The Chain of Loners

Doorbell’s ringing.

It will be the paperboy. 

Doorbell’s ringing again.

That will be the milkman. 

It’s ringing and...

Ugh. Just leave the stuff at the door and go away.

Ringing and ringing and ringing...

Mitali woke with a start. She didn’t remember how long ago she had turned off the alarm. She groped for her phone under the pillow to check the time, then rolled herself out of bed at once. 

The bell was still ringing. 

“COMING! COMING!” 

Mitali rushed to the door. Her maid was standing there grinning like she always did. Mitali yawn-smiled back at her and moved aside to let her in. She had in her hands the newspaper, which she dropped on the teapoy and headed to the kitchen with the milk packet that was left at the door earlier by the milkman. 

Mitali gazed up at the clock and made a beeline for the bathroom. She hollered instructions to the maid for what was to be cooked while the bucket filled. The water pressure was frustratingly low, as it always was at this time of the day, when the whole building was bustling with morning activities. There was a dull thud-thud coming from her upstairs neighbour. Wow those twins are a menace. Mitali thought, wistfully.

While in the shower, she could hear the clink-clank of kitchen ware. Her cook-cum-maid, who came daily in the mornings and whom she called Maushi, a general term used to refer to house maids by Mumbaikars, was working away noisily in the kitchen. 

One room away, Maushi was peeling and chopping onions and dabbing away the stinging tears from her eyes. Maushi, whose name was Mangal, felt pity for the poor woman she worked for. That tiny little skeleton of a thing. How she lives alone! She thought idly as the tempering attacked her nose leaving her in a coughing fit. Living all alone in this vast city. No family, no relatives. She only works, works, works. Mangal had started working for Mitali almost a year back. Since then she had grown pretty used to Mitali’s taciturn behaviour as opposed to the matriarchs of other houses of her employment, who ranged from micro-managers to gossip mongers, but most often, both. 

Initially, she thought Mitali was one of those people who just didn’t talk to their maids because they felt it beneath them to talk to a maid. But that wasn’t it. Mitali was not unkind. She was just aloof and quiet and more than anything else, lonely. Mangal gently tossed the washed Poha in the sieve. 

-----

“She is from Dilli, you see.” Mangal was back in her slum, talking to her neighbour Sharda, both sipping on their afternoon tea. “She is so young! Why do these rich people divorce so easily is something I would never understand. Look at us. Well, not you but me. Every day, coming back home is dreadful for me now, isn’t it?” Mangal jerked her head in the direction of her hut behind them.

Sharda watched the slum kids play cricket in the cramped space between the two rows of houses. Mangal was one of the closest friends Sharda had even if she had a good 20 years over Sharda. They sat on the steps of Mangal's house, balancing their Chai-cups on their folded knees. Occasionally, a bike or a cycle would pass by and they would lean back, moving their legs closer avoiding the mud-clad tyres. Every few minutes an aeroplane landed on the runway that stretched right behind their houses, swooping monstrously low over their slum, rumbling so loudly that vibrations ran up their bodies from the ground below. 

“I mean your husband dotes on you and you know all the mohalla women are jealous of you, don’t you?” Mangal winked and elbowed Sharda lightly. Sharda looked at her elder friend and she felt a surge of pity for her. Mangal’s husband was a good-for-nothing drunkard, who beat her and her kids and spent all of Sharda’s hard earned money on drinking and every dirty thing that came with it. 

“And yet, here I am living under the same roof, in this ten by ten feet hut with the same man for 27 years!” Here she paused to laugh mirthlessly. “That poor woman. She has a 10 year old daughter you know? She lives with her baap in Dilli and this one was transferred here all the way to Mumbai. Imagine! Living so far away from your young child! No wonder she is all skin and bones, you know, skin and bones.” Mangal clicked her tongue. 

The door behind them opened and out walked Minal, Mangal’s daughter, just two years younger than Sharda. Sharda’s heart leapt. Minal was the most beautiful girl in their entire mohalla. She had the grace and elegance of someone who did not belong in the slums. She flashed Sharda a smile, a radiant, charming, easy, an all consuming Minal-esque smile. She was in her uniform ready to leave for work. The formal-wear always brought out her best features, appreciative of her shapely but petite body. 

