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Ladies coupè by Anita Nair

Akhila

she collects epithets of hope like children collect ticket. She has long ago trodden to shards her rose-glassed spectacles and switched to metal-framed glasses that remain plain indoors and turn photo-chromatic outdoors.

Akhila felt a great desire to board a train. To leave. To go somewhere. Land’s end, perhaps. Kanyakumari. At Kanyakumari, the three seas meet. The Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. A quiet male ocean flanked by two restless female seas.

Akhila read the board above the line. ‘Ladies, Senior Citizens and Handicapped Persons.’ She did not know if she should feel angry or venerated.

‘Quo vadis. Do you know what that means? It’s Latin for “Whither goest thou?”

....the smell of orange peel and rust would be for her the odour of panic.

They lived quiet, starched and ironed lives where there was no room for chiffon-like flourishes of feeling or heavy zari-lined silken excesses.

Kailasa temple. .......Had the Nandi ever wondered what came first—devotion or duty?

Mothballs that dissipated into nothingness when touched by air.

So who was Akhilandeswari? Did she exist at all? If she did, what was her identity? Did her heart skip a beat when it saw a mango tree studded with blossoms? Did the feel of rain on her bare skin send a line of goose bumps down her spine? Did she sing? Did she dream? Did she weep for no reason?

Sheela and Janaki. Two ends of a spectrum. Young girl, old woman, and yet how different were their lives from hers? They could be her, Akhila thought. She could be them. Each confronting life and trying to make some sense of its uncertain lines. If they could somehow do that, as well as they knew best, why can’t I? With that thought, Akhila felt a slow gathering of joy. A thin stream that let loose tributaries of trickling hope. An anticipation that what she had set out to do might not all be in vain. That Akhila would triumph one way or the other.

Oil of Vitrol

Margaret Shanthi

That it is water in its various forms that configures the earth, atmosphere, sky, mountains, gods and men, beasts and birds, grass and trees, and animals down to worms, flies and ants. That all these are only different forms of water. That water is to be weighed carefully or it will weigh upon you! That was the first lesson I had to teach him.

The sky was the colour of freshly cast zinc. A bluish silver surface that would slowly oxidize to form a greyish protective film as the day wore on.

I waited for a clap of thunder, a hurling meteor, a whirlwind, a dust storm . . . for some super phenomenon that is usually meant to accompany such momentous and perhaps sacrilegious revelations.

‘Maragatham, I’m not so sure if we should have a baby now,’ he said. Was it then that the first whiff of a fragrance akin to the oil of wintergreen sped up my nostrils? Toxic, destructive methanol when heated with salicylic acid and a few drops of concentrated sulphuric acid produces methyl salicate. A compound that has the fragrance of the oil of wintergreen. Ethanol, or what I thought love to be, produces no such fragrance. I should have known then.

Love beckons with a rare bouquet. Love demands you drink of it. And then love burns the tongue, the senses. Love is methyl alcohol pretending to be ethyl alcohol.

I became what he wanted me to be: a good sport and a team player. The universal solvent.

There were shades to Ebenezer Paulraj. At times, he was blue vitriol, imbued with copper. Radiating goodness and positive energy; remedying deficiencies with his presence; helping, cleansing, healing. Other times, he was green vitriol, possessed by iron. Capable of reducing anything and anyone to insignificance by the sheer force of his personality. He did it unconsciously and naturally. When he was ruled by cobalt, he was rose vitriol. Protective of all that was weak and defenceless. Then there were times when zinc took over and he was white vitriol. Mordant and destructive of anything that he considered irrelevant. But nothing could change his core quality which determined who he was—oil of vitriol.

Afloat

Prabha Devi

Long ago she had discovered that a woman with an opinion was treated like a bad smell. To be shunned.

When Prabha Devi’s fingertips touched the other end of the pool wall, she straightened. And Prabha Devi knew that life would never be the same again. That nothing else that happened would ever measure up to that moment of supreme content when she realized that she had stayed afloat.

Sister to the real thing

Marikolanthu

......there was so much more happening. The fields and the villagers bored me. I felt stifled by the narrowness of the streets and the boundaries that were everywhere. Between field and field; home and field; man and woman; woman and life; living and dignity . . .

Husband’s protection! The phrase made me cringe. Neither Sujata Akka nor my mother ever had their husbands look out for them. The Chettiar took care of Sujata Akka’s needs. And Amma had to look after herself. The men in their lives had done nothing and yet to them a fulfilled woman was one who was married. Everything else was secondary.

For so long now, I had been content to remain a sister to the real thing. Surrogate housewife. Surrogate mother. Surrogate lover. But now I wanted more. I wanted to be the real thing.