It was always the sounds that impinged on my memory. I couldn't remember much of what I saw. Primarily because my eyes were weak. I started wearing glasses when I was three. If I strained my eyes to focus, I was enveloped by a sense of disorientation and I faced accusations of being a rude starer. I was mocked for gazing at my bench mate’s pickle jar during lunch time in school. She apparently assumed I was hungry for pickles and reluctantly offered it to me. I politely refused but those watching nicknamed me The Picklejarstar. I found it easier to bring my eyelids down and concentrate on the sounds instead.
Morning time. The banging of pots and pans symbolizing the resumption of a normal day. The gushing of water on my body as I bathed, the honking announcing the arrival of my school bus, my mother calling out to me to hurry. Comfort sounds. But the screech of the tires when we reached school, and the gong of the first class sighed, it was going to be a long day. The gurgling of laughing girls in school felt distant, isolating me. The teachers barked at me for sleeping in class. They couldn't comprehend that I understood them better with my eyes shut.
I returned home to wait for the knock on the door. The entry of a loud tired voice, the everyday question “What's cooking?”, complaining about it, sometimes complimenting. The click of the opening of a bottle, the pouring of alcohol into a fancy glass, slurping it in an unfancy way. The switching on of the television. The news anchor getting excited about someone getting strangled. The creak of a chair, stomping into the bedroom, some shuffling around and finally, loud snores. The loud traffic outside on the road melted into a low hum as I wandered off into my safe visual dreams. We went out once in a while but the music and chatter in restaurants made me jumpy. Ma enjoyed it though.
For a long time, I couldn't figure out the reason I was scared of my father. He was never abusive. He tried to be kind. Buying me things I wanted that I mentioned to Ma. Perhaps it was his burly tone. Later I realised it was because my mother painted a monstrous picture of him in front of anyone who would care to listen. Terrorises us with his hollering, she claimed. As a child I didn't realise they were fabrications to win sympathy. Ma couldn't perceive the unintentional damage she orchestrated in my being as I flinched at Pa’s voice as if he was berating me. I couldn't answer him without stuttering. So he gradually gave up the hope of having a conversation with his only daughter and lost himself in his work. His unvoiced disappointment was audible to me but I ignored it. To my regret later. His presence suddenly disappeared from our lives without prior notice before I celebrated my 17th birthday. If he had his way, he would've shouted his way out. But he silently collapsed on his favourite chair while drinking. Cardiac arrest. I’ll admit I was not overwhelmed by grief nor was I washed by any sense of relief. I was stricken to find myself in a crucible of insecure silence.
Fortunately, Pa had made us financially secure before his passing. I expected Ma to wail and play the victim. But to my surprise she retreated into a shell. Prickly at the show of pity. I understood. When Pa was there, she didn't want anyone to know she was happy. Now that she was shattered, she hated anyone knowing it. Both of us trudged along in the atmosphere of quiet as if there was a live wire burning somewhere waiting to detonate. We didn't have to wait long. It didn't happen all at once. A continuous series of bursts growing louder each day.
It started with a hard hammering on the door at an unseeming hour in the afternoon. Ma found Brij Uncle, my father's brother standing at the door with a file. His differential soft murmurs replaced by a smug patronizing tone.
“I want to talk to you.”
Ignoring our greetings, he entered the house before being asked in. He settled himself in the chair Pa usually sat on and extracted a sheaf of papers from the file.
“Now that Veer Bhaiyya (elder brother) is gone, I suppose I’m the head of the family.”
His eyes displayed pretend sadness mixed with barely hidden satisfaction.
“So…I am going to do what Bhaiyya ( elder brother) couldn't muster up the courage to do…the division of our ancestral property in the village…My two sons want to develop the property in the village and construct a hotel……I've made enough provisions for you…..Soni will be married off in time…What will she do with the property? ….I’ll make sure we find a good groom for her.”
He talked like I was invisible, ignoring me standing near him with a glass of water on a tray.
A flash erupted in Ma’s eyes.
“I’ll look into it,” she stated coldly.
I wanted to inform Brij Uncle it wasn't because of lack of courage but a love for that place which had prevented Pa from selling the old land. But I held back.
Brij Uncle drank the water, rose and nodded in satisfaction. He was counting on the fact Ma wouldn't spend her resources or time to fight a court case with family.
It wasn't just family. The neighbours too. The old man, Mr Kumar or Kumar Uncle as I called him, who lived in the flat next door, used to return home drunk almost every other day. His spats with his wife were infamous but he never bothered us. Now he started to ring the door bell when he returned home late at night to leer at Ma or me opening the door in our night dresses.
“Sorry….I thought it was my house,” he would say and turn away with a sly grin. Ma would fume but she would just bang the door shut.
Vulnerable to bullying, we were easy targets. A house without a man, I acknowledged bitterly to myself. Bunty, the brat who lived on the second floor would maneuver his car with a deafening screech into our empty parking space when our car would be taken out. Ma would call him and request him to remove his car and he would grudgingly agree to do so.
I realised bullying had a filter down effect. Our domestic help, the maid, the electrician, the plumber started talking back to Ma and asking for higher wages. The noise of insolence.
Pushed back to the wall, Ma became quieter, keeping an anxious eye on me. I realised the only way out to silence the noises was to detonate the ticking time bomb within me. It was on Saturday when the bald Mr Kumar rang the doorbell just past midnight standing confidently, his lips curved in a lewd smile when I yanked the door open. I had rehearsed this scene in my mind for the past couple of days.
“Mr Kumar! What do you want?” I yelled, glaring at him through my black thick spectacles.
“Every other day, you ring our door bell.” My accusations got louder.
“You are harassing us. We will have to complain to the building committee about drinking nuisances residing here. “ My voice at a fever pitch. I could see some lights in the flats on the floor being switched on. I could hear old Mrs Mirchandani from the third floor opening the door.
“What's happening?” A trembling question quavered from somewhere.
Ma had also awakened. She hurried to me trying to hush me. I waved her away.
Mr Kumar’s face had gone ashen from a ruddy sweaty brown.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and turned away from us fishing for his keys in his pockets. “Crazy bitch,” he muttered under his breath.
“Who’re you calling a crazy bitch?” My scream made him fumble with the door lock and key. Meanwhile his sleeping wife had also been dragged from her sleep by the clamour to unlock the door and witness a guilty looking husband stinking of cheap whiskey and a shrieking seventeen-year-old girl and her mother in their night dresses.
“What did you do?” Her harsh query was enough. Mr Kumar rushed inside his house and closed the door gently behind him.
“What on earth has happened to you?” Ma was in tears. I grinned. I walked back into our house, pulled back the chair Pa used and settled on it comfortably. Ma would soon be complaining about me terrorising everyone with my loud voice. Pa would've been proud of me.
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