A Place Of One’s Own

I stood in front of the gate and checked the address. The house number, the street number … they were all correct. But I didn’t recognise the place.

Had I forgotten my own address?

I don’t know how long I remained there, disoriented, before Lalitha, came running out of the house. ‘Prasad, why are you standing there? What’s happened?’ She grabbed the bag of vegetables from my grasp, and led me firmly into the compound.

I looked at Lalitha. Like me, she too was showing signs of age. Despite the weekly application of hair dye, the glint of silver amidst the black made it obvious that she was getting older. She might have been two years younger than I was, but her skin had already begun to wrinkle.

We entered the compound and moved towards the door. I looked up at the house, a magnificent two-level monster of a construction. We’d been living here for twelve years. But in the last few days, my mind had turned to mush with the galaxy of concerns that spiralled round and round in my head.

Lalitha drew me inside, and sat me down on the sofa. She switched on the TV, pressed the remote into my hand, and went into the kitchen to get me a cup of tea. The number of Covid deaths scrolled on the screen—a regular feature now. I was overcome with panic, like an orphan who was realising he was alone. My distress must have been visible. When Lalitha came in, tea tray in one hand, she switched off the TV. ‘Here,’ she gestured. ‘This one on the left. It’s sugarless.’ She took the other and sat down in the chair next to mine.

‘What happened, Prasad?’ she asked. ‘Were you thinking of Ananthu? Has anything come of the search? Do you have any news?’

‘Not really. There was a call from the village. Narayanappa’s wife from the house at the end of our lane apparently saw Ananthu. She said he hung around near our house for a while.’

‘Did she speak to him? Is he still in the village?’.

‘I don’t really know. I should have gone there and asked – the people who are renting our place now are the ones who moved in twelve years ago when we left. But Ananthu hasn’t been seen again, I am told.

‘This virus has turned the whole nation inside out. Where are we going to look for Ananthu? Is he in difficulty? Does he have a place to live? We don’t know anything. If it was a different time, I wouldn’t be going so crazy with worry. But now with people afraid to come out on the streets, I feel so troubled, Lalitha.’

‘Hmm … let’s keep the search going. Don’t worry so much,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go lie down for a bit. I’ll get the tiffin ready,’ She stepped back into the kitchen.

I went to our room, and had a bath, put on a baggy white t-shirt—a favourite—and a pair of black pyjamas and lay down.

As soon as I shut my eyes, the village house appeared before me. The railway colony next to the house, the goods trains and the passenger trains running back and forth with their typical rhythmic beat, the two thorny acacias on either side of the entrance to the village, the shrubby congress-grass, the wild grasses, the pigs grunting here and there, the two coconut trees in front of the house, the red tiles, the armchairs, the cot, the plastic flowers above the TV, the awards I had won displayed in the small wooden showcase, the cool breeze of the morning, the sitaphal tree planted in the backyard, the mehendi shrubs, the tulsi, the hibiscus, the curry leaf tree, the washing stone, the clotheslines, the wide open sky that was visible if one tilted one’s head up, the water that flowed through the taps once in three days, the hose pipes that snaked all over the compound, the iron gate, the Omni van parked in front, the yellow dust-covered tarpaulin draped over the van, the slatted bamboo awning, Appa and Amma cursing the hot breeze as they relaxed in the armchairs, the gossip from the lane, the bed on which Ananthu and I would lie as children as Amma told us stories, the daasarapada—those devotional songs that Amma would hum to herself … I remembered all of these things. Every sound distinct, the images moving and sliding like photographs from an album that had spilled out and scattered. I remembered it all, but could not make any sense of it. It was as if someone had laid out the grid for a morning rangoli in the courtyard, but forgotten to draw the lines; somehow I simply could not find the pattern in the grid of dots. That’s what our lives – perhaps everyone’s lives – seemed like. At first glance, an ordinary, straightforward, middle-class family—but when Ananthu suddenly disappeared, was that truth still hold? If he had stayed, would everything have been alright? Perhaps not.

