No Traveller Returns – An Excerpt from ‘In the Land of the Lovers’ by Sakoon Singh

The October afternoon abruptly changed complexion. The sun, radiating just the right warmth to get you by on a reasonably cold day, was suddenly eclipsed by raucous grey clouds—unruly kindergarten boys kicking up a ruckus. It could be inconvenient, but Nanaki did not mind them in the least—these sudden downpour days that came without warning, like a piece of unexpected good news. Each time the day plunged into sudden darkness owing to the rain-filled clouds, the remains of the day illuminated by naked yellow bulbs, the mild chill filled her with an unknown anticipation. Now a sudden burst of cool spray brushed her cheeks and before long, a steady rain had set in. The hitherto clear line of houses and moving cars became indistinct behind a watery screen. She quickened her pace as she entered the lane of her house, which was the farthest in a leafy neighbourhood.

The house lay hidden behind dense foliage set off by a row of tall areca palms, their fronds and panicles making for dark silhouettes at twilight. On a day like this, the trees would sway noisily in the breeze, creating a loud rustle against the turbulent sky. There was always the danger of a gigantic leaf coming crashing down on the row of clay pots. A hardy shrub had been clipped over the years to make for a low hedge skirting the outer wall, and a three-decade-old guava tree stood at the entrance, shielding the wrought iron gate, sprawling into a canopy over the garage driveway. On a shady, grassless patch at the other end of the lawn was an old, gnarled mango tree. It bore fruit every alternate summer, speckled with a pale golden frizz by spring, gradually morphing into tiny plump paisleys—miniature mangoes, which, if fate, weather and the goodwill of the neighbourhood colluded, would, by summer, turn into full, ripe fruits. The girth of the tree had considerably widened over the years and, owing to its annual pruning, had started shooting upwards, with many of its branches cutting with vitality through the facade railing, depositing a stray harvest of mangoes in the nooks and crannies of the terrace, especially in the monsoon months. Sometimes the tree hid winged creatures: parrots and mynahs were common enough sights, but once Nanaki had been stupefied to find a lone hornbill, its grey form perched on the highest branch, from where it smoothly glided to the adjoining green stretch, the Leisure Valley.

The little verandah skirting the front yard led into the garden when its wall-sized window panels were thrown open. In winters, one could slump there on a bamboo chair, or better still, sprawl on a charpoy to soak in the sun, with a book in hand. On the facing wall hung a long panel of phulkari framed in solid wood. Nanaki had seen it here for as long as she could remember. The rust base had become somewhat discoloured through the many summers of harsh sun, but the threads still shone with their original lustre. On lazy summer afternoons, looking up from a book, she would examine every inch of it. Geometric patterns in ochre silken thread filled the two ends of the fabric. On closer inspection, it was a procession of carriages: women and men marching, riding horses, a caravan filling the other end, a peacock perched on a tree; its branches filled the body of the tapestry. There were some travellers. Where could they be going? Nanaki would think. Are they happy? Are they sad? Could they be in exile? Or, wait, no—it looks like a wedding procession. Something ceremonial.

From the main road, through the gaps in the foliage, one could glimpse the brick house. On the outer wall, next to the gate, was a kota stone slab with the brass letters ‘Brig. Arjan Singh, Infantry.’ It concealed a concrete letter box on the other side. Nanaki made a dash over a puddle and entered the house with her kurta soaked to the bone, her hair sodden, letting out meandering streams that went all the way down to her by now ruined jutties.

She changed into her worn-out white tee and cotton wraparound. Beeji instantly emerged, bearing two cups of tea. That both of them were tea lovers only helped matters, and it was a time of the day they both looked forward to. For Beeji, tea time was a bit of a ceremony. She would spread a cross-stitched cover on the tray and use the old porcelain mugs. She would then empty out atta biscuits from a fresh packet, or if there were supplies, place home-made pinnies into a bowl. And she would do it patiently, each time with the same amount of fuss. Nanaki would often get impatient with her, half cajoling, half complaining, urging her to come fast. At times, Beeji’s coarse hands and the blackened end of the tea pan would trigger a strange restlessness within Nanaki; she would want to steer her clear of all household drudgery. On occasions, she would storm into the kitchen and walk out with the containers, ‘We’ll just eat out of the dabbas, Beeji, who cares…tussi aa jao (you just come).’ Beeji would then give multiple shakes to her salt-and-pepper hair and hobble out of the kitchen—‘Kamli jehi (silly girl). Coming! Just coming!’

