Portraiture

Note: This is a work of speculative fiction.

“Wasting time again, no? Chronic loafer!” I was serenaded by Di-ma while gazing out from the balcony for a moment of peace. I turned my head to see her hobbling towards me, impish delight written all over her withered but still-sharp features.

My father often said that my grandmother could sniff out wastage of time like a gas leak. She also attributed most of the country’s problems to gross amounts of time wastage. “60 years we could have spent in making our villages self-sufficient. But no, we had to waste it on land disputes and competing with the West!” She’d been living with us since the passing of my maternal grandfather over 10 years ago. When Di-ma moved in, I think she saw that the role of the dictator was already occupied by my mother, with my father being too preoccupied to balance out the highly focused punishments that were doled out to me as a single child. So she instead became somewhat of a confidante-slash-godmother, outwardly showing solidarity with my mother but secretly feeding me junk food and co-conspiring in my antics.

“Your mother wants you to get milk from the store. Full cream, not toned. Wear something decent. And since you’re going anyway,” her grin widened, revealing crooked, stained teeth, “Get two packets of paan from Rajan’s. Tell him to be generous with the supari this time.” This was an eternal matter of contention between us. Grandma was hopelessly addicted to paan but I couldn’t stand anything about it. My tirades about oral cancer and dental disfigurement would’ve had more impact on a tone-sensitive pigeon. I also made it a point to periodically cite the bowel problems that came with paan, wreaking havoc on our shared bathroom. My mother also occasionally put a ‘ban’ on it, which would last for two days of sullen silences. None of it mattered to her. As I narrowed my eyes and prepared to get into another argument, she waved her hand towards the room and said, “When you return, I’ll read out my notes from that Soviet fiction book you found.” Don Corleone himself could scarcely have made a more subtle threat.

My grandmother had a collection of books, magazines and her own writings from her rather illustrious youth. At a time when most women weren’t allowed to step out of the house, much less pursue an education, she had claimed a Master’s degree in History, and after being coerced into marriage, a second one in literature while rearing three kids. She also had periods of obsession with various forms of the arts such as writing, music and painting, which I think I inherited from her. When I was younger, she would recommend books and encourage me while I flitted from one hobby to another. As I grew up, I started rifling through the trunks that had come with Di-ma years ago, and our discussions revolved around the books and manuscripts that I’d find with copious notes (in languages that I didn’t know how to read). My father occasionally grumbled at my patronage of ‘the humanities’, but since we were fairly upper-middle class, I had it easy. Grandma also used my obsession with such material to get favours like smuggling in paan contraband without my mother’s knowledge. My protests were about as effective as my appa’s grumbles around the house.

When I returned from the store after hesitantly berating Rajan for being tight-fisted with the tobacco, I saw that we had a visitor. Arun was in the living room, talking to dad while Di-ma looked on attentively from her rocking chair. Arun was like a younger brother to my dad, having been mentored right out of college by my father at his previous firm. He’d just recently tied the knot and lost his father in quick succession. I wasn’t surprised that he’d been visiting more often recently. I was barely in college and already felt out of my depth with life. My grandmother had also taken a liking to Arun and his easygoing and sunny disposition, which had lately been cloudy. Not wanting to interrupt, I slipped past them into the kitchen to help with other chores.

In the evening, I was busy with my fortnightly foray into one of the trunks under grandma’s bed, and had come upon a series of photo albums. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, thinking intensely about something. You could always tell if she was in deep thought because she unconsciously furrowed her brows and curled her upper lip, and would be unnaturally still. This was another trait we shared. Suddenly she asked, “Do you know why Arun was here today?”

“No, what happened?” I replied, not pausing in my work.

“His father’s estate is being distributed according to his will. Most of the share goes to Arun, but his uncle is claiming that the shop they owned, you know, the big one, was actually in his name. His uncle is a known MLA’s goonda and hasn’t been around for years, but now he’s shown up to make trouble for his own nephew!”

“What’s Arun going to do?” I asked.

“What can the poor boy do? He’s looking for lawyers, but his own relatives won’t stand up to this uncle, knowing how well-connected he is.”

“What did dad say?”

“Your baba is also afraid for Arun and was telling him to let it go, but the boy now has a family to think of. That shop is worth crores.” With this, she fell back into her thoughts.

We sat in comfortable silence for a while, interrupted only by the occasional sound of laminated pages being pried apart carefully. I gasped openly at one of the pages, and that shook her out of her reverie.

