Kaapi au late
The first morning in her new apartment, on her first day of work, the first thing Tara did when she entered the kitchen, was to pick up the bottle of freeze-dried Columbian coffee. One heaped spoon coffee powder, one spoon sugar, hot water and milk- that sounded right. She plugged the kettle in.
The steam from the gleaming steel glass rose, carrying with it the blended smells of the brew and the Jasmine from her mother’s hair.
‘Listen to the song. This is Bhoopalam- the ragam to be sung in the mornings.”
Tara lifted the tumbler and sipped.
“Yesterday we listened to Sriman Narayan, remember? That was Bhouli, another morning ragam”
“Are you listening to what I am saying?”
“Both you sisters are the same, good singers but not interested in Music.”
“How many times have I told you- put your dirty dishes in the sink, don’t leave them sitting on the table….”
The kettle spouted hot steam on to Tara ’s hand, jerking her back into her kitchen.
She poured the water into her coffee mug, over the powder-sugar mix. The drink smelt like coffee. She added milk until her drink began to look like coffee. She hesitated and then drank a little. She exhaled. She looked down at the cup she was holding for a few minutes. Then, she slowly finished it.
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play button. This was her real first break in six months, perhaps the second in the one year she had
been working in this soft ware programming firm.
The distinctive voice of M S Subbulakshmi flowed out and filled her mind.
“Okay, Tara , One last time”
“This is easy. You can sing it- if you want to, that is”
“Well, you entered the classical music inter collegiate competition, you made it to the finals. So now you have to practice.”
“You can drop out if you want to...”
“One last time. For your sake.” She muttered
“Not bad.” Her mother said when they finished the rehearsal. “If you concentrate on your singing, you should do well tomorrow. Remember- Ragam is kapi, thalam is Adi”
“They won’t ask all that”
“You must know what you are singing, anyway”
“Okay, okay. Adi thalam. Kapi ragam. Happy?”
“Hmm”
“Now that we are done with Kapi can I have some coffee?”
Oh god, there was the frown. Music was not just her mother’s profession or even her vocation- it was her passion, her prayer. She did not like people making jokes about it.
A smile. Phew!
“Wait. I need to put my tampura away first.”
The song ended. Tara picked up her purse and made her way to the office pantry; the song and the words still flowing through her. She inserted some coins into the coffee machine. She pressed a few buttons and waited for her paper cup to fill up. A thin golden brown liquid gushed into her cup. She added the creamer and a stick of sugar. She took a sip as she moved away for the machine. She grimaced as she eyed the cup with its weak brew and lumpy bits of un-dissolved creamer. She shrugged and poured the contents of the cup into the sink and trashed the cup.
She walked back to her desk and her programme but it was a while before the song stopped playing in her head.
*********************************************************************
Six months later, when it was July 12th, she was still not ready for it. She stayed late at work, completing the tasks of the next day. By eight she had run out of reasons to linger. She wandered about the mall and she was not really surprised when she stopped where she did.
The coffee shop had the look of an opium den: low lights and tables peopled by individuals who were not thinking beyond their drink. Some were sipping, some swigging, and some simply inhaling
it. Coffee was curling up and filling every available space.
it. Coffee was curling up and filling every available space.
Endaro Mahanubhavulu…..
“Tara, Priya here”
“Hey! Amma reached?’
“That is what I am calling about. You need to come home”
The singer was repeating the lines. Tara remembered everything about this song that her mother had always wanted her to about all songs- the ragam, the talam, the composer.
And that this had been the last song her mother had sung. . Three years should have been long
enough to dull the pain.
enough to dull the pain.
“Oh god! Look... the news...” disembodied voices in the common room
“What happened?”
“The Air India flight coming back for the US to Chennai – crashed near …”
“I just heard it on the news. I am coming home”
They never had a funeral; they never found the body. The girls had a prayer meeting for their mother. They could not call their father- they did not know who he was.
A few days later Tara went back to her management school. . Priya, who then was already working, continued living in their mother’s house. Tara never went home after that. She had come to the US
strong, too wrong coffee. She put the cup on the counter and left the coffee shop with out a backward glance.
