Chapter 17 #2
‘I’m thinking of going back to the US,’ Meena said.
‘I want to get back to work, not for the money. Though I have to say the pocket money was good. I loved managing the art gallery. You meet the right kind of people there. I think I’ll go back for a short trip in September and look around.
Hopefully, I’ll find something there and stay on. ’
The same gallery where she reconnected with Andrew? Maybe he’d follow her, and they could rediscover each other all over again.
‘That’s a good idea,’ I said dully.
She might’ve been particularly good at artfully managing the men who walked into the gallery and arranging them in her life.
I was still reeling from that first ‘hey’. It had cast a gloom on my morning. Besides, I didn’t know where to take this conversation. I had questions she would not answer, but other than that, I had nothing to say to her.
‘The weather is great these days in Bengaluru,’ I said to no one in particular.
Then, just like how she had picked me up at the Adidas store, literally with the snap of her fingers, she dropped me.
She rang for her driver and told me she had to rush to an urgent meeting. Her cappuccino was untouched.
I sat put for a while, watching her leave the bare setting of the café before I picked up my coffee and the unsavoury subject of our friendship. If you could call it that.
Had I taught her how to treat me?
When it suited Meena, or when she had the time for me or anybody she associated with, you became her project. It wasn’t barter with Meena; it was always about her. I doubt if it had even registered on her that I did her homework every day in school.
I decided to get those running vests and shorts and anything more I might need. I had to rid myself of the taste of milky cappuccino. It was offensive.
‘Myra!’ my father called.
He didn’t give me time to respond before knocking on my bedroom door.
My father is never loud, but he has a booming voice, which he’s not really aware of. He’s not an introvert, not much of a talker either, but when he decides to say something, his voice is bouncing off the walls, like it was today.
I was changing into my tracksuit, getting ready for our Sunday evening walk, which had become our tradition. A father–daughter thing.
The knocking intensified until it stopped. ‘Are you okay, Myra?’ I heard him ask.
I was ready outside of slathering my face and arms with sunblock when I yanked open the door.
My father was dressed in Adidas joggers and a collared Climacool tee. He was in black, save for the charcoal-grey Cloudfoam shoes. Perfectly coordinated, including a smile that stretched ear to ear.
My father never bought himself anything, not even a pair of socks.
My mother had done all his shopping. After Mummy passed, I made sure all his essentials were bought and replaced at regular intervals – day clothes and night suits.
He’d wear frayed or faded clothes, oblivious of their condition, had I missed putting them in the recycle bag.
Just as well that distress was a look people strived for at this time.
Activewear was something we hadn’t invested in as a family back in the day.
Mummy wore a salwar-kameez set, including a dupatta, for her Sunday evening walks with her husband.
My father wore his day clothes but didn’t tuck his shirt in.
They had Bata shoes, which I think they changed every leap year.
I had abandoned the idea of running vests for myself when I returned to the Adidas store two days ago. I had walked over to the men’s section when a pair of walking shoes caught my eye. My father needed shoes, but he needed gear more.
‘We are matching,’ my father told me, tugging at my sleeve. Indeed! We were twinning in black.
‘Ready?’ he asked as I patted his chest.
Fitness was alien territory to my father. The concept of working up a sweat was never introduced to him. He moseys.
I’m like my mother, quick of step. Today, suitably kitted, my father was walking faster than I have ever seen him do. He was out of the door at such speed that he had forgotten the house keys.
Sunday evening walks at Cubbon Park were my parents’ thing.
They usually left around 5 p.m. and only returned at sundown, a couple of hours later.
I knew of their routine only because of my dad’s lower-back issue; bending was always tricky for him.
As a kid, I would be required to dive under every sofa or rack in the house on Sunday evening, looking for his walking shoes.
A couple of months after my mother passed away, I fished out my father’s shoes one Sunday evening.
I slipped into my mother’s keds. That’s how my father left the house for the first time since we had laid Mummy to rest. Thereafter, Dad and I went for a walk every Sunday in the second half.
We left earlier than my parents did. We were out by about 4. 30 and back by 6 p.m.
Today we were a little late. It was almost 5 p.m. when we left the house, but we were bounding along, making up for the time we had lost in sprucing up for the adventure.
I was a couple of steps behind when I noticed a missed call from Chhaya. My father had stopped by a rocky outcrop with a thick copse of trees. It was a compelling sight; everything was dark except for the evening light. We stood against the fence, peering inside.
‘We never came here,’ my father said. He was talking about my mother.
I must’ve run past this rock formation innumerable times, but I hadn’t known it existed. ‘We meant to,’ my father said. ‘We thought we’ll come here and sit and listen to the birds.’
‘Sitting was whose idea, Papa?’
My father grinned.
There was no way my mother would decide to go for a walk and then abandon the activity midway so that she could birdwatch.
‘Do you want to go in?’ I asked.
I walked around the fencing, looking for a way in, when my father caught up with me and steered me across the road. He wanted to walk along the library.
Usually, we were quiet on our walks, but today, my father was giving me a tutorial as we walked past the silver oaks and the mighty gulmohar, with its bright orange carpet around it.
‘Your mother loved the gulmohar,’ he said, pointing at a family that had spread out a bed sheet and opened a picnic basket.
I knew that the gulmohar was her favourite; mine was the tabebuia. He picked up a pink tabebuia petal and gave it to me.
My dad knew all about the exotic botanical species found in the park.
He had a friend in the horticulture department who briefed him about every petal and pond on the 300 acres, which was then duly reported to my mother.
He then rattled on about the nearly 6,000 plants and trees in the park. I felt the wind caress my cheeks.
‘Myra,’ he said just after we had crossed one of the motorways in the park, ‘to be able to forgive is a wonderful thing.’
I nodded. But where had that come from?
‘I learnt that from your mother – to let go and live freely.’
My mother travelled light. She didn’t do baggage.
We walked along the araucarias and beds of canna lilies, red and yellow stalks swaying in the evening breeze. We passed the compelling colonial construction of the library and made our way towards Hudson Circle.
This was my running path, and suddenly, I was itching to run. I turned to my father. He was smiling; his head was in the sky.
‘I’m going to run a little bit.’
He looked at me and blinked. ‘Let me try,’ he said, and without warning, one foot in front of the other, he was moving faster than he ever had.
‘Let’s go, Daddy.’ And we were moving again, father and daughter.
When I was a kid, I once called my father ‘Poppy’. He was overjoyed that I had a melange of expressions for him. ‘Myra has so many names for me,’ he told his wife. It was his chest of treasures.
We ran about a kilometre, stopping at the peanut vendor just outside the grounds, where we packed boiled peanuts for ?50.
My parents always picked up boiled peanuts on their Sunday walks.
They had some of it on their way back, and whatever was remaining was tossed into a salad; they called it the ‘Cubbon Park salad’.
Mummy added finely chopped onion, half a tomato, one green chilli, the juice of half a lime, salt to taste, and no points for guessing, turmeric.
The hors d’oeuvre with their evening drinks.
As we turned to walk back home, I decided to rustle up the same salad for the evening.
I was considering a fresh lime with tonic water and a dash of ginger when I heard my father call me. We were almost home, and I reached for the keys.
‘How is Andrew?’ he asked.
I wondered for a moment if Andrew had got in touch with him. Is that where the forgiveness advice had come from?
They were quite fond of each other, but I would’ve known had Andrew reached out to him. He would’ve told me.
Andrew was not a subject I wanted to engage in with my father. One-way traffic. Elvis has left the building.
‘He must be okay, Papa,’ I said. I wasn’t lying.
I didn’t turn to look at him but instead had a question of my own. ‘Will you run again?’
‘A little bit, yes! Today we ran too much.’
Today we made progress.