Haroon Bijli

We must have been on the fifth slide. The presenter stopped mid-sentence with his mouth open and his face white as a sheet. He was staring at me as was everyone else in the room.

I wondered if I fell asleep or something. I mumbled a sorry, and asked him to continue, only to find Jenny coaxing me to get up. She gently led me out of the room, mouthing a “be right back” to the rest.

“What happened?” I asked, once she had seated me at my desk. “Did I fall asleep or something?”

“Umm…. No, I mean, you don’t know? You… shouted ‘mother!”

She brought me a glass of water and ordered a cup of tea. She asked if I wanted to lie down or call my wife. I waved her away.

“You get back to the presentation. Let me just… sit here for a while and… get a grip over this.”

After she left, I broke into a cold sweat. I fancied myself a rational and analytical person, and almost nothing flustered me, except for the odd health scare from my wife and children. Neither was I given to intuition, something that I had consciously suppressed over the years. But this was a strange, yet unmistakable feeling: something profound had happened, something near, yet far. I was expecting a message to confirm it.

“Come home.”

Said the text.

It was from a number not in my address book, but I knew exactly who it was and what it meant.

I called my wife and told her that my mother had passed, and I had to go to Madras immediately. “I will be back late at night, probably after midnight,” I said, mentally figuring out the flight options. She didn’t react the way I expected her to but instead asked me to be calm. After hanging up, I asked my assistant to book the first available flight in and the last flight out from Madras, window seats.

I changed my shoes and took an Uber to the airport.

In the car, I replied to the text: “On my way.”

“Son will pick you up,” she replied.

I had close to two hours to retrieve my thoughts and prepare myself. This would be the first time I would be going to that house, that forlorn house, after leaving it more than twenty years ago. The first time after they refused to open the door to let me in.

The memories were not pleasant.

The flight attendants armed the doors. We were being towed to the runway, the terminal receding gradually from my view. A drop of rain fell on the window.

Alone now, and with no network to distract me, I found myself talking to the memory of a man who I had last seen, maybe, twenty-one years ago. My visual image of him went back even further to when I was around nine or ten, when he was the aloof, distant father who seldom spoke except to rebuke and whose approval I had constantly sought as a child. He was the reason I hadn’t seen my mother in all these years; whose only presence in my life was a long-suppressed memory.

I thought about the time when he came to my school, it was a memory that still rankled, despite the years of therapy. He was there to ask them not to demote me: I hadn’t scored well enough to transition to high school. I remember the conversation he’d had; it was within my earshot. He reminded the principal that it would not be difficult for him to return a favour since he had influence in the municipality to swing things the school’s way. The principal was easily persuaded; my father thanked him and left. He didn’t even look at me.

My father never spoke to me again, not even to rebuke. Whatever he had to let me know, he told my mother or my sisters. He never smiled when I was around, and walked out of a room if I came inside. On holidays that were Fridays, he would leave for the mosque, and I would follow a few feet behind him, instructed by my mother never to come within his sight.

What did I do, father? It wasn’t my fault that I disappointed you. Nothing was my fault. Getting sick wasn’t my fault. Getting into fights with other kids wasn’t my fault. They were all bigger than me, father. I wanted you there, I wanted them to see you: my father, who knew all the government people in the town, all the important people in the district, and to whom so many people came asking for help. You didn’t even come to the playground, father. It was right next to the house! There were other kids who did far worse than me, yet their fathers dropped them in their cycles or scooters, took them to the zoo, the circus, the fairs with the Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds, to picnics… you denied me all of this.

The engines settled into their constant hum after the climb to 35,000 feet. Below me, wisps of clouds passed by on a canvas of green shrubs and brown soil, with hills in the far distance. Little rivulets and puddles and lakes here and there. It should have soothed me.

Do you remember the day you broke me? Someone had said hurtful things to me at school and I ran home, even leaving my things behind. I buried myself in mother’s lap, her sari warm and soft, smelling faintly of turmeric. You heard about the incident from the principal, came home, yanked me away from mother and took me back to school. Everyone there saw the humiliation. Everyone! Even the PT sir who remarked that he wasn’t sure whether I was a boy or a girl in boy’s clothes. You didn’t even ask, much less comfort me, you only heaped on more humiliation. I never trusted you after that, father. I may have been scared and obedient to you, but I never trusted you.

