like Paati used to.
“Thanks, Ma.”
My voice falters.
The spicy-sweet scent
makes me miss Paati.
“Not as good as your grandmother’s.”
Ma piles some on a plate.
I taste a spoonful.
“Different.
But also very good.”
Ma gazes at the steam
rising from the cooling mass of semolina.
“I wish your pa and I had been able to work less.
Spend more time with Paati and you.
Your paati was a pillar at the center of our household.
I never saw her death coming.
I let her do too much.
I never saw her age.”
“She wouldn’t acknowledge her age either,” I say.
“She never enjoyed people fussing over her.
She would have hated it if you’d tried to make her rest.
She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Ma’s eyes are tearful
but she smiles as if I’ve given her a gift.
SHARING
Ma’s made so much sojji there’s a huge mound left.
I decide to take some to our neighbors downstairs.
Ringing their doorbell
—after ignoring them all my life—
feels strange.
But Mrs. Subramaniam
welcomes me in
with nothing but friendliness in her tone.
Mr. Subramaniam says, “So nice you’re here, Veda.”
And Shobana’s eyes light up.
In one corner of the room, inside a glass-fronted cupboard,
I see a beautiful old veena, its seven strings
glinting as though someone just oiled them.
“Do you play the veena?” I ask Shobana.
“Yes, want to listen?” Shobana unrolls a straw mat,
places her veena on the ground,
and sits cross-legged in front of it, caressing the strings.
She loves music as I love dance.
“Shobana, perhaps you can practice what you plan to play
for the boy’s family this weekend,” her mother suggests.
She tells me a nice boy
is coming with his family to “see” Shobana
to decide whether she’s a good match,
in as old-fashioned a way as in Paati’s day.
Even Chandra’s family, though traditional enough
to set up a meeting for her sister with a boy they approve of,
will at least give the couple
the freedom to meet alone for some time
and choose whether to marry.
I glance at Shobana’s face.
I don’t know her enough to tell if she’s upset.