Mother, Effusions , and Salt

The sterility of the kitchen will always mark the absence of their mother, at least for them. There was something unexplainable about the sweet spicy smell wafting from the kitchen every morning, spreading from room to room, filling the home with a sort of life-affirmation. It gave one an unconscious hope that someone was there… This house, with its kitchen and rooms rusted in time, still echoes distant laughter. When they lived here decades ago, the place didn’t appear as glorious as it does now. “Was it any different from what it is now?” asks the younger of the two. Nostalgia must be some trick of the mind.

Both brothers, who are now living separate lives in separate cities, had decided to return home, together again, if only for a day, to rejoice in the past. So here they are in the kitchen, trying to prepare a recipe just the way mother did… Mother.

“It was then that she had told me ‘in a year or so your brother will also leave this house’. I mean, it is understandable. You were about to finish your graduation. She had spent her life raising us…”
“And with us taking charge of our own lives, she was left with no purpose at all?” interrupted the younger one.
“That’s what I think.”
“But she was happy, wasn’t she?”
“It’s not about her happiness; yes, it’s about that too. But I wonder… have we ever thought of her as just another ordinary human being, with human desires and doubts like everyone else… like, did she ever seek ambition? Did she ever regret the life she had chosen? We always felt secure in her presence, as if she had all the answers. It was so comforting. If I ever miss anything real bad, it is that expression of hers. That all-knowing, everything-will-be-fine expression! How did she do that? ... Do we even know her?”

Mothers are mysterious and sometimes sorrowful, according to the elder brother. The younger one calls him too emotional for his own good. To prepare a recipe just the way mother did is a difficult task. Because the taste and aroma of her food depended not only on the spices, the pastes, and the gravy she prepared; it also depended on her moods, her emotions, her whole-hearted acceptance of the kitchen as a workshop, and the painterly skills with which she created food that might have given her artistic joy, who knows? To prepare food like her required to be like her.

“It must be God…” begins the elder one.
“Is that enough?”
“A little bit more, add some lime juice too. That’s it.”
“You know it too well.”
“You were lazy enough to learn, then.” They smile quietly. “By the way, this will taste best with some chavanu sprinkled over it!”
“What were you saying about God?”
“I just think it was her belief in God that kept her hinged.”
“And with all your doubts you don’t share her faith!” the younger one says in a jovial, if sarcastic, tone, knowing too well that these effusions are not new; they have been thrown at him time and again, whenever they are on their own. “Why this urge, brother?” he continues, “why this urge to understand her? We don’t understand so many things.”
“She was mother!” replies the elder one, and adds, “It’s not that these questions are tormenting me. I just want to know.”
“Let her be mysterious, as I always tell you. Let her evade your understanding forever. Okay, let us do what we are here for. Let us prepare this dish.”

They are midway through their preparation. But they are not alone. Somewhere in time, mother is also preparing the same dish, in the same kitchen, only a little younger. She is adding turmeric. So are they. She has added a clove of garlic. So have they. She is stirring. So are they. She leans over and smells the aroma. So do them. Onion by onion, clove by clove, sugar by sugar, pepper by pepper they are trying to catch up with her. All they have to do is to surrender and stop inquiring. A symphony is not played so that one can understand; it is to be felt.

Then, as if by chance, they acquire the same gestures and emotions that mother is having. The steam from the pan smells familiar. Mother and children are almost at the same stage, though separated in time; the color, the smell, the taste of both the preparations ring out in accordance. A moment in the past and a moment in the present resonate in unity: a little pattern of order is formed in the eternal chaos of space and time. It is as if everything is clear, the way a newborn child looks at the universe – not with doubt, but with marvel. Oh! It was so simple, and we spend ages trying to understand. But before they can comprehend it, before they can put it in words, they lose it. How long it lasted is an unnecessary question. It was too fragile for words to capture.

In the distant kitchen mother turns back and smiles at both the brothers sitting at the dining table, scribbling in their maths journals as if by compulsion, waiting for the food to be prepared. The food is ready. They start eating. But the taste and smell of the dishes are not the same anymore.

“Something is missing, isn’t it?” asks the elder brother.
“Salt, maybe?”

The Memory of Eden

You are observing a shelf in the British council library. You slide some books here and there and notice a face – a pretty face on the other side of the shelf. It’s a girl whose big watery eyes are moving from one book to another. She is tardily breathing with her small nose. You like the way she is breathing. She softly bites her lower lip and rolls back both her lips to moisten them, and pouts them back, as they were, pink and inviting. Hair firmly tied, with her forehead shining, she has the kind of face you’d like to keep looking at. It can be called beautiful but that would not explain it. It is intriguing. She picks up some book, shuffles few pages, halts at a particular page, and after some time gives a faint, though noticeable, smile. She has dimples. You have always loved dimples. Before long, you are filled with an urge to caress those cheeks real gently. That would feel really nice, isn't it? But you quickly discard that thought. That's how you've been raised.

