Meenakshi Amma

I leaned over the railing of the balcony of a fifth-floor apartment in Bangalore, sipping warm ginger-flavoured tea out of a pretty ceramic teacup. The evening was pleasant – the sun had turned a mellow orange and flocks of merrily-chirping birds flitted this way and that, rushing to their homes. An enviable melange of innocent laughter and happy shrieks of children in the play area rose up with the cool evening breeze. ‘Serenity’ described what was outside, but I didn’t know what to call the agitation that was simmering inside me. I had a weird desire to drop the fragile tea cup in my hand, see it plummet down and watch it shatter into a thousand undecipherable pieces. While I thought of that, for a few seconds, I foolishly tempted my fate, by running my toes across the railing, leaning forward dangerously. The space between life and death: a split second.

‘Ei, ponnu…,’ Meenakshi Amma’s voice jolted me back to my senses. Hey girl. I turned around to watch my employer, an eighty-five-year-old woman, scrutinizing my face with a disarming intensity. Her stern gaze made me feel that she could see through my body into my heart, mind and soul, and read my stupidity as if I were a transparent sheet on whose other side lay a confusing pool of entwined disappointments and grudges, glossed over by a bitterness that was grey and mucky. I looked back at her, tongue-tied, a bit ashamed too, at setting myself up for such a raw expose.

Where is my glass of orange juice, she asked me in her quivering voice, whose sonorous nature, I realised, awed me and terrified me in equal measure. ‘Bring it soon, it’s time for me to have my evening medicine, have you forgotten?’

I walked past her into the kitchen uttering a feeble sorry. Once inside the kitchen, I could see her drooping figure leaning heavily on her walking stick. She was inching her way towards the dining table. She moaned and took the name of one of her favourite Gods, as she settled her frail frame, lost in the depths of a floral nightie, into the dining chair. I felt pity, guilt and sadness pierce my heart. For this woman living all by herself in the ripe old age of eighty five.

I had arrived at the place two days ago. As a caregiver. As a means of finding an escape from a past nestled in the depths of God’s own country. I stayed quiet mostly, minding my business and oscillating between emptiness and exhaustion smothered by a crowd of pointless thoughts.

‘Ei ponnu,’ I heard her again. I saw that she still hadn’t registered my name. ‘It’s Sreeja,’ I told her, pointing at myself, ‘my name…’

‘Ah, hmm…yes,’ she said. ‘Is the juice done?’

I sighed and reminded myself to be patient, for such was my job. I had to be kind, understanding and calm. I handed over the glass of orange juice to her and as she took it from my hand, she signalled to me to sit down in the chair next to hers. I hesitated. ‘Sit,’ she said. And I did.

I saw that kindness had come over in her deep-brown eyes and her expression had softened. I studied her face closely and realised that she must have looked very beautiful during her younger years.

‘Sreeja,’ she called me by my name, for the first time since I had landed. I was surprised that it sent a tingle down my spine. ‘Tell me something about yourself.’

‘Yes, Amma,’ I said, surprised at my willingness to speak. I began in my broken Tamil with a heavy Malayalam accent, starting off with details she already knew. That I had completed a course in nursing two years ago and had worked with an agency that provided caregiving services for some time and quit. I reminded her that her neighbour’s sister who lived in Kochi was my friend’s mother. ‘The work of reference and fate, and I am here,’ I summarised for her with a knowing smile. ‘My friend was kind enough to remember my request to get away from home…’ I told her, ‘she suggested my name when your request for a stay-at-home caregiver came from your neighbour to her sister.’

‘Why did you want to get away from home?’ Meenakshi Amma asked, pensively.

‘Because my mother wanted me to get married.’

‘Why? Did you not like the man she chose?’

‘I did not.’

‘Ah, so there’s another man you like?’

‘No, Amma,’ I said in a moment of tired confession, ‘I like a woman.’

I prepared myself to face the ire of an old lady and get fired.

I could see shock pass over her face. I was not surprised. But she recovered quickly and gave me an understanding smile. I sat there, dazed.

‘What’s her name?’ she asked and her kindness made me want to put my head down on her lap and weep.

‘Padmaja,’ I told her and the very utterance of her name filled me with pure joy.

‘Your eyes are shining,’ Meenakshi Amma said. Why not, and why wouldn’t they, I thought.

‘I’m sure she is very beautiful,’ she said.

