of marriage. A child between us might have put fetters on my feet today in deciding to split from Srini.
Despite a steady income, I had always been docile, sincerely trying to carry on with a waning relationship. I had done so deliberating upon my parents’ mental agony in the face of my inability to salvage my marriage. Divorce was a taboo in the conservative society that our family belonged to. But today, nothing could stop me from seeking my freedom and performing the last rites of my father. It was as if, in his death, my father had taught me to bid goodbye to my frailty.
“You can’t perform the rites. Daughters are not allowed to.” The priest asserted.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Kamakshi Athai admonished me, while Vani looked at me with pleading eyes as if to say, ‘Please don’t put yourself into any trouble.’
“If I am not allowed to perform the rites, then no rites will be performed.” I stood adamant, ignoring all their gestures.
“You have to toe the line and follow norms. Your father’s soul will not find solace otherwise, ” the priest said.
“What makes you think his soul will find solace if Periappa does his rites?” I was aware of the indignancy in my tone. I was also aware of the accusing glances that fell on me, except for one pair of eyes that gazed at me fondly with appreciation. That was my mother. Her silent approval was enough for me to stand my ground.
After an hour of debate, the priest and all the others finally gave up.
I muttered a sorry to Periappa. He had probably grown old enough to retaliate, or maybe he thought I was justified. Kamakshi Athai eventually stopped screaming at her daughter’s behest.
I knew the way ahead would be arduous with a divorce case to fight.
I would have to apply for a transfer and move out of Pune. Then, I would have to take my mother away from this house, which has conferred upon her only bitter memories to last.
Relinquishing his share in the house would be an exceptional gift that I could give my philanthropic father. Knowing his malleable heart, I can say that his soul may be restless if his siblings get dragged into any legal intricacy. His peace in eternity is what I wished for.
‘I can handle this alone,‘ I told myself.
Let tongues wag. Let people come up with their verdicts. Unfazed by all that, I would perform my duties as a daughter.
Being a daughter to my mother would be worthier than being a wife to an ungracious person.
Heaven is the place for benevolent souls like my father to find solace. Today, I would bid farewell to my father’s soul with due respect.
I am a daughter first!
Glossary
Appa——-Father
Athai——-Aunt( father’s sister)
Lalitha Sahasranamam——-A hymn sung in praise of Goddess Lalitha Devi.
Amma——–Mother
Paati———-Grandmother
Periappa —-Father’s elder brother
Akka———-Elder sister
Chittappa—–Father’s younger brother
Mama——– Uncle
This story has appeared in Tell Me Your Story Anthology project 12, and has won the best story award.