Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Fifteen : In Between Chaklis And Chips

"Lila's mother called me," my mother said, peeking into my dreary room. I had closed all the curtains, ensuring not one ray of light teased me. My room was cool even though it was a scorching 39 degrees outside. The temperature of my room was perfect for an unbridled, afternoon nap.

Turning on my stomach, I grumbled, "I told you before, I'm not going."

"I can't refuse her! This is the fifth time she has asked me. You're going, whether you like it or not. And what's your problem these days? You would have begged me otherwise to go on a trip with your friends. Remember how you were on your knees for asking permission to go to the school picnic?"

"I was stupid then. The greatest enjoyment is here." I tapped on the bed sluggishly, hugging my pillow. Within seconds, the entire room was infiltrated with the barbarous assault of the sun that even my mother who had pulled the curtain apart, grimaced. I rolled over to the corner of the bed and embraced the cold wall like a house lizard.

"Chee." My mother scrunched her nose in disgust at me. Nothing extraordinary. "I'm telling Lila's mother that you're going on that trip. I can't let you sleep like this all day and watch you turn into your father. It's horrifying the you're stuck in Mumbai the entire summer. You have an opportunity to go, yet you prefer wasting away at home over that! And don't give me nonsense about heat and all, you aren't going to die with a bit of sunlight. I can't believe you're the same girl who was on her knees with 104 degrees fever, begging me to permit you to go to the waterpark in winter!"

I was allowed ultimately to my last school picnic to the water park, granted that I never stepped in the water. I recalled sitting on a monoblock chair and gloomily watching Raul splashing water on a giggling Lila. I learnt my lesson then, I wasn't going to repeat that scene especially since they were dating now. It had been five days since we all had met at the food court- five days since I stopped speaking to Lila, ignoring her interminable messages on Whatsapp, but today, she didn't send a single message. Perhaps, she gave up or lost herself in having fun with her boyfriend. Not that I cared.

This sudden plan to go to the trip was a total surprise, I hadn't heard anything about it from Lila. Only her mother had been persistently calling my mother. Apparently, they had a farmhouse in Tarkarli which was coincidentally my native place. This encouraged my mother to coerce me into going so she could send her snacks to our relatives and get mangoes and pickles in return.

"You're going and that's final!" Before she could slam the door shut, I hastily got up and caught it, scurrying after her.

"Baba, I don't want to go to the trip," I whined, seeking help from my clueless father who was sitting on the floor in the living room and packing my mother's chaklis. "It's for one week. Raul and Anthony are coming too. It's only us, kids."

I hoped that the names of the boys would strike a protective chord in my father and propel him to take my side, but he didn't react. He was humming some song and trying his best to delicately place the chaklis in the plastic cover with his fat fingers. He was dressed in a cotton undershirt and blue shorts, his shoulders sagging after a day's work at the office.

"Baba," I called out hopelessly and he looked up from the top of his spectacles. "Did you hear what I said?" He gazed steadily at me, trying to recollect and I sighed. "The trip. To Lila's farmhouse in Tarkarli. I don't want to go."

"What did your mother say?" He went back to packing the chaklis, uninterested.

"She's forcing me to go."

"Tulsi! I can hear you! Stop being such a lazy person or else I'll send you off to some hostel!" the devil in question shouted her empty threats from the kitchen and I could hear something sizzling in hot oil. Soon, she emerged out with a ladle in her hand and placed a hand on her hip. "You'll understand how much we're doing for you when you're sent off! I don't understand why you're making a fuss to not go on this trip. Isn't Lila your . . . What do kids say these days?"

"B-ef-ef," my father quipped with a sly smile.

"Yes, that, isn't Lila your B-ehf-ehf?" she asked impatiently, not waiting for my response. "So you should go. Then you can't complain that we didn't go anywhere this summer."

"I have plans though. I'm going with Jazz to a mall this weekend."

"Jajh will understand. Don't be unreasonable, that's only going to a mall. You can go with her anytime. But this trip, I know that you'll cry later if you don't go."

"If she doesn't want to go, let her be, Savita," my father said, not meeting her eyes.

"She's going to bring home fresh mangoes from my brother's orchard," my mother promised on behalf of me and before I could protest, she gave me the look. "You know, you can't go to our village and not meet your uncle. He'll be happy to receive you even if it's for an evening."

"I didn't say that I'm going on the trip---"

"You are. No arguing now. I don't have time for this nonsense." Exerting her authority, she rushed back to the sizzling thing, probably burnt by now.

"Who did you marry," I murmured, looking at my father whose silence conveyed that he had heard me and chose to be quiet.

Suddenly, my mother hurried towards me with the large ladle in her hand and I jumped back in fear. "What happened to you? Weird girl. Try this banana chip, it's like it's made in Kerala! Oh," she excitedly addressed my father too. "Try this, this." And she proudly handed him a warm chip. "How's it?"

My father and I exchanged a look after popping the salty chips in our mouths and said in unison,

"As good as it's made in Kerala!"

"I feel like I'm in Kerala, it's that good!"

Pleased with our compliments, my mother fought a blush and replied modestly, "I used the best oil. It better do its job."

That was how my mother started selling a new snack and I grudgingly went on a trip- a trip whose journey lasted way beyond its promised one week. A trip whose memories forever haunted me like the ghost of a wronged dead- a dead whose promises, wishes and desires weren't fulfilled. A dead who kept rising above, screaming in the hallways of the brain, demanding a release from its earthly attachments. A dead who was yearning for peace, peace in heaven or hell, it knew not, because it hadn't seen either.

A dead who wanted to be dead and not feel.

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