It was time, she knew. She let herself into her apartment and picked up the phone
“Priya,” she said when her call was answered. “I am coming home”
“Okay” was all the reply she got but Tara could feel the smile break through the phone cables. “Anything special I can make for you?”
“Coffee-“
She stumbled into her sister’s living room. Tara could hear her in the kitchen. She went in .Priya was pottering about in her Capri ’s and tank top, her short hair bobbing about.
”Ah good morning. Ready for your coffee?”
”Ah good morning. Ready for your coffee?”
“In a few minutes”
She looked around. Now a computer stood at the corner and a bright rug was spread in the middle of the room. The other corner had a rocking chair and beside it there was a book case full of books
“Where is Amma’s tampura?”
“Gave it away” came the answer from the kitchen. “To the music school- like she had wanted”
“Her books?’
“You remember Vishnu? Her favourite student?”
“Hmm”
“He asked for it. I thought she would have liked him to have it. So...”
“Sugar?”
“Like always”
“I don’t have sugar anymore”
“Oh”
Priya came up to the table and placed a steel tumbler of coffee in front of Tara . She was holding a white patterned Corel mug, Tara noticed.
“I switched to mugs a few years back” she said noticing the question in Tara ’s eyes.
“In fact I hardly drink coffee. Have Earl Gray in the mornings. Decided to keep you company today”
She gently put the tumbler down on her sister’s table.
“I was wondering… there is something here I would like to take back with me…”
“Of course. What?’
Six weeks later, when Tara returned to New York , the city was already beginning to wear its autumn look.
The first thing she unpacked was the shiny polished brass coffee filter. She put it carefully on the kitchen counter. Some Indian store in Queens was bound to have South Indian coffee powder….
This was one of the winners of the Elle Fiction award 2010. Here are some mentions of the award
http://www.asiawrites.org/2010/06/announcing-elle-fiction-awards-india.html
http://www.asiawrites.org/2010/06/announcing-elle-fiction-awards-india.html
He poured the dark liquid into her favourite copita. He picked the glass up at the stem, lifted it and held it against the white of the light. The clear brew gave out a rich, mahogany colour; the colour of her lips, but not as intoxicating or as sweet.
He lowered the glass to his nose and inhaled. He caught the characteristic fruity aroma of the wine.
She had smelled of wine too. She had seemed to wear wine like other women wore perfume. He remembered the scents- Pinot Noir behind the ears, Chablis at the nape and Rioja, with its faint strawberry fragrance at the base of her throat where her pulse had beat wildly.
**********************************************************
He saw her for the first time two years ago.
She was carefully picking the fruit from the vine, her teeth biting her lips in the effort. She looked like the vine it self, her body lush yet slender; her breasts ripe like the fruit. Her lips looked like a bruised grape and a tiny bead oozed out like thick juice. He wanted to step in, press his lips to the drop and drink.
She became aware of him at that moment. She looked up and met his eyes. She must have sensed his desire, read his mind; for she blushed, dropped her eyes and moved way.
She knew who he was. Every body did. He was the boss’s son, He was the boss’s son, too young to inherit, too handsome to be real, the charmed heir who was ready to claim his legacy.
The season had bewitched the land. The air was drunk on the smell of fruit, and the people on the promise of riches. He was intoxicated with her. He began to look for her, seek her out and watch her work. Every time she saw him, her deep dark eyes filled with confusion and she darted away.
One Friday he stopped her before she could run.
“There is a new movie in town. I have two tickets.” He paused “Do you want to go?”
She hesitated. “Okay.”
“The show starts at eight. I‘ll pick you up at seven. We can have dinner first”
She nodded.
“So, where do you live?”
She glanced about her.
“No, I’ll meet you at the side gate to the Manor.”
Manor- that was the locals called his house. She was afraid of being spotted, he knew.
He nodded and strode off, before she changed her mind.
A few days later he took her to the local dance. This time she was less cautious, more willing. The music and the mood caught the two and they shared their first kiss. It was a kiss with the sweetness of Pedro Ximenez and the potency of an Agelianico. He had never felt this light-headed before.
Now they were always seen together, wandering hand in hand and exchanging passionate kisses under the boughs. By the time harvest was over, he was in love.
