Aamie Leth

I. i. After My Mother's Death

Truly, I'm not so woe be me, Hari, I'd said, taking a dramatic pose — the back of my right wrist to my forehead, tippy toes, and body stretched to the right. I was responding to my childhood friend, who had lived next door for as long as I could recall. Haripriya was questioning my decision to live in this decrepit house by myself. My ancestral Mumbai home, rundown as it may seem, had passed the city's inspection and couldn't be bulldozed to let the swanky buildings, which now surrounded it, shine. It remained an unerasable scar on an otherwise plastically youthful urban face .

If my father had had his way, I'd be living in a smart home — an apartment that would stand in a skyscraper right here. Here being a supposedly posh part of Mumbai now. But he could never persuade my mother to sell this house, and he couldn't persuade me either. My mother left this house to me — only me.

Sure, Gopal would have been more than happy if we'd married and moved into his apartment. He adored me. But it was too soon in the relationship, and it didn't feel like the right thing to do.

Hari had warned me: Aam, you realize your home is haunted? She'd confessed that she met the ghost whilst playing ghost hunter.

Didn't Faizal and Munna stop you? I'd asked.

Faizal was the watchman for my house and Munna, the watchman for the gate in Hari's building that opened right next to our house. To me, it felt as if Faizal was a part of our house — I'd known him forever. Munna had been on duty for about 10 years now. This was since Hari's complex was brought down and a building stood in its place. The building with its two gates needed two watchmen. Munna, Faizal's nephew, got the job. Uncle and nephew now guarded the house and building beside each other.

Arreee... they were the ones that asked me to come. They've been seeing a ghost ever since.... She didn't have to complete the sentence. She meant my mother, who had been attached to her childhood home. It made sense. We only came here for vacations — my father; mother; her sister, who moved in with us when her husband died; and I. So it was us, the Leths, and Chitra aunty, as I called her back then.

How did you know it was her? Why didn't you tell me before?

Hari: It... she was wearing a lavender sari and had hair piled in a bun on the top of her head....

Lavender was mother's favorite color, and I'd always been wishful of inheriting the grace and style with which she'd worn her saris. I was still holding on to the almirah filled with her saris, mostly lavender and pink, and from textiles around the country — plush silk threads woven into with artisan zari-work as well as that were beautiful in their ethereal simplicity. All the saris smelled of her.

Hari: I only saw it last Friday. Faizal and Munna were scared out of their wits, and I thought I'd spend the night here to see what they were going on about. It's a ghost, not your mother. You need to understand that Aam. She's not your mother.

Hari didn't understand. I'd lived with my family before I'd left for college, but I could never go anywhere near them now. My father's decision to remarry changed everything. He'd showed that he didn't need his daughter by his side in what should have been difficult times. Being anywhere near my father and his foul new wife, my mother's evil sister, was never an option. Moreover, I could not afford the rent without taking financial help from my father and his Chitra. And, renting an apartment in an expensive city when my mother had left me an entire house would have been foolish. But I'd realized that my mother's wandering ghost meant something was terribly amiss.

She must need to resolve something, Hari.... Weakness thy name is man. Weakness of the flesh. He couldn't wait a little longer? He's worrying about what people will think?! You know what he told me:

"A single man and a single woman cannot live together in this society, in our culture, in our religion! We are not lower castes. I can't throw your aunt out.... She's lived with us for years. Your mother won't like it If I did. And, she'd have wanted this. She knew that this would be how things would go if she died before me."

You tell me, Hari, how in the world does he believe people won't think there was something going on between him and Chitra even when my mother was alive? I don't!! I feel like I can't go on any longer...

Hari: Aam, parents die before their children. You cannot go to pieces over this...

I'm not scared of my mother's ghost, Hari! Also, if it's between homelessness and hauntedness, I'll chose the latter anyday. I can live with ghosts, but I can't live without my dignity. Come over tonight and show me where you saw her.

Hari: But, don't you have that prayer meeting ceremony for her today at your father's?

Yes, and then they will have biryani and drinks to celebrate her life, right. You don't have to come. I'll make some excuse for you. And, I don't plan to stay after the prayer though. You come over and we'll order some food.