“What is it?” I held up the album, pointing to a yellowed but detailed watercolor portrait of a middle-aged woman in a salwar.

“Did you make this?” She nodded a bit sadly and said, “Check the date, my memory is bad these days. I think this would be 1986 or ‘87.” It was indeed 1986, June the 3^rd. I stared at her expectantly for more details. “This was Farida, one of my neighbours and closest friends when we were stationed in Indore. She used to make excellent chicken korma. And before you ask, she’s not around. She died of TB.”

“Did she sit for this portrait?”

At that she looked at me sharply for some reason and said, “No, I made this a few weeks after she passed away. I didn’t have anything to remember her by.”

“You made this this from memory?” I looked up at her with newfound respect. “I didn’t know you were this good at drawing human subjects. It’s practically a photo!”

She snorted and said, “Well, I haven’t picked up a brush in years; I would probably be terrible at it now.”

I scrutinized the painting a bit more. It wasn’t just the details that stood out. The dead woman’s eyes seemed to be staring back at me.

When I looked back up, grandma said with a disconcerting glint in her eye, “Seems almost alive, no?” I nodded slowly. She eased down from the bed onto the floor, groaning audibly. Then she looked at me again and said, “Did you know the Egyptians believed that paintings could sometimes trap people’s souls? That’s why they only did funeral portraits. Look it up if you don’t believe me.” I shook my head, realizing this was going to be one of THOSE sessions. Occasionally, Di-ma would go into a completely manic mood and starting ranting about all all kinds of old-timey conspiracy theories, the kind that would put Erich von Daniken to shame. Once it was about the Nazis having built a cloning machine towards the end of WW2 to create more soldiers, Another time, it was about how the Rapa Nui disappeared due to ritual cannibalism. When she got into one of these moods, it was impossible to reason with her. So I prepared my poker face as best as I could.

This time, it seemed she only wanted a passive audience for her soliloquy, because she wasn’t even looking at me. “Of course, not every painter has that gift. Otherwise the Realist era would have been full of dead people. But I know that those fancy nobles – including your Mughal queens – wanted unrealistic portraits because they were secretly afraid, not just vain. And I’m quite sure some of the great ones, Van Gogh, Sher-Gil and all, you know, committed suicide by drawing their own portraits. They had the gift.”

She looked at me with an inscrutable expression and said, “Did I ever tell you about your Dadu’s father, my father-in-law?”

I thought about this. “Ma told me he was quite an ill-tempered person, but she doesn’t remember much of him.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “That would be putting it mildly. He was a rakshasa. He used to beat up the servants. Even though your grandfather was entering his 40s, his father still used to raise his hand against him. I always avoided him whenever he would visit.”

“Didn’t he move in with you?”

“Unfortunately, yes. It became impossible to avoid him then. Your mother was barely 10 years old at the time. It was the worst time of my life. To the world, he was a perfect gentleman. It was only at home that he showed his true colours.”

“You know, he used to insist on spending time with the children every evening. So even though I never felt safe around him, I would be there for the children. But sometimes the way he would look at them… it made my skin crawl.”

I felt goosebumps just listening to this. “What happened? Did Dadu send him away?”

She shook her head. “No, your grandfather was too much of a dutiful son, so even though he hated the situation, he stomached it and made us all bear it along with him. In any case, his father died of a heart attack that year.” I could hear a sense of relief and satisfaction in her voice, all these years later.

I had seen a larger-than-life painting of that man in our ancestral house, which I’d always gawked at. Now I didn’t know if I’d be able to look at it again. I said as much to Di-ma. Suddenly the mysterious grin was back. “I made that painting, you know.” I was about to ask more questions, but then without preamble she proclaimed she was feeling tired, and kicked me out of the room.

