Authors: Sita Brahmachari
Jasmine Skies (6 page)
I feel a bit like I’ve been holding my breath since I left London, so it’s a relief to be on my own now. I walk round Priya’s room, just taking it all in. Her beautiful bed is
under the window at the far end of the room and right next to it is a low wooden table. One wall is covered by a white storage unit, with a desk and shelves built in, and to its right and left are
floor-to-ceiling wardrobes. Even though I know it’s nosy of me, I walk over and open one side of the doors. Clothes come piling down on top of me. I
thought
it looked suspiciously tidy
in here. I have to stop myself from laughing, because this is exactly what I do when Mum tells me to sort out my room. Maybe it’s what everyone does! I quickly stuff the clothes back in and
wedge the door shut.
I hardly dare open the other wardrobe, but when I do it’s like discovering a whole new Priya. There’s a flash-looking music deck, earphones and hundreds of CDs all stacked in
alphabetical order. The way it’s all laid out so carefully gives me the impression that Priya would know if anything was moved so I close the door without touching a thing.
I slowly walk along the only free wall in the room, where Priya’s stuck CD covers and bits torn from magazines, mostly stuff about bands I’ve never heard of, but mixed in with all
this are photos of her dancing, holding the most amazing poses. I hardly recognize her. She looks so classical and . . . like she could be out of any period in time.
At the end of her bed is an ancient cupboard, carved and painted in flaky fading orange, green and gold paint. It’s about my height. I run my fingers around the cornice. I’ve never
touched such beautiful carving. It’s a shame about the one small piece of wood missing that breaks the pattern, but even so I love the way the leaf motif repeats and repeats. The cupboard is
split into two, with a wooden slat down the middle and two thick shelves on either side. There are holes where hinges for doors used to go. It looks like the sort of cupboard that you would want to
store precious things in, so it feels right that Priya has filled it with big coffee-table books about classical dance and all her dancing trophies. It reminds me a bit of Mum’s wooden chest,
the one I took her letter album from.
I lie down on Priya’s quilt and look up through the tiny window, I can see blue sky glinting through the chinks in the canopy of green leaves. The worn lace curtains gently waft towards
me, along with a faintly sweet smell. I close my eyes, but all I can think about are Mum’s letters. No matter how terrible I feel, I know I’m going to have to read them and this time on
my own is my chance to get it over and done with.
I pick up my bag and walk through to the shower room. I lock the door and take out the faded album. I look closely at the embroidered dancers decorating the cover. I take a deep breath and
unfold the first letter.
Stolen Letters
There are lots of cards in the album, because Anjali and Mum share the same birthday, 30 May, 1966. That much I do know because Grandad used to say how strange it was that
Anjali and Mum were born on the same day and that mine and Priya’s birthdays are only three months apart. I suppose that is quite a coincidence.
It’s sweet to see the tiny, wobbly handwriting and funny little drawings by six-year-old Anjali (who was obviously obsessed with monkeys!). As the years go by the cards grow into letters
and sometimes postcards, like this one Anjali sent from Khajuraho. The picture on the front shows naked sculptures in all sorts of positions. Thankfully this one didn’t fall out at the
airport, or get leered at by Creepy Guard. It’s funny to see Anjali’s handwriting change over time, from baby scrawl to swirly grown-up script. I turn the postcard over . . .
To arrive for 30 May 1980 (Here’s hoping!)
Dear Uma,
A birthday card from our holiday in Khajuraho!
It’s all sex sex sex!
Prem is trying to make me embarrassed. Keeps asking me to explain how the positions these statues have got themselves into are possible! I told
him, they’re sculptures . . . they can get themselves into any position they want! They call them ‘erotic’ statues! What do you think?!
Happy big 14th Birthday,
Love,
Your cousin,
Anjali
How embarrassing is that! You just don’t want to think of your mum and your aunt having those sorts of thoughts.
I put all the letters and cards in order. There are only three actual letters – I thought there would be more than that. The first card is hand-made and dated 1970, which would have made
them four years old. There’s a picture of three cheeky monkeys.
It just says in big babyish letters:
It’s so sweet to see the wobbly writing, like Laila’s. There are tons of cards and letters from then all the way to 1981 (that must have been after Mum’s
visit), but then there’s a massive leap across time to just one card in 2011, which has got a photograph of the most beautiful kingfisher on it.
6 January 2011
Dear Uma,
We are all so sorry for the passing of your father. He was a wonderful, caring man. I remember his hearty laugh, his humour and his warm
nature.
With very much love even across all this space and time,
Anjali, Dinesh and Priya x
Does this mean that Anjali didn’t write to Mum for all that time? Maybe they just talked on the phone, but it’s strange that they would go from writing several times
a year to . . . nothing. There’s not even a card for Mum and Dad’s wedding here.
