A Short Story by Ravikumar Pillai
The crimson glow from the setting Sun across the undulating valley added to her enthusiasm and eagerness as Radhika Menon set off to the airport, an hour’s drive away, to receive her daughter arriving by the 8 PM flight. She was flying in from distant Shillong, with two stopovers at Kolkata and Bengaluru. It would be damn tiring for her, and Radhika wanted to be there on time.
Her husband, away on another of his frequent business trips had called in an hour ago. He sounded monotonous when he asked her to tell their sweetheart that he did miss her. As you grow into the later years of marriage, you learn to take blank formalities in the relationship with an insular indifference.
Radhika wondered how over the years the chill between her and Rajeev burgeoned into a shield that allowed her to be herself, focused on self-empathy, unmindful of the feigned congeniality.
A vivacious, giggly, brutally innocent girl from a traditional family of Malabar that claimed an unsubstantiated royal lineage, she was married off, as a nineteen-year-old, to Rajeev Menon, an athletic-looking Assistant Manager of a British Tea Plantation Company in the uplands of Kenya. Those days, lineage, public school education and smartness were what counted to be coopted as a budding plantation manager. With his Lovedale schooling, aristocracy running in his bloodlines and enthusiasm for cricket, horse-riding and partying, Rajeev was a good fit as an executive intern in the tea estate.
Radhika was a bright student at the prestigious Providence College in the legacy spice city of Calicut. She chose silence and meek surrender to parental command when the alliance was mooted.
In the 1970s Kerala, how much independence did girls like her have, anyway? Those were the days of ‘being married away’ and not just marrying someone of your choice and mutual liking!
The club life and socializing of the plantation culture in the Kenyan uplands and the strict stratification of the managers from the working class did offend her sensitivities. But what she hated most was the way Rajeev chose to look the other way, when the Irish boss indulged in visible indiscretions with her in the weekend bashes. When she looked back, she wasn’t sure when the frost in their relationship started. Was that so early in the initial days of their Kenyan sojourn or somewhere down the line? It didn’t matter much, anyway! Most marriages morph into a make-believe world of contrived affinity and loyalty at some point!
The ground situation in the plantations of Kenya worsened rapidly as worker grievances and union aggressiveness ballooned. Animosity toward the supervisors and managers of foreign origin assumed explosive proportions and expatriate managers were leaving for newer global locations, perceived as much safer. The Menons decided to call it a day and move back to Kerala.
Radhika insisted on buying the colonial villa, on the way to the Wayanad climb. They found a boarding school in the Tamil Nadu hill station of Yercaud to enroll their daughter, Priya, who was in her sixth grade by then. Rajeev was offered the position of Head of Plantations in a local company of repute. They were taking over a few plantations, sick and impoverished, in Sri Lanka and wanted him to oversee the integration and development of these new additions.
The transition back to the homeland seemed smooth and satisfying. She, however, realised soon enough that the damage to their relationship had by then gone beyond the stage of wishy-washy nursing back. She let things simmer and subside to a superficial normalcy. Rajeev was too busy with his chores and overseas trips to even notice the need to repair the emotional fault lines between them.
She sensed that not just her husband, but her daughter too had grown remote and formal over the years. Like a river that flowed down to merge with the placid lake, Priya had found her moorings among friends she met and came to terms with at school and later in college.
When she went on to pursue higher studies and later took up a teaching assignment at the North Eastern Hill University in the picturesque Shillong, Priya was asserting her independence and desire for anonymity.
Radhika felt a tinge of guilt at the remoteness of her only child and wondered how little she knew of her as an individual with her self-image, priorities and concerns. That Priya chose to be on her own and travel with friends rather than spend the holidays with parents did upset Radhika, but she chided herself for overindulgence in her grown-up daughter’s privacy.
It has been over seventeen years since Priya started staying away from home, first at the boarding school and subsequently at different places for higher studies and now away on her assignment at the university. She had moved to Shillong directly from her campus. Every time Radhika thought of the distance between her and her daughter having grown over the years, she reminded herself to be pragmatic and reasonable.
Last week at the Planters’ Club dinner, Mrs Nambiar had mildly pushed the case of her son, a Chartered Accountant in London, as a ‘perfect match’ for Priya. Radhika registered it in her mind as something to ponder and discuss with Rajeev and Priya dispassionately.
Just when she was getting ready for the drive to the airport, Rajeev had called in from the estate at Bogawantalawa in Sri Lanka asking her to nudge Priya about the alliance proposal in hand and to at least find out what was in her mind. “I hope you can do a neat job of it this time and not bungle it up”, he said in a sarcastic hint of how Priya in her previous visit had brushed aside a couple of carefully curated proposals with an indifference bordering on contempt.
Radhika pulled in at the airport parking almost fifteen minutes before the scheduled arrival. She could spot in the distant sky the plane coming in to land from the far end. She thought mischievously about the games airlines play! The schedule has usually a built-in slack time so that planes seem to arrive ahead!
In a few minutes, Priya walked out of the arrival hall. She looked haggard and casual. Radhika kissed her daughter and hugged her. They moved to the coffee shop for a quick coffee and bite. Priya was as usual frugal with her words. During their drive back home, she had mostly her headset on.
Radhika told her, “Priya, leave the music and take a nap, we will be home in an hour.”
“No Mom. Please, let me latch on to the music.”
On reaching home, Priya had a hot shower, and then they sat down for dinner, predicated by an extended silence. Priya was getting ready to go to her room, upstairs, “Feeling sleepy, Goodnight, Mom”.
Radhika replied mildly, as if whispering to herself, “Tonight, you sleep with me, in the master bedroom. Let us talk.”
She dimmed the lights and lay down with her daughter by her side, just the way they used to sleep together when Priya was a schoolgirl back in Kenya. Radhika thought of the bedtime stories of fairies, princes and princesses that she used to tell her darling daughter.
Radhika opened up, “Priya, there is a proposal that I want to talk to you. The boy is a Chartered Accountant and works in London. Mrs. Nambiar has sent in the photo, I shall show you tomorrow morning. You know, Dad also feels that we haven’t talked seriously about alliances for a while and you are not getting younger by the day”.
There was a stony silence as if Priya didn’t hear what Mom mumbled.
“Are you with me, Priya?”
Priya put her hand on her mom and clung to her. “Mom, can you put the light out? I want to talk to you in the darkness.”
Priya continued, “Mom, I have been thinking of talking to you, in private, with just two of us around. All these years, I was quietly curious about my sexuality. I have stumbled upon, in recent years at the college hostel, that I was drawn to my roommate, Savita, who too felt a crush on me. Mom, why can't we both live together for the rest of our lives as one close family of sorts, full of mutual love and respect”.
Radhika just listened. “Mom, please do not put the light on, let this night pass in deep darkness.” They both slept for the rest of the night as if nothing had transpired.
Early morning, Radhika got up, prepared a strong coffee with refreshing aroma, and woke up Priya with a gentle stroke on her curly hair. “Priya, live your life the way you would like. I understand you. As only a mother can”
Priya hugged Radhika and they both lay there staring blankly at the ceiling.
“Mom, promise me not to say a word to Dad. Just tell him that I am not ready for marriage yet”
For the next three days, they tried to be as normal and natural as they could. Radhika tried to relive the past that was long lost in the wilderness of Kenyan hills - the care, caressing, smile and even a lullaby to her daughter in the night.
On the day when Rajeev was scheduled to fly back home, Radhika left Priya at the airport in time to catch her morning flight out. When Rajeev came back, he asked with an inquisitive eagerness, “Did Priya say yes to the proposal?”
Radhika took her time to say, slowly and with composure, “Priya feels she is not ready yet”
Before Rajeev could say, “You messed it up again”, Radhika took a deep breath, closed her eyes and invited the soothing comfort of a well-deserved sleep.
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