Ananthu had grown up in exactly the same way as me. One day, he said he would go for a stroll for some fresh air after his evening meal, and never came back. The train from our town to Bangalore went past our house, just around that time. Appa and I were standing outside then, and the breeze swished through the coconut fronds and passed over us. We looked up at the sky, counting the stars. Amma was inside, watching a serial on TV. It was past ten. Around eleven, when Ananthu didn’t return, Amma began to cry.

We phoned all his friends. Our town did not sleep that night. The next day we filed a police complaint. About a week later, one of Appa’s friends said that they had seen Ananthu at the railway station the day he disappeared.

From that day on, we trembled whenever we heard the rhythmic dhadal, dhadal of the train.

From that day on, Amma and Appa sat every night in their armchairs at half past ten to watch the Bangalore train go by. Amma’s eyes would fill with tears as she said to Appa, ‘Look, look, Ananthu sat in this very train and went past our house.’

The following year, I went to Dharwad to study. I used to phone home every day at half past ten to wish my parents good night, and would disconnect only after hearing the train go by. Everything else had changed very quickly but we always spoke at exactly the same time—half past ten. Whenever we travelled after that, Appa, Amma and I only ever took the train; and although we could never say it out loud, we secretly hoped that one day we would find Ananthu.

After finishing my engineering degree in Hubbali, I got a well-paying job, wandered through America and England. I met Lalitha, and we fell in love. When I told Appa and Amma I wanted to marry Lalitha, they agreed at once without asking any questions; I wondered if they were afraid that the mistakes they’d made with Ananthu would repeat themselves. Lalitha and I moved to Bangalore, to a rented house at first, and later built the big house we lived in now.

I told Amma that we had constructed enough rooms for her and Appa, for Lalitha, and for the little ones who would be born in the future.

‘You have an extra room, I hope. In case someone comes to stay,’ Amma said.

That someone could only be Ananthu. We both knew that.

Lalitha was expecting at the time of the house-warming ceremony. Amma and Appa came from the village, but refused to stay. ‘We are so much more at ease in the village, you stay here comfortably’ they said. ‘But why not have Lalitha’s confinement in the village? We’ll take her with us. You come over by train for the birth week.’

At Majestic Railway Station, in their seats waiting for the train to depart, Appa and Amma gave hundreds and hundreds of rupees to the Mangalamukhi, the transwoman, who came by asking for alms. Amma circled her head with her palm, a gesture to cast off the evil eye.

I was standing outside the carriage, watching, and felt sorrow in my heart.

#

Three years after Arjun was born, Amma became bedridden. Lalitha served her tirelessly, washing and scrubbing with more care almost than a daughter.

Before she passed away, Amma blessed her grandson, running her palm over his head. She drew me close and said, with great difficulty, ‘Ananthu,’ as her eyes filled with tears. Her eyelids dropped, and I knew she was thinking of Ananthu as she left this world. Just then, the train went past our house at its scheduled time, dhadal, dhadal.

The following morning, all our relatives arrived. Appa seemed to have collapsed into the depths of a crater. Just when the bier with Amma’s body was to be lifted, Ananthu appeared. He had come to see her face for the last time.

It was practically impossible to recognise him. He bore the look of the city, of Bangalore: light blue churidhar set, long hair tied back, two bangles on the right arm, watch on the left wrist, pale pink lipstick, perfume emanating from his body – they all made him seem better than before. As if he had found the true Ananthu. His face glowed; I wondered if he was running a beauty parlour. Even in the atmosphere of mourning that pervaded the home, my head was filled with these thoughts.

When he arrived as a she, some aversion rose within me. I looked at Appa. It seemed as if he felt the same way. Ananthu came and sat in front of our mother for a few minutes. He then rose, placed a kiss on her forehead, did a namaskara at her feet, and left.

