A short story written Thirty Two years ago
Helping my aunt clean her house some time ago, I came across some old magazines and books which she didn’t need. Amongst these was a yellow tattered copy of a Woman’s Era magazine dated January second 1984. Calculating that’s 32 years ago!! Anyway, reading the magazine I came across a short story named “An Eye Opener” by Rukmini Parthasarathy. A story which I loved every bit and felt would be a waste to remain forgotten in an old yellowed tattered magazine…
An Eye Opener
GOWRI READ her check-list again. Fine. She had bought all that she had wanted…cakes and jelly for the girls…a perfume bottle each…some fruits and vegetables…some cosmetics for herself… She lifted her baskets and was about to leave the Super Bazaar when a voice behind her made her stop and turn- “Hello, Gowri”.
She recognized the lady who had addressed her. Her Husband’s colleagues wife. Besides her was another lady, another colleague’s wife.
“Oh Hello?”said Gowri smiling. “Shopping?”. “Yes,the girls are home for the holidays!” said Gowri, a hint of pride in her voice.
“How are they liking their hostel?” “Very well they tell me…”
The conversation sagged at this stage. Gowri was aware of the intensely jealous scrutiny to which the two women were subjecting her. She felt a bit embarrassed,but somehow proud and happy too. Suddenly one of them said, “How old are your daughters?”
“Nineteen and seventeen,”said Gowri.
“And you look eighteen!”
Laughter broke out all around. Gowri flushed self-consciously…of course, the comment was an exaggeration, but it was nevertheless a compliment, albeit a grudging one.
“Now, talking seriously, Gowri, how do manage to look so young? Do you spend half the day in a beauty parlor?”
“Naturally not…it’s a gift from the Almighty!” said Gowri trying to sound natural and jovial…but inside she was fuming. “How jealous can these two women get? They are getting fatter and cruder day by day…beauty parlor, indeed?”
“Okay, I’ll have to push off now. Come home sometime, will you?” Gowri said and hurried off with her baskets…Really, what jealousy! She must tell her daughters about it…
SHE was panting slightly when she reached home. She realized that these shopping sprees with heavy loaded baskets were tiring these days; but she brushed aside the realization quickly. Tiring her? Only old people get tired so easily!
Asha and Usha were playing chess with each other. They looked at her and her baskets. “Apples!” said Asha and took a basket away from her mother’s hands. “May we have some, Ma?”
“Sure, but wash them first” said Gowri, as she sat under the breeze of the fan. It felt good to sit down and ease her legs and hands. Meanwhile, she noticed that Usha’s was fixed on her face.It was a sort of careful scrutiny, but somehow angry and impatient in its overtones.
“You look as if you have run a mile… Surely you are aging fast!” said Usha. There was curtness in her voice, cold cruelty which somehow did not match the innocence of that seventeen-year-old face.
“Really? I only wish you had listened to what two of my friends said just a while ago!” said Gowri.
“What did they say?” asked Usha
“They must have said that you were getting younger and younger!” said Asha, tossing an apple to her sister and biting into hers.
“Or that you look like glamorous cinema star or something equally silly and ridiculous” said Usha, hazarding guesses.
Suddenly, in dawned on Gowri that her youthful looks did not exactly please her daughters. She felt decidedly uneasy… “Oh, it’s probably nothing” she consoled herself .“The girls are probably under some sort of strain. After all, the holidays are nearing an end and the hostel grind will start soon.”
Gowri’s uneasiness received a further shock a few days later.
Mother and daughters were to attend a wedding reception. The bridegroom’s father was a close family friend.
Gowri, as was her habit, dressed very carefully. She applied a thick layer of cream to her face and rubbed it in, thereby freshening up her ivory skin. She oiled her lustrous hair, brushed it again and again till it shone and plaited it. The plait descended beneath her waist. This long thick hair was her plus point and she always showed it to advantage. She wore a short-sleeved blue blouse and a lightly printed blue nylon-georgette sari. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled. How old did she look? Twenty-eight? Thirty? And she was really forty-five years old!
THE smile vanished from her lips when she saw her two daughters. They had taken pains over their dressing too-and how!
Both Asha and Usha wore heavy silk sarees. Their blouses weren’t visible; the pallu of the saree covered the blouse completely. Their hair was rolled up in buns; their faces were scrubbed but carried no traces of powder ,cream, lipstick or kajol..
It was immediately obvious to Gowri that they had taken pains to look older than they were.. and had succeeded. But why? She looked at the air of defiance in their eyes. What were they trying to do? Take revenge on her for looking young? But why?
Suddenly she felt ridiculous and stupid, with her printed nylon-georgette sari and her plaited hair.
“Are you girls coming in that dress?” She asked.
“Yes!” said Asha
“You look dowdy!” said Gowri
“Oh?” said Asha
“Really?” said Usha
Gowri did not know what to say. She looked again at the seriousness in their juvenile faces…Was there something in their eyes? A moisture? A hurt?
“I think I’ll change into a silk sari too and put up my hair!” said Gowri weakly.
“Don’t!” said Asha
“If you do, you’ll look your age and that will be a calamity!” said Usha
“We’ll go to the reception just like this, Ma…People will tell that you look younger than your daughters. Won’t that be lovely?” said Asha without the slightest trace of a smile.
“I’ll change”, said Gowri.
“No time now!” The girls came to her and took her hands. “Just enough time to catch a taxi and rush!” They almost pulled her out of the house and quickly locked the front door.
“Relax, Ma!”, said Asha.
“And enjoy the compliments!” said Usha.
On the third occasion, Gowri received not a shock but a flash of realization. It happened just a week before the girls were due to leave for their college hostel. Asha came to Gowri in the kitchen.
“Ma, I want to let you into a secret”, said she.
Gowri’s eyes sparkled in joy….She, a part of her child’s secret! Her greatest sorrow in recent times was that her daughters have been making an effort to keep het out of their joys and sorrows….
“Yes, Asha?”
“You’ll cooperate, Ma?”
“I’ll surely do my best…..”
“It’s about Usha….It’s her seventeenth birthday tomorrow and she wants to give a party to her friends.”
“What’s difficult about that? I’ll bake a cake, prepare some snacks….”
“Yes…yes…but that’s not the tough part”
“No?”
“No…I hope you won’t misunderstand but you must not be in the house when her friends come….”
“What?” Gowri’s eyes became sad in a flash.“But why?”
“Usha wants it like that….Alternatively, she’s prepared to treat her friends in an eatery….”
“But I won’t be in anybody’s way…..I’ll only help you two….” Gowri’s voice was in the verge of tears.
“That’s just the point, Ma. It’s a teenager’s party and we don’t want any adults around”
Gowri remained silent, too hurt to reply.
Asha’s voice was gentle, almost apologetic. “You could go for an evening movie, Ma. By the time you are back, the party would have ended. Actually, father says it would be best if Usha took her friends to an eatery and then to a movie. So, you can opt for that if you like….”
“What does Usha really want?”
“I don’t know….”
“Ofcourse, you know…..what does she want?”
“I think she would prefer a party at home, with music and indoor games……”
“All right…..I’ll leave for my movie at 5:30 after making all the eats….”
“I’ll help you Ma”, said Asha. Gowri could see that Asha was trying her best to be understanding and sympathetic. But what a request to make! Was her presence such a bother to her own children?
Gowri was full of self-pity when she left for the movie the next evening. She had baked an exquisite cake, made mouth-watering snacks…..Usha had frisked around happily, like a carefree lamb…Oh, how much she wanted to be wanted to be at home! She wanted to see her daughter cut the cake, to hear her friends clap and sing. She wanted to hear their laughter, to take part in their jokes….why was she denied all these little pleasures?
The movie was mediocre and crude…..she wanted to leave half-way through, but she forced herself to stay on. She did not want to go home when the party was in full swing. If her daughters did not want her company, she was not going to thrust it on them. She felt tired and worn out when the movie ended. It was not her habit to cry while watching movies, but today her tears had come forth spontaneously and copiously.
She caught a three-wheeler, but asked the driver to stop at a little distance from her home. She would walk the rest of the way; that would delay her reaching home and give as much time as possible for the party to wind up successfully in her absence.
She reached home; and a mild shock awaited her. Usha’s sobs reached her ears before her hand pressed the call-bell. She quickly withdrew her hand and went round to the side of the house. She could look into the girls’ room, hear the girls speak….
Usha was sobbing and Asha’s arms were embracing her protectively.
“Now, don’t cry….Ma will be home any minute,” said Asha.
“It was such a mean request to make of her, asking her to go away from my birthday party….”
“Forget it. She was hurt but she will forgive us”
“I couldn’t help it, Asha. She would have spoilt everything had she been around. Everyone would have started cooing, how young your mother looks! And she would have giggled like a ten year old and I would have felt like killing myself….”
“I know…”
“It’s not her youthful looks that get in my nerves, Asha…. But the way she brightens up when someone comments on it, its nauseating…..”
“Yes…”
“And her dressing…..the type of saris she wears…..the dangling stuff she hangs from her ear-lobes…..her kajol and cream….”
“I know….I know…”
“My friends have beautiful mothers too. But nobody looks so ridiculous and inefficient….”
“I’ve gone through all this Usha. So often I’ve been faced with problems but I never had the confidence to take them to Ma. She is so obsessed with her youthful looks that I’ve felt she couldn’t possibly be mature enough to advise me…”
“You know something?” Usha released herself from her sister’s protective arms. “I wish a good fairy would wave a magic wand and turn Ma’s hair white overnight!” Having said this she burst out sobbing.
“….I understand….a mother should fill the role of a mother, not be just a wax-doll…”
“I hope she wasn’t hurt too much!” she said softly. “I still feel so mean…..and such a fabulous cake she had baked for me, and such delicious snacks…..if only she would have been a wee bit different….”
Gowri walked back slowly to the front door and pressed the bell. Asha opened the door.
“How did the party go off?” asked Gowri, making sure she sounded cheerful and happy.
“Wonderfully……The cake was glorious….”
“And where’s the birthday baby?”
“In the bathroom washing her face…”
“At this time of the day?”
“It’s been a strenuous day for her Ma…..But she’s so happy and thankful to you…How was the movie?”
Gowri looked at the understanding face of her elder daughter… what a mature person she had grown into!
“What did you ask Asha?”
“How the movie was?”
“Well, so-so”
“I didn’t hear your three-wheeler”
“Oh, the driver dropped me in front of the next house by mistake, I had to walk up”
In bed, that night, Gowri kept thinking for a long time. How mistaken she had been! She had thought that youthful looks were a matter of pride and, therefore, worth preserving at all costs. It had come as an eye-opener that her daughter considered her pride a sign of vain immaturity. It had almost become a barrier between her and them.
Her daughters wanted her mother to be a figure they could look up to and respect and trust with their problems….a dependable, reliable person, capable of giving guidance and advice…and she had been only a ‘’wax-doll’’….
“Usha, my little, my little baby,” she thought, “the services of the magic wand of a good fairy will not be necessary to turn my hair grey….i merely have to stop using a hair-dye…”
“ Asha and Usha, when you return from the hostel next time, you will find silver strands in your mother’s hair….her chiffons and nylons will be in your wardrobes…her costume jewellery will be in your trinket boxes….you will have someone whom you can trust with your problems, someone who won’t embarrass or irritate you…..”
With these soothing thoughts, Gowri went to sleep, the tears still moist on her cheeks…
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