Since her college was at a walking distance, Beeji would get the tea brewing around the time when Nanaki’s last lecture winded down. The practice had led to such precision that Nanaki ringing the bell would invariably coincide with Beeji straining tea into the cups. Like clockwork, she would emerge into the sitting room where Nanaki sprawled herself on the bed next to the window. Her dupatta would be carelessly dropped on the armchair and her jutties would be discarded near the door. Without wasting a moment, she would take off her silver earrings, relieving the lobes of the weight of the chunky things she had carried around the whole day. She would remove her watch, keeping it clutched in her fist before absent-mindedly depositing it on the nearest available surface—a table, a shelf or a niche. The two women would then catch up on the day’s events. Nanaki would go over her college, colleagues and lectures, and Beeji, over the mali, the harvest of the seasonal vegetables from the kitchen garden and some fixed deposit or the other that needed to be reinvested because the maturity date was fast approaching. At times, she would be excited about a column she had read in The Tribune that morning. This was a daily fix.

Brig. Arjan Singh was Nanaki’s maternal grandfather (nanaji). Nanaki had lived with her grandparents since she was a toddler, having moved in with them after the death of her parents in an accident. Her father, a professor of Computer Science at the newly set up Regional Engineering College, had been driving back from a conference in Delhi. His wife had accompanied him while the child had been left with her aunt—her father’s sister—in Jalandhar. Their car had collided head-on with a trolley truck on the highway and the two lives had been instantly snuffed out.

It was in April, the week after Baisakhi, the harvest festival, when highways frequently teem with tractor trolleys overloaded with produce. At times, in their greed to pack in more and more, they load up enormous volumes, spilling out of the edges of the trolley, blocking the view. Insolent drivers blare screeching horns while speeding trucks and private cars cruise at dangerous speeds and manoeuvre any which way, just to get past.

Nanaki was not yet three when her parents died. Not that she was a stranger in her grandparents’ house, but when she arrived a day after their death, it had an enormously fatalistic ring. She had stood there in the outer verandah, in a white home-stitched frock. With her enormous brown eyes, she had appeared very tiny that day. Way smaller than how Beeji remembered her. One look at her through the window as she alighted from Nanaji’s old Fiat and stood motionless in the driveway, waiting to be led inside, had created a void in Beeji’s stomach.
*
Beeji lay in the darkness of the morning. She thought about her husband’s breakfast porridge. She would add some figs to it today. Figs are good for his blood pressure problem. And there were old winter clothes to be given to Sadashiv. She will get the back store cleared, it smelt dank the other day, and have him sun the woollens for a good day or two. Winter had long passed. Passed. Passed away. Last week her daughter and son-in-law had passed away. Killed in an accident. They had been cremated. Yes, that was true. It was a finality she could not argue with. She started. Yesterday, at this time, they had arrived in a Red Cross ambulance, cold in strange blankets. They had died on the highway. There was no chance to take them to the hospital. Their bodies had lain cold on the highway in the receding night. Death was final. She tried not to dwell on these matters. But then, whose blankets were those? They smelt of wheat husk. Maybe some passing farmers. Generous that these village people are, they must have covered the dead strangers with their blankets. She went on an involuntary train of thought that she had to sit up and put a stop to. The details were jumping at her. She did not want to think about it. The kid lay on the bed next to her. The child still curled her fists while she slept. Her lips quivered intermittently even as she lay fast asleep, and made a little pout. Scales of her persistent dermatitis had not yet completely gone. She had come down with a nasty outbreak, with crusty scales on her cheeks that would get particularly worse after a bath. She had been put through a three-week course of ointments by the dermatologist. The doctor had advised complete abstinence from chemicals—so her soap had been replaced with curd. Yet the scaly remains of the outburst were visible on the hairline and the temples. And that mango stain on her muslin frock looked very obstinate. There were little crescents of dirt beneath her nails, which needed to be clipped. Days of neglect showed. Her hair needed a good round of brushing. These practical matters were very comforting. She could do something about these. She could start with the nails.
*

There were days Nanaki would persistently ask for her mother. It would be a constant ‘mama, mama,’ punctuated with sighs. She would be in no mood to listen. By and by Beeji would calm her and, when better, prop her on the marble slab of the kitchen. By the end of it, Nanaki would give up, not because she understood any better, but out of sheer exhaustion. Beeji would repeatedly prompt her to finish the contents on her plate while rolling out more chapattis and telling her some winding story, all the while adding new details. She would keep the story moving, adding imaginary details, because each time she paused, Nanaki would, by default, stop chewing. And so Beeji had to go on and on, quite like Sheherzade. She would sometimes make little figurines of dough—a bird, a car or a ball, and that would get the child interested.