Appa and I watched for a few seconds as he faded from sight. I still don’t know why neither of us stopped him or, at least, spoke to him.

As soon as Ananthu left, Appa moved next to Amma and cried out in sorrow, ‘Saroja … Ananthu is leaving. Come and tell him not to go, Saroja.’ Lalitha, waiting quietly in the back, rose up. Later, I learnt that she had gone to the corner of our lane, and stood there for ten minutes watching for Ananthu. She returned alone.

When he was in the ninth standard, Ananthu was teased mercilessly. They would use various homophobic terms for him like ‘number nine’ that suggestively described gay coupling, and he would be crushed. When they got going, I would behave as if he wasn’t my younger brother.

Just before he ran off, the PT master had mocked him, ‘Don’t walk like a girl. Like some floozy? You’re a bad omen, yes, that’s what you are.’

I was in the tenth standard then. Even if I felt like joining in the laughter for a second, in the next instant, I wanted to beat the PT master with the very rod he used to discipline us. But the PT master had made me captain of the volleyball, throwball and kho-kho teams. I did not want to jeopardise my position, so I didn’t dare speak up.

I didn’t tell anyone at home what had happened. My parents, without news of any trouble, assumed it was one of those rare days when they did not have to deal with problems involving Ananthu.

That same evening, everyone on the playground jeered at him and exploded with laughter.

And that very night, he stole some money and disappeared.

Without a trace.

These days, I wonder whether could have done more to look for him. On Ugadi, after he left, we made enough sweet hollige for the entire household, and gorged ourselves silly. I don’t know why we did that. To this day, I haven’t understood my parents. I realise that in fact, nobody understands anybody. We only try.

A year after Amma passed away, Appa died invoking Ananthu with his last breath, just as she had done. Thinking that Ananthu might come to see Appa too, we waited for a long time. Lalitha walked up and down to the corner of the lane again and again. But Ananthu did not come.

Appa hung onto life for a long time. Before he breathed his last, he said to me, with great difficulty, ‘Make sure to give Ananthu his share of the legacy, Prasad.’ He had written a will to that effect as well.

That day, Lalitha, Arjun and I felt we had been left orphaned. Lalitha and I were sitting in the armchairs that my parents used to sit in, when the train went by with its customary rhythm. A little while after it passed, I turned to her. ‘However much care I took of Amma and Appa, in the end they died remembering only Ananthu. Was I nothing to them, Lalitha?’ I wept. ‘Why did Ananthu, who left and went away, matter the most?’

She did not answer.

If Ananthu hadn’t left, would they have thought about me with same intensity as they did him in their last days?

The next morning, as Lalitha brought me my tea, she said, ‘Prasad, remember when we were building the new house, the construction workers were preparing to leave? All together, at the same time? Almost as if they were joining a riot or something. The house was only half-finished. You asked them not to go. You had them stay in the house for over three months, like it was their own. They eventually left only after the work was completed. You paid them their salaries even when they were not working. Your parents were so proud of that. I was, too. They did not say it out loud, Prasad. You were their good son. There was nothing they needed to say to you. When you have the strength to cope with everything, you aren’t always shown affection.’

She handed me a cup of hot tea. I held it between my palms. The heat was comforting.

#

Now where were we to search for Ananthu? Bangalore? We got word that he had been spotted in Huligi over the past two days. Perhaps, as I had wondered earlier, he worked in a beauty parlour. Just as I was spiralling into thinking of new ways to reach him, Lalitha called me – it was time for tiffin.

She had laid out puffed rice, nicely seasoned, and potato bajjis on the dining table. I was reminded of Bellary. The taste of Amma’s cooking was now in Lalitha’s food. When Arjun came during the holidays, he just gobbled up what was offered. I missed him – he was in the hostel, my son.

