Ms Rita

They said her house is In the small alley next to the ex-Minister’s bungalow. They said It is a big house and the yard will be clean since she would have plucked out all the weeds. She stays alone, she is strong willed even though her memory started fading. So if we go in such late evening hour, she may not even open the gate and even if she opens the gate she may not recognize. But we thought we will still try. She had taught my wife moral science for one year, she teaches History normally. Their batch recently collected some money for her. On our way my wife was thinking what to give her, whether there was an envelope. She does everything properly – I wouldn’t have thought of such things. Finally she found some envelopes in her 10 kg handbag that she carries everywhere. It has everything that is needed in any kind of emergencies – from torchlight to stapler. The envelopes were already labeled “Onamshasakal”, which she had written up to give small gifts to anyone who gives any sort of service to us – ladies who collect garbage, Chakki’s bus driver, shopkeeper from whom we buy milk every day. She wanted to add “From all of us”, but did not find a black ink pen, to match the “Onamshasakal”.  Chakki was impatient to finish this off since we were using the time she thought she had to go to the beach.

We parked the car on the side of the road, in front of closed shops – old ones, like the old ration shops, with wooden paneled doors, with tiled roof. First house in the alley on the left was padlocked. It had peeled off paint, but the board on the wall said it was a nursery. Bush taller than me were growing all around the house. Next house looked serene, with a nice yard. I said this is the kind of house I would like to live in. “Yeah, right, next to abandoned houses and plots” came the reply. A house on the left was also locked, overgrown trees, bushes and grass around. We passed another house on the left, we thought that was also abandoned. There was a guy standing ahead of us, looking at us, questioningly as to what we were looking for at this hour. We asked him where her house was. He was on phone and in between pointed at the house which we thought was abandoned. There were knee high grass growing around the house. We noticed then that a light was on inside. Knocked on the gate a few times. I heard an inner door inside getting unlocked. She opened the top half of the door to peer outside. My wife called out “Miss, it is me”. She opened up the door, came out and unlocked the gate. My wife introduced. “Yes, I remember you and your sister. Come in.”. She said she remembers the best students and the worst.   

She was as tall as Chakki. Bobbed hair, mostly white but combed neatly. She might be 80 or 85, did not know exactly. She was wearing a frock like the traditional Anglo-Indians in that area. Her frock was faded and frayed. She was too thin, skin like wrinkled wax. We went into the sitting room. Three wooden chairs, an old showcase with some dusty ornamental show pieces inside. Paint has peeled off, showing yellow and blue and white at places. Slanted wooden ceiling had yellow patches, no ceiling fan. I tried to close the door, but the grills above it would anyway bring in the mosquitoes. Three basins were kept next to the showcase. There were old black and white pictures behind her on the wall. There was an yellow light burning inside somewhere and the rooms were dark.

She dragged a chair and sat facing us. She said her memory is ok. She said she is blind in one eye and can’t see much with the other. She has cataract and glaucoma, she talked about going to eye hospitals 10 years back, prepared to do the surgery and the doctors told her that her nerves were too weak and can’t do surgery and she returned home the same day. They told her she would gradually become blind. Now she can’t read anything other than the headlines in newspaper. She doesn’t watch TV during the day and in the evening tries to watch 7:30 serial. She doesn’t go out at all these days, even to the church. Once in three days, a nephew brings her some provisions. She cooks rice and boiled vegetables in the morning around 11. She will have something left for the dinner which she will heat up. She sleeps around 10, otherwise she may not be able to sleep through the night. She was worrying about the grass growing in the yard. It will take 4 days for someone to clean around the hose and they charge Rs 850 these days for one day of labor. She says there are snakes around, she saw three of them in the back yard, it crosses over the road from other empty plots.

She said the rains were terrible, had never seen anything like this in her life. Her front room leaks. She had to remove the ceiling fan since it burned out. It explains the basins and the peeled off paint. She had to sweep out the standing water three times during the rainy days. She had the tiles replaced with a patch of GI sheet, but it made the leak worse. Now they say they have to replace the entire section to fix it properly. The house is 60 years old, built by her father. It was red stone and lime, not concrete or hollow bricks. She is worried if the entire house will collapse. Ex-minister’s high wall collapsed to her back yard in recent rains and now they are re-building it.

We wondered about the pictures on the wall. She pointed out her mother and father and herself when she got the B.Ed – looking so bright. She wanted to see the pictures of other teachers that my wife had in her phone. She looked at each picture, commented about each. She speaks in matter of fact tone, about everything. About her only sister dying 10 years back after getting gangrene in a leg, getting amputed and passing away in a month and not being able to see her. About even waiting for every day as the last day.

It was dark out when we started from there. We promised Chakki to take her to the beach some other day. My wife was commenting that we should have just cleaned out our wallets and given everything we had on us to her.

Would I live so calmly if I was losing my eyesight and alone? What happens to everyone we know now when it is fading hours of our lives? Who will remember us and does it even matter then?