The digital clock on her phone screamed nine o’clock! As her thoughts raced to collect all that she had missed in the past couple of hours, Ashima struggled with the obstinate slumber that still slowed her down. Indeed, she was getting reckless by the day. Streaming through series up to the ungodly hours of the night was bound to find someone of her age, fazed and fatigued, the following day.
Living single was liberating after decades of dealing with others but that could barely defend the self-neglect she had displayed lately. Absolving herself too quickly, she put on a feisty mood and went about with her morning ablutions, humming to herself all the while. As the accustomed aroma of the cautiously crafted Darjeeling tea wafted into her nostrils, she settled down to catch up with the sensations that media had to serve up that hour. Suddenly, the unaccounted actions of the morning made sense to her and she panicked thinking that many must have returned from her doorstep earlier.
A heaviness weighed her heart down as she was forced to imagine a day without the familiar faces, who had become an integral part of her life. Detaching herself from distant and cumbersome relationships, these people fitted into her daily fabric so seamlessly that she had never even admitted their existence till this very moment.
Ashima’s early hours would brighten up with the advent of Ganesh, the gardener, who would relentlessly rattle on about the bloom and fall of the various species of flowers and vegetables in her terrace garden. She was amused by his friendship with the flora and sometimes even envied his attachment to it. His facts and fingers fascinated her till the much-awaited Vinod would arrive with the milk and the newspaper, and yes, the opportunity to speak in Hindi. It was another thing that the genders of the Bollywood dialect often got mixed up for the poor Bong but that didn’t deter her from expressing herself effusively in it.
The next person to enter Ashima’s everyday routine was the one who had a meatier role than the others. She was Shefali, the cook who doubled up as a household help but excelled as the gossip churner only to be humbled by her ‘boudi’ (the term she used to address Ashima), who hardly had any interest in any of it. With Shefali in, the kitchen came alive and soon enough Ashima’s olfactory and auditory senses responded to its diversity.
It was also the cue for Ashima to get seated at her table and commence weaving the wordy yarn for her book besides checking her students’ submissions and preparing for her classes as well.
The schedule was an engaging one till it was truncated by the sensational stories of Shefali, who hardly cared for her ‘boudi-s’ preoccupation and found it rather weird that a woman should find company and concern with books and seclusion. Unperturbed, she would begin her jabbering about Mr. A’s illegitimate affair, the septuagenarian, Mrs. B’s despicable dealing of her maid and the unmarried Miss C’s left-with-no-other-alternative decision of adopting a baby.
Though Shefali’s interesting narratives often obfuscated the line between reality and her understanding of it, Ashima, like Akhila in Anita Nair’s novel, Ladies Coupe, would unknowingly live through many lives while listening to them. The cook had been with her for almost two decades and though her tantrums and threats kept escalating by the minute, she was the ally without whom Ashima felt incapable. Perhaps like Winnie-the-Pooh, she knew that with this aid, “an adventure was going to happen.”
The afternoon hiatus was restful but the evenings of Ashima’s weekdays would be animated by students flocking at her hall with books, bags, besties and banter. The next couple of hours would be taken up in unspooling of texts and authors, at once delving into the depths of their minds and motives. Her students read in diverse grades and adhered to different curricula but Ashima could string them all into one garland of liking and learning. She strived to create that wonder in her younger student as the little boy felt sitting inside the carriage and experiencing the rhythmic journey in R L Stevenson’s poem, The Railway Carriage as much as to convince the elder ones to go for a “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to fathom the Shakespearean world of The Tempest better.
Nonetheless, it was the creative writing sessions that stimulated her the most as she shared with her students, the potpourri of ideas that could come alive through their pens and papers. It was not unexpected that often after class hours, Ashima donned the cap of a counsellor, sometimes hearing out the pointed logic of a rebellious early teen, and at times, lending an amicable ear to the confessions of a gawky adolescent.
All of them were Ashima’s friends, who steered her days out of emptiness and filled them with pulse and purpose. Interestingly, the woman’s world of friends was unknowingly expanding to embrace the unfamiliar as well.
Apart from her leafy, blooming friends, some quarrelsome sparrows, a lone squirrel, the cooing pigeons and a few raspy ravens added to the list as well. Not to forget, books, who had been her confidantes and companions since ages! Sometimes, she revisited the stories she had already read, and at times, absorbed the smell of new and not-read books that had piled up for years. But every time, she got lost in the elusive world of the pages where this friend of hers, the book in hand, transported her, she felt glad and grateful.
At night, the ‘shimul’-cotton stuffed pillow became her buddy as did many other things around her, which evolved to enter her circle of intimates. Surprisingly, these objects lacked life but lent lustre to Ashima’s.
Friendship has fascinating faces! One’s personal journey from the vulnerable to the fortified self is perhaps possible only when we recognise these faces and acknowledge our changing perspective towards attachment and association. Just as Ashima did.
In the words of Khaled Hosseini from The Kite Runner:
“Not a word passes between (them), not because (they) have nothing to say, but because (they) don’t have to say anything.” ‘They’ are friends.
By Promita Banerjee Nag
An avid word enthusiast and content-churner, Promita is fuelled by novel writings, ideas and light-hearted banter. A teacher by passion, she treads the path of unequivocal learning with and through her students. Mother, music and ‘mishti’ mostly convince her. If you wish for a tête-à-tête, feel free to reach out to her at promita033@gmail.com.
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