When I was in college, the cot from the hostel and a cupboard for books and clothes were all that I called my own. That tiny space was my world. One couldn’t count the number of people who’d also passed through that small space in the hostel. Later, I ended up building such a big house, bought a car – all for whom? Appa and Amma had left this world and the house in the village was rented out. Arjun had a cot, six feet by three, a cupboard to store his clothes, space to study and work in his room in the hostel. He too would get a job and build the nest of his dreams. So would his son, and then his … it seemed that life was an endless cycle of repetition. That Ananthu had escaped this cycle, caused a small stab of jealousy within me from time to time.

Lalitha and I were the only ones in the house now. Our voices echoed around us. Did we need this circus? Appa and Amma lay happily in the earth, Arjun on the hostel cot, us in this house. Someone else lay in the village home, rented out now. This house began to feel like it was not ours.

I thought about finding Ananthu and about bringing him home, here, to this house. Would Lalitha accept it? We didn’t even know who Ananthu was now, what his name was?

Bringing Ananthu back did not mean only bringing Ananthu back: it also meant bringing back and dealing with all his different aspects – his irritability, tantrums, pettiness, largesse, ego, compassion, love, friends, connections – they would all return too. Did we have room for all that in our world? While it seemed doable at this moment, would it be acceptable to Arjun in the future? I have to admit though; we delude ourselves that we are the only ones with experience of the world. But kids these days are aware of everything.

Did we have the right to build a house for Ananthu? Was there room for us in his world? What if we gave him the village house? No no no! The village had not grown generous enough to coexist with the likes of Ananthu. The city was a better place for him.

We could leave this house to him, and move to the village. Every evening, Lalitha and I could sit in the two armchairs. In the morning, we would sip tea sitting on the Kadapa slab in the grass in the backyard with the sitaphal tree, the hibiscus bush, and the tulsi plants around us. We could live happily in our lane. How nice that would be!

The truth was, however much we raged against the city, it was the city that nurtured Ananthu and his kind. Not the village. It was this house that we had to give him. My son was far away in a hostel. Appa and Amma were at peace. But where was Ananthu? He was the only one missing. Were we likely to meet again in this time of misery? Perhaps we would only encounter each other again in the mud—where everyone ultimately went. Would Ananthu ever be found? What if he wasn’t? When questions like this whirled through my mind, I felt as if my head would explode. I asked Lalitha for some coffee and sat down on the sofa. The phone rang. It was Narayana from the village.

‘I saw him near the village house!’ he exclaimed. ‘I recognised him from when he had shown up at Sarojamma’s funeral. I spoke to him. He asked for your number. I’ve given it to him. At first, I thought I might put him on the train tonight. But I don’t know when the lockdown may happen again, so I told him to leave immediately. There are any number of buses from Hospet to Bangalore, I told him, and gave him a little money for his expenses. I’ve sent him off. He might arrive in the evening.’

I wept loudly as I exlaimed, ‘Thanks Narayana.’

My headache magically disappeared. A burst of energy filled me. I gave Lalitha the news, and said I would go to buy some chicken before the shops closed. Childhood memories crowded in and I recalled how, when we were young, I would kick down the sandcastles that Ananthu had built; how he would sometimes drape one of Amma’s towels across his chest like a sari pallu and prance around.

He was always Amma’s favourite, even though she would scold and nag him. Appa should not have acted so cruelly, whatever the situation had been. It is right that Ananthu comes to us – at least, till this Corona is done, we shouldn’t send him anywhere, I thought to myself.

I stepped out happily.

It was six thirty in the evening. Lalitha and I sat sipping coffee and waiting. The doorbell rang. Lalitha rose to open the door. I followed closely behind.

The door opened. There was Ananthu. It took us a moment to believe our eyes. Like us, he too had aged. The image I had of Ananthu was of the person who had come to Amma’s funeral. I hadn’t thought about what he would look like now. With a scarf around the head, a mask across the face, a dark green sari and red bangles, a bag in hand, the tikki on the forehead a little smudged – he was a woman. I had no idea what to call Ananthu anymore.

‘Come … come in,’ Lalitha said.

‘But first, show me the bathroom, let me wash up’ Ananthu said, and rinsed her hands and feet before coming to sit with us. Lalitha brought us hot tea. ‘Your brother has often told me that you absolutely love tea. Is it to your taste? It is great you are here. Every day the number of cases is rising. Stay here till the Corona goes away.’ Lalitha chatted easily, as if to a close familiar friend. This trait of hers always made me recognise my own shortcomings. I was still in my head, wondering what to say – I couldn’t connect with Ananthu yet, even though the atmosphere was relaxed, thanks to Lalitha. If not for her, we would probably not have been able to speak without exploding.

Ananthu sipped his tea. His eyes filled with tears. ‘Are you well, dear brother?’

I struggled to control my emotions, I could barely manage to respond with a muffled, ‘Hmm.’ There was so much to say. So many questions. Finally, I blurted out, ‘What should I call you?’

‘Prasad…’ Lalitha said, frowning.

‘No Lalitha, I want to know what name will please him. It is the one we should use. That is what I mean,’ I said.

‘Anu…’ Ananthu said. Anu would be easy to use, I thought.

Rising to her feet, Lalitha went to the altar to light the lamp.

It seemed like the right moment to speak. ‘When Appa died, we waited so long for you,’ I said.

‘Before Amma died, I experienced a strange discomfort in my gut. I felt it again, a year later. But even though I felt that it meant that Appa might have died, I did not have the strength to come.’

‘If you had never left, things would have been so much better. We could never get over the fact that you were gone. Every conversation would begin with you and end with you. You became the story that entranced us always. It would have been best, if you had stayed at home…’ The words burst forth, however much I did not want them to.

‘If I hadn’t left the house that day, Appa and Amma would not have survived this long. Or I might not have survived.’ As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears, her nostrils trembled, her body shuddered. ‘Let me tell you the real truth. If I had stayed one more day, I would have killed Appa.’

‘I get it…’ Did I really get it, though?

‘Where were you all this time?’ I asked.

‘We all hope to have a place of our own, brother, and I tried hard to make that happen. I tried to start a beauty parlour, but it didn’t work out. Now, with Corona, everything is a mess. I had dreamt of building a house of my own too. Will that ever come true? All I have been able to do since I left home, is wander from here to there with curses shackled to my legs.’

‘Stay here, in this house. However large a house one builds, in the end, the only space one needs is just the six feet by three feet in which one will eventually lie. We delude ourselves into thinking this earth is ours.’

‘Easy for you to say! You have built a really big house. Whereas people like me, we are only just circling the issues on the first step.’

‘Anu … you have a built a home within yourself. Accept that.

‘Now, tell me, why have you tied a kerchief around your head that way?’

Her eyes filled with tears and she said, ‘I need a wig, brother, will you get me one? My hair is shedding. I took on this body of a woman with love. Now look— the old genetic problem has caught up with me. My hair is all falling out. You are a son, a male child. It’s fine for you. I am so embarrassed. And now I have no money … will you get me one?’

‘Of course! Of course I will. You are here – now tell me, did you have any problems finding the house?’

‘Narayana wrote down the directions correctly. I arrived in the next street and asked someone—they directed me.’

‘Yes … these days all the houses look alike to me, Anu. Why, just the other day…’

Lalitha, who had lit the lamp, came in and said, as if changing the subject, ‘Come dear girl, let me show you your room.’

‘Did you make chicken? The aroma … wow, it’s fabulous,’ Anu said, following Lalitha.

‘Yes, I did. As soon as your brother knew you were coming, he headed out, first thing in the morning to shop, and had me make chicken saaru,’ she said, climbing up the steps.

Anu followed her. I climbed behind the two of them slowly, one step at a time. It felt as if the three of us were moving in unison, in one clean line.