Achaar by Aditya Vikram Shrivastava

Achaar

Aditya Vikram Shrivastava

Grandma scurries across the balcony with her walking cane in hand. Lazy city monkeys sit on the edge of the parapet, feasting on raw mangoes spread out to dry. They play with pickles, sunbathing, the tips of their fingers colored golden in turmeric and spice. On the clothesline, in the claws of steel clips, an old sari hangs loosely, fluttering over their small heads as the mother monkeys pick lice.

They tear the clothes into halves, granny winces, shoos them away with all the loudness her breaking body can muster, a prayer more divine than her evening shloka, until her voice cracks at last. She keeps beating the marble floor with the long stick that is bent at the end like her back, till all of them flee, become a distant dot in the glare of that hot, quiet afternoon.

She picks the scattered pieces of unmade pickles and checks them for teeth marks. Unpins the torn bedsheet and the torn sari, carries them inside. Her eyesight has grown weak, and she can't sew it back. So she holds it in her shaking hands, and cries.

The fruit vendor hawks his lorry on the clustered street, grinning at her when grandma peers out of the window, asks the price.

Her lungs shrink, wrinkles deepen, Dasaratha weeps under her eyes. The pickles should be ready before the kids arrive.