Guava Blues:

The tiny shrine sat at the corner. The sunlight was falling on the Shiv lingam, which was facing north. The few elderly visitors she had were quick to point out that the shrine wasn’t placed in the right place; that it should be in the east. But then she’d point out the little corner and the way the shrine was snug against it. Technically east. And then they would have a good laugh over it.

Although now, there were no visitors in this pandemic.

Shubho Da had died in December earlier year. He was one of the first ones to get hit by the Coronavirus, and he fought long and hard for almost a year, intermittently getting sick and getting well again and again.

He could make her laugh. Back in the forties, when they were young, Saraswati knew he had a thing for her. After all, they grew up together. Too bad her father had already fixed her with Bhaskor, right after she graduated.

Bhaskor was a good man. Sure the jokes were a bit hard to get, but he was in love with her. Her whole life. Even after their daughter died, he could look at her and she’d feel butterflies. Although his smiles were rarer with each passing day. Saraswati marvelled at the way the man loved her.

Sometimes Saraswati wondered how did she manage to get such wonderful company in her life. The others, as she saw it, barely scraped on by. Outwardly, they would laugh and their nervous fingers would caress the cringing skin of their loved ones to show comfort and solace, but then, what went behind closed doors? Was there silence? Screaming? Or a decided resignation to living with what was given?

Perhaps as a punishment, her shared life with both of the men was limited. Bhaskor died in 1999. He was followed twenty-one years later by Shubho Da. But then, why look at it as some sort of punishment? She had what she had.

Sri Didi married Shubho Da. Saraswati had forgotten what Sri was short for and it was too late to ask again. She would come again this evening for tea and then they would spend the rest of the evening arguing about knitting and politics, religion and the correct way to make tea.

Sri Didi was something of a rebel. She slept with a man when she was sixteen to know how it felt, and then decided it wouldn’t do, so she slept with him again to learn more. The man threatened to tell her parents if she didn’t keep sleeping with him again, but Sri Didi had simply laughed it off, remembering the men in the black market that her father knew and just how angry he could be. Still, not wishing to deceive her parents, she told them about the affair and got slapped until her lips bled.

The same parents put Boroline over her cuts and bruises and made sure that their idiot daughter properly graduated from college. They also forbade her from doing anything so rash without thinking about it at least ten times.

Saraswati had always been unable to understand how she became friends with the woman. For once, she was timid and that woman was simply incapable of going by the rules. She always wore sarees, and Sri Didi wouldn’t be caught dead in anything traditional. Even now. And compared to the jazz she listened to, Sri Didi loved Nazrulgeeti.

Saraswati puts down the photo frames she had been dusting. They were few. Bhaskor standing in the rain, smoking, umbrella in tow. Shubho Da and Bhaskor playing cards. Sri Didi and herself, mid-thirties sitting on the ground in Victoria, each facing the other side. They might have had an argument earlier, though she couldn’t remember what. Her daughter Mousumi in between, beaming upwards with her lopsided smile.

She had been fifteen when she was diagnosed with leukaemia. Twenty-three when she died. Her beautiful, beautiful young girl.

Mou had wanted to become a painter. As much as they knew the vocation wasn’t suitable for a proper living, especially for an ambitious young woman from a lower middle-class family, Saraswati and Bhaskor were far too fond to tell their daughter to set aside her aspirations and be a little practical.

And then it hadn’t mattered anymore.

Ten years ago, the flat she shared with Sri Didi, had quite a few tenants. There was a family of four, that she was very fond of because the wife was upright and independent, very intelligent. Just an example for a young growing girl. She had a girl and a boy, both well-behaved. There was the young bachelor who never showed himself, except on rare occasions, who moved out to Bombay. There were two more older couples, whose children lived far away. Those wives always gossiped about every nook and cranny in the building. Then there were the two unrelated women who lived together, not getting married. Rent was cheap if they lived together, they would say. They were a bit of a hot topic among the other residents, especially the two older wives.

Earlier, Saraswati used to pity them and their non-married status, but recently, she was beginning to wonder if it really was that pitiable. And if they were really lonely in each other’s company. She had a lot of questions now, but to no avail, because the two women had adopted a child and moved to Germany.

The two older couples had died. Rather one couple had died, and the wife of the other couple had died, leaving the husband trapped in old age.

The late afternoon sun is just enough bright for her to sit on her veranda and not cringe from the heat. There was a faint breeze. It was still too hot to open the windows, so she made a mental note to do that after some time.

The flat is silent at this point of the day. The only noises were the faraway traffic since the flat was a considerable distance from the road. She can hear Bobu Da singing hymns in the morning, old songs at odd times. She could tell that he used to be a good singer at a point in his life. That might have changed after marriage, along with a lot of things. According to Sri Didi, he was quite a looker in his youth, although he was also a bit boring.

Sometimes, someone gets a parcel, or a broker comes in, showing the empty apartments to prospective tenants. They never choose the apartments though.

As strange as it sounds, Saraswati is glad that they don’t choose this place. It felt like sacrilege to her, to see the place where she’d seen people get born, grow up, or die, inhabited by strangers.

Given, that she was never particularly close to anyone, that’s the same for the family.

She was having a hard time dealing with the house next door, being remodelled into a music studio. All kinds of horrible, new age music played there, grating on her nerves. Sometimes, the music was soft, nicer, especially so when a particular group came in: four girls and three boys. They look as if they are in high school.

 But that was not the problem. The old woman who lived there had passed away two years ago. She did not speak to anyone, but she kept a lot of plants. Mostly flowers, red, blue and white, but there was one guava tree that stood out the most to Saraswati. It stood in the corner of her little garden, the branches hanging all over the place. The other neighbourhood children picked at it often and the old lady didn’t mind.

The guavas had the sweetest, softest flesh she ever had.

