Jabalpur was hot, streams of air buffeted the fine dust and blew them into the eyes of Gayathri. The mud plains of this central Indian town always got on her nerves and she yearned for the cool waters of the river Pamba, where the tiny fishes nibbled at her toes when she and her three sisters escaped every after noon to a tiny cove shaded by the jacaranda and jackfruit trees away from the prying eyes of the men who always oogled at them when they passed.
Konni was so far away from the molten heat of the three room Ordinance factory quarters that they had been allocated. The feeble attempts of her mother to grow morning glories had resulted in a few stunted shoots that withered a little everyday, in the rising heat of the summer. She shaded herself from the sun with a folding umbrella which had gay green leaves printed on them, like the leaves that grew along the embankments on both the sides of the cobbled mud path that lead up the small hill to her home. She would proudly say that the land right up the hill was her fathers and the wavy undulating compound walls were witness to so many of her childhood mischief along with the other three.
A wiff of breeze passed her and raised a dead leaf into the air, and she was mesmerized by the sight, leaves everywhere, along the path, in the mittam, the courtyard and under the clove plant that she tended. She shivered and pushed the thoughts of her home in Kerala away into the recesses of her mind and brooded about her exams that were a few days away. She would have to return to Nagpur again for her finals, the exams would bestow upon her the honorific Bachelor of Education title and would get her a job. A job and escape, from home or from the heat of the place. She entered the house and sat down. Savoring the coolness of the shade within, she noticed then that half the dust from the courtyard had been blown into the room, covering even the letter from her brother in a fine sheet. “Junior Mukesh” she called him, for the excellent voice in which he sang songs from Raj Kapoor movies. She read and smiled, he had done well in his second year of medicine, acchan would be delighted. She decided to make some sweet for him when he came back from the first shift. Another hour to go for the others to come back, she gently woke her mother up from her siesta and smiled the news to her, they laughed together. Murali would become a fine doctor.
Her father came back just as the sun was spreading its saffron cover in the western skies. She sat at the steps reading her textbook, trying to make sense of what had been written and distractedly following the path of two errant crows as they teased a kite overhead. He was pleased that his son was doing well. He was sure that one day he would be able to return back to his village in Kerala. He could for a moment smell the butter lamps that he lit so often in the village temple. He flashed a smile at his wife and asked in his usual gruff yet gentle voice to get him a tumbler of tea. Gayathri had anticipated this and asked her mother to sit back and relax while she ran into the house to pour out the steaming tea fragrant with some crushed ginger in two tumblers. She had on her way home picked up some Parle Gluco biscuits; emptying them into a steel plate she walked carefully, in time to catch the last sentence from her father lips.
He had a friend who had proposed marriage with Gayathri for his son. He did not want to say a yes as of now, not without asking Gayathri. The boy worked at the ordinance factory and earned well. “Let her complete her education” was all that her mother said. And the matter rested.
A week later, Gayathri took the bus to Indore and then from there, another bus to the well maintained city of Nagpur. It was summer and everywhere along the road one could see huge mounds of oranges lying about like little mountains. There was sweetness in the air and gulmohur trees flamed in red. Would he be waiting? Gayathri though as she walked from the bus stop to the college hostel. He was to have gone home for the study leave.
Though her heart skipped a few beats, she never gave away the fact that she loved him. Arun Jaiswal, with his Elvis sideburns and a puff of hair that rose in the breeze. Gayathri knew her father would never agree, he would die if he ever knew that she had fallen in love with a non-Malayali, a north Indian.
Another year and her father would have retired anyway and he would be back in his village. And she would be alone teaching in a school. She wanted to go back to Konni, she knew that of she stayed back she would not be able to control herself and would definitely tell Arun what she felt. She deposited the trunk she carried under her simple bed and called her hostel friends. Sharing the goodies that only her mother could conjure up everytime it was time for her to return to Nagpur. Outside the shade the heat simmered and threw shadows that moved like ghostly images.
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