Getting There

As Chitra washed the turmeric stained plate over the sink, the dawn light broke into one of insignificant mornings of milk packets and newspaper visits. She had carefully separated the fish-bones from the vegetable leftovers. Her day at college would begin in some hours as the meticulous packing of the tiffin box confirmed. There was no one else in this house of hers. She sent off her fatherless daughter, aged twelve, to one of the most sought after boarding schools of the country, needing to keep her away from the hassles of dependent nurturing. She could do it because Kaveri was not her own daughter, unused to such parenting, concluded the relatives.

The collage on the kitchen wall had a picture of a year old Kaveri in her white sleeveless cotton frock with stitched red hens and a green stitched duck, and a bald five year Kaveri going off to her first school day. Aditya had gone to drop her. It had a seven year old Kaveri with her grandparents in the misty foothills of Mahabalipuram. Rest of it was covered in oil stains and stains of age. She turned her back to fill up her bottle. The banana looked a little stale for breakfast.

As Chitra went in for a bath she consulted her watch, she was in time. Today was the last working day before college broke for vacation. There was no sign of the monsoons to wash away all the loneliness that rain promised each summer. Tomorrow she would be flying to Coimbatore to collect Kaveri on their way to Lakswadeep. Shekhar and Kaveri had taken to each other. Shekhar would join them from Bangalore. The tickets were done, suitcase packed.

Just like three years back, when Aditya was supposed to meet them at Pondicherry for their holiday. Chitra and Kaveri were at the Chennai airport waiting for him when the TV channels broke in the news of the crash. Her world shattered in that sound of silence. Over the next ten days Chitra grew an anger against Aditya for such an untimely, undeclared betrayal. She had Kaveri to take care of before she could think of herself.

The winding roads towards the hostel was the only time when Chitra allowed her emotions to take over. She had a good cry, fixed her eye make-up and lolled up the scene amongst her daughter’s friends. In the evening Shekhar surprised them with his visit. Life seemed like a winning game of Scrabble. The more the attempts, the more the meaning. But in the end, it was a victory of persistence. Yet, Aditya loomed in the hollowed deeps of the music that played in the car, and the garlic of the chicken.

The turmeric refused to leave, just as Chitra refused to get there, trapped in a time three years ago.