“She had a pillow as hard as a rock which no one was allowed to touch. A rough, almost frayed blanket which no one could use. A dholki (single bed) which was exclusively crafted for her with place enough to not accommodate anyone else. She wore clothes to pass her off as a man; pants and shirts, mostly; even dad’s shirts sometimes. She pretended to be man of the house at times, it came maybe, from her judgement of dad’s incapacity to make decisions and stand up to mom. She took up a job when she was still studying in college, to prove maybe, that she could do anything that a man could, conventionally.
Her relation with mom seemed strained from my perception. I obviously attributed it to mom’s overt fondness for my other sister who was much prettier with brown hair and a much fairer complexion than Zenobia.
Mom’s pet, was born, I believed, to clean; clean the round glass-top table, the folding easy-chairs, the floor, the cutlery, the glass showcase, the Godrej Metal cupboards. She could put Cinderella to shame. Spiders would never dare to begin building a web, she would never let them. She would appear to any normal being, paranoid, to me, she appeared, outright not normal.
She never wanted to go to college as she believed she would be teased, she never ever took up a job as she was sure her boss would misbehave with her. She would not even cross the road alone as she thought there was this car waiting to dash her. She would complain of scary nightmares.
I was amused by her, when she would stand at the basin keeping the tap on, murmuring what appeared to be a prayer. It almost became a ritual and we spotted Camelia doing it almost at any time of the day or night. A neighbour who worked in a Shipping company and was a part time Fortune teller had suggested that exercise to her whenever she would get a nightmare.
I was lost in this world of three strange women who in their own way tried claiming their ownership on me and Dad who chose to be lost in his own world of work, yoga, cycling and intoxication. He would say that after a day’s work he had earned that drink.
For a seven year old me, it sounded too complex to understand that a man could toil the whole day for a glass of dark coloured liquid that smelled as bad as urine and tasted even worse. Out of curiosity, once, I had managed to touch it on the tip of my tongue, my lack of fondness for sweets probably stems from that experience.”
*Do catch up, next Friday, with your late afternoon cup of tea or maybe coffee, the story of hE continues.
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