she sat watching a film on tele, whose protagonist was a human of around the same age as her, a peer perhaps. the protagonist's mother, like her own mother. while she knew it was 'just' tele, she couldn't help but feel divisively drawn towards her in ways probably unknown to her, until the point arrived where everything fell apart. the protagonist's mother dies. and she was sat, two pillows to support her back, tears in eyes. tele was on and there she was opening up at the seams, trying hard to stay gathered, but the vicariousness of tele untethered her. those few moments of absolute calm before her pregnant poise would fall apart. the protagonist stood on her knees, laying her head and palms on her mother's body, trying to whisper last few important words to her, trying to love her back into wakefulness, when she lost her stately poise.
wailing, howling even, she burst into a bundle of tears. face down, sobbing copiously into the same pillows that backed her, she cried, breaking herself, much against her own will. her grandfather heard the abundant cries in the next room and came running. wrapping his mighty, grey-haired frail arms around her, he asked 'what happened to you rani?'
'shizuka's mom died!' she was sobbing, without breaking to draw breathes.
the grandfather smiled to himself, immediately blanketed with a sorrow he had no access to in the next moment. his summer vest was soaked in her tears around the shoulder now.
'no, rani, Doremon will wake her up.'
'baba no, she is gone, and i think so is my mom'
the grandfather did not know what to say to that. he quietly pulled her out of his embrace, her tiny face between his palms, he gently wiped her tears, planted a peck on the forehead and mustered 'not at all rani, let me put you on the phone with your mom.. she is just in a different city...'
'no baba, she is dead, i know she is dead.' her inconsolable voice, the weepy eyes strangely squinting with tears looking at her baba's face looking for solace of any kind. the grandfather turned tele off, encumbered by the visuals, he felt agonised at the girl's fleeting visceral pain, and dialed his daughter-in-law's number.
'it's ringing, wait,' he said, all the while running his palm on her back, thinking that might ease her emotional turbulence.
'hello papa'
'here talk to her,' he handed the cellphone back to her.
'mamma where are you? are you dead?' she said, her eyes pregnant with all the love and tears and worry and the knowledge of the unknown bursting into a flood of emotions all over again.
'i am right here bitiya, what makes you think i am dead?'
'shizuka's mom died maa, and she didn't wake up when shizuka tried to wake her up, so i thought you also died'
the grandfather plucked himself together, cupped her cheek in his palm, and planted soft pecks at the back of her palms, and caressing her head.
'nothing like that, i think you should not watch so much tele and catch up on your sleep bitiya. and you're so smart, had i been dead how then would i have spoken with you over the phone right now? hmmm? think bitiya'
'mamma when will you come here? you said you'll come tomorrow'
'bitiya you should come back home at the end of the summer vacation, come here, we will go to the park and cycle every evening.'
'mumma you are able to put me to sleep, no one else can. i miss you.' the eyes holding tears back, her lips in a small u-shaped semi-circle, looking nowhere, trying to find her mother in her mind's eye.
'what is this bitiya? i will take the evening train today and reach you tomorrow, now quickly tell me the Malgudi Days story you have been watching on youtube.'
her face red, holding captive the tears which knew very easily which way to flow, she said: 'mumma that chaami is very stupid, but that night when he bit the thief on the arm, i think he was very brave.'
'see, i knew it...'
she resumed the usual conversation with mother, repeatedly saying the words 'did you know' that otherwise irritated everyone else, but her mother.
the grandfather prepared for her a bottle of lukewarm milk and handed it over while she was still on the phone. quietly she rested her back on the bed, put a pillow by the side to support the milk bottle, and tucked her index finger inside her navel, all the while talking with her mother on the phone.
a few minutes later, when the grandfather couldn't hear her gregarious words from the other room, he peeked in from the window. one hand in her hair, the other's index finger in the navel, the phone and half-drunk milk bottle lay astray, while she slept restedly, one leg slightly bent at the knee, lips closed, engulfed in a dream in the post-lunch afternoon nap.