“Marry me” he said
She did not seem surprised. She smiled “Yes” She said, “I will”
Every paradise has its snake. His was six feet tall, had blue eyes and played the ukulele. He drifted on to his door step the next harvest season, like the mistral that blew over the land where his fruit grew in abundance. He stood there at his door step and asked for work. Pickers were always in demand during harvest. He stood there tall, and looked into the boss’s eyes as he spoke.
This was not the land of certificates and references. This was the land where you looked into a man’s eyes and read his soul in them He looked at the new comer, saw trust, an easy smile and hard work. It was all he needed to see.
He of the land of brown and black eyes did not know then that blue eyes used a different dictionary.
The whispers started almost immediately. The boss‘s wife and the blue eyed man. He had even composed a special tune for her. One could hear it often, flowing over the land. He did not want to hear, he did not want to believe. In his heart, however, he feared.
She began to hum as she worked around the house, her eyes sparkling like the finest Chardonnay. Then, one the night, when she turned her back to him in their bed, he knew.
He grew angry, then sick and finally bitter. His mood spilled over to the land, Clouds formed over the horizon and people began to talk anxiously of rain. Rain before harvest meant very poor wine. Then the grapes began to turn a sickly colour and some became sour. Some people said it was a new disease while some shook their heads and talked of witchcraft. He moved over his land, untouched by the senses of doom.
Soon there was less fruit to pick and the wandering labourers began to leave.
“I am leaving tomorrow.” The words were soft but definite.
“I can’t live with out you.” The sob lay just below the voice
“I am a wanderer, with no place to call home.” No sorrow, just the stating of the truth.
‘I will wander with you.”
A pause and a sigh.
“I leave at dawn.”
“I will meet you at the side gate to the Manor.”
The conversation ended with a shuffle of the foot steps.
He stood in the shadows of his study, motionless until the last notes of the ukulele died away.
There was shepherd’s pie and potatoes for dinner- as there had been every Friday the last year.
“More?” she asked as she served him.
He shook his head. He opened a bottle of her favourite wine. .
“How about a glass?”
She nodded.
For the last time he thought, as she sipped.
He poured himself his whisky.
“I will be in the study. I need to go over my accounts.”
“But you have not eaten.”
He smiled. “Not hungry.”
He picked up the rest of the bottle and his glass. He reached the door of his study and put his hand on the handle. He looked back at her, sitting at the table
” I will be late. Don’t wait up for me.”
Just for a minute she looked thoughtful. Then she nodded. .
” I will be late. Don’t wait up for me.”
Just for a minute she looked thoughtful. Then she nodded. .
He tilted his head, raised his tumbler in salute, and went into his study He locked the door; while he still could.
That night a storm broke over the land.
They found her body the next morning, a few feet from the side gate. Beside her was a brown battered suitcase, baring his humiliation to the world. He said nothing but buried her and her suitcase, beneath the Rosebud bush she had loved
***********************************************************************
He sighed. He swirled the dark liquid, as if to dissolve the memories. It was harvest time again. The picking had just gotten over and the fruit had been sent off to the press. A bumper harvest, very good fruit. There was a promise of excellent wine. Maybe grief and regrets were good for the crops.
It was time to move on. He lifted heavenwards in toast and sipped. He rolled it over his tongue, let the wine tickle his nose and he swallowed. One last time, he thought. He emptied the glass and got to his feet. He was ready to say good bye.
He left the Manor and walked towards the side gate. He stopped at the Rosebud tree. He looked down at her grave and then sat down gently beside it. He closed his eyes and rolled into a crouch. He reached out and slowly lowered his palm and ran it over the slab. He could feel her silky hair, her ripe breasts, her soft belly and her lush thighs.
His stomach cramped. So this is what I made you feel.
He inhaled sharply and then lay down slowly over the slab. He caught the fragrance of her favourite Muscatel in the air. Muscatel of Alexandria
He looked up at the flowers in bloom that gave the tree its name. The Spanish called it the Tree of love. His stomach clenched again and he closed his eyes. Just as he was drifting off he remembered that the tree had one other name- Judas Tree.
That night a storm broke over the land.
Appeared in Mused Literary Journal-http://www.bellaonline.com/review/issues/spring2009/f010.html
Appeared in Mused Literary Journal-http://www.bellaonline.com/review/issues/spring2009/f010.html
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