My eyes were moist. I must have been sniffing audibly; the flight attendant asked if I wanted to have something. I shook my head and retreated into my thoughts.

I remember when you moved to Madras, father. You made us stay in that forlorn house. It was torture for mother. She told me she was happy that my sisters were married and gone because it would have been terrible for them, living amidst slums and villages and next to a dry river that many used as a toilet. Of course, it didn’t matter to you; you must have felt like a king in a huge palace surrounded by peasants and underlings. For us, the stone building felt cold and forbidding. The only redeeming thing about it were the many doors and rooms. And yes, father, I misused them.

And I should thank you for using your influence to put me in that college, a rightful one for a no-hoper like me. Maybe you knew I would never score an honest mark, or you thought the college hooligans will straighten me up and make a man out of me. Wasn’t that your biggest problem? A son after three daughters and he turned out to be me! Well, I did become a man there… I became one of them, the much-reviled gangs. I thank you father, for I made enduring friendships which eventually saved me.

You spent all your time away at work, and if not at work, socializing with politicians and their hangers-on. Mother spent her time looking after your needs. Unless of course, she fell ill. You never cared; even from her bed, she would ensure that you and the company you kept were well taken care of. As for me, I was away most of the time. I hid it well from you, but mother knew. She always did. She was sad and miserable thinking about me, but even then, hid me from you. Did you even know that she would keep the side-door open so that I could sneak in without a sound? Maybe that was her silent rebellion.

The captain announced the descent to Madras. I wondered how I would be received and went over what to say and what not to. My sisters would be there, as would their families and their grown-up children. I made up a few back stories as excuses for going away and staying away. I wondered if I should talk about that last night, the night when I was almost washed away in flood water.

It started as any typical day, spent laying around, first at home, then elsewhere and visiting a few places that I am now not proud of, and sneaking back home at night. I suppose father got an idea about how I sneaked in. He chose that night to teach my mother and I a lesson. It had been raining all day, getting heavier and wilder as night fell. By the time I got home, the river was a torrent, overflowing into the street. The water in the street itself was waist deep. I made it to the door, only to find it shut. I was already soaked to the skin and the rain was coming down like I had never seen before. I knocked, yelled, cried out aloud, begged, apologized, promised to be on the straight and narrow forever. It remained resolutely shut. Resolute as your ego, father.

Why, father, why? Didn’t you know I was wet to the bone and shivering? Why did you have that ego, and that too against your only son? What did he do wrong, anyway? And on such a night? Couldn’t you have chosen another night to keep the door closed? I may have drunk a bit, but then that was no secret, you knew, mother knew, everyone knew. If only if you hadn’t made mother close that door, things would have been so different. You gave me no option but to leave!

It was difficult; by this time the street was a raging rapid, taking objects along with it to the river. I could see people flailing, but I knew enough of the streets around to make it to higher ground safely. I went to where my friends stayed and made up my mind never to come back home again. Until today.

When the network came back on after we landed, there were a few messages from my wife, office and two others from numbers I couldn’t identify. One of them said:

“Come to the departure gate after exiting and wait. I will come to you.”

It must be from my nephew.

When he came, I got into his car, an old Maruti 800. He said it would take us roughly 45 minutes to reach home. It was all he said for the entirety of the journey, though he answered calls over the phone. I heard him say “at least we did our part” and “he looks the same” which were the only bits I was sure related to me. I didn’t probe further; I wasn’t interested in striking up a conversation and he made it evident that neither was he.

Much had changed around the house. The slums had long been cleared; the street was now wide and paved. The river had embankments and seemed further than I remembered. There were apartments and commercial buildings all over. The house, though, remained pretty much as it was, with its courtyard intact, along with some other houses of the same vintage along the street.