A few days later, a distraught Arun paid us another visit. I was in the middle of serving tea to everyone when I heard the bell ring. I opened the door to a heavyset, clean-shaven man who was smiling too widely. “Uh…aap kaun?” I instinctively kept the door half-closed. “Beta is Arun here? I wanted to speak to him,” he said in a slick Punjabi Hindi accent. Before I could think of a course of action, I heard Arun exclaim, “Ashok tau!” from behind me. I quickly moved out of the way as the large straight-haired man, who I now knew was the dreaded uncle, stepped into the house, flanked by two sallow-faced men I hadn’t noticed behind him. I didn’t like the way he was leering at Arun and the rest of us, like he owned the place. I could see that Arun was scared, but he swallowed his fear and quietly asked why he was being followed. His uncle Ashok merely shook his head and said he was looking out for his nephew, lest anything bad should happen to him. He then proceeded to tell Arun to meet him at his office to ‘close the matter’ soon. “You don’t want to keep your mother and wife worried about all this, I’m sure. Give my regards to them, okay? And let’s not involve outsiders in family business.” The sinister undertone was unmistakable. Still smiling widely, he bid us goodbye and left, swinging the door with an ear-splitting crash. I looked around the room to see that everyone was scared, mirroring my own expression, I was sure. Everyone except grandmother. She looked livid, glaring daggers at the door. But she said nothing and walked back into the room. My mother started sobbing, father sunk into the sofa, and Arun apologized for the next several minutes like a broken recorder. We all agreed that the safest course of action was for Arun to do whatever Ashok wanted.

That evening, Di-ma went out to the market by herself, something she never did. She brushed aside my mother’s protests to take one of us with her. She wouldn’t even tell me where she was going. She returned (to our collective relief ) about an hour later, her shopping bag looking much fuller. She took out some mangoes ­– “we’ll have them after dinner” – and disappeared into her room. Curious as I was, I knew I wouldn’t be getting anything from her, stubbornness also being a known family trait. Over the next few days, I tried to distract myself from Arun’s predicament by focusing on my upcoming mid-sems. My grandmother remained aloof and spent a lot of sleepless nights, judging by the lights under her bedroom door whenever I’d tiptoe out for a midnight water refill. The mood was generally sombre around the house.

The next week, one morning grandma came up to me and thumped my back soundly. “Don’t study so much! It’s not much use in the long run.” It seemed she was back to her normal self. I could see my mother was also relieved in the way she argued with Di-ma about not caring for her grandchild’s future, that there was no safety net for me (as though I were a struggling trapeze artist and not a decently-scoring law student) etc. To my relief, the bell rang to interrupt them. I was surprised to see Arun, shifting from one foot to the other like he really wanted to pee. My father didn’t even bother putting a shirt on, so glad was he to see Arun. As he took a seat on the sofa, still fidgety, Arun told us the strangest thing. His uncle had died the previous night. “We had almost signed all the property over to him, and this morning I found out that he had died at night of a heart attack.” He chuckled weakly. “I know it’s not nice to say it when someone dies, but I’m a bit happy.” My father was clearly at a loss for words. Suddenly my grandmother spoke up, “Of course you’re glad! You should have brought us sweets, fool!” Everyone felt it was appropriate to laugh at this comment, as we felt a weight being lifted.

My grandmother slept like a log for the next few days, barely waking up for food. Instead of getting better, though, she kept sleeping for longer and longer hours. Eventually, after a few rounds of homeopathy, a doctor was called. He said what we’d been fearing, that her body was slowly but surely giving up. She spent her few waking hours of the day talking to my mother, discussing whatever it was that needed to be resolved between them, I was sure. She died in her sleep within weeks. I was too emotionally numb to be much of a part of anything, except occasionally helping with the endless needs of guests and relatives who had flooded the house. I felt cheated out of my time with her even though my rational mind knew better.

Still numb a few nights after the last rites had been performed, I crept into my grandmother’s room and opened the last trunk that I’d been looking through with her. Inside, I saw a shiny new box of paints and a sheaf of A5 matte paper inside a plastic cover. I turned the sheaf around to see Arun’s uncle Ashok staring at me through the transparent plastic with that too-wide smile, looking almost alive in resplendent watercolor.

Etiquette

[Note: this is a work of fiction. Any persons alive or dead who identify with these characters or settings shouldn’t be affronted, or otherwise count themselves special.]

I was debating whether to wear my second-best kurta or my best shirt. Both had their merits, but I fancied that my kurta hid my paunch better and complemented my casual sanskaar vibe. Plus, I was going to meet my father’s twice-removed cousin from his mother’s side. Over the years, and with great difficulty, I had managed to make some sense of the unnecessarily convoluted family tree that plagued both my parents. I had memorized it the same way I’d memorized the reactivity series of metals in grade 10 – by turning it into a ghastly sing-song. ‘Binnu-dadu isss Dadu’s brotherrrr, and his sonnnn is Tabluuuu…’

It wasn’t terribly nice, but it was efficient. And it was due to this mnemonia that I knew which branch of the tree Potol kaku dangled from. When mum mentioned this name on the phone, I had burst out laughing, not least because ‘potol’ happens to be the Bengali word for pointed gourd (parval in Hindi).

