 |
| September (First) 2010 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| DELHI PRESS MAGAZINES : WOMAN'S ERA |
|
WOMAN'S ERA /
FICTION (21/21) / KICK-START AT SIXTY
Kick-start at Sixty
|
| An extraordinary account of how the over-sixty protagonist countered snide remarks on her self-confidence while quietly searching for a sense of independence among her peers. |
| By Kalpana M Naghnoor |
Her hair was streaked grey in a pleasant way. Her thick mane, intact to style at will but she, Samyuktha, wore it in a neat knot at the nape of her neck. Her starched cotton sari was now in sweet disorder, after a marathon shopping spree. She heaved the bags out from her car and deposited them on the kitchen table. She opened out her hair and re-did it into a knot, then clasped it.
Narayani and Shubadha had watched Samyuktha drive back home. They shook their heads in disdain.
“With a daughter-in-law, she has to heave all that in,” opined Narayani.
“Some people never learn!” mocked Shubadha.
“Shall we pay her a visit?” asked Narayani with a glint in her eyes.
“Why not?” rejoined Shubadha.
The two women strutted back into the house. Narayani went up to her husband who had been reading the morning paper. Nagesh Naidu had successfully nurtured a business of women’s garments; his shop may have been small, but business had always been good. Recently, he had handed his shop over to his son and was content to lead a life of peace and quiet. Now, his wife stood before him with a query.
“Can I visit Samyuktha?” Narayani asked.
“Okay,” said Nagesh, happy to delve back into the newspaper.
With a plan to spend at least an hour at Samyuktha’s place, Shubadha thought it wise to inform her husband too. That way, she would be free of household duty for an hour. Satish Mulla was watering the garden. Retired from a busy life in the hospitality industry, gardening was a boon and he had found recourse in tending to plants. The smug look on his wife’s face told him she wanted time out for something.
“I am going to Samyuktha’s house,” Shubadha informed him.
“Go ahead,” he consented, as he gestured a namaste to Narayani. Narayani quickly wished Satish, and she along with Shubadha headed for Ashiyana, Samyuktha’s house.
Samyuktha had just then poured out fresh juice from her refrigerator, into 2 glasses, and carried them to the living room. Sumanth took a glass and put it down with a “thank you.” Samyuktha joined her husband, and looked over his shoulder at the blue print he was going over. They intended to start the construction of their farmhouse. Now that their estate was being taken care of by their only son, Sumanth needed to occupy himself, hence the farm. As both of them pored over the blue print, through the French window, they saw Narayani and Shubadha coming through the gate.
Samyuktha rose to open the door and watched them walk up the gravelled pathway to the door. The long and short of it, she thought. Long and short because Narayani was short and Shubadha rather tall. While the former was plump with an insatiable curiosity – be it gossip or a new science invention – her small eyes would light up to devour the information. Shubadha, on the other hand, was slim with an air of “I know it all.”
“Hello!” they crooned in unison. Samyuktha smiled.
“Do come in,” she welcomed them into her house? “Please do sit down.”
She brought them fruit juice, and they came straight to the point.
“We saw you carrying all those things into the house, so we thought we would come over to help, especially since you don’t have your son and daughter-in-law living with you,” Shubadha said while Narayani nodded.
“Thank you,” chirped Samyuktha taking in the innuendo, “but I can manage pretty well.”
“Why can’t your son and daughter-in-law live with you?” Narayani asked, wanting to drive home a point.
“It is because they live in the estate,” Samyuktha answered. She was clued in on the direction in which the conversation was heading. She quickly went into the kitchen to sort out the shopping she had just done. This way, she hoped to keep her friends from asking too many questions.
Narayani was now intent on the nitty-gritty of Samyuktha’s freezing methods.
Samyuktha explained how she froze peas to keep for at least 2 months. Leftover cakes, too, she explained, could be frozen since most people beyond the age of 60 did not indulge in desserts too much. Thus, an intended gossip session was diverted into a session on preservation of food and beverages. Of course, Shubadha remained a little aloof, but she too was thrown off the path of inquisitiveness.
“Don’t you feel lonely?”
Samyuktha stopped in her tracks. “Sorry?” she asked wondering if she had heard right.
“I asked if you and your husband feel lonely” she stated.
These inquisitive and prying questions were what Samyuktha had dodged over the years. Earlier, she had hidden behind the hustle and bustle of parenting. Now that her son was married and she really had no excuse for not meeting with her neighbours, she was stuck with queries she would rather not answer.“Why should I feel lonely?” she countered.
“We have our son with us, his wife looks after us, we pass the time of the day between the family. But, here, it is your husband and you. Don’t you get bored?” Shubadha persisted.
