Chapter 1

As Girija packs the coffee powder, pours boiling water into the filter, sandwiches the 'cheese curry' between slices of bread, and toasts the assembly over the fire in a greased sandwich press, the aroma spreads in all directions.

"Amma, the cleaning lady is here!" Charu announces as she enters the kitchen. "Yay, I want some cheese!" she says, grabbing some without waiting for permission and running off to the terrace.

“First thing in the morning, without even brushing your teeth... Ugh!”

A twelve-year-old glutton with no sense of responsibility; the body had expanded sideways to the point of becoming grotesque.

“Hey, you blockhead! Are you busy watching the sparrow? Open the front door for Vandhana—let her come in through the house and pick up the trash bin.”

Grandma is sitting up in her room!

This is a warning tone. One can go from Grandma’s room to the terrace or to her bathroom. The garbage bin—referred to as the 'kachada dabba'—is kept on the terrace. It was Grandma’s rule that a bin containing soiled waste—such as curry leaves, drumstick fibers, and fruit peels discarded from dining plates—must not be kept inside the house. Even though it was a hygienic bin with a pedal-operated lid, its designated spot was an outdoor corner. Another of Grandma’s rules was that the cleaning woman who came to empty it daily was not permitted to enter the house.

Vandhana would get angry if anyone called her "Jamethari" (a term often associated with a garbage collector). She would command, "Say my name!" And that was fair enough. Did she look like someone who hauled away trash?

With a bright vermilion dot on her forehead, neatly combed hair, and a spotless, vibrant salwar kameez, she looks like a fresh blossom. She leaves even her footwear at the entrance before walking the long distance to approach.

After emptying the trash from her bucket, Girija brings water to clean the bin. Vandana drains it thoroughly, places a sheet of paper at the bottom, and walks away with the broom and bucket.

It was already half-past six. The elder daughter, Kavitha, still hadn't woken up. She was in the tenth grade!

I must leave the house by 7:30.

“Charu, wake Kavi up! He keeps saying, ‘Wake me up at five, wake me up at five-thirty,’ but what’s the use if he doesn’t actually get up when I do wake him?”

It would be nine o'clock by the time the maid arrived. In the meantime, the old woman would keep a close watch to see if her daughter-in-law was sprinkling water and wiping the area where Vandhana had been.

Something pricks at Girija’s heart like a thorn as she sweeps and mops.

Vandhana used to thoroughly clean the washbasin and the entire bathroom herself. However, her mother-in-law has now assigned all those tasks to her daughter-in-law. She needs to bathe, prepare a simple meal, and send the children off to school. The children's father is away on an overseas trip and will return next week; until then, there is a reprieve from that particular pressure. There is some *kuzhambu* and *koottu* left over from the previous day in the refrigerator; they can simply reheat those dishes, cook some rice in the pressure cooker, and manage their meal. As for lunch, she has already prepared cheese-and-curry sandwiches and packed them into lunchboxes.

As soon as the youngest, Bharath, wakes up, he has to give his mother a hug; he is only nine years old. The school is not far away.

“Mom, I need crayons. The teacher asked me to bring them...”

“Is that something you’re telling me only now? I bought you a box of colors last week—where is it?”

Charu took it away and broke it...

“It’s a lie... a lie... He took my geometry box, broke it, and is now lying about it...”

They would stir up such quarrels just as it was time to leave for school. Only after they had left and the commotion had died down would the mother-in-law come out to attend to her morning ablutions.

The rent for this first-floor apartment—featuring three bedrooms and two bathrooms—is a hefty thirty-five hundred rupees. In the Indian capital, government-allotted residences hold significant status. The business firm her husband is associated with pays this rent on their behalf. Her husband’s professional standing had risen to the point where the company was willing to pay thirty-five hundred rupees in rent and provide numerous other perks... but...?

