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Writer's pictureNozzer Pardiwala

sHE - Leaf 02


“He has fled from the rehab, is for sure, and no one knows where he is. The rehab guys have passed the buck on us and have left reporting to the police to us. I really don’t think it is a good idea. You know, he has done this before.” The PR friend said.

“I know where he probably would go.” sHE said.

“Where?”

“Iran.”

“Oh! So that’s the reason, you agreed so easily for the project.”

“I don’t know… I just… followed my heart.”

“Ok! Sit down and let me arrange for the food. I am staying back with you till the shoot starts.”

Looking at her PR friend with questioning eyes she said, “I am not going to die. I shall wait for him till eternity.”

The PR friend just responded by shrugging her shoulders.

“What are you looking at?” The PR friend asked, while she arranged dinner for the two of them.

“I should have had a mother like you.”

“Please, I have enough roles to play already in your life, not one more. And just to remind you, I am a year younger to you.”

After dinner, they sat with a glass each of port wine, at the balcony which opened to the sound of the Arabian Sea and the silver waves forming meaningless patterns.

sHE opened up to her P.R. friend for the first time...

“I would come back home from school and would serve myself with food which was kept in the same pans which it was cooked in. Cold! The chapattis, the rice, the dal, the vegetable; I would place all of it in one thali (metal plate) and eat. I wasn’t allowed to heat up the food again since it meant wastage of fuel and of course the nutrients.

I had got accustomed to eating it that way, though initially I couldn’t eat the cold dal, but I had learnt to gulp it down. Rice I chose to eat with the vegetable.

For my mom cooking was a chore to be finished and done with, as much as, eating had become for me.

It was about two kilometers walk on the railway line. He would never hold my hand. He always held the strap of my bag. We walked in the mornings to school so mom, in the afternoon, could get me by bus.

The filth and the stink of open defecation were nauseating. I wondered, at times, why he would want me to walk through this ugly scene of men sitting with their pants down and wasn’t there any other way we could walk to school.

It saved time, he explained once.

Like the cold food I got conditioned with the ugly and filthy scene as well. But one thing I never could explain myself was my dad’s inability to think of my comfort. I tried holding his hands a few times, but he almost always managed to let it go within a few seconds.

I would let it go, as well.

We lived in a chawl, a small room, the size equivalent to my bathroom now. It had a kitchen in it and a mori (a small open bathroom used to wash utensils as well as to bathe) to wash utensils. The toilet was a common one outside.

My dad came from a family in Gujarat which had only tales of wealthy past left in the name of wealth. My maternal side had inherited riches in form of land huge enough to last them for generations.

They hardly visited us, as they felt ashamed of our existence, and were not even cordial enough to hide their displeasure. Making it a point to let us know each time, how unfortunate we were.”

*Do catch up, next Friday, with your late afternoon cup of tea or maybe coffee, the story of sHE continues.

If you feel something in the blog touched you,do write to me at nozzer.p@gmail.com

To read the parallel story of hE, Click here, NOW!

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