Tea with Marie

She feels the shift in the breeze and that awakens her – the hot afternoon stillness has given way to this pleasant evening waft. It must be almost five, she thinks to herself still adrift in that moment before awakening, her shut eyelids sensing the play of sun’s mild ineffective rays filtering through the branches of the jamun tree swaying in the garden. Just the thought of such a welcoming pleasant sight makes her rise with a smile. The sun indeed is inching closer to the horizon, the weather pleasant and the breeze blowing into the room through the balcony doors feeling a little cold on her back damp with sweat. She sits up in her bed taking in a couple of deep breaths of air blowing across the patio from the garden, fresh and fragrant with scents of rose, lilies and moist grass. “I must check if the gardener has set the sprinklers on, the ground must be so parched having baked in the afternoon sun”, she thinks to herself. The rose bushes usually look bright but she knew the roots clutch hard at the cracked soil trying to squeeze the last drop of moisture through it. Her prized roses, admired by all, a source of pride and envy in equal measures – the thought itself makes her smile, straightens her back and lifts those droopy shoulders. She reaches out for her mane of hair and untangles them with her fingers. As she shakes her head, the hair blow in the breeze, leaving a calming effect on her cooling scalp. With one stroke and a deft tug she rolls them up in a bun high up on her head, tucking irreverent stray strands behind her ears. She gets up from her bed with some effort holding on to the headboard for support, then takes a few steps and leans on to the door that opens in the porch. She waits to catch her breath and for her knees to slowly get back to life from the long afternoon slumber. Steadying herself, she slides the door fully open.

Another deep breath, and she can smell her garden – it is the best hours of hot Summer days, she opines. “Ah my dear friends, how are you this evening?” While everyone would admire her roses, her personal favourite were the marigolds. Marigolds were not the first to arrive in her garden, the first were the roses – after all everyone wants a rose garden, herself included, but the marigolds came soon after. The staple flowers of any Indian celebration, she planted them upon her return from her favourite niece’s wedding as an eternal reminder of that beautiful occasion. Of course she would always tell Ravi that this fact was just incidental and not why marigolds were her favourite. “The real reason” she would say, “is the smell. Marigolds smell so cold and pleasant. Yes, even fragrances have a temperature – close your eyes and take a mild whiff of marigolds, they emit a cooling sensation. Meerut is always so hot, its nice to sit by the flowers in the evening that feel cool to smell.” Ravi with his whimsical smile would ask him wife “So really? You think marigolds smell better than roses?” “Not better…but yeah roses smell warm.” Ravi had no penchant for gardening but he had it in abundance for her and so he would always procure all the seeds and saplings from the local nursery that she would desire then dig around mud and carefully lay compost  precisely as per her directions. He would bask in the joy on her face when in a shrub would bloom that first flower.  

She stands by the door in admiration of her garden, ah how well it has come up! Soon, the kids will be up and run into it, roll on the grass, play Catch, hide and seek and invariably end up getting dirty. They love climbing the boundary wall to reach out to the branches of the jamun tree to pluck the jamuns – she would have to call out to them to first wash the fruit before eating it. Of course their mother would make that unapproving clicking sound with her tongue at the sight of them wiping off their jamun strained fingers on their shirts. Ah, those are tough stains to remove – a worry for a mother who has to get them cleaned, not for a grand mother who revels in the joy her outdoor playground brings to these kids. “Noone can replace this, no one can offer it”, she sighs in contentment. In their little universe, there is a special corner, a corner of beautiful garden filled with thick luscious grass, shrubs of bougainvillea, bushes of marigold, rose plants, pots of ferns, moneyplant, & palms and a jamun tree, a corner that she has created and would remain in their memory forever.  Their favourite game in the garden is “Detective” – one of them would stomp over the fallen jamuns and then create purple footsteps around the porch. They would then collectively weave a story of who the culprit is and what the footsteps tell them about his actions. She would sit and enjoy the elaborate tales they would weave – borrowing bits and pieces from the comics they would have read earlier in the day or the movies they would watch with their parents. The boundless creativity of childhood lost on middle aged worrisome parents and cherished by retiring grand parents.

Her musings are interrupted, as she realizes it is still rather quiet for the hour. Should not have kids been up by now? “It is getting late”, she mumbles to herself, “Mahima should awaken them, wash their faces and let them out. It is only going to be a couple of hours before sundown”. We must also call out for tea, and some biscuits – chocolate cream ones for the kids, Good day cookies for Mahima, English Marie for her and bhujia for Satish. He has no sweet tooth, just like his parents – her husband would always say “Tea should be mildly sweet and to enhance its flavour, we must have something neutral with it.” It was he who got her hooked on to English Marie, the thin round discs with their trademark mild flavour and distinct fragrance (Sheila would characterize them as cool too, “just like the English weather”, she would laugh and say). Satish agreed with his dad’s theory only to the extend of not wishing for anything sweet with Tea, but Marie he felt tasted like nothing. “Its cardboard”, he would say “not surprising its called English, like all their food, its bland”. So that’s how it would come about that when Satish, Mahima and kids would come for summer vacations, the Tea would be served with three types of biscuits and a bowl full of namkeen bhujia.