“No! Of course not!” Samyuktha was emphatic. “I have a life of my own. We, my husband and I, have our own engagements to keep, and other duties just like before.”
But both Narayani and Shubadha were unconvinced.
Samyuktha went into the kitchen to put back the empty glasses in which she had served the fruit juice. Shubadha and Narayani, quickly got into action.
“She is a bit crazy!” decided Shubadha. “Imagine thinking you can spend your old age living apart from your son. Some people! They are crazy and are a bad influence. If she talks like this in front of my daughter-in-law, she too will want to shift out.”
“Yes,” agreed Narayani, “but maybe she is right...”
“Of course not!” Shubadha was very certain of that. “Our sons must be with us. Why have we given birth to them, brought them up? We must make no bones about the fact that they must live with us and their wives must serve us!”
They felt a sympathetic towards Samyuktha.
To make her see sense, Shubadha invited Samyuktha and her husband to dinner.
“What is the dinner in honour of?” Sumanth wanted to know, checking to see if the knot of his tie was as perfect and dimpled as he liked it to be.
“It is a party to bring to notice a few home truths. The main point is, we are not so lucky to be living in a joint family!” sighed Samyuktha, “Why don’t people understand we like our freedom? We like to live life on our terms. We have a wonderful relationship with our son and his wife and, God forbid, if anything were to happen to either of us, he will be there to help and take care of things! Why can’t people just mind their own business?”
“Well, just take it in your stride,” advised Sumanth, “it is just on evening, it will pass.”
“Yeah!” sighed Samyuktha once again. “Something tells me it is going to take more than just one evening. I feel like a hunter is closing in on me!”
“Let’s not get dramatic here,” said a solemn Sumanth.
Samyuktha and Sumanth walked over to Shubadha’s house. Satish met them at the gate and invited them to be seated as he went about serving them beverages. Narayani gushed in with her family in tow – son, daughter-in-law and 2 grandchildren. The grandchildren were up to their antics once their patience was exhausted and they had had their Pepsis. Now, they needed to flex their limbs – much to the chagrin of the grown-ups present. The buzz of conversation was punctuated by shrieks from the kids. Satish, the host, and Sumanth and Nagesh were at first lost for words. But a while later, they fell into comfortable camaraderie. Shubadha called her daughter-in-law, who arrived with a sugary sweet smile, “Yes?”
“Serve the corn on toast until we put the dinner on the table,” said Shubadha.
“I did not find corn at the store, so I’ve made French fries instead,” answered her daughter-in-law.
“Oh!” Shubadha looked perplexed.
After almost an hour and a quarter, Shubadha asked her daughter-in-law to serve the dinner.
“How has the kadhi come out?” Samyuktha could hear Shubadha ask her daughter-in-law.
“I did not make khadi, Ma. The curds did not set,” her daughter-in-law answered.
“Okay, shall I take out the apricot pudding?” Shubadha asked.
“I’ve made kheer,” answered her daughter-in-law. Clearly, she had vetoed all of Shubadha’s dinner ideas and was pretty nonchalant about it. Shubadha was smouldering, but she gave a wan smile, just to keep up pretensions.
Thus the dinner came to an end. Effusive gratitude for the feast was proffered, and the party broke up. Samyuktha smiled as she and her husband walked home. They looked at each other and grinned. Together, they burst out laughing. Wordlessly, they enjoyed the aftermath of the duel of will between Shubadha and her daughter-in-law. Then, in harmony, they walked home. They were both individually thinking of the same thing.
As soon as they reached home, both headed for the telephone. It was funny that they should have both reached for it at the same time, and they broke into laughter.
“Ladies first,” said Sumanth.
Samyuktha dialled her son’s number.
“Hello,” she spoke into it. “Son?” she said. “...No!”she exclaimed. “No! We are fine...stop panicking...We just felt like talking to you...yes, your father is here.”
“Hello son...” Samyuktha heard him say, she walked into the kitchen to warm some milk. Father and son were in conversation; this meant her son and daughter-in-law will come to dinner tomorrow. Every time they spoke over the phone, it brought them in to dinner.
She took the warmed milk into the living room.
“Are they coming tomorrow?” she wanted to know.
“No,” said her husband.
“No?” her eyes were perfect globes, with surprise.
“They are coming on Wednesday,” he said.
True, they were perplexed. In the past, every time they had called, it had always culminated in a visit from their son and his wife, but tonight it was different. Their son and his wife had put off the visit for almost a week.
......................
|
|
TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE SUBSCRIBE WOMAN'S ERA
Available in both PDF & Print format.
|
|
