Sheltered by the August summer sky, Vasu sits on the marble windowsill with her legs stretched out, sipping her morning coffee. The morning, as it has always been in Karpagam Colony, 6th Cross Street, is textured with the pleasing sounds of Subbulakshmi’s Suprabhatham broken by the sharp whistles of the kitchen cooker and the softly swelling noises of the street. Creaky main gates let in keenly awaited housemaids. A dusty brown rat darts up the electric pole wire like a busy office commuter, and runs along the stale, mossy compound wall into the neighbour’s kitchen window.
It has been seventeen hours since Vasu saw the last of her natal home. Her married life has only just begun, and already there are silent borders drawn, loyalties firmly set, and resentment snuggled comfortably into toasty nooks and corners.
She sits there on the windowsill, looking out into the open front courtyard, blissfully ignorant, not knowing, watching Sharda Amma — the trusted housemaid in her new home — adorn the courtyard entryway, her hands gliding, hues of pink and yellow filling up the flowing edges of the intricate Kolam. Vasu has married for love. And love, as it must, make things right.
Vasu turns to watch her new family bustle about, grannies and grandpas, uncles and aunts, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. Rarely exchanging glances, hardly speaking a word, as though they are used to having a fresh bride sitting on their drawing room windowsill each morning. Nothing out of the ordinary. Dishonest eyes appearing busy with closed daily life. They do not just look past her. They act as if she is not even there, like water hidden in thin air.
The Neem tree in the front courtyard has grown thick and tall, almost blocking out the rising citrus sky. Vasu sits on the marble windowsill cradling her three-month-old baby boy, a stretch of leafy neem limbs behind her. She can hear Sharda Amma arguing with the neighbour outside, something about the temple ceremony that evening. Vasu is not an atheist, but she might as well be. Her religious inclinations, such as they are, are decidedly overlooked and unwelcomed. The family does not trust her. They punish her in secret ways for not being born sacred. Her husband, on the other hand, was born sacred. The white thread running the length of his back says it is so. They see her now, her family, and they sustain her like an illusion, always kept in sight but never relevant. Always kept clinging to their creeping tolerance.
She smooths a hand down the baby's back. He sleeps the trusting sleep of the newly born, unaware that he too has been born sacred. The weight of this new reality delivers a disquiet, one that she senses but does not yet grasp, about a loss that hasn't happened yet.
Sometimes Sharda Amma sings old-time songs with marvellous grace. Other times she picks fights with equally marvellous simplicity. Vasu sits on the marble windowsill, sipping her morning coffee, watching Sharda Amma tempt the neighbour into an irresistible squabble. Sharda Amma does this not because she dislikes people or their opinions. In point of fact, Vasu knows the opposite to be true. It is simply because thoughts need words to be heard, and most times they sound better when they arrive with emotions.
Vasu had stopped going to the office years ago. No one asked her to. She just did, in a way women often did when they turned into wives and mothers. The high desires, the summa cum laude ideals had floated away from her like drifting clouds, with every new child that needed to be pampered, with every opportunity that passed her by, with every little intention that demanded relentless attention, leaving behind a kind of stillness brooding inside her.
She wonders what they see when they look at her, the grannies and grandpas, the mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, her husband’s brother and his new sacred second wife. Do they see the shy silvers that have now appeared above her earlobes? The diligent household hands, chipped and changed? The forty-something found wanting? She wonders, perched on her windowsill throne under the god’s sky, watching his shrinking world go by.
She wonders what they see.
She wonders if they see.