MY NINA

She walked in through the door, that elephant of a school bag on her shoulders. Daddy was on the couch as usual, flipping through the television without the volume on. It was his routine: to watch TV from afternoon on till Arnab Goswami’s news hour at 9 p.m., all muted. What he gets out of it I don’t know. 

But then there’s my nephew who always has the TV on no matter what he does. He is seated opposite that TV the whole day doing something or another; either reading or texting or talking on the phone, but never really watching or listening to that box. He visits often.

Jordan joins Daddy at the news hour. He doesn’t turn up the volume because it is forbidden by Nina, and a father couldn't refuse his daughter, could he?

The prime time news hour is the twilight of Nina’s daily study time. She really is an unruly child. Only for those four hours in the evening she sits down quietly immersed in her homework. So, naturally, this is time at which all other house work is also frozen for fear of disturbing her, and consequently, the peace. We have a humble home: three small bedrooms all attached to one end of a common hall, at the other end of which are the kitchen, a balcony and a bathroom.

On July the 27^th, at 2 p.m., Nina burst in through the front door and flew into her Grandpa’s arms. It was her routine. She would break into a grin and in an excited blast of energy she would narrate all of the day’s happenings. She wouldn't be taken away to freshen up and eat until she’d finished her stories. And what stories they were! She could make trees walk and birds and bees talk. Sometimes I feel her school turned out to be just right for her, taking them on nature walks into botanical gardens, insect hunting at the fringes of the school yard, wall climbing, ghost story sessions in tree houses, craft sessions at schools for the physically handicapped, terrace yoga sessions, candle making and sale of them at the bazaar on a particular day and so on; keeping them busy with unconventional activities all year. And on days when it was regular school for them, she’d have stories about teachers that she’d analyse rather grumpily. 

Nina was a grumpy child. She wore a certain grimace on her face that scared off anybody who didn’t know her and had caught her unawares. On the contrary, anyone who met her while she was in the mood for socialising found the best friend in her. She saw the good in people; refused to believe that anybody was bad. Nonetheless, that changed as she grew older, I dare say.

As usual, here I was washing her tiffin box and readying the table for her to lunch at while she told her stories to Daddy. Oh, dear little darling!

“Mamma! Mamma!” She had come running into the kitchen and toppled a box of hot roasted groundnuts in her excitement.

“Oh bother! Go wash up while I clean this ghastly mess you've made.” I had scolded.

She was a messy child; always breaking or spilling things. When she was a toddler, it had been a penchant of hers to snap the heads off all her dolls and play with those heads alone, loading them into a truck or a toy train and so on. But she never purposely destroyed her study things or her clothes or anything else, for that matter.

That day when she had galloped into the kitchen, she had come to confess to having lost her watch, one that was designed as the Power puff Girls and was a gift from a cousin of hers. She had scuttled away to the bathroom, crying, after my admonishment and I hadn’t run after her to comfort her. No one had. And so it has been on many occasions through her school life here at home.

Thus, it wasn't surprising to me that she chose her grandfather to tell her stories to rather than me. She thought I wouldn't listen. I had to eavesdrop and Daddy knew that I did. 

Three years after that day, Daddy died in my brother’s house. He was 94. All Nina said about the death at the funeral was, “I liked Grandpa. His face drooped. And the more it drooped, the chubbier it got.” 

Within a year of that, deaf Mummy died too, in the same house as he. She was 86. That’s when Nina began to grow. She matured into a beautiful and sensible young lady, albeit one that still distrusted my confidence in her.

She always says that I don’t understand her and that I’m always too worried to think clearly. After Daddy’s death, she had no one to tell her daily stories to and she never did; at least not under our roof. Jordan had always been aloof and still is. He made sure of the monetary side of things at home and that was it. He never wanted much out of life. When not working, “sleeping and reading the paper were the best things to do,” he said. And of course those prime time news sessions with Arnab Goswami. 

As Nina grew older, she permitted him, one by one, to turn up the TV volume at 9 p.m. and to smoke inside the house with the windows open. Yet he kept the old habits. I rather think he vented out his daily frustration by imagining himself shouting and abusing in Arnab Goswami’s guise. That aside, 25 years together hasn’t taught me whether his mind is simple or hidden. 

Nina has gone away to college now. She lives in a hostel. I haven’t seen her for a year and on the telephone she only tells me a bare minimum of her life, enough to keep me content with the knowledge of her good health and pure faith. But, you see, I know everything. I always have. I have never depended on her to tell me. I have only ever needed Daddy. 

When my sister died, twelve years ago and three thousand miles away from me, I was the first person she told. When my second sister died eight years ago in the same house as the first one, it was in her arms that I cried from three thousand miles away. Mummy got her hearing back after death and has been a good gossip collector. And Daddy, well... he still lets me eavesdrop on his conversations with Nina. 

So you see, Ive always known all about Nina and I've always understood her for who she is. And she has always been a good girl, she has. My Nina. 

ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE HEART OF THE CAPITAL.

I will always remember this one day in my life. It isn't the only day permanently residing in the luxurious private suites of my memory. But it is one of those perfect few. It hasn't to do with a war or a revolution, or a medal or a journey. It is composed only of those simple little moments that sprinkle themselves over the unlikeliest portions of our world; their purpose solely to turn our eyes into a smile and to leave a legacy behind.

