2020: Story 8: The Clue

 “Ma, what is a 3-letter word for ‘distinctive time period’ that begins with the letter E?” called out Kirti. Busy with measuring out water for cooking the rice, Reshma couldn’t reply at once. Even as her brain raced through the possibilities of the word that would fit the clue, Reshma heard her mother-in-law’s voice, dripping sarcasm, chide the child.

“Ask your father, Kirti, he’s more likely to know than your mother.”

Reshma gritted her teeth, and began deep breathing, mentally counting from 1 to 10, like her colleague had advised. This wasn’t the first time her mother-in-law had tried to belittle her. “You should have learned to ignore her by now,” Reshma told herself, for the eleventh time in the 2 hours she’d been up that day.

Before she reached 5 on her count, Reshma found she couldn’t continue her ‘breathing and counting relaxation’ because she was laughing. Her little angel had decided to take the old dragon head-on.

“Dadi, you’re wrong, Papa is not good at crosswords. Last time I asked him, he fumbled around on his mobile and took 5 minutes to find out the answer. Ma never takes more than half a minute, she only closes her eyes and the word comes to her by magic,” insisted Kirti, defending her mother against the grandmother’s verbal assault.

“Try ‘era’, or ‘eon’ Kirti,” came the enthusiastic shout from the kitchen.

“See, Dadi? Ma’s busy cooking and still, she can give me not just one but two answers!”

Reshma smiled and got on with her work. With her loyal supporter around, she didn’t ever need to count numbers for too long.

Married for 10 years now, Reshma had heard thousands of comments and snide remarks from her mother-in-law, but never replied back. She had swallowed all the hurt and tried to forgive the old woman, who she knew had gone through a difficult life in her younger days. But when someone keeps criticizing you for the most mundane of things, that don’t really matter, it’s tough to stay patient.

Before anyone else could say the pulao was delicious, Mummyji would say the rice was overcooked, not realizing that Reshma made it soft so that the older woman wouldn’t suffer indigestion. If the others tried to overrule her, she’d find fault with the vessel in which Reshma had cooked it.

Reshma should have boiled water in this utensil, not that. She should have used this ladle and not that one for the soup. She should have washed the clothes today, not yesterday. She should have bought the soap at this shop instead of that one. The list of Mummyji’s complaints was never-ending.

The strain was beginning to tell on Reshma. Just the other day, her boss had spoken to her in confidence, asking if she was bothered by something because he had caught a silly mistake in one of her calculations. She had felt so embarrassed by the incident that she’d blurted it out to her close friend who already knew about her mental state. This was what had prompted the friendly advice of counting to 10 and deep breathing.

Now, as she got ready to leave for office, Reshma pushed those thoughts away. She gave her daughter a light peck on the cheek, saying, “Bye, Kirti, be a good girl, and don’t trouble Dadi.”

“Why are you so nice to her when she’s so mean to you?” came the furious whisper as Kirti’s lips brushed against her mother’s cheek.

“We’ll talk about it tonight,” Reshma whispered back, keeping her eyes away from the child, because she didn’t want her to see the glaze that had come into them.

Once in office, Reshma was totally caught up in her work. There was so much going on with the new project, and the latest information had thrown all their plans into disarray. Things had to be worked over from scratch now, and with her superior data-crunching abilities, Reshma was soon taking the lead, coming up with a new gameplan, and assigning tasks to her team.

It was 7 pm when she was finally ready to leave the office. Reshma rushed home, stopping for a few minutes at the supermarket to buy some vegetables and other household items. She heard their raised voices before she even entered the door.

Kirti was almost in tears, and saying, “I don’t care if Ma comes home a little late, she must have been given some extra work in the office. Why do you grumble so much about it, Dadi? It’s still only half an hour past her usual time!”

“Humph! During my times, women stayed at home, and let the men do the earning. We didn’t neglect our children for the sake of some extra money to spend on frivolous things.”

“Well, isn’t it the ‘some extra money’ that lets you go to that snazzy Senior Citizens Club meeting every Wednesday,” thought Reshma, as she walked in, pretending she hadn’t heard anything.

“I was about to cook some rice because it was getting late and I didn’t know when you’d reach, and I get indigestion if I eat too late.” said Mummyji.