That wasn’t the only thing. The guava tree attracted the Guava Blues, butterflies rare to come across in Kolkata. The outer wings with colours like ordinary rocks, but a splash of iridescent blue when they opened their wings. Talk about a lovely surprise.

When the studio was built, they mowed down the little garden. The guava tree didn’t last. There was something wrong with the soil. Saraswati stopped seeing the butterflies.

The tingling sound of bells came from the neighbourhood temple. It was a tiny construct, and the offerings were often meagre, albeit full of devotion. Saraswati looked up and the sky was suddenly a van Gogh painting, deep midnight blue with a crescent moon in the east and a violent potpourri of pink, orange and mauve in the west. A slight breeze has started to blow.

To Saraswati, time was a tangible thing in her youth. She could always catch time, carefully measure it and act accordingly. One second, two seconds, three seconds... But now it has become transparent and she could never quite catch how it went by.

The doorbell rang. She heard rustling outside the door. Sri Didi.

“Open the door, will you? I’ve got things and my arms will fall off at any moment.” Saraswati felt a familiar sweep of irritation and warmth wash over her.

She had gone up to the supermarket to get some quality Darjeeling oolong tea, along with biscuits and snacks to restock both hers and Saraswati’s cupboards. For some reason, Sri Didi was obsessed with teas recently. Wanting to experiment, she had bought the said tea to make iced tea.

“I’m telling you, this nonsense that you are trying to stir up is going to taste horrible!”

“Shut up! You act like such a geriatric.”

“We are old.”

“Don’t drag me in with you!”

Sri Didi washes her hands furiously. After that, she presses a large amount of sanitiser onto her small hands. The skin of her hands is red and Saraswati is sure it stings a little, but Sri Didi continues nonchalantly.

Shubho Da’s death had affected Sri Didi most of all, but the woman was too prideful to admit it. But where words fail, actions show, like the way Sri Didi washes her hands after coming from outside, like the way she immediately goes to a room and wears fresh clothes and dumps the other clothes either in bright sunlight or directly into the laundry. Like the way, she didn’t eat anything or store anything, without microwaving it for 45 seconds or washing it thoroughly. Like the way, she lets herself in Saraswati’s home at odd hours at night, when the nights in her apartment remind her too much of Shubho Da. Everything shows.

Shubho Da had always been gentle, so it was a mystery to people how he managed to get hitched with such a fearsome woman. Men have always joked behind their backs about how Sri Didi was wearing the pants in the relationship and how Shubho Da should start wearing bangles.

But Saraswati for once saw why. While she could burn the others, Shubho Da was where Sri Didi fell to when she needed to heal her own burns. She was gentle towards him in a way that she couldn’t be for anyone else. They didn’t want children and while the world blamed it on Sri Didi, Shubho Da went out of his way to give the world to her.

It was small mercy when he died because even though his efforts to stay alive were heroic, they cut into Sri Didi like shards of broken glass. 

Currently, her mood had dissipated and she is cutting up a lemon while boiling a kettle full of tea. She had washed the other things she had bought and they stand side by side in Saraswati’s cupboards, wiped and dried.

“We might be getting neighbours in the next month.”

Saraswati was sitting on her veranda, absentmindedly looking at the sky and admiring the transitioning colours. The statement gives her a small shock and she stares downwards at the studio, glum.

Sri Didi side-eyes her. “Don’t be such a wet rag. Houses are meant for people, not the other way around. This place is like a ghost.”

Saraswati doesn’t reply. Instead, she arranges two chairs on the veranda, adjusts a table between them, sweeps away any remaining dust and waters the plants. It is going to be a nice night and she indeed didn’t want to be a wet rag. The moon has appeared in the sky completely by now, casting a wane sheen on the buildings around her. Saraswati sits down, thoughtful.

Sri Didi sets down a tray on the table. It has shingaras, homemade jhalmuri and a carafe filled with iced tea. She has also brought additional plates, with glasses and she serves herself something and sits down. Saraswati serves herself some shingaras and munches on one.

It’s not silent. There are crickets chirping in the distance, and the cars and buses whiz by on the roads in the distance. Someone is cooking and there is a faint smell of burnt jeera. Someone is busy cleaning their kitchen and there are various jostling sounds from different utensils. Someone is getting scolded for doing a sum wrong for the eleventh time. Everyone everywhere is doing something, and the air is full of sounds.

“What are they like?”

“Who?”

“Our neighbours.”

“Well, I don’t know much. All I know is that there’s going to be a bachelorette and a widowed man with a child.”

“How do you know that much?”

Sri Didi rolls her eyes. “The broker told me. They’re snoopy.”

“They’ve signed the deeds?”

“Yes. They would be moving in the next month or two.”

“I hope they are nice.”

“I’ve heard the man is nice.”

“That’s nice.”

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“WHAT’S THAT?!”

“WHAT?!!”

Saraswati looked behind herself immediately. At first, she couldn’t see what it was; then she noticed that the leaves of the parrot plant she had, were quivering rather quickly. And the breeze was not that strong.

They both watched the leaves flutter until a moth flew out of it, suddenly, startling them. Only it wasn’t a moth, because when it landed on the wall behind them, its wings opened and Saraswati saw a splash of blue.

“It’s a Guava Blue.” She whispered.

“I know.” Sri Didi said, equally awed, “what is it still doing here?”

“I don’t know.” And Saraswati didn’t care. It was nice to see it here. Like meeting an old friend.

They settled into their chairs. The music started playing from the studio below and she recognised that it was that particular group. They were playing jazz. Saraswati saw Sri Didi bobbing her head as she looked in the distance, enjoying the iced tea. So she poured herself a glass.

It wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was quite new and fresh and Saraswati liked it. But of course, she wasn’t going to tell Sri Didi.