Touch Is A Distant Memory

In the morning, she washes dishes, cleans rooms and at night, when the receding sun has stained the sky with pulp of pomegranate. And not only the sky — it looks like the lake’s waters, too, are on fire ; she gets beaten up by her father. 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, her father wanted to know who she was. Mishti Didi , our house help known her Abba for 12 years now, 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. She applies layers of Boroline and talcum powder, to hide the bruises on her face. She looks the fairest the days after , she is beaten to death.

It is almost noon. Mishti Didi, is drowsily leaning against the terrace door. For, last night, was accompanied with freezing sleet, the ordinary-seeming pavement was actually looking extraordinary, the. All because of the presence of a rustic chulha, the earthen stove and pots were drained to the very roadside flooding their home. Tying mattress and plastic buckets snugly in the padded swing hanging from the weather beaten windowpane, Mishti Didi kept a watchful eye out for it, throughout the night.

She seems to be sleeping. Her eyes are closed. The scorching lights of the sun falls on her figure, illuminating her momentarily. The cool breeze is blowing through the trees. The leaflets twirl occasionally, like an infant turning in her sleep. Yellowing leaves are embedded within cobwebs, Dreaming, she is again plunged into her life's incomplete darkness and incognizance.

My lone apartment, is very still, miraculously silent, thereby it's Mishti Didi's favorite place to sneak in for a catnap. The tall masjid walls cut it off from the hubbub of the bazaar. 

Mishti Didi awoke up to the distant bleating of goats and the high pitched toot of a 

flute as peddlers led their cycle on the chowk. She came downstairs running, rubbing her sleep-clogged eyes to help Nani milk the goats, feed the hens, and collect eggs. They made bread together. Nani sometimes, would annoyingly frown along her betel stained lips, upon Mishti Didi, whilst showing her how to knead dough, how to kindle the tandoor and slap the flattened dough onto its inner walls, taught her to sew too, and to cook rice and fry kachoris. Mishti Didi never heeded over that regular frown, she would sheepishly smile

My phone buzzed continuously, before switching it off, I left Maa fourteen angry messages . 

That evening, skies had been painted in streaks of grey, with blinding flashes of lightning. All the people in the street, were hurrying along, concentrating on making it out the blinding rain. Ramzan is gone, not its raunaq. Our faded walls were washed and splashed with lime, its floors and corridors swept, fresh red gravel brought and spread on the worn lawns. A chacha stood on the ladder to unscrew all the fused bulbs from the ceiling lamps and

screwed in new ones, his long face morose with the knowledge that within a

week all would be stolen or smashed again. Turning off the lights, he walked out slowly of the building. 

There was an interval and then some mutters of thunder. In that quiet pause, pigeons were heard to gurgle and flutter as if in warning from the wings.

Touch is a distant memory. Nani was sneaking her hands into the small discolored nishani, the almirah she bought as her dowry ransom. She was trying to grab all that she can, trying to remember, to save, to hold on to, to live.

Well, old people go through strange things sometimes, Nani tells me. The thing is, our sense of touch diminishes with age and we all lose touch receptors slowly over the course of life. I will, you will, your Maa and Baba, everyone will. When they're old, very old, and she laughed .

Eavesdropping our conversation, across the rotten wood door, Mishti Didi's eyes misted over, blinking with misery. She wailed tirelessly mumbling under her breath," .. Amma did love the part she birthed in herself, but not me. Did she age old too soon ? ", until it metamorphosed to watery hiccups and her sobs cradled across the corridors.

A stray tear found its way down my cheek, "The child, Amma bore was not me, but a part of her", as these words echoed in my labyrinth.

Mishti Didi could never tell. It did not occur to her younger self to ponder the unfairness of apologizing for the manner of her own birth.