Let me step out, Sheila says to herself, as she steps on to the porch towards the garden. Her knees still stiff from the nap. Age seriously had caught up with her sooner than she had expected – it wasn’t until yesterday that I could take a walk around the garden, now I can barely walk past the porch, she wonders. The smile still on her face but now clouding with a frown that is fast deepening in her brow. She takes another step towards the garden – the potted plants closer to the porch are right there and she can see the dandelions, hibiscus and the succulents in them but her sight fails to catch the bougainvillea shrub at the other end of her garden. Finally, she manages the four steps required to cross the porch and reach the wicker gate to the garden…where’s the latch? She feels around the gate but is unable to locate it. As she bends down to look more closely at the gate, her eyes grappling with near-sightedness, the smile on her face dissolves in a look of bewilderment. She just cannot figure how to work the gate – the bamboo shoots with a metallic latch feel unfamiliar. “When did we put a metallic rod on it?”, she wonders, “and where is the latch?” Impatience grips her, but that and the sustained bewilderment start to wear down her frail frame. Before she even realizes how, her bun’s come undone causing her hair to fall loose on her shoulders and she is crouching in the balcony holding tight to the railing her knees having given way.

“Amma”…she hears a distant cry,

“Arre what are you doing sitting on the ground? Did you fall Amma?”

“Satish, help me. Amma has fallen in the balcony. Kya yaar, I have told you so many times, keep the balcony door of Amma’s room locked properly. This is the third time since she has returned from the hospital that she has somehow walked into the balcony and fallen there”

“Oh. Amma are you okay?”, asks Satish to his very confused mother. His heart piercing with a thousand needles at the sight of his mother so frail, looking so beaten and lost. Sheila can barely respond. She looks around and finds herself in the balcony clutching at the railing and her back set against the door of the bedroom she has no recollection of walking out of. Satish and Mahima try to lift her, she struggles to get up but is glad to realize she isn’t hurt. As their collective might manages to stand her up, she catches a sight of the view beyond the balcony. Its open skies with an unobstructed view of the Mumbai skyline.

“Amma, why do you keep walking out into the balcony? What if you trip over? Achcha, come now. Lets have some tea. Everyone is up.”

The couple support her to the living room, quite bright but quiet. Sunlight filters in from the large French doors opening into another balcony – once again the only view is that of open skies stretching in the beyond with some buildings at a distance. Sheila is seated at one end of the dining table alone. The kids, all three of them in the living room unheeded their mother’s calls or dadi’s arrival at the dining table, are glued to their devices. Satish himself is now glued to the TV watching the India-Australia match which has just begun. The maid is bustling in and out of the kitchen with cups and saucers, a large pot of tea, a jug of Horlicks and plates of hot pakodas. Mahima irritated at the kids not listening to her and the noise from the TV commentator blaring nonsense excitement at a ball three men are chasing down the field unsuccessfully, is pouring out Horlicks for the kids to drink. In the din, she hears a faint sound “Marie?”. She looks at Sheila, realizing that’s where the sound came from. “Asha” she yells, “Amma ke liye biskoot lao. And Satish please lower the volume of the TV. Can you please come at the dining table and give some company to Amma”.

Asha walks in with another plate of hot pakodas and a plate of Bourbon biscuits. “Oh, you silly woman. I told you yesterday as well, amma does not like cream biscuits. Get something plain for her.” “Didi, Jim Jam, 50-50, Kaju Pista ya kishmish wale?”, asks Asha. Her mistress glares back at her, “Plain wale, kaha na! Get those plain Glucose biscuits. Amma wont eat these”. Asha walks back into the kitchen with unusual briskness to mark how busy this household keeps her.

Sheila continues to sit dazed in a world of her own, oblivious of the frenzy her one word has created for the two women around her. Mahima, done with the Horlicks, now pours out tea in three cups and places one before Sheila. “Amma, chai. And here are some biscuits for you”.

Satish and the kids join Sheila & Mahima at the dining table. Satish loads his plate with a handful of pakodas topping them with ketchup. “You know we need to get more of these biscuits for Amma. She does not like any cream stuffing ones and likes plain biscuits with her tea” says Mahima. “Marie”, says Sheila, not touching the glucose biscuits. “Hmm, oh don’t we  have any Marie?” asks Satish. “No Satish no one at home eats Marie and to get a whole pack for Amma’s 1 Marie biscuit a day is a waste. At least Glucose biscuit is a smaller pack and Asha eats those too.”

Satish looks amused, passes a glance at his mother who is still waiting  having touched neither tea nor the biscuits on the table “Doesn’t look like Ma is going to have these”. Mahima looks impatiently at him with a clicking sound from her tongue, “Ok so you find Marie and get it. Its hardly in stock these days. By the way, Amma ate glucose biscuits yesterday, the day before and even at the hospital before that. She just doesn’t remember, that’s it! It will take a few minutes but she will have them.”

The kids gulp down their Horlicks and get back to the sofa firmly planted with their mobiles, Satish reaches out for another handful of the pakodas, Mahima takes a couple as well and then switches to her Good day cookies. In the kitchen, Asha, having done with serving tea, sits down on the floor with her own cup of tea and glucose biscuits.

Sheila, her gaze fixated at a distance smiles and mildly says “Chalo kids you should be playing in the garden. The sun is going to set soon. You wont be able to play Detective in the dark”. The household, as if in an alternate dimension, maintain their activities unaffected. Sheila continues to smile glassy eyed,  reaches out to the plate of the biscuits, picks one up, dips it in the hot tea and bites into it. “Ravi always used to say, we should eat something neutral with Tea so as to enjoy the flavour of Tea. That’s how he got me hooked on to Marie”, taking another bite she says, “But this Marie somehow doesn’t taste as good”.