This kingfisher card feels like a sort of olive branch. So I was right – these letters must have something to do with why Mum and Anjali weren’t in contact for so long, and, looking
at the dates, maybe whatever happened between them was something to do with Mum’s visit to Kolkata. I’m trying to wind my mind back to work out when Priya first sent me a Facebook
message. Before I got to know her, the only contact we had with India was through Grandad’s sister Lila, Priya’s grandma, because she came to visit when Grandad was ill. I remember how
excited Grandad and Nana Kath were when Lila arrived, and how much they enjoyed taking her up to meet all Nana Kath’s brothers and sisters in the Lake District. Mum kind of named my little
sister Laila after her because Lila came to see her the day after she was born. She was so happy holding baby Laila in her arms, and she sang her a song in Bengali. After Lila left Grandad started
talking about going back home to see everyone, and taking me with him. Lila called Mum after Grandad died, and I remember it clearly because she hardly speaks any English and Mum doesn’t
speak much Bengali so they just cried and cried together on the phone. Afterwards Mum said it had made her feel better to cry with Lila. Now I think of it, maybe it was Lila who suggested to Priya
that she should email me? It was just after Grandad died that Priya started Facebooking me.
Looking at some of these photos of Anjali and Mum, when they were teenagers, Creepy Guard was right, it could actually be me and Priya in these photos. The only thing that really makes Priya
look different from Anjali is her short hair. It’s sort of comforting to see these old photos. I don’t understand why Mum wouldn’t share them with me. I start to read the earliest
letter.
3 June 1979
Dear Uma,
As you’ve asked I will try to describe to you my (our) grandmother’s house. It’s in old Calcutta on a street called Doctor’s
Lane.
I don’t know what you’d make of the narrow lanes, hidden away from the busy roads. I love wandering down these old mud streets that are crowded with
rickshaws and bustling with people selling anything and everything. I don’t expect cows walk down your highways, but they roam freely here. The roads are lined with grand houses, but
most of them are slightly crumbling now. The paint is flaking away, leaving the old brickwork peeping through as though a layer of skin has been grazed off.
Have you heard the story of our great-grandfather? His name was Pran. He used to give medicine out to the poor, and that’s why our family has a special
connection to this road. Pran died when your father was still a boy, but he always thought Bimal Uncle would be the next one in the family to treat the sick in Doctor’s
Lane.
Grandmother’s house, where we live too, to help look after her, is one of the British-built houses, with shuttered windows, and iron balconies on every floor.
It goes up and up for four levels and on the top there’s a roof terrace where Grandmother grows fruit trees. I always think the branches growing above the top balcony make the house
look alive.
The front door is my favourite on the street. It has two huge sandstone pillars that have swirly patterning at their tops, and above them there’s more wooden
carving, painted green with tiny orange flowers scattered across its surface. The door itself is heavy as a tree and has great metal hoops for turning. On either side of the handle are panels
full of grand bouquets of flowers. It’s our Uncle Shudi who carved and painted this door. He made it for Grandma’s last birthday. I wish you could have seen her face when they
brought her slowly down the wooden staircase through the house, past the floor we live on and out on to the street.
She looked up at her precious door, and you know what she said? ‘This door will last for longer than you and me and longer than this house even. It’s a
work of art.’ Then she walked back up the wooden stairs, past the shop where Shudi uncle does his carving (and before that great-grandad used to have his doctor’s surgery), past
the kitchen and up, up, up, back to her bedroom.
I will paint a picture of Dida, your Thakurma, how she was on her eightieth birthday.
She settles on her huge metal bed, propped up by cushions. She’s sitting on a cream quilt and wearing her thin white sari with gold edging, and a small blue
cardigan rests over her shoulders. She sits cross-legged in the middle of her mattress, like a tiny frail doll, and her thin strands of white hair are pulled into a tight bun.
‘Dance for me, Anjali, on my birthday,’ she whispers in her dry crackly voice, and then she asks me to turn the little silver key with the heart-shaped
end and open her sari cupboard. She says that it’s the most beautiful piece of carving Shudi Uncle has ever made for her. Inside the cupboard are all her saris, hundreds and hundreds of
them, in every colour and style of silk and cotton.
This is our game. When she plays it she doesn’t seem so frail and sleepy any more. She likes me to choose a sari to wear to dance for her. I pick a turquoise
one and I prance around the room to her old-fashioned sitar music. She taps her hand on her knee as I dance and her eyes begin to sparkle with happiness.
You asked me to tell you about the house, and I have ended up telling you about Dida. I suppose for me it’s impossible to describe the house without the people
in it. Probably what I have said is just how your father describes it anyway.
You should come and see it for yourself.
Your loving cousin,
Anjali x
When I finish reading I realize that my heart is beating too fast. It’s strange how close I feel to Grandad, Mum and Anjali reading these words. I scan over the same lines
again and again and, as I read, my guilt for taking these letters starts to simmer up into anger that Mum wanted to keep all of this from me when she was asking the same questions herself!
Grandad used to talk to me all the time about his childhood in the house in Doctor’s Lane. When he knew he was too ill to fly to India he told me that the place he would have liked to go
to more than any other was his old home. ‘You should go there, Mira; it was a beautiful house,’ he said.