I had made up my mind not to talk to anyone unless they spoke to me first or to display any emotion. I knew it would be hard; mother had loved me dearly and I did feel immense guilt that I had worked hard to repress.

When we arrived, my oldest sister was at the gate of the courtyard. We greeted. She said they were waiting for me to bury mother as per her wishes. Her body was being taken out from the side-door to be put in a hearse that was decorated with a green chadar and jasmine flowers. The other pallbearers were young, perhaps my sisters’ children. A place was left for me. I joined them and we walked for around fifteen minutes to the burial ground near the local mosque.

Afterwards, I came home and told my sister that I wanted to leave immediately. She did not betray any emotion or attempt conversation, and only asked if I wanted someone to drop me. I said I would take a cab, and left.

The boarding time was still around four hours away, but I preferred to be at the airport rather than at home where the atmosphere seemed hostile to me. I could understand. From their point of view, I was the errant son who had abandoned his parents.

Since it was too early for me to check in, I settled myself in the waiting area, looking at the overhead television, trying to distract myself from a strange sort of emptiness that had grown within me. I had expected to feel emotional, but I just felt hollow. Was I exhausted from the imaginary interrogation that I did of my father, or was it the passive hostility of my relatives? I exchanged a few texts with my wife, but I wasn’t keen in any sort of human contact to engage more than that. Maybe it will take some time, I told myself, and tried to fill the emptiness by watching noisy television news.

I was staring into the screen without comprehending anything when the phone buzzed. It was my sister, from the same number that had sent the first message.

“Are you still in Madras?”

“Yes, what happened?”

“Could you come home for a bit. We need you here. Your nephew is already on the way to pick you.”

I wondered what they would need me for. In the car, I tried to ask my nephew. He said his mother will tell me, but it’s nothing serious and we might be back in time to catch the flight. I tried to make conversation with more effort this time around, but with little success.

The house was brightly lit. It wasn’t as crowded as it was during the burial, but there were lots of people of all ages and genders. I didn’t look a single person in the eye, but I could make out the hostility. It also felt as if they were nervous, and, curiously, afraid? Something was wrong.

My sister pulled me aside. She said she felt I needed a bit of background.

“Do you remember the night you left home?”

“Yes, very much,” I said.

“Well, this is what mother told me. She and father were just behind the door. Mother wanted to let you in. Father asked her to wait a bit more – I am not sure; mother was always covering up for him – and then you stopped banging the door. They heard you leave. Mother said they were sure that you were around, but when they opened the door, you had left.

Mother asked father to go out looking for you. He never came back. His body was found a day later washed up against the shore.”

“I… I didn’t know this…” I stammered.

My sister ignored me. “That crushed her. She didn’t even know how to grieve. I came here to be beside her and have been here ever since. Every minute of the rest of her life, she was cursing herself for not letting you in. She felt responsible for father’s death.”

My throat went dry.

“We thought you were dead, and we tried to convince her, even though we ourselves weren’t sure. We spent a lot of time looking for you or your body. But mother, may God be pleased with her, believed that you would walk in, like you always did, through the side-door. She insisted that the door remain open all the time. For more than twenty years, we never closed the door. Till today.”

“Okay… so?”

“Now the door won’t close.”

I found my voice back, along with a rush of irritation and incredulity. Did she take me for a fool and expect that I would believe all this?

“What do you want me to do now?”

She seemed taken aback. “Well, I don’t know, what do you want me to tell you? This is it, this is what I had to tell you! You do what you want. Who are you anyway!”

She walked away from me. One of my other sisters came out of the crowd to hug her. Everyone else in the courtyard was staring at us. Someone started crying.

As I stood there, confused and alone, my nephew appeared from behind and nudged me to the side-door. It was the same door, a heavy twin-door with the ornate door knocker that led to a bare room with worn-out red tiles, and a solitary fluorescent light. There was an empty metal cot, where my mother’s body had lain. He asked me if I wanted to go inside. I shrugged and walked through it.

The door banged shut behind me.

I was home.

I’ve experimented with the “stream of consciousness” literary device here. Also, made the protagonist a not-so-likeable fellow, a bit of a jerk.