But while I let this memory feast itself at the back of my head and bade it not to bother me, San, the man who wove it with me, put it down in his diary. 

I tried and tried till I begged and cried and still, against its will, the beast of a memory would not leave its feast of luxury. 

And so, with his permission, I attach this diary entry of San's here, for you dear Reader. 

Enjoy: 

THE RED VELVET AFTERNOON

Here we were, sitting side by side, right under the peak afternoon sun, together plucking the grass that lay below, as the dogs barked continuously...

It was our first meeting in this new land, a meeting we had decided ages back. Someday, eventually, definitely, and here, the moment was now.

My name is San. I call her Tiya. Tiya means "parrot". But for me, she's just a rabbit waiting to emerge from her burrow. I realised her resemblance to a rabbit later in the day -- the first time in all these years, while she came towards me from inside the metro station. 

A new city, a new place, lots of new people who looked the same, new surroundings; one thing remained the same though -- Tiya. It was just another moment waiting to be explored. The place was Central Park -- not the one in the United States, but somewhere a little bit closer to home, in Delhi, India. 

Then there came the red velvet cake. Something she made me try for the first time in my life. Needless to say, she was trying it for the first time as well. And she told me that there was no better place to do so than at Connaught Place, at the heart of Delhi.

"Aren't you getting bored? We're doing nothing over here, just sitting and waiting for the beggars to come disturb us..." she asked at one point. I could sense something in her question, in the way she threw it. She knew a moment like that was happening for the first time in her life, and she was, very diplomatically, trying to find out whether I felt the same. 

"Trust me, I am." I replied, almost with a sly wink.

Sitting there, plucking grass, looking at the giant flag of my country, I was feeling anything but new. The moment had taken me straight back to school and made me realise that no matter how old we became, we still kept plucking grass -- a sign that usually signified shyness and inquisitiveness being felt at the same time. It had taken me years to analyse that! 

No, seriously, it seemed to be quite a boring moment with a winter sun hovering right above us. Then again, I've seen a lot of boring things in life and have been a part of them. This time at least I wasn't alone. I had someone with me. And she was right beside me. And at that moment, history was being written.

There was lunch, there was a conversation that we've never since had in any of these years, there was a walk, there were stories none of us spoke, and there were two cute puppies running around as well, speaking the language of love. Somewhere, not very far, we stood, watching as things happened.

"Just another day?", you ask me. Not really. That was my first day in Delhi. It took a year, a journey, a simple metro ride, and someone for things to begin to fall into place. Tiya made it happen.

I was already thinking of our next outing together, when she called me for another walk along the inner circle of Connaught Place.

Me: "Why not... the red velvet's just happening."

Tiya: "Errr... What?"

Me: "Never mind, it isn't a very short walk right?"..... 

And here endeth the picture of a very emotional historical moment. Two people found parts of themselves under the nation's flag. And yet, the flag had nothing to do with it. 

P.S.: I still owe San seventy five rupees from our second outing a few weeks later: The Doughnut Afternoon.

FISH MARKET

As I walked towards the fish market it stank.  I had, and still have, a strong dislike for the stench of uncooked fish. But I approached the low opening in the tent-like enclosure around the market, I walked through. And at that point, the smell became a natural part of the environment. It didn’t feel pungent and nauseating anymore. 

As I passed through the entrance, I raised my eyes to a world of sparkling fish and bright voices harking at the few buyers. It was a village in itself. The outside world did not enter there except to buy. It reminded me of the ‘goblin market’: the silver, white and pink of the fishes heaped onto one another by kind, calling out to our eyes.

 A hawker splashing water here, a hawker slicing a piscine head there; a trail of blood left behind on the scimitar, wiped onto it by a brain split smoothly down its edges, and the silver scales beginning to glitter evermore under the drops of water that clung to them.

Bulbs hung above hoardings painted with pictures of fish and names of stalls; bulbs that swung when the wooden posts holding the stalls together creaked and swayed by passing hands taking their support. Yellow and white and gas-lit lamps twinkled in the eyes of the hawkers who called out to the buyers, the hawkers who were your friends the moment you stepped into their den.

“What fish will you take, sister?” called out one, blocking our passage through the narrow cobbled paths. He turned to another who sat, legs folded and a grin wide open, above his stock: a fine collection of slender and fat, large and small, half kilo ilish and ek kilo ilish, thrashing black fish and quiet white ones. “Same quality we are giving at half the price!”, he beamed.

“That cannot be quite right,” my mother replied, indignant and half full of spite. “This fish is not as fresh as the one on our plate the other night!” 

“Fresh it is, sister! Take a look!” the first one said, and he picked up a fat one and thrust it straight at her head. “See how good it smells and the gills are so red! Now tell me sister, have you seen a fish more fine than the ilish of the Podda divine?”

“From the podda it may be, but it does not smell divine to me!”

“There brother, slice it well. We’ll give it to our sister at half what we said,” the first one declared, tossing the fish up to his counterpart at the scimitar.

I turned around, I left the stall, I walked back to the corner by the door. Whether the fish we’d bought was a king or not, the stench of it stung me no more.