You are watching her unaware of anything else in the world. ‘She is lovely’, you have told yourself a thousand times by now. And suddenly she glances at you. You feel shattered, and pretend to read the back cover of Hawkins’ On the shoulder of giants as if it interests you. But don’t worry, she’s not angry. Every female admires it: a pair of male eyes fixed on her face. But the stares of admiration should submit to an interval - too long a stare can be disturbing for anyone.

Your heart has picked the pace. You are excited. You try looking at her again putting Hawkins aside. But she’s no more in the science section. You search for her like the players of the game search for perfection. At last you find her in the History section. You go near her and pick Edward Gibbon. She notices you and gives you a look; a very strange look that can never be interpreted. Maybe, she is thinking that only a fool will read about the fall of Rome in the times of random terror attacks and global economic crash. But you are not really bothered about what goes inside her head. Not yet.

You try to talk to her. You really want to. But as you prepare your mouth to produce audible words, something holds you back. Maybe it is the superego (a feeling that some big brother is wathcing and you should abide by his rules) or maybe it is some fear – some unknown fear concerning the future.

“Is this the girl I have been waiting for?”
-- Oh Come on! Don’t think this far.
“But... I will loose this part of me... the lonely wanderings... it is my urge to be complete with some girl that keeps me excited...”
-- At least talk. You do want to, don’t you?
“I do... but it’s a matter of choice... the pleasure of love is acute in the span between the yearning for ‘the other’ and actually finding someone... it is the between that I don’t want to loose... it lasts only for a sort while, this thing called love... all then remains is need”
-- This is an outsider's view. The view is quite different from the inside.
“Maybe, but I don’t know what to talk... what can you possibly talk about with a stranger... you know, I think I can wait a bit more... I can...”
-- Stop talking nonsense, will you? There’s no harm in talking. Everybody does that. Take it as a simple affair of two people conversing. It can be, in fact, nothing more than that.
"Yes, but where to begin?"
-- Just start and you'll know. People talk. It's a fact of life.
“I know. But I am not sure…”
-- Congrats! She left. Now spend this beautiful evening with Gibbon.

You stand there still unaware of what just happened. Why desires come into play? Okay. Don’t worry about the girl now. You haven’t lost anything. Or have you? Now you have all the time you want. Select a nice book for this weekend. Sadly you shuffle different books in different sections of the library...

Naipaul’s Loss of El Dorado, Hemingway’s Men without Women, Barrow’s Impossibility, Green’s Lawless Roads, Maugham’s Of human bondage, Sullivan’s Labyrinth of desires, Brunton’s Search in secret... What! Are you upset? Can’t choose anything? Oh! Come come, it's ok now... Narayan’s Vendor of sweets, Nietzsche’s Human, all too Human, Gould’s Hedgehog... And, as usual, you are not able to decide which book you want to read. You decide to pick up any book and leave. So, you pick up the one lying besides Gray’s anatomy.

You catch bus number 11G and go directly to Broadway, with a regular feeling of incompleteness in your heart. Like every other day you couldn’t choose a book, couldn’t talk to a girl. You couldn’t decide what you want.

At night you dwell into your dream world, where you have an archetypal book (the one in which all possible knowledge is contained, wherein not a single idea is missed. All that is thought by all possible human beings is in that book) and you have your archetypal girl – the way you want her: color of her eyes, length of her hair, smoothness of her skin, the fragrance of her breath, the throb in her voice, the way she turns, the way she sits, the way she looks at you, the way her hair fall on her forehead, the way she reacts to your jokes, the span of her boredom, the movement of her eyebrows when she frowns, the way her lips part when she speaks – her every gesture, her every desire, her every joy, even her sorrows are what you have decided. Every night you sleep embraced in this beautiful thought of yours. And every night you fail to notice that you are always trying to map the ideal over the real.

Maybe, it’s not only your problem. Maybe, this problem comes in hereditary from one man to the other. Maybe it is not rooted in you, but it is rooted deep inside the collective unconsciousness of humankind. It is the collective idea of some perfection that never was. Isn't it from this womb that all the miseries are born? Maybe, all the dreamers are endlessly trying to regain this never-existing perfection. Be it knowledge or beauty, they are never satisfied. And what do they get in the end? In search of the infinite, they end up in void.

Next day you go to the library again...