Some days, she would make a special roti for Nanaki—a chikdi roti. She would take a ball of dough and roll out just a little bit and put it on the tawa. When it got just a little warm, she would take it off and roll out the now warm dough. This done, she would add desi ghee, some salt and hand-ground pepper and ajwain, and give the dough a fold and a twist so that a layer or two was formed. She would then roll out this ball again and put it back on the tawa and cook it on a very low flame. The roti would come out golden and flaky. Her mother used to make rotis like that, back in Okara. Beeji had learnt it from her.

In summers, Beeji would cajole Nanaki to lie down with her for an afternoon nap. A typical lunch, accompanied by cucumber salad and tall glasses of lassi, with the bellowing heat wave outside, was hugely soporific. As Beeji got up from the table and cleared the last remains, her eyelids would become progressively heavier. She would draw the curtains of the bedroom and make Nanaki lie down too. Nanaki, however, would steal out of the room as soon as she felt the vibrating rumble of Beeji’s snores. She would amble into the garden from the verandah and get on with her little private escapades. Her mother had taught her to dig her feet into a little mountain of sand and then pat it till it looked smooth, without the cracks. Upon gingerly removing the feet, a mud cave would be left standing. But one had to be careful. This was also the time it could all crumble into a sandy heap. Each time she made one, a gasp escaped her lips. She would then go about embellishing it with odds and ends from the garden. A stick insect on the rose shrub would be pinched between the fingers and put in the entrance as the woody ‘door’. This was almost always her favourite catch. It was another matter that the ‘door’ would move by itself, necessitating an ‘adjustment’ every few minutes. A couple of snails would be dug out from the cool edges of the garden and placed in the ‘yard’ of the cave, where they would continue to slither at dreadfully slow speed, at times becoming almost immobile, upon which Nanaki would nudge them with a twig to keep the circus going. She would suck the nectar from the ends of the tiny white blossoms of the hedge shrub, before planting them in front of the cave to create a garden of ‘white trees’ like peach trees with blossoms. At this scale, the flowers could be passed off as trees. She had saved a piece of her old school ribbon, which she mounted on a stick to make a miniature flag; matchsticks for a picket fence that hemmed in the cave and a dinky car parked at the entrance completed the picture.

She would then have winding conversations with people ‘visiting’ her in the cave house. These were real people, mama—papa, sometimes superheroes and at times characters from books that had been read to her by her father. She would remind her father of the new Lego he was supposed to buy her. ‘Too late. You have till Monday,’ she would end the matter conclusively, aping her grandfather. Moving on, she would enquire of ‘Alice’ if she had eventually found the right keys and cards. She would enquire of an imaginary villager if Guru Nanak had indeed bought anything else with the twenty rupees his father had given, apart from feeding the hungry sadhus in the forest. On other days, Dorothy and the Tin Soldier would be hauled up for breakfast while on their way to the Emerald City, or Pinocchio would be asked in all earnestness if he was having trouble blowing what was an inordinately long nose. It was a non-stop soliloquy emanating from the fag end of the garden.

There were days Sadashiv’s son Mohan would bend over the hedge and troop in to join her. Once, he brought his newly acquired treasure: a box full of buds collected from under the eucalyptus trees, which he was too proud to part with at first but eventually gave away in exchange for something more alluring that Nanaki offered. Sometimes he would carry little baubles, like a string or two of those shiny plastic beads in black threads—hanging decorations from his uncle’s new rickshaw—that he would stealthily pluck on a ride and keep hidden. At times he would bring a firefly or two that he had captured in a matchbox. As a precaution, he would make tiny perforations to keep the air supply going. Not so much out of sympathy for the wretched creature, but out of a purely selfish motive to keep the thing alive. He would gingerly push the tray of the matchbox and deposit the flighty creature into Nanaki’s cave. They would then lie on their stomachs, expectantly longing for the firefly to flash, with their faces perched on their palms, with elbows digging into the earth. Each tiny flash was greeted with applause. Electricity would thus be introduced into the cave. Hours would roll by. Nanaki would then hear Beeji call out to her for her Bournvita, when activity stirred in the house once again in the evening. This was a cue for Mohan to make a dash back to his own house.

****

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