The brief given to me was as follows: Potol kaku was in Bangalore for work, and had reached out to my father because his sister-in-law had informed him that my father had bought a bungalow in the city and was quite well-off, didn’t he know? After clearing up the misinformation re: our alleged wealthiness, my father told kaku that his son lived in the city, and would of course be happy to show him around town. Said son was of course not consulted for any of this. As always, my mother was asked to convey this info to me like some new-age switchboard operator. I then asked what work had led this previously undiscovered relative to disturb my quietude. To my utter lack of surprise, like most aspiring middle-class bongs of the previous generation, this uncle had risen to a middling rank within a nondescript state department. As a perk of his newest position, he had been dispatched to attend a meeting with the Karnataka government. His wife, her younger sister, the younger one’s in-laws and consequently everyone within the mohalla was excited about kaku’s trip. The imagined mundanity of his job was at once horrifying and fascinating to me.

I was given the uncle’s number and sternly warned to call him as soon as possible and fix up a dinner appointment. My mother was well aware that I would go to great lengths to avoid meeting random strangers. I was also warned to ‘please wear something respectable and pick a nice place to eat, not one of those shady pubs where you spend all your time with your useless friends’. With due reluctance, I glared at the phone screen and jabbed in the number. (Mobile screens are woefully inadequate for expressing annoyance or anger; where is the protesting haptic feedback?) A grainy, low-pitched voice picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hello, who is this?”

Me, in English: “Hello kaku, this is Mintu. Piplu’s son.”

Him, immediately, in Bangla: “Oh, Mintuuu, yes your baba told me. How long have you been staying here?”

Me, in measured Banglish: “Er, almost 3 years, er, kaku. Where are you putting up in Bangalore?”

Him, butchering the pronunciation and making it sound like an imminent attack from the Peshwas: “The guesthouse is in Maraathaa Hollee or something. Veeery far. Muuuuch traffic in your city!”

After establishing that I was not responsible for the state of road transportation in B’lore, I suggested a place and time that would be convenient for both of us (not so much for me, but I was playing the gracious host for a city that I barely call home).

The next evening, I stood in front of a place called Car-Khaana, which I’d picked based purely on its Google rating. Now I was regretting said decision. It was a pun, like most expensive upstart restaurants these days. It’s almost as if they charge a premium for coming up with the name. People were sitting in booths designed like car seats and were served by people dressed like F1 drivers. I was fairly embarrassed at this point. I half-hoped my uncle wouldn’t turn up.

Based on his pet name, I was unconsciously expecting a well-rounded moustached gentleman with a pointy head (possibly wearing a striped green corduroy coat) to materialize nearby. Instead, a clean-shaven, somewhat gaunt fellow with salt-and-pepper hair walked up to me, smiling. I smiled back uncertainly, like I tend to do when I’m not sure whether someone’s addressing me or someone behind me.

I could see from his movements that this uncle was preparing to hug me. Me, well, I’m not a hugger. I launched an outstreched hand at his mid-riff, stalling his advance and causing momentary surprise to show. Clutching a respectably old leather briefcase in his left hand, he offered me an equally leathery-looking right hand. I shook it firmly, while going over a list of potential opening lines and coming up with two ad jingles from my childhood. Eventually I settled for saying, “Oh!” while carefully withdrawing my hand. I was certain that he would now be thinking that all was not well in Piplu’s son’s head.

Unfazed, he said, “So this is the place, haan? Daarun (wonderful)! Let’s go inside.” I nodded with my smile frozen on my face, not trusting my brain to come up with intelligible words and phrases.

By the time our server escorted us into our car seats, I could see that kaku was also somewhat discomfited, having gingerly balanced his briefcase on an adjacent seat. Since he was in my world now, I felt much more empathetic towards him. Two awkward individuals surrounded by people experiencing normalcy; us vs them. My triumphant refusal to accept the server’s offer of bottled water gave me an opening to discuss my fight against climate change and pollution, which involved making the barest minimum effort to avoid plastic and a lot of sneering at those who did not carry gramudyog jute bags for grocery shopping.

