by Shreya Ramachandran
[box]This is the story of three women, in which one of them learns to apply Maya Angelou’s words, “I’m a woman, phenomenally phenomenal woman, that’s me.” to the other two women she knows. Shreya Ramachandran says more in her work of fiction.[/box]“I’m a woman
phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.”
– Maya Angelou
Shareen woke up at seven in the morning that Wednesday. It was the middle of the week; nothing special about the noisy, big-nosed autos that meandered sleepily through the streets.
Upstairs, her Goan Catholic neighbour, Mrs.D’Silva, was singing loudly. There was something so out of tune about her melody. It was tragic, really, because to Mrs.D’Silva, the sound was probably beautiful. Or maybe there was no sound at all. If you sing the same song for 60 years, do you even notice the way it sounds? Or do you sing out of habit, because that’s all you can do?
Shareen slithered out of bed and plodded to the kitchen. Anita, her cook, an animated young woman from Orissa, was talking loudly on the phone and laughing. The oil in the vessel was spluttering and bubbling and smelling of heat. Anita threw mustard seeds into the vessel and ducked automatically to avoid the rogue drops of oil that hissed through the air.
“Good morning, Anita,” Shareen mumbled.
Anita didn’t hear her over the sound of the conversation she was engaged in.
“Anita,” Shareen repeated, her voice subtly raised.
Anita held the phone away from her ear and turned to look at Shareen with alive, glittering eyes. “Good morning didi,” she said, with an easy grin.
“Already on the phone? Accha, make me an omelette, without chillies. I’ll just be back.”
Anita waggled her head in response and went back to laughing loudly, and the seeds were hissing; they seemed to laugh along.
__
After a quick shower, Shareen entered the kitchen with wet hair and freshly moisturised feet.
“Anita, where’s the omelette?” Shareen asked, when she saw a clean and empty table.
Anita stalled and again held the phone away from her ear. “Didn’t make it, didi,” she said.
“Didn’t make it? Anita, I just told you to ,“ and with a pause, Shareen collected herself. “It’s okay… I’ll just make a sandwich.”
Shareen opened the cupboard next to the fridge – it was empty except for a freshly accumulated layer of dust.
“No bread? Anita, I told you at least three times. You went to the market in the evening!”
Anita moved her arm in an “I don’t know why or how” gesture and said, “I forgot, didi.”
Shareen stared coldly at the cupboard and shut the door. Anita had made her pay for a cell phone, a SIM card and an unlimited monthly STD call plan, but the bread cupboard was empty.
“Give me that cell phone,” Shareen muttered, and Anita handed her the phone, looking confused. The woman on the other end was still shrieking and giggling about a giant joke, and it was all a giant joke apparently. Shareen turned off the phone and said, “Now maybe you can work.”
__
When she reached office, Shareen saw Tarun stacking old, worn brown files on top of each other. She walked up to him and tapped his shoulder. “Hi. Sorry I’m late.”
He turned around and shrugged almost imperceptibly, so that she was no longer touching him. “Shareen.” He stopped after saying her name.
“Tarun,” she retorted.
“Listen, uh…”
She folded her arms.
“I just can’t. It’s too…reckless.”
She folded her arms tighter. “Reckless?”
“If Anju knew…” He picked up a file and examined its label.
“Anju doesn’t know,” Shareen said, sounding like a child. “We’ll make sure she doesn’t know.”
“No, but it’s still…” Tarun placed the file carefully on the pile. “There’s something so wrong. I just don’t know why I didn’t say something sooner.”
Shareen gazed at him with a looming panic. “It was your idea.”
Tarun flinched and pushed the pile away. He rested his hand on the bare desk. “She’s my fiancée, Shareen, that means something.”
“I know it does. What are you suggesting? I’m some kind of a…”
“No no, of course you’re not, darling…”
“Don’t call me darling. You’re such a hypocrite,” she said, almost whispering.
“No one’s a hypo-”
“The world is a carnival, is it? And you only leave when YOU’RE ready to? But I have to stay?”
Tarun looked blank. “There’s no carniv-”
“All these months. That’s been nothing?”
“Anju, there’s nothing like -”
“Shareen,” she said, and with a great effort, she looked away. “My name is Shareen.”
___
At six o’clock that evening, Shareen calmly entered her house. She shut the door behind her and slipped onto the brown bean-bag by the window. With her chin resting on her fingers, she looked out of the window. Some people, doing some things, going somewhere. Stories that would never be told.
A sound, soft at first, and then soaring, filled the room. Mrs.D’Silva was singing again. And then suddenly, Shareen was so incredibly sorry.
She got up in a hurry and opened her handbag. She fished out Anita’s cell phone and ran into the kitchen. Anita was cutting onions. Shareen was crying. She handed the phone to Anita, and said, “Here. Please. Talk.”
Anita kept down the knife and wiped her hand on an old, ratty towel. Then, with her large eyes, she said, “Sorry for the bread, didi.”
Shareen shook her head, and said, “Sorry for the phone.”
She left the kitchen and fell, exhausted, onto the bean bag. A few moments later, a polyphonic ringtone beeped in the kitchen, and then Anita was laughing and talking excessively loudly. Shareen smiled, but then she held her head in her hands and sobbed. She couldn’t stop the tears; she was so incredibly foolish to think that the world was filled with problems and importance and agenda.
Shareen ran out of her house and climbed up the narrow stairs, pushing and crying, and she rang Mrs.D’Silva’s doorbell. After five entire minutes, the sixty-year-old woman opened the door, wearing a blue batik-print nightie, and singing loudly and tunelessly.
Before she could say anything, Shareen spoke.
“Mrs.D’Silva, I love the way you sing. I just wanted to tell you that.”
Shreya Ramachandran is a 17-year-old girl from Chennai who attempts to write about the world – or what she knows of it, always obsessed with saying things in her own strange simple way.
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