‘Oh yes, her eyes, big and wide like a beautiful lotus,’ I said with happiness rising like a wave inside me. I went on about how we studied in the same school from when we were six and how we discovered the spark between us and how life was so beautiful with her around. ‘The joy that a person can bring to one’s life by their presence,’ I told Meenakshi Amma, ‘it’s priceless, unmatchable.’ But how quickly and rudely the world could snatch it away from you, just because they want things their way.

‘My mother was furious and she hates me to this day,’ I said, ‘and Padmaja is getting married…’

Meenakshi Amma placed her wrinkled hand reassuringly over mine. Age had drawn creases back and forth on her small palm, yet how soft it felt! As the setting sun’s rays illuminated a portion of the room, I realised how acceptance could come from the most unexpected people while you couldn’t find an iota of it even if you plunged into the depths of a loved one’s soul. The irony of life made me want to laugh out loud.

After a few seconds of silence, Meenakshi Amma asked if I had spoken to my mother. No, I said, and she told me I should. ‘It’s not ok; she’s your mother. I know how it feels when you don’t hear from your child.’

She struggled to stand up from her chair and I rushed to her side to hold her. She smiled gratefully. ‘Don’t ever try that again,’ she whispered into my ear, pointing her frail finger towards the balcony.

***

For the first time in weeks, I slept peacefully that night. It’s been a month since. Over days, I have figured the bits and pieces of Meenakshi Amma’s life from her own stories and whatever I heard from Kamala, the maid.

Widowed young, Meenakshi Amma, I learnt, was a self-made woman. She picked up the pieces after her husband’s sudden death and began working as a teacher. Her only son, Shekhar, was eight then. ‘You know,’ Kamala told me one day, as we sat in the balcony having our coffee. ‘There’s something about Amma. She has a very infectious spirit; sees hope and joy in everything that sometimes I feel happiness seeps from between the folds of her skin!’ Kamala laughed.

‘I have a granddaughter your age,’ Meenakshi Amma told me once when we were sitting together and sorting out her cupboard.  She made me pull out some albums from the top shelf and told me about her family, fondly recollecting memories. Memories. The baggage every living person carries – some recollections dear, some you want to run away from, but can’t escape nonetheless.

She showed me a picture of a man in his early fifties.

‘My son,’ she said with pride. I smiled at her and took the photograph from her hand to get a closer look. He was a splitting image of his mother.

‘He died,’ she said plainly. I stared at her, shocked. ‘Four months ago. He was there one moment, talking to me over phone, and gone the next. A massive attack.’ I saw tears for the first time in her ever-smiling face.

‘How life changes after someone dear dies, isn’t it?’ Kamala mused when I asked her about Meenakshi Amma’s son. ‘He was a kind man, and he loved his mother. His wife stays in Bombay with her son. Their daughter is in London. Amma went into a shell after his death, kept asking what was the point in her living and that God should have taken her instead…’

Kamala then showed me a rose plant in the balcony. ‘Amma made me buy this two weeks after her son’s death. She believes that the day this plant flowers, she will consider it as a message from her son, that he is happy wherever he is.’

I understood that this was how Meenakshi Amma sought out hope in her life and this was why she checked on the plant every day. I understood what it meant for a mother to not hear from her child. Soon, I spoke to my mother. Without anger. Without holding anything against her. She screamed at me first and cried later; she asked me how I was and when I would come back. I told her I was happy and I would see her soon.

***

On a quiet Sunday morning, as I sit massaging Meenakshi Amma’s feet, I ask her, ‘Does my presence make any difference to you, Amma?’

She lets out a laugh. ‘Of course,’ she says, the laugh transforming to a smile now, ‘I have rediscovered happiness with you, Sreeja. When we cook together, when I sing and you dance, when we speak of our childhood, when we go for a walk…and when we pray together. Life seems full of possibility now.’

I feel happy. I gently lift Meenakshi Amma’s head to adjust the pillow beneath and hand over a few Tamil magazines along with her glasses so she can spend some time on the bed reading. I walk out to the balcony with a renewed sense of purpose. When I do, I spot the first bloom on the rose shrub – it’s a beautiful, tender pink. I am overjoyed and rush to Meenakshi Amma’s room. I bring her to the balcony and I show her.

‘In hope, there’s joy…and in joy, there’s hope, isn’t it Meenakshi Amma?’ I ask. She nods her head in delight, a wide smile adorning her glowing face.