Shaam e firaq ab na puch ayee aur aa ke tal gayee
Dil tha ke phir behel gaya, jaan thi ke phir sambhal gayee
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Alas, ask not how the night of anguished separation arrived, how it departed;
How the heart found distractions to steady itself, how the spirit that lay in shambles renewed itself
translation from Urdu by N. Gandhi
The daughter announced her breakup on the Family Whatsapp group:
I wanted to let you know that X and I are no longer together. We decided this a few days ago, but we’re still good friends. I’m doing fine, and there’s nothing to worry about. I don’t really want to talk about it but wanted to let you know.
The mother was hanging up the laundry on the terrace, so it was a while before she read the message. By then several competing conjectures and questions had been formulated by the rest of the Family: But weren’t they so in-love just a few months ago! What went wrong? How can you continue to be good friends with your ex? Could it be a joke? Somebody else has texted from her phone? Not possible. The daughter had a fingerprint-locked phone. They’re not together but they’re living together? The mother mulled this over. Until when? Until the lockdown ends? Until their apartment lease runs out?
It was past midnight in Boston and it was a searing April morning in India. Covid lockdown was in full swing; the unpitying Indian sun beating down from a white and mean sky. The weather app on the mother’s phone said 42 C. Before taking the laundry up, the mother made tea, fed the dogs, and prepared breakfast. It was just another lockdown day. It didn’t feel that different from any other day except that the domestic help was not coming. All her days had become about chores. With the eerie quiet of a merciless morning and a total lack of street traffic, silence sat like an unfamiliar and sinister presence over everything. But everything also seemed almost normal. Almost.
The mother wondered if writing on the family group was the new normal way of announcing breakups for the daughter’s gen? Less painful, less personal. Quick and convenient? How should she respond? Right away? Or wait? She decided to wait. It was middle of the night in Boston. She might as well wait till it was the daughter’s morning. The mother took a long time composing a message that she hoped didn’t sound too intrusive:
I’m sorry this had to happen under lockdown and you have to be indoors all the time. I know how draining it is to be around people you’re no longer in love with. You said you don’t want to talk about it. But if you need to, I’m here. I don’t know what frame of mind or heart you are in. I send my prayers and good wishes.
The mother couldn’t tell if she was sad, mad, or indifferent about the break-up. Or about the message arriving on the Family Whatsapp group? Or by the curt and matter-of-fact warning: I don’t really want to talk about it.
The mother texted the daughter a few days later:
The US emerging as Covid hotspot. Worrying and praying. How are you doing? I mean emotionally? At least talk to someone. I feel miles away from you. Literally and otherwise. It can get v. depressing to process all this alone.
The mother added:
Spray everything, every day. Taps, counters, door handles. With sanitiser. I use diluted bleach as spray. Maybe you’re already doing this? If you need to talk, am here.
The daughter replied, but not immediately:
I’m fine. I have online therapy sessions with a counsellor. Don’t worry ma, am using sanitiser and I’m spraying everything every day.
The mother wondered why it took the daughter so long to respond? Was her advice about spraying everything intrusive? The daughter wanted to sanitise their relationship as well? Why did she bother to write: if you need me to talk, am here? It was obvious the daughter didn’t need to talk. She had online therapy sessions to figure out her relationship issues.
*
Will you still kiss me when I’m very old and very very wrinkled? The mother would ask the daughter.
Of course, I will kiss you even more when you’re wrinkled and old. Because your skin will be even softer then.
The daughter would kiss the mother repeatedly as soon as she returned from school.
That was a long time ago.
May be the daughter didn’t want to talk about the break-up because she feared the mother would go I-told-you-so on her. Maybe the online therapist had suggested the daughter announce the break-up as a short, to-the-point text message