A Friend in Need

Sonia was one of the friends I could always count on. She did not like gossiping or spending time in idle conversation but was the first one to reach the spot when help was needed. I was only too eager to offer help when she inquired about getting her insurance money released from the Accounts Office. After tending to her husband who was hospitalized for a serious illness, she would be free to accompany me at 11 a.m. In my earnestness to return the many favours I owed her, I agree to complete my tasks for the morning at home and leave when she was ready to. I called at 11 sharp to tell her that I was ready to leave and would meet her at a point on the way to the Accounts Dept.

“Sorry I had forgotten I had told you that I will be coming along. I am busy with other things”, she informed me without any trace of an apology.

It is bad manners not to keep an appointment but Sonia’s manners, despite her brief sojourn to Britain, were not exactly in keeping with British etiquette. She would continue to engage in long telephonic conversations when you visited her or pick up a magazine to read when she paid you a visit. If you ran into her in a public place, her eyes would be darting about to check who else was around instead of listening to what you were saying. She would show up late for a dinner invitation or not turn up at all without taking the trouble to apologize. But when you dropped in at her place, she would force you to taste the snacks or food she had cooked despite your polite refusals. But everything was forgiven because she was a gem of a person with her heart in the right place. I was a bit annoyed at the derailing of my schedule but decided to let it go. Fifteen minutes later, I had crashed into a running vehicle and was admitted in the hospital with a bad fracture.

The nurse came up with a bunch of papers, “Someone from your family needs to sign this form”. I can’t think of anyone other than Sonia who I can always count on and I can hear her in the room next to mine tending to her husband.

“I never imagined I’ll see you here”, she breezed in with a smile and started chatting with the nurses.

“Well, I don’t get to see you too often. This is the only way I can spend some time with you”.

She would spend most of her day in the hospital to make sure that the two carers did not slip and came home only to sleep, shower and eat. “Would you like to join us for a cup of coffee”?, I had offered to drive her to the neighbourhood café the week before. “No. I don’t like coffee. Where are you?”, I could hear a tinge of envy in her question. I decided to visit her in the hospital instead.

“Where did you buy this dress?” she inquired.

“Oh, in Fabindia. I can get you one when I visit the store again,” I offered. ”What size do you wear?”

“Thank you. I like to have my clothes tailored. Besides, I don’t have the time to hand wash clothes that have been vegetable dyed”.

“OK. I will get you a similar fabric and you can have it tailored”.

An image flashed before my eyes. I was leaving for work clad in my signature Fabindia kurta when I felt a pair of eyes boring into my back. I turned and noticed Sonia in her balcony. “All dressed up? Where are you off to”? “To work, where else?”, I answered. Every morning, as I stepped out of the gate, I could hear a curtain being partially drawn and feel someone staring at me. I could guess it was Sonia from the direction the curtained sound came from and never glanced back.

Another flashback memory returned. I was invited to a wedding in the neighbourhood. It called for the new designer dress I had acquired the summer before.

“Auntie, you are looking nice”, I noticed Sonia when her daughter came and greeted me. Sonia smiled, a smile that was difficult to fathom, and inquired, “Where did you get this from?” She wore a drab woven silk that made her disappear in all the silks that swished with the women walking around.  “I don’t like using make up”, she looks disapproving at the elegantly dressed women.

“Nor do I”. But the wedding called for a tough of lipstick and a line of kohl. I moved on to greet other guests.

Now I was in a blue hospital gown being transported to a speciality hospital in an ambulance. My helplessness invited pity and commiseration. “Get back soon,” Sonia waved me away.

I returned a week later with a cast to a welcome of roses and cake by my staff. Sonia popped in to say hello and the first thing she noticed was the bouquet of flowers, “Who got the roses?” I pointed to my staff and asked her to help herself to the cake. “I am not sure what colours they have added”, she made a face but put a small piece in her mouth when she caught the expression on my face. The following day, a festival, she even consented to join us for dinner. She arrived at 10 p.m. when the piping hot food had gone completely cold. They had sneaked out for street food on their way to our place! “Come and help yourself! Dinner is served”.

She ignored the sumptuous spread and gingerly served herself a couple of papads. “The papad is really crisp”, she pronounced. I urged her to try out the elaborate main course. “I will have only one”, she declared and picked up a paratha. She pretended to relish it with the green chutney declining all other items. “I don’t want to spoil my taste”. Grateful to have a friend home on a festival, I failed to realise that her idea of festive food was fish, fish and fish not green vegetables. She had agreed to stay to dinner because she felt sorry for me.

A week later she called at 9.30 a.m., “I am in the farmers’ market. Do you need any fresh vegetables?”

“Thanks. Don’t take the trouble. My cook picks up whatever I need on her way to work.”

“But I want to see you and need an excuse”, she admitted.

“OK. In that case, you could bring some apples and oranges that we might soon run out of. Provided that you let me pay”, I agreed reluctantly.

Half an hour later, I could hear her plodding up the stairs and she was at the door with a bag of fresh fruits. “Put them away in the fridge”, she was panting.

“Can I get you something to drink? I have a better idea why don’t you join us for breakfast?”, I gestured to the cook to set another place on the table.

“I will have a glass of water”, she gulped down the water and began to make her way out. “I must do the laundry”.

The visits became less frequent, from weekly to fortnightly and monthly subsequently. But they followed the same pattern.

“I am in the market. Do you need anything”, she would call to inquire.

If we were to run out of anything, the cook would make sure to bring it the following day. “No thanks. I don’t really need anything. But do drop in.”  

I had pressed some cash on Sonia that could be used for the purchases she made. One morning, she seemed very excited about cauliflower being sold dirt cheap and I discovered the secret behind the cook’s alacrity to pick up groceries on her way. The cook had been pocketing half the money that she said she had spent. But I couldn’t afford to sack her.

Sonia would pant her way in, hand over a bag of fruits. I would put them away in the fridge and she would leave for some chore waiting at home after her regular glass of water. After a few visits, I stopped asking her to join us for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

On my monthly follow ups with the hospital, however, I would forget and pick up a pizza to celebrate with her. I would call her as we neared our neighbourhood and tell her not to cook. She would look harassed but saunter in an hour later when the pizza had turned completely cold.

We were waiting her to sit down, open the box and start. She inspected the ingredients and gingerly lifted a starter to her mouth before turning to the pizza.

“I hope you like it”, I searched her face for an answer.

“It is all right”, she answered with her mouth full.

A few minutes later, she was silently showing me a video on Youtube showing how Dominos used adulterated cheese that was a health hazard. I felt entitled to a break from our staple roti and vegetables after the positive report from my doctor.

 “Don’t check forwards”, I advised her and handed her a piece of marble cake.

“OK. Give me a small piece”, she made a face. She looked exhausted.

The fatigue that caused deep furrows on her face took my mind to another evening in happier times when we were returning home in a local train after making a major electronic purchase. Sonia and her husband had offered to take me along as I had absolutely no knowledge of gadgets. I offered to hire a cab but they declined my offer. It took us close to five hours to complete the operation and it was almost dinner time. 

I caught Sonia yawning and thought of her having to go back and cook dinner. “Let’s stop at the restaurant and eat there. It’s my treat”, I suggested.

Sonia returned a tired smile. It was her husband who replied, “No. We will go home and eat. She has already cooked dinner.”

I imagined Sonia falling asleep as she rolled out rotis. “Please, let’s pick up some rotis from the restaurant if not a full meal”, I pleaded helplessly.

“How long does it take to roll a few rotis”? He looked in Sonia’s direction for her confirmation. She nodded in assent. “Not long”.

I gave up and returned home armed with my new acquisition.

How do I get her out of the hospital and do normal things like meeting friends, going out for a meal, maybe watch a movie? Knowing that she would decline my invitation with a rude ‘No’, I made another attempt. The local Sikhs were holding a community dinner after a tragic play.

“Why don’t you come for a while? At least for the community meal? Your friends would be there”, I cajoled her.

“No. I will not be coming”, she disconnected the phone. I didn’t persist because I was aware that she had little free time.

Two years passed by with occasional visits at 9.30 p.m. when we would be sitting down to eat. We gave Sonia the choice of joining us for dinner or leaving within a few minutes so that she could go home to eat. She always chose the second.

Finally, the day came when they were ready to pack up and leave. Sonia grudgingly agreed to a farewell dinner.

“Where should we go? Why don’t you kids decide?”, I asked her children for their preferences.

“Ma, why don’t we go to the Chinese restaurant we went to last week?”, the son glanced in her direction to find that she was using eye communication to ask him to keep quiet.

I caught the quick exchange of looks but the daughter didn’t. “No, let’s go to the Indian one on the highway. Remember, the food was delicious”, she piped in.

The siblings were too excited to try to decipher the sign language that their mother was using to send them warning messages. An hour later, we had exhausted the entire list of restaurants that they had been frequenting. “We take her on long drives and eat out to make her get away from the smell of the hospital”, they added by way of explanation.

“Of course, this is what I have been trying to get your mother to do”, I was in complete agreement.

At the end, we had to settle for a home cooked dinner because Sonia pressed her lips together disapprovingly and said they did not like eating out.

A mutual friend had once suggested, “She must go out. She has a life of her own. Take her for a movie”.

I called dutifully expecting to be rebuffed. “There is a very good movie playing this weekend. I called just in case you want to go”?

“Thank you. I know about it”, she responded curtly.

I would religiously inform her if a good film was being screened and would be greeted with a polite thanks. She had more serious issues to sort out than Hindi melodramas, I surmised.

One of the days, the conversation turned to movies. “This was a biopic that you would have enjoyed”, I looked pitifully in Sonia’s direction. “Ma, don’t you remember we watched it in the afternoon show”, the daughter tried to jog her memory. Sonia turned to check the messages on her phone. I checked the date. This was the day I had called to remind her and she had disconnected immediately. They must have been on the way to the cinema hall.

“In the last two years, I have been dragging Ma out every Sunday for a movie”. Sonia had not missed out on a single release. She threw a stern glance at her daughter, “Let’s get going. I need to complete a number of chores”. I waved from the balcony and was puzzled because they were walking in the opposite direction. Soon I learnt that this was the pre-dinner walk mainly to stop for some drinks in the market.

“I need to go grocery shopping. But my driver has not shown up”, I found myself saying the following weekend.

“What if we were to drive you?”

“No, you have a million things to do. Don’t put yourself out”. 

But they insisted on driving me. I had stepped in a mall after a year. I felt uncertain walking among crowds. My head was reeling as I tried to make my way up the ramp to the supermarket. But it was a heady feeling. To be out in the open among so many people.

“I don’t know how to thank you. This is the first time I have come out”, the mother and daughter smiled mysteriously. I offered to buy lunch as a ‘thank you’ gesture. They appeared to be familiar with all the stalls in the food court.  “My regular”, she whispered to the cook spreading the dosa on the big griddle. But I had heard. The daughter wandered away in the direction of the egg rolls. The cooks and the waiters appeared to know them and nodded a greeting. It was a day to remember. Do simple things like picking up stuff from shelves and waiting at the billing counter. It was a long time since I had done it.

Sonia decided to return to their ancestral house once her affairs were settled. Not much of a caller, I didn’t expect to hear from her too often. Whenever I called to check how she was doing, she would either not take the call or disconnect saying she was not in town. When she did call, it was to complain about the crowded roads and pollution in the monstrous city, the difficulty of finding domestic help and new friends. I listened patiently and commiserated with her. When we caught up after a year, I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had made a dozen trips out of the city on all long weekends and public holidays. She expressed her disapproval of her son’s ordering exotic food from the best known eateries for a price that could pay the week’s grocery bills. But when I mentioned some of my favourite haunts, she confessed that they had tried out almost every place in the neighbourhood and beyond.

“Let’s check out my favourite shopping arcade”, I invited her.

“I don’t like wasting money”, I recognized the familiar self-righteous look.  

“You don’t need to shop. We can window shop”, I took a nostalgia trip back to the exclusive stores I had window-shopped in as a student. I walked into a vintage brand store and turned on my heels when I saw the price tags. We came away with a grand purchase from the fashion street after walking down memory lane.

My cab had arrived at the designated stop. But Sonia insisted that we walk up to the cab stand. By the time we returned to the pickup address, the cab had left. I had 45 minutes to reach the airport. Sonia suggested that we take the metro as it was cheaper. I got into the first available cab and promised the cabbie twice the fare if he got me in time for my flight. I waved goodbye to my friend leaving her to make her complicated calculations.