“That’s okay. I had kneaded the dough for rotis in the morning itself and put it into the refrigerator. Give me 30 minutes, dinner will be ready at the usual time,” said Reshma, with a little tremble in her voice, irritated by the memory of how Mummyji so often was the last person to eat because she didn’t want to miss that night’s episode of the TV soap poised at a critical juncture.

It was 11 pm by the time Reshma finally came to bed. She found Kirti reading a book and waiting for her.

“Hey, I thought you were fast asleep by now!”

“No, I was waiting, because as we decided this morning, we have something important to discuss.”

Reshma pretended to not understand.

“What’s that? I don’t remember any such plan.”

“You heard what Dadi said in the evening when you came home, right? I know, because I saw you pause outside the half-open door before you entered. She’s such a mean old lady. I wish she would go away somewhere, then you, Papa, and I can be happy together.”

“Sshhh! You must not think such things, dear. Dadi loves you so much, remember how she was so upset when you hurt yourself in the park last week?”

“Why doesn’t she love you, then, Ma? Why does she always say bad things to you? I hate her for doing that!”

Reshma didn’t know what to say in reply. She’d often asked that question to herself and failed to come up with a convincing answer. She’d gotten used to things, telling herself that one must learn to accept that which cannot be changed.

“She’s from the older generation, Kirti, so she feels differently about things. Also, maybe because she isn’t in very good health, and can’t do things by herself the way she wants to, it’s frustrating for her to be forced to depend on others.”

“I don’t understand how you can try to think of nice reasons for her behavior when she’s so mean to you!”

“You remember what Papa always says about trying to do the right thing even if it’s not very pleasant?”

“I wish Papa was here right now and hadn’t gone on his office trip today. I miss him so much. If he was here, Dadi too wouldn’t behave like this!”

 “Yes, I miss him too. We just have to wait for one more week and he’ll be back from his official trip.”

Two days later, Reshma found the courage to do what she had never done in the past 10 years. She put her foot down, insisting that Mummyji cancel her weekly meeting at the Senior Citizens Club.

“No way am I going to miss the meeting! We’re discussing next week’s fundraiser for the Mitra Orphanage. I’m in the finance committee, and I simply have to be there.  You’re just jealous of me having a good time with my friends,” griped Mummyji.

“No, Mummyji, for once in all these years, you are going to listen to me!” yelled Reshma. “All these years I’ve let you boss me around, and I’ve tried to see good in you even when you were being bad to me. But this one time, you can’t have your way!”

“You can’t do this to me, you evil woman! I’ll make my son overrule you, and have my way!”

“Try it and see,” warned Reshma and on that ominous note, with hands still trembling from the adrenaline rush, she locked the door and left for office. She had wisely dropped Kirti with her parents the previous day and didn’t have to worry about the child witnessing the ugly spat.

Because she didn’t want to upset her husband when he was out of town on important work, Reshma had decided to take two more precautions. One, she had removed Mummyji’s SIM card from her cell phone. Two – Reshma had told the neighbor to keep an eye on Mummyji who was running a fever and resting. “There’s an urgent task to be completed at the office, and I’ll be back within two hours. I’ve given Mummyji some medicine, so she should be ok, but please do telephone me if there’s any problem,” Reshma had requested the neighbor.

After just one hour, Reshma was back home. She unlocked the door and entered, to find Mummyji sitting motionless on the sofa, eyes glued to the TV screen, where a reporter was rendering a breathless account of the foiled terrorist attack on Hotel Sheraton. The hotel whose conference hall housed the weekly meeting of the Senior Citizens Club.

Reshma walked up to the sofa, and standing behind Mummyji, she put her hands on the elderly’s woman’s frail shoulders. Rubbing them in a gentle massage, she asked in a soft voice, “You understand now, why I….”

For the first time in her life, Reshma found her mother-in-law at a loss for words. “How did you know?” she finally managed to ask.

“I can’t tell you that, Mummyji. Let’s just say it’s good that I got the information well in time to stop you from going there, and thank God the terrorists’ plan didn’t succeed.”

Mummyji’s entire demeanor had been transformed in the past few hours. She pulled Reshma’s hand to her face and clung to it in desperation and Reshma could feel the wetness of her hot tears.

On the TV screen, the reporter was interviewing someone from the local administration who was claiming credit for the success of foiling the terror bid. Reshma smiled and nodded.

This wasn’t the first time her office would not be mentioned as the source of intel that had helped the administration do its job.

The prompt for this story was 'Misunderstood'. Have I done it justice? Waiting to hear from you!