Even as we made small talk, I waited for the inevitable questions about my salary, marriage prospects, and a summation of my social ranking vis-à-vis cousins. I had gotten used to such intrusive questions and evaluations by my relatives over the years. To my surprise, the inquisition did not appear. I grew suspicious of this mild-mannered fellow who was not behaving in line with my expectations. Had I picked up the wrong uncle? Or was it possible that I had finally found the ur-kaku, the diamond in the rough sea of judgmental kinsfolk? This one seemed to be interested primarily in the advances in agricultural equipment and the world of Indian hockey, both of which I knew little about save the fact that they existed. But he seemed to need little encouragement or input in expounding upon these topics. Such was his zeal in describing the advantages of chisel ploughs that I felt myself being drawn in. Any good story is as much about the delivery as the story itself, and I’d never been picky about content as long as the world-building held my attention.

While we waited for menu cards, I was amused by the almost childlike wonder with which he surveyed our surroundings. It made me, in turn, look at everything from a fresh perspective. It was like one of the thought experiments that I liked doing on flights, by rewording normal things so that they sounded absurd and new. Clouds became ‘ice floating on air’, and aircrafts became ‘flying tin cans with tiny fires’. This native-american-tribal-chief nomenclature had inspired a lot of my self-proclaimed ‘surrealist’ poetry.

When the menu options appeared before us, Potol kaku looked fairly embarrassed and said that I would have to decide, as he had never had ‘continental’ food before. He went on to explain how he had always carried his own lunchbox even to out-of-office lunches, preferring the expert home-cooking of his wife – he repeatedly extolled her culinary prowess – over pricey and oily restaurant food. I couldn’t help but be amazed at the sheer dedication that it would have taken to avoid eating out for over 30 years, stubbornly holding out against the globalization-fueled march of McDonald’s, Domino’s and other creatures riding the fast food wave. My stubborn flab and bank balance agreed with the comment about oiliness and costliness.

Filing further questions to the back of my head, I quickly ordered a grilled chicken burger, a farmhouse pizza and pasta arrabiata, the holy trinity of safe western pub grub in India. Whenever I order food at unknown places, I avoid playing the heroic gourmet explorer and instead focus on worst-case scenarios. Par example, the worst that a manic chef could to with pasta arrabiata would be to make it out of Maggi tomato ketchup, which is still edible. If a restaurant passes the worst-case test, it can be upgraded to the status of ‘will order strange spinoffs of known dishes’. This particular restaurant had items to the tune of ‘Must-tang risotto’ which I thought was trying too hard.

When our food arrived, I graciously offered the first servings to my companion (I have learnt, through years of faux pas, that it is unwise to expect everyone to just grab whatever dish is closest to them and save time). After a few rounds of ‘no you first’ that I was determined to win, he hesitantly picked up a slice of pizza with the spatula. Holding his fork and knife like surgical instruments, he started cutting it up with utmost concentration. At first I wanted to laugh, but on hearing the grating and clunking noises coming from the protesting plate I whipped my head around instinctively to see if we’d drawn anyone’s attention. (Even in our embarrassment we seek validation.) Sure enough, a family at an adjacent table was sneaking glances at us out of the corners of their eyes, and a server was failing to hide his grin. My face betrayed my thoughts as it heated up and, I was sure, had the colour of a ripe papaya’s innards.

At this point I was faced with a dilemma. Should I course-correct Potol kaku and give him a lesson on culinary etiquette? (Even now he was chasing a piece of fusilli all over the plate.) Or should I let him enjoy his meal and spare him the humiliation? I had no doubt that it would be doubly painful for him to be schooled by someone half his age in a setup where he felt alien to begin with. I looked at him closely, this man who had never stepped out of his town or bothered eating out in his entire life. I saw how gleefully he was warring with the new shapes and sizes of food in front of him. He looked up in the middle of a dance-off between his knife and a piece of lettuce, and inquired as to why I wasn’t eating.

I smiled widely and proceeded to pick up a slice of pizza using my knife and fork as tweezers. I tilted my head and flashed the same defiant smile at the surreptitious glances our way. We ate the mediocre food in relative silence, interrupted only by the postmodern jazz of our cutlery.

Afterwards, as we prepared to part ways, I extended my hand and told kaku in all sincerity that it was the most I’d enjoyed a meal in a while. Instead of taking my hand, he hugged me and thumped my back for good measure, letting me know that I still had a lot to learn about etiquette.