Carpe Diem—short story

My mother died when I was one, and today, I’m meeting her identical twin, my Maushi, whom I don’t remember much. I’d met her a few times, mostly at Diwali when I was very young, nearly thirty odd years ago, but not since. All that I can remember of her was that she had an infectious laugh, and she was always doing something: chopping, tidying or frying. Each time, before we left our home to go to her house, there was always this routine conversation between my stepmother, Mummyji, and Pa. That I recall quite clearly. ‘Have the sweets and savouries been packed properly?’ he’d ask. ‘Yes.’ Mummyji didn’t bother to camouflage the curtness. ‘And the sari?’ ‘Yes,’ she’d snap. ‘For the fourth time, yes.’ My two ‘real’ brothers were already in senior school when Pa remarried; they were brought up by my maternal grandmother and my link with them got diluted over the years for we didn’t meet much. We still don’t. I think they haven’t quite forgiven Pa for ‘replacing’ Ma, our mother. Can’t say. We’ve never talked about it. I’m closer to my stepbrother, Kim. Quite often, I forget that Kim and I don’t share the entire set of genes that I do with my older siblings. Coming back to today’s meeting. Nothing has prepared me for it; it’s like opening up Facebook, not knowing who has written on my wall. I’m doing this out of latent, suppressed curiosity. I want to know what my real mother might have been like had she been alive. I don’t look like Pa, and in the past, many have told me I resembled her, I want to know more about her. How many of her traits have I inherited? When I called up Maushi’s son, my cousin, two weeks ago, he said, ‘Come on Sunday morning, join us for breakfast. All of us will be at home, too. It’ll be nice seeing you again.’ It’ll be hard, I told myself. Maushi and my mother were once a single zygote. Experiences may change, environs may change, but the basic nature, temperament, reactions, attitudes… this aunt is a copy-paste of my mother’s genetic file, her identical twin. I’m going to see something of my own self in her. I stand before the building my cousin lives in. It is right on the main road and the entrance is from behind. In front, there are many shops. It’s a crowded, bustling locality. I climb to the second floor. There’s a mild odour of urine. Decaying garbage is strewn everywhere. It’s a far cry from our home in the US. Pa migrated with us long years ago, leaving behind his world, my roots. The inhabitants of the apartments, the workers cleaning the corridor, the children prancing around… all stare in open curiosity, wondering who I’m visiting. The walls haven’t been painted for decades, and there are patches of peeled paint revealing raw brick, stains of paan and spit at every landing and corner, and dried splashes of perhaps tea or some other beverage on the scratched floor tiles. Several papers declaring themselves to be ‘notices’ are pasted crookedly at intervals, on top of older notices, on a cobweb laced wooden frame, on the right side of the staircase. On the first floor, the only window on the landing has a cracked pane, and it stands askew on the sill. From the angle where I turn up to the next storey, I get the first glimpse of the nameplate: Mrs C Bakla. The C stands for Charu, her name. The flat is in her name. My mother was Niru. I wonder, what was my maternal grandmother’s home like? We are Gujaratis. My father’s family has settled in Mumbai for five generations. We – they – know no other home; I’m told, we have no village to return to. Before we left for the US, didn’t live in a building like this. It was a clean, posh, shiny, happy place. In fact, my paternal grandparents’ home is still well kept. I went there the last time I was in India. About my mother’s side of the family, I know little. Whenever they’re spoken of, they are referred to as ‘her mother’s people’; they have no other identity. Mummyji once told me: ‘Your mother’s family is well off, but your Maushi’s husband lost a lot of money and they had to struggle for many years.’ Had my mother been alive, would she have bailed out her twin, helped her through the bad spells? I try and recall Maushi’s face, and her voice. They are virtually non-existent in my memory. Once Kim arrived, our visits to her house diminished, then halted, and it was Mummyji’s family that I was… still am… more connected with. I look for the bell. There is a little Ganapati idol tucked into a niche beside the door. It’s not been dusted, is covered with grime, yet there are fresh flowers beside it, and a small bulb (possibly battery-operated, because I don’t see any wires), shines in a diya by its feet. A toran is stretched above the door, dried, grey and gnarled. A tattered kandil hangs untidily on one side. Quite obviously, these decorations have been here since Diwali, three months ago. Why don’t people remove and discard them once festivities are over? I don’t understand this. Never did. But it’s none of my business. I’m apprehensive and nervous. I’m going to face a woman who is closest to me genetically. My father and my brothers are males. What is she going to think of me? Will she cry? Will I cry? I know I will. Do twins remain ‘in touch’ if one of them dies? After all, their souls were once, one. Is there a soul at all or is it only a figment of human imagination? We will all find out soon enough: this was no time to contemplate such things. I have a yellowish photograph of my mother with me, one that I found in Baba’s old address-book one day. She and my father, on their wedding day. All adorned with flowers and jewels, but I can clearly make out her features. I’ve kept that photo with me through school, through college, and now it lies nestled amongst my finance folders, unlaminated, unframed. I’ve got it scanned and preserved on a CD, too. For some reason, though, I haven’t shown it to anyone at all. I don’t know whether Baba has missed it. It won’t matter to any one else. My brothers… they’re not as sentimental as I am. Occasionally, I give it a brief glance and wonder whether my life would have been any different had she been alive. Does it bother me? Nope, just curiosity. At family gatherings relatives have remarked that I have got her dimples. It seems my voice, gestures and expressions are all hers. My brothers look like my father. My stepbrother, three years younger than I, also looks like him. I’m the only nishaani of my real mother, they say. Or used to say. Now so many years have passed and no one recalls her at all. She exists only through her genes, through my brothers and me…and our children. She died of kidney failure. Her twin’s kidney would have been a perfect tissue match. Why was it not done? The technology existed then. It would have saved her life. No one, but no one, has spoken much about it, for there are social and familial restrictions involved. Is kidney failure inherited? I don’t want to know. Are there tests that can detect faulty genes? I don’t want to know. Que sera, sera, what will be, will be. Both my children have inherited those same dimples. So have my brothers’ children. That little bit of her genome has remained steadfast. I press the bell. A hundred sparrows or crickets raise a cacophony together. Not a soothing sound like ding-dong or trrrinng. Perhaps it’s meant to startle and prod somebody to open the door. The keyhole darkens as an eye on the other side rests against it; tantalizing shadows are glimpsed through the gap below the door, the security chain rattles…. A moment, and then, the door opens wide. Behind the two smiling faces that welcomingly chorus ‘Aaoh, aaoh, come in, come in,’ stretches a rectangular room. There’s a sofa-set of three pieces, a dining table with four chairs, a television, a glass-fronted cupboard stuffed with dolls and curios, and two children stare at me wide-eyed, fingers stuffed into their mouths, legs apart… ‘Aaoh, come in,’ the adults repeat. I remove my shoes, balance against the wall whilst I undo the straps, kick them aside to join other strewn footwear companions, and gingerly step inside. Sit, they order, sit, we’ll call Baa. She’s been waiting for me, they say: later I discover what a lie that is, spoken as a mere formality. The cousin stays with me, his wife vanishes behind the cut-sari or translucent curtain that probably leads into a bedroom or kitchen like most flats in Bombay. ‘So,’ says the cousin. ‘All is well? Seeing you after nearly, thirty years, when I was….perhaps two years old. I don’t remember. You must be tired. We will have breakfast… my wife, Aditi, she’s made poha. Even the sweet moongdalhalwa is homemade.’ No mention about why I’m here. I notice, he doesn’t have the dimples, but his children do. I don’t know why he keeps saying I must be tired and hungry. He’s wasting time. I just want to see Maushi. That’s all. I subdue the eagerness in my voice when I ask about her. ‘Where’s she?’ ‘She’ll be out in two minutes,’ I’m told. I’ve been told the same thing ten minutes ago. I wonder, is she shy, hesitant or afraid to face me? Is she still mourning for her dead twin? Why this odd, uncomfortable delay? I want to ask. Is something the matter? But I don’t. I just clench my toes, cross my knees, first this way, then that, waiting for that special moment that will help me link with the mother I never knew. When she does come out, I stare. I instinctively compare her with the photograph I have: she is the same item, different size, shop soiled. I can see that those eyes, those brows and that nose are all the same. I’ve studied those features for years. I have them etched in my mind. Her daughter-in-law coaxes her to see me, talk to me. She stares blankly, but kindly. ‘Is your mother well?’ she asks. ‘Why didn’t you get her along?’ ‘I, I…,’ I stutter, ‘I’m Niru’s daughter.’ Her son shouts into her ear: ‘Niru’s daughter, Baa, Nirumaushi. Your sister, Niru.’ ‘How nice,’ she says evenly. ‘Good you came. Stay for lunch.’ I’m confused and shocked. I reach out to hold her hand. My mother’s hand would have been like this. Frail, wrinkled, unsteady. She’s all wrapped up in a crisp, well-ironed cotton sari. Tiny prints on a cream background, woven border, large pallav. ‘How nice,’ she says. ‘How nice, how nice, how nice.’ And then, she flashes those dimples at me. My dimples, my inheritance. She’s one of the owners. Her daughter-in-law reprimands her: ‘Baa, your sister Niru’s daughter. You remember Niru?’ There’s a pause. ‘Yes. I remember Niru,’ she says. She looks straight into my eyes, but I feel she sees nothing. Her eyes are hazy, there’s a hint of cataract in them. I can’t make out whether she’s able to figure out anything of what’s happening. Her expression is benign, but blank. She gazes at my face, touching my cheeks, my chin with her fingers. There is no recognition. ‘Niru,’ she repeats. I will never find out whether there was a bit of lucidity or whether she just echoed what she’d heard. ‘She has Alzheimer’s,’ my cousin whispers loudly from behind me. ‘She has Alzheimer’s.’ Why didn’t anyone warn me? I don’t know what to do. Mechanically, I dig into my bag, take out the gifts I got for them all and hand them out. I give Maushi the CD with my mother’s picture on it. ‘Maushi,’ I try prodding her gently, ‘Niru, your sister, Niru. Charu-Niru, your twin sister. Do you remember?’ It’s so sad; she just repeats what I say: ‘Niru, Charu-Niru. I remember.’ My cousin, his wife, their children, and the servant are all far more interested in feeding me the breakfast that they’ve laid out than in what is happening. I’m not hungry. I don’t care whether they’re giving me tea with or without sugar. I don’t want another helping of the dhokla no matter how fluffy it is. I want to reach out and talk to my mother’s twin. I’m desperate. But once the flight’s taken off, no matter how long you wait at the airport, it won’t come back for you. You have to buy another ticket. Here, there’s no second chance. I’ve waited years for this day. I want to know: if both were born at the same time, in the same place, to the same parents, they must have the same horoscope-chart. How then could their lives have been so different? When people perish together in an air-crash, I want to know whether all their horoscopes indicate the same time and mode of death. Surely they all have different birthdays, birth-times and different planetary conjunctions? I have so many questions saved up: maybe she would have answered them, modified them or deleted them. Now she won’t. She can’t. Her hard disc has crashed and it’s irreparable, irreplaceable. Charumaushi is sitting still, alive but lifeless, at the table. She sits and stares, sometimes at me, at other times into space or at her plate. She eats sloppily, but then carefully gathers the crumbs into her palm. My heart is bursting with unasked questions: how did you feel when my mother died, how close were you as teenagers, how much did you miss her through these years, did you miss her at all…? My stepmother had taken her twin’s place, married my father; but because of the bad spells that Maushi’s family had to go through, the two seldom met. Maushi was busy trying to make ends meet, raising her brood… and the years went by. My stepmother didn’t deem it necessary for me to meet her. Indeed, she must have figured, it was best to keep me away, lest I get emotionally scarred or something. And I nurtured my secret desire of meeting Maushi someday. For years, craving to know more about the woman who’d given me birth and Maushi was the only one who could do that. I touch Maushi. My mother’s skin would have been like this. Papery.The blood vessels bulging below the fingers on the back of the hand, networking around the bony skeleton. She reaches out, too, and touches my face again. Still expressionless. The smile is hollow. Alzheimer’s, eh? She has no memory, I’m told. She has no vocabulary, no feelings, just a body with no mind. A computer, a CPU with a keyboard and a monitor, without any software. Is Alzheimer’s hereditary? Have I got that gene? Has my cousin? I turn to him: ‘Did she ever talk about my mother?’ He’s uncomfortable at the question. He shuffles, looks away, slaps one of the children for misbehaving, orders the servant to get more tea, hot this time, and says: ‘I don’t remember.’ He’s lying. I can’t force him to say any more. What a disappointment. I try again: ‘Look, you and I, we’re products of twins. We share something no one else does. Tell me anything at all that she may have said about my mother, yourNirumaushi. I want to know.’ That uncomfortable silence again. I’m weeping inside. The pictures on the wall with quotes from the Gita, from Sai Baba, from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, all seem so empty, so silly and irrelevant. I didn’t know why anyone would display a large-lettered poster that says Forgive in one’s drawing room. If someone raped my daughter, I wouldn’t forgive. I wouldn’t say she deserved it because of something she did in her last life. I’m getting upset. My mind is wavering, getting agitated, and I am beginning to regret this visit to my aunt. There is a sense of panic, a sense of not wanting to be here. I sigh involuntarily. I can’t rewind anything. I have to just get out of this place. Suddenly the cousin says: ‘I once overheard them say that when your mother needed a kidney, my mother was not allowed to give hers. My father feared for her health, he wanted more children and didn’t know whether donating a kidney would hamper her having more babies. We have never talked about this. I’ve not spoken about this ever before.’ How could anyone deny a sister… a twin sister? Had she protested? Or was she too scared? Did Maushi regret the fact that she couldn’t help her twin? Regret can do terrible things to you. Did she ever think about me, us? I’ll never know. I leave the house despondent, sadder than ever before, and take a taxi to the hotel. I don’t recall going downstairs. I remember just Maushi’s face, innocent of all pleasures, sorrows, devoid of all feelings. I can’t get it out of my mind. There’s so much I want to tell, to share, to confide, but I don’t know where to begin, whose shoulder to cry on. The kids and husband have already returned to the hotel from their fun outing, and they don’t know what I’ve been through. I can’t get myself to answer the excited ‘Tell, tell us what happened.’ ‘She didn’t recognize me,’ is all I say. ‘She’s got Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t recognize anybody.’ ‘So-o,’ says my elder one. ‘You’re showing the symptoms already. Can give you a trillion examples of what you forget, Ma.’ The young one follows suit, jesting cruelly. My husband puts an arm around me. I had wanted to go alone, be alone for this meeting. But he knows something hasn’t gone right. Years of togetherness prompts this instinctive response. Through my sorrow, I feel wanted, secure, and calmer. Tears brim and flow. I can’t, I don’t want to stop them. I cry softly. My children think I’m emotional because of the meeting, they still don’t know why I’m upset. They joke, laugh and tease me. Somewhere along, I realize that I have no control over my genes, my ‘inheritance’, the flow of my life. I must live in the here and now; savour all the good that I have – my children, my husband, my health. Tomorrow should something go wrong, so be it. If something goes right, so be it. I take a deep breath and my Maushi’s face comes to mind. That face is my mother’s. She isn’t even around. Hasn’t been for so many years. Would she have had Alzheimer’s had she been around? Would I have been a caregiver? All I know is that I have got half my personality from her, if Nature is superior to Nurture. I know that I have her will to win, her ability to laugh at everything Life brings my way. I don’t see it in Pa, so that half is hers for sure. She continues to live… I see my dimples… her gift to me… in both my children. I watch them squeal as they tease each other, smiling, laughing…proclaiming her presence in the little depressions in their cheeks. I feel better already.