REMEMBERANCE OF TEATALES

Didu had never believed in afternoon naps, but it was there in the afternoon and she was laying on her side having draped an extra bedcover on herself. Things had changed with time, she would say and days had started getting longer somehow. It had nothing to do with age, she would staunchly argue.

She had managed to fall asleep despite the sounds of the construction work going on outside. She had dreamt that she was building a bookshelf out of oak wood that someone gifted it to her. She polished it with her own hands and painted the inside white . It resembled the cabinet that Dadu had once bought for her, in an auction. She had never quite understood the rationale behind spending money on a dirty old price of wood that creaked everytime one touched it. Although the logic, behind it still eluded her, but it tiptoeing in her dreams, meant a certain degree of subconscious acceptance which she might not have liked to otherwise admit.

The noon grew stronger and the bookshelf somehow started morphing itself into absurd objects. She jumped out of her reverie and opened her eyes. She scrambled to fold the bed cover and positioned it at the foot of the bed. Glancing at the clock, she realised that it was almost evening.

She hurried to the other room to check up on Dadu. He was still fast asleep, his mouth slightly parted open. She found herself marvelling at the sight of him sleep, silent on the foreground of the bustling city. She had always wondered where he went when he fell asleep. She wondered if he was caught up in an adventure or just a simple conversation. But be that as it may, the only thing she now knew for sure, was that she wasn't a part of it.

She placed herself beside him and quietly patted on his cheek to wake him up. He groaned at the sound of her voice and turned away his cheek.

"You need to wake up now, or you won't be able to sleep at night", she said , her voice becoming stern. 

Dadu always had trouble falling asleep at night when he overslept in the evening. She has tried many a times, to discourage him from his mid-day siesta, but he and never heeded her. In turn with time she found herself quickly sliding beside him to rest her eyes.

"Who are you?" Dadu exclaimed, having taken a look at her. "What are you doing in my room?" He thrusted he earns away, and suddenly sat up.

"Well atleast you are awake", she scoffed, picking herself up from the bed and heading outside. She stood just outside of his bedroom, witnessing as he ferociously circled the space, shooting angry side-glances at her from time to time. She knew that his physical exercise was to be accompanied with a barrage of perplexing questions. Well today, Dadu wanted to know who she was.

Didu had known Dadu for 50 years now, forty-five of them, as his wife, yet this simple fact never sounded enough of an answer to even her, let alone his mind buzzing with the jolting suspicions accompanying typical Alzheimer's.

In these moments, she has always believed that his pain was greater than hers, the pain of being a lone ranger in the baren island. But no matter how hard she tried, the lump in her throat when he asked her who she was always threatened to choke her. She saw Dadu writhing in agony, unaware of where he was, and even who he himself was.

As days would pass, he would look at himself in the mirror and not recognise who it was. But she knew that in those moments, she would be standing beside him, reminding Dadu, his name over and over again. But here she was, apparently unable to even repeat her own name, for words, as she discovered start sounding meaningless if one repeats them too many times.

She kept watch as he rummaged through all his belongings, terrified of someone stealing his shaving blade or mobile phone. It was funny to her actually, witnessing him agonising over material things. Their entire married life, she was the one who fret over breaking chinamatir plates. But with time, somehow how his disdain for clinging to material had gotten to her as well.

Dadu had always been the more impressive one out of them, the genius painter, with an eye for even the tiniest speck of beauty in the panorama of ordinary. Didu would watch him in front of his canvas for days on end, painting things that had always been far beyond her comprehension.

Once on a trip to Shillong, they had hiked all the way to a point where happy couples went to witness the sunset. While she was enticed by the evening mountains ambience, cradling a cup of tea in her hands, Dadu was engrossed in a peice of paper, drawing rabdom strokes that she knew has to be an art even costlier than the moment right there. As the cup of tea beside him grew colder, Didu nudged and poked him several times to no avail.

When he finally showed her the peice of paper, she caught a twinkle in her eye. He and drawn her, clutching the paper cup. It was the highest graphite she had ever seen, allure that she had never even imagined in herself. There was a small smile as he finally picked up the cup of tea that she was so sure had gone cold.

"Well, you look very beautiful today", he had said, not looking at her and Didu, in habit of always agreeing with him, thought the same.

Didu watched him palpitating as he settled himself to catch his breath. All of his little episodes had the tendencies to leave both of them out of breath. Hers was more emotional, than physical, for it was heartbreaking for her to imagine that the person she had respected for so long, couldn't even be called a person anymore.

It was more than just the toll of him not recognising her. It was literally as if a person drifting away bit by bit, in front of her own eyes.

 "জবা, bring me tea", Dadu called out.

Yes, he always remembered her her when he missed his evening adaa-golmorich diye dudh cha . It was amazing how he could swim in and out of the memory of her existence. It would have been miraculous, if it were intentional.

Oftentimes, while boiling milk to make tea, Didu found herself wondering if she preferred his quietude to the curses. Didu knew that either way he was drifting away, it was just that sound of Dadu's voice, tethered her to reality, without which she was afraid she would drift apart soon.

She added sugar granules and tea leaves, turning the clear brown of the piping hot tea, greyish like a pair of eyes slowly clouding with cataract. She placed the tray with the cup of tea in front of him, on the table outside of the kitchen. He was sitting quietly, a pencil held between his fingers. His hands shook as he tried to draw random circles in the spaces of the newspaper.

She sipped the tea as she watched him engrossed in something that kept him calmer than she ever could.

"Drink the tea", she said, " it's getting cold".

Dadu looked up from the object of his momentary amusement and opened his mouth, as if to say something; but decide against it at the last moment. He picked up the cup of tea with one hand and stared into it.

"You look very beautiful today, you know" , Dadu said, still staring in the cup.

Her lips curled into a small smile as she realised for some reason that she had indeed aged; she knew that she neither preferred his quietude nor his curses. Didu promised to remind herself that, the next day as well. Till then, she would watch him enjoying his caricatures. 

Glossary::-

Didu- maternal grandmother

Dadu - maternal grandfather

জবা - Joba , written in Bengali-Assamese script. Name of my maternal grandmother