Adharma

Some stories take more time than others. They are harder to tell. Neither chronological or epistolic. Proleptical or analeptical. They are the foundation on which the narrative is built. The truth behind the lie.

Betrayal comes on tiptoe, creeping up on your shadow when you least expect it. But you see it there. Sometimes. In the mirror behind you when the light is shining, reflecting in a sharp white arc towards the ceiling. It's almost beautiful. Exquisite even. You want to touch it.

It begins with a moment, but you don’t know it.

Not then.

Their separation didn’t come as a big surprise. Their morning hugs had diminished into a mere nod of acknowledgement. A polite 'Goodbye'. But, for the kids.

Of course, for the kids.

Who already know. They can feel it.

The denouement came in a duel of sorts, a battle where there would be no winners.

I heard the door creak downstairs. And the bang as she fell headlong into the radiator.

And, the garbled shouting that ensued.

I heard his thumping tread on the stairs, felt the draught of his fury as he stormed into my room like a sheriff hunting escaped convicts. He dragged me out of bed by my hair.

I had never seen this side of him before. My father was a gentle man. Soft.

He propelled me down the stairs, feet first. I tumbled to the bottom, yet, miraculously, somehow I managed to find my footing.

“Look at her, look” his voice otherworldly, distorted and unrecognisable reverberated around the room. “Look at her,” he flailed his arms like a conductor of an orchestra.

“This is your mother. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. And she’s fucking drunk.”

With this profound assessment, he stalked back up the stairs he'd dragged me down, slamming the door violently for extra effect.

I was 8.

And, in a bit of a pickle you might say.

I had absolutely no idea what to do with a drunk mother, much less one who was now beside herself, sobbing into the parquet floor, and mumbling incoherent nonsense like a shaman in the throes of a trance.

It wasn't too long before she vomited up the wall, which was rather weirdly somewhat of a relief because she fell quickly into an unconscious sleep.

By some magical intervention and a burst of adrenaline, I managed to drag her to the couch, where she lay on the carpet, huddled into the base, long after I went to bed.

and the man in the mirror looks on

as the cuts begin.

That night I slept between the snatches of two lives.

Outside the mandir plumeira grow. You hold out your hand to touch their fragile white tips. Such beauty, in amongst the ravages left by the monsoon You hold up your fingers to your nose, deliberately, slowly inhaling the sacred earth-Imarti-honey candied and vanilla spice uniting with the musky earth of jasmine. But this is not your home.

A moment of solitude before you continue onwards towards the paddy field.

“Daljeet, Daljeet-where have you been? You are late, hurry, hurry before Parvan sees” Her lotus leaf eyes, pleading, earnest. Ebony strands of hair, matted with the dried mud of the arable, frame her flawless cheekbones like jacaranda leaves enfolding the purple flowers it yields.

Her black bindi smeared with red turmeric.

You shrug indifferently “I do not fear Parvan” you snap back arrogantly as you saunter away.

She watches you, exasperated but entertained by your show of masculinity. For one so young you have the tiger’s temperament.

Before I woke in the morning, I knew that he would be gone.

My elusive feline father.