Sharda smiled back, heat rising in her cheeks. She looked away immediately, ashamed and disgusted with herself. She spoke to her toes, “Off to work? Evening shift again?” 

Minal simply nodded and then side-stepping them walked away without another word. Sharda knew this cold shoulder was not directed at her, but rather at Mangal. She tentatively looked at Mangal and felt all the usual things she did, pain for her friend, guilt for having perverted thoughts towards her daughter, disgust with herself and then pity for Minal and Mangal both. 

Mangal turned to her and said, “All those beatings that I bore for my kids, all the times I saved them from getting thrashed..and this is my payment. It used to be so much easier to bear his abuse when Minal was still…” Mangal breathed in shakily. “Am I doing something so wrong by not letting her marry that Musalmaan? What would you do, Sharda? Tell me, if tomorrow your daughter says she wants to marry a Musalmaan will you let her? If her baap comes to know of this he will kill her! Kill her! He really will!”

Sharda had no answer. Mangal was crying softly now and her voice shook as she went on dejectedly. Sharda sat motionless beside her friend, a storm of emotions rising through her chest. She wanted to cry too. She wanted to scream at this very moment. Mangal was now telling her how rare Sharda’s husband was; gentle and sweet and caring. “He’s a keeper you know. He dotes on you and your daughter like no man I have seen. ” Sharda felt sick to her stomach. Not because Mangal was wrong, but because she was so, so right. Vikas was a gem. Sharda loved him a lot. Then why am I still watching HER? 

----

Minal turned round the corner and was out of her mohalla. The smoke and the noise began where the stink of her slum ended. She had walked for just a few minutes, but she was already sweating through her shirt. The traffic was endless. Angry horns went off from near and far, as though they competed for being the loudest. The highway that stretched in front of her seemed to attack her personally somehow with everything it had got. Buses thundered, bikes throttled and rickshaws screeched. The air was thick with dust and smoke and the afternoon sun beat down on everything she saw like it wanted to burn all of it down to a crisp.  

She made her way through the oncoming traffic, holding up her hand, making some cars slow down, others honk at her rudely. She smiled as she reached the other side of the road where a white Wagon R waited for her.  

Minal slipped into the front seat alongside Salim. He had switched off his Uber availability for the next hour. Minal sat quietly, her lips pursed. 

“Nice to meet you too!” Salim said with a slight bow. Minal smirked. Salim, always the charmer. “I’m sorry”, she said. “I am happy, very happy to see you.” 

“Then why the long face?” Salim asked, even though he knew what the reason was.

“It’s Mummy. I do not want to stay mad at her. But I do not want to just talk to her either.”

“I’m telling you. Let me meet her. She will LOVE me as soon as she hears me talk.” Salim grinned. He steered his car to the right and picked up speed. Salim looked ahead in concentration and Minal studied him fondly. His eyes were deep set, and his cheekbones high and that made him look somewhat gaunt. But his smile always reached his eyes and that is what made him so handsome to Minal. His forehead had a darkened patch right in the centre from his routine namazes. He was also slightly balding and that annoyed Minal a little because she never ever wanted a bald husband. “Anything but a takla!” she would tell her mother whenever talks of marriage came up. 

“I am telling you. We should just get married. Mummy is never going to give her blessing and I don't care what Pappa thinks. He doesn’t scare me anymore.” Minal paused and said, “He won’t scare me if I get to live with you and I don’t have to go anywhere near him again.”

Salim shook his head. “Let’s wait for another month, okay? Ya Allah! Look at this chutiya. Fucker! He couldn’t see my left signal or what!” Salim slammed on the horn. 

“Look,” he continued. Let’s wait for a month and let me meet your mother, please. If she meets me she'll know I am not some unemployed scoundrel who is duping her daughter.”

Minal laughed sharply. “Please! That’s not her concern! She doesn’t want me to get married to you because you’re Muslim! You think she cares to see anything past that?”

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the ride. They listened to RJ Malishka yap on the radio instead and smiled occasionally at her little jokes. 

“Here we are.” Salim said softly as he came to a halt outside Big Bazaar. Minal looked at him sullenly and said, “Will you be picking me up tonight?” 

