Baba

The mango tree in the front yard was waving me goodbye. Its giant branches were stretching out of the trunk like a child spreading his arms, as high as he can, for his father to pick him up. Baba worried that the branches will soon entangle the cable wires which ran all above the street like cobwebs. I glanced one last time at the old wooden template hanging on the biscuit walls of my ancestral house. It said ‘Home Sweet Home’ in a perfect calligraphy, nor too pointy neither too curvy. Baba used to say that excess of everything is bad, even ‘the good’ in excess is bad. I didn’t exactly know what it meant but it seemed just the right excuse to shove in my mother’s face when she would force day’s 4rth glass of ‘milk is good for you’ through my oesophagus. I immediately turned my head to face my husband sitting in the driver’s seat of our inherited antique Volkswagen. Ehsaan knew this ‘wait-a-minute’ look on my face so he turned off the heaving engine which had still been panting due to the strenuous exercise of getting started. I opened the car door and rushed out to fetch the ‘Home Sweet Home’ board. After taking it down and racing back to the inherited antique Volkswagen, I finally settled down in the seat beside my husband.

“What does this mean now?” He said with a sigh.

“That…..milk is bad for me.”

“I don’t know what you are saying but…….” His words trailed behind (like the tail of our inherited antique Volkswagen) as the tyres started to roll. I was obviously not listening and he knew that.

A creaking (not the creepy creaking but a pleasant and musical creaking) door closed with a bang. I knew it was sad, the door, just like a violin player who is thwarted in-between his most delicate of notes. I was sorry for it but had to see who committed the offence so I looked up. Dad was the sinner.

“You made him sad’, said an angry me.

“It doesn’t matter to me if I don’t matter to him. Now listen carefully with your ears and liver and stomach and every other organ you have…..YOU ARE NOT GOING IN HIS ROOM ANYMORE. You hear me….NO GOING IN HIS ROOM.”

“I was talking about the door. Whom are you talking about?”

“Your Baba, let him stay there, in that rat hole, all day until he realises that he needs me. Let him not give me the property and nobody will give him any food or water. Cause my dear what he doesn’t know is that this world is based on give and take. No give, no take.” Again I didn’t understand what he meant but I knew that he was wrong because it felt wrong. I will never use ‘No give, no take’ as an excuse, I promised myself. And I promised myself that I WILL GO IN HIS ROOM. You hear me…I AM GOING TO HIS ROOM.

Dad left and I left behind him to comfort Baba. He might be sad just like the musical door and Dad was his sinner too.

Baba’s rat hole was as small as a rat hole still as big as a public library. The books everywhere and anywhere made it look small but also big. He was sitting in his creaking rocking chair (sister of my creaking door) with his Gandhi glasses on his nose. I climbed into his lap. A pair of matching small legs on a pair of unmatched, one flesh and one tin, legs.

“Are you sad Baba?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you had a fight with Dad again.”

“Don’t worry about me or him. He just wants what I cannot give him and neglects what I can.”

“What can you give him? Cause he says ‘No give, no take’ in his bad voice.”

“I can give him knowledge but he wants money. I can give him history but he wants antiques. I can give him Sarasvati but he craves for Lakshmi.” Something was shining in his eyes but I could not comprehend it. Years later I would know that it was the pain that was shining. The pain of raising an useless, alcoholic and gambler son.

“Oh! This is sad but I can take your S-a-r-v-a…”

“Sarasvati”

“Yes yes that”

“I will give it to you, my bacchi. But promise me that you will ‘learn not just to earn’ and ‘give not just to take’”

“I promise”

Later that day a blue-red me shuffled in the bed with tomato sauce dripping from my knees. I licked the sauce which was not at all tamatoey or saucy but had a somewhat ironic taste (It tasted like iron). Everything ached, it always did when Dad hit me, but today the pain was less because I made my Baba happy by accepting his S-a-r-a-s-v-a-t-i even though I didn’t know what it was.

I drifted back to the present. We, in my Baba’s inherited antique Volkswagen, were heading towards the orphanage to give, not to take anything, Baba’s books (his S-a-r-a-s-v-a-t-i) and every other tit-bit he owned. He had expired a month ago and the land he owned, that he long ago donated to a NGO, was now a well-developed orphanage.

After completing our work at the orphanage we went to a pawn shop to sell the inherited antique Volkswagen. No, not for money but for the education of the orphanage children (as Baba wanted). I stepped out of the glamourous car with a healthy looking body but a weak heart. While the shop manager talked with my husband, I rummaged the back seat for Baba’s Gandhi glasses. There they were, sitting alone in the corner, maybe grieving maybe remembering fondly their old companion. I pulled them out of their grief, collected Baba’s other valuable antiques and the ‘Milk is bad for me’ board.

“See what you can do with these”

“But why do you want to sell them? I thought you wanted to keep them as memories….” Ehsaan said.

“I have history, I don’t want antiques.” I smiled.

“I will never know what you say.” He laughed.

GLOSSARY-

Baba- Grandfathe

Sarasvati- Goddess of knowledge, art and education

Lakshmi- Goddess of money and prosperity

Bacchi- A little girl