When the girls return from school, the eldest, Kavitha, sees clothes strewn about in Grandma's bathroom. She clearly hasn't bathed; she is lazy. She will bathe in the evening or at night... but couldn't she have flushed the toilet?

Girija cleans up with a mixture of anger and revulsion.

She switches on the geyser for her mother-in-law and gets ready to send her youngest son to school.

It will take at least forty-five minutes for my mother-in-law to finish her morning routine and bathe before coming out.

Bharath doesn't find it easy to eat in the mornings. Indulged by his grandmother and father, he still acts like a child and insists that his mother feed him. She has to carry his schoolbag until he reaches the street below and stand there waving goodbye until he disappears around the corner; the school bus arrives once he turns that bend.

Afterwards, she has to come upstairs, clean the space in front of her mother-in-law’s deities, and draw a *kolam*. Downstairs, the landlord, Malhotra, would have plucked and set aside some *pichi*, *mandarai*, and a couple of hibiscus flowers that had bloomed at the entrance. He holds the elderly woman’s traditional observances in high regard. He is likely around seventy years old. He has no wife; he lives on the ground floor in a joint family with his three sons and their wives.

None of his daughters-in-law ever give their father-in-law any work to do. At the entrance, leaving no room for people to move about, an Ambassador and a Maruti—kept under covers—loudly proclaim the homeowner's status!

For convenience, two-wheelers for all three children stand lined up. There is a Nepalese helper who handles the cooking and general household chores. Nirupa, the maid, arrives only at eight o'clock.

As Girija gathers the children's clothes and brings them to the water tap, her second daughter-in-law—wearing a long housecoat—is grooming her fingernails down in the courtyard; her only son, 'Dun', is away at school.

“Good morning, Aunty-ji...”

Girija felt no urge to smile as she said, "Good morning."

Was she young enough to call the other woman 'Aunty'? Not really; in fact, all those women were steeped in a superficial Westernized lifestyle—sporting short hair, bright red lipstick and nail polish, and flaunting an unrestrained passion for ostentatious sarees whenever they stepped out. Yet, not a single one of them held a full college degree. In contrast, Girija’s own M.A., B.Ed. qualifications were completely overshadowed—rendered invisible—by her appearance.

It is not entirely true that she lacks the time to look at herself in the mirror; rather, the desire and the inclination to do so have been lost somewhere along the way. Her ritual-wear sarees and her mother-in-law’s nine-yard silk *madi* garments are all drying on a long clothesline in the high corridor—which is precisely why Vandana is forbidden from entering that area.

She takes her clothes—such as her saree and petticoat—and places them outside on the peg.

After bathing, she must gather the ritual-pure clothes while wearing a dripping-wet saree, and then dry her hair. With a towel wrapped around her wet hair and clad in the ritual-pure saree, she carries a dry saree to her mother-in-law in the other bathroom.

I remember that it was then that I forgot to put on my bindi.

Glancing at the mirror, she hurriedly opens the kumkum container and applies a dot to her forehead. A fierce, burning hunger surges within her stomach.

Taking a crisp, cheese-filled sandwich and biting into it with a satisfying crunch, then leaning back in the chair and savoring hot coffee, sip by sip... Cut!

“Giri... are you bringing the saree...?”

“I’m coming right away, Mom!”

She brings the saree and towel to the bathroom doorway and holds them out.

With a bosom and belly—ripe and sagging like a pumpkin—clinging visibly beneath the wet cloth, and a head dusted with white hair like a light coating, it was a figure that evoked in Girija a familiar sense of pity.

The realization that she has been reduced to a mere insect for the past seventeen years also weaves in a thread of irritation.

After draping her saree, she slowly steps out of the bathroom. The container for sacred ash, the vessel for ritual water, and other such items have been placed near the shrine cabinet.

Has the child gone to school?

“Hmm...”

“They were coughing incessantly all night long—did you give them any medicine?”

“Mm”

“Light the lamp before you leave. Today is Krithigai; perhaps offer a little payasam...”