“Yes.” Salim said warmly. 

“OK. I am on food-shelf duty today. I have to train this new-comer to arrange packets according to expiry date. And he is really slow on the uptake. Wish me luck.” Minal pouted then smiled and strapped her purse on to her shoulder before getting out of the car and silently waved a goodbye. 

----

Salim spotted the scars on the back of her hands. Pappa used to burn us with cigarettes when we cried for too long. Mine are still very few. You should see my big brother’s palms and shoulders.  

Salim shuddered at the thought. Abbu, he mouthed silently. Salim was raised by his father, his Abbu. His mother had died giving birth to him. His father did not remarry. His standard reply to anyone who tried to coax him into remarrying was this. I did not take another wife after I married Fatima and I’m not about to start now. 

Salim grew up always being ruefully aware of the absence of a mother. He did not understand why he could not have even a single one when his cousins were fussed upon by their badi and choti mummies. Salim couldn’t quite remember why but he used to think that you get to buy an Ammi or multiple Ammis in Crawford market, somewhere close to his Abbu’s fabric store and Abbu refused to get one for him just like he refused everything else because Abbu’s pocket was always empty. 

Salim was again halted at another signal as he smiled to himself at the memory of how Abbu used to show him the pocket of his Pathani and allowed him to dig inside with his small hand and ask him if he found anything. When he didn't, Abbu said, “See? I told you! Nothing in my pocket, so we can’t buy that. Now how about I give you a kiss instead?” 

Abbu was a wonderful father. Abbu is a wonderful father, only now he was lying in KEM, occupying that ICU bed for the last 2 months. He had a stroke one day, just like that. One minute he was laughing at something Salim said and the other he was collapsing. He couldn’t even finish his “Ya Allah.” 

A short Ping! allerted Salim of a new ride request, which he accepted and set off for the pick up point. Salim drove through the evening traffic till nightfall, picking and dropping passengers, always with a polite “Hello” and “Thank you”. After tirelessly alternating between the clutch and brake, clutch and brake he decided to turn off his Uber access for the day and start for Big Bazaar.

Ping! Salim accepted the new request telling himself this would be his final one today. It was halfway to his destination anyway and Minal would wait for a few minutes in case he got late. He quickly messaged her telling her to do so. 

“Hello Ma’am,” Salim said politely as a slim, sharply dressed woman in her forties entered his car. “Hello.” She replied. The roads were not empty by any means but the traffic was moving steadily.

----

Minal looked at her watch as her stomach gave a low growl. It was nearly 10 PM, six hours since she had eaten anything. Veda must be in bed by now. She wanted to message her ex-husband and ask him if she could speak to her daughter over the phone now in case she was still awake. Through the whole ride, she typed and deleted her messages - requesting, demanding, pleading, negotiating. Ultimately she gave up, leaned back and closed her eyes. Before long, she was thanking the driver for the ride. 

By the time she entered her apartment, she had lost her appetite. She flung her purse on the sofa and went into the kitchen to fetch some water. She drank beer instead. She flicked through TV channels, not staying on any for more than a couple of minutes. She knew she was not going to fall asleep tonight. But she did. 

----

Doorbell’s ringing.

It will be the paperboy. 

Doorbell’s ringing again.

That will be the milkman. 

It’s ringing and…

It’s my phone!

Mitali woke with a start. She looked around the room and realised she had fallen asleep on the sofa. She blinked herself awake and wiped the drool off her lips. Grabbing her purse from the foot of the sofa she quickly pulled her phone out. 

Maushi, the screen told her. 

“Hello?”

“Didi” Maushi said. 

“Ha, yes? Tell me.”

“I-I can’t, can’t come today. I..”

“Okay, okay. Are you unwell? Your voice sounds really…”

“I am...my neighbour...she...Sharda...she hanged herself last night.”

Mitali’s heart raced. “Are...are you okay?” She asked after a bit of consideration. 

Maushi didn’t say. “She was just 24. Just two years older than my daughter. She was like my…” 

Mitali breathed in heavily. “Listen, Maushi. You take your leave today. You do what...you need to. Take as much time as you need.”

There was silence for a while and then, the phone went dead.