DOSHIPANA

“Aai! Aaji again untied herself and ran away”

“What? Where is Aaji?”Aai cleaned her hands, left the unwashed pile of clothes, wiped her face with her aanchal and ran to find Aaji missing from her chair.

 The sari with which Aaji is tied to the chair lay down unraveled; along with the nightie Aai had made her wear the same morning.  Aai soon rushed out with Bunty, locked the door, and was about to leave in search of Aaji when Mahesh Kaka called out for her.

 Mahesh Kaka walked in with Aaji wearing his police uniform and a scarf wrapped around her waist. Aai ran immediately and got hold of Aaji and pulled her towards herself.

“Bhabhi I found Aai walking around naked while I was leaving for my second shift. So I wrapped around some clothes and got her here.” Mahesh Kaka narrated, visibly embarrassed.

“I was so worried when I saw her clothes lying on the ground and the untied sari from the chair. I was just washing the clothes in the balcony and I did not realize when she untied herself and ran away.” Said Aai, huffing and puffing, taking Aaji inside the house.

“Thank you bhaisahab, thank you very much.”

“Arre Bhabhi, what is the need of thank you and all? She is like my Aai only na.”

“How is she doing now? Does she take her medicines and all properly?” continued Mahesh Kaka.

“She is still the same bhaisahab. This is the third time she has run away like this. She refuses to wear clothes, and no matter how tightly I tie her to her chair, she somehow manages to untie it. Even though she is stronger than me, I have to see that the knots do not hurt her!”

“Whatever medicines I give her, she keeps them in her mouth, and pretends to have swallowed them, and as soon as I leave she spits them out in places I would not even find for days” continued Aai speaking from inside the bedroom, changing Aaji’s clothes.

“Oh!” said Kaka, clueless on what to reply back.

 “Acha Bhabhi, I should leave now, I am getting late for my work.”

“Arre bhaisahab, just wait, I will make you a cup of tea.”

“No, no bhabhi, it’s okay. I will come some other time. I’m already late for work.”

“Acha okay, but thank you very much bhaisahab.”

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Aaji was suffering from Schizophrenia from the past seventeen years now. Aai had been taking care of her for all of fifteen years now. Many in the village said, Aaji’s conditions worsened because of Aai’s jinx. The jinx due to which Aai couldn’t bear a child for the initial eleven years of her marriage. 

Aai never felt the absence of a child because of Aaji, of course until people around her would question and taunt her about the same. She had to take care of her like a child. Aai would comb her hair, brush her teeth, bathe her, put on clothes, feed her and do the every little work.  And all she got back in return was bruises and scars of the beating from her, ironically who wasn't in her senses or proper judgement in doing so.

Baba was a gentleman, who would take care of Aaji and Aai, but even he couldn't heal the scars his mother caused on his wife, externally and internally.

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 Aai’s new favorite cookery show was playing on TV, while she was busy cutting vegetables. Bunty was busy completing his school work.

“We just add a little bit of these mushrooms now. These are called Magic mushrooms. The biggest quality of these mushrooms are that they are extremely good for your health and body when taken in small quantities but can be extremely dangerous if taken in inappropriate amounts. So please use it VERY carefully.” the host went on and on, when the bell rang.

Sunita and Anita atya stood outside the door wiping their faces with their aanchal, carrying a bag of fruits and snacks. Cursing Aai for her fortune and turning their mother’s fortune upside down had been their favorite topic of discussion ever since Aai got married.

“What happened to her hair? Why did you cut it so short?” Sunita atya was almost yelling at Aai now.

“ She would never let me touch her hair, and because of that it started getting dreadlocks. The doctor also advised us to cut her hair off.” Replied Aai calmly.

“She had such beautiful hair at the age of sixty, complete black, not even a single grey” Anita atya joined in, touching Aaji’s scalp, while Aaji pushed her away.

 “Of course!”

“I can’t imagine how lazy and selfish can one be! Specially a daughter-in-law, who cannot even take care of her mother-in-law!” added Sunita Atya touching and checking out Aaji, up and down.

Aai took a deep sigh, and returned to her work.

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Managing Aaji had become more and more painful and difficult over the years now. The absence of her own emotions and senses had only made her efficient to hurt others physically and emotionally. With Bunty growing up it had become tougher on the part to handle his finances and hers with all the income that came their way. 

“What happened suddenly?” rushed in baba from the middle of his work, in the middle of the day.

“I don’t know, she just became very uncontrollable, I tried… she even... I don’t know… I really don’t know...” collapsed Aai, murmuring, while nobody bothered listening to her. 

Aaji was lying on the bed, unconscious. The room was filling in with people every passing second.

“Let it go! She had it smooth.” comforted one of the old neighbors.

The room now had almost a dozen of people- neighbors, family, friends, relatives, all busy murmuring amongst themselves.

Aai sat across the room by the wall, blank as a paper. Tears streamed down her face, uncontrollable; trying to hide the guilt in her eyes from the world around her; the bag of mushrooms stared at her from the other end of the room.

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There is always a little dark side to us, which is buried deep inside our conscious mind, emotions and societal rights and wrongs. And little do we know when they jump and escape out of us, unconsciously or consciously. We human beings are flower vases of emotions; we only like to show the bright, beautiful side of ours to the world, incognizant of how and when our thorn will prick us and others around.

We spend a lot of time in our lives trying to fit into the perfect blocks, blocks that the apparent ‘society’ has made. What is good or bad and right or wrong, is based on how well we fit in. Mothers are supposed to be divine and the epitome of love, men are always supposed to be oozing out their machismo, elders are always supposed to be wise and children are always supposed to be childlike- vulnerable, naïve and pure hearted. Who made these rules? No one has an answer.

One of the strangest things is that a person is never allowed to be confused in love. Recently when I had been out for lunch with one of my close friend, she seemed to be very uncomfortable and disturbed. When I asked her for the reason, she licentiously replied me back of how guilty she is because of being confused about her emotions towards her past and her present love interest.

You can never make the world understand and see things the way you do. What you can do is make peace with what you actually feel and be true to it. Not everybody in our lives are as perfect as the person we are always put in comparison to, either by the world or by our own selves. We become too busy and blindfolded to get accustomed by the way the world wants us to be. At times we just need to sit back, close our eyes, take a deep breath and believe, ‘yes, I am this way. And I am okay being so.’ Of everything, we at least should not be sorry and guilty about the way we feel for a certain thing or situation.

So, commit mistakes, one or many, because at the end it will be you who will be the judge of what is wrong and what is right, and not people around you. Be confused, because there will be times when you will want both the options given to you. And be yourself, because you always cannot be more generous and loving than the second person.





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NOTE :
Aai- Mother
Aaji- Grandmother
Kaka- Uncle
Bhabhi- Sister-in-law (generally used as colloquial term to address your friend's wife)
Bhaisahab- Brother (colloquial term to address men, someone you know)
Atya- Aunt
Baba- Father