Perched on the Periphery

An assumption or whatever her son thought it was, it definitely was a fixation with Nandita. On descending to the lower floor she had entered the kitchen. Though she found the place empty there were yet sights and signs and smells everywhere, that someone had visited the place ahead of her, the dishwasher stood door-ajar, gap-toothed from where a pair of mugs had been removed, news by the kilos spilled out of the heavyweight presence of the day’s newspaper that lay in disarray alongside the remains of coffee making. The smell of freshly made coffee, hung heavily in the air, and the aroma overwhelmed her senses. It would be a waste of effort on her part to go through the ordained ritual of tea-making today. She could tread the entire path, but brewed heaven had gone out of her grasp this morning. Against all civilised norms of tea drinking she made herself a cup with a tea- bag dipped in water on the boil: since who knows how long? As she sat sipping the tasteless turbid brew spewing words the little transistor seated atop the dishwasher fussily informed, warned and advised. A splash of rainwater it said, arriving in tandem with a sudden warm front had caused a thaw to set in sometime in the very small hours of the morning. The big voice within the little radio continuing ponderously stated that the vehicles out upon the streets were now skittering around like novice skaters out for the first time upon a snow rink. The populace was being warned of the treacherous intent of the snow that had on being touched, turned to ice upon the roads. Like the snow she too had turned to ice; frozen in time, she was trapped within this cold and eerie and lonesome zone from which she could not perceive any possibility of escape. What was the catalyst that had brought about this major change within her that had put her into this quandary? And she had remembered the genesis of this change; a letter. * * * How could she forget that afternoon when that life-changing missive had arrived? It was a gusty, feisty, grumbling, rumbling, thundering, blundering pre-monsoon day tearing its hair out in its haste to grow into a full-blown monsoon day. Tripping upon its own feet it had lunged into a sari she had put out to dry in her little balcony. Buffeted around by the gusting moisture laden wind it had ballooned out in readiness for taking to its wings. Faced with the spectacle of all her doors and windows banging their heads out frenetically; the sheets of the day’s newspaper chasing one another around the ceiling; the curtains frenziedly flapping around and tying themselves into knots; Nandita had come out on the run onto the balcony, and had grabbed the sari all set for flight with not a moment to spare as her little tulsi plant in its tiny plastic planter accompanied by a palm-leaf haath-pakha, and sundry other small objects had flown past her head and soon gone out of sight. She had tried to see where they had disappeared and had instead seen the postman struggling along the long and narrow strip of land pretending to be a garden that fronted the little set of Lower Income Group flats where she had a place of her own. An uprooted tree just about missed him as he ploughed his way across, hanging onto his khaki cap with one hand and the precious cargo of mail in a canvas bag with the other. And while he was still a good distance away from a sheltered spot the rain had come. A smattering of small drops had been followed by huge plopping ones which had soon turned into a deluge. And on coming in contact with the dry earth the drops of rain water had released the beautiful scent that the earth holds within its bosom to let go of when the rains first come. Nandita took in a lungful and then another and then another of the perfumed air as she contemplated upon the advent of kal boishakhi. How pretentious how over-reaching was its arrival, even so how one looked forward to coming face to face with it over and over again each year. A bolt of lightning ran zigzag across the darkened sky as the door-bell rang in consonance with the peal of thunder that had inevitably followed after. A damp letter in hand soaked from head to toe stood Ponkoj the postman wearing a querulous look upon his face. ‘Here you are Boudi, a letter from America for you. Must be from your son, but see how wet I’ve got bringing it to you.’ ‘Come in Ponkoj, I’ll get a towel, and while you dry yourself I’ll make a nice hot cup of tea for you.’ ‘Na, na, thaak, let it be, there’s no need.’ ‘Who said so, a hot cup will do you a lot of good.’ A peeved postman when you had your one and only child connected to you via the letters he regularly brought home to you? That would never do, ‘Let me put on the fan it will help dry you out,’ and she had left the room leaving him no space for any further protest. Niceties over the young postman had left and Nandita had at last been able to turn her attention towards the letter reading that she had been compelled to keep in abeyance. Please Ma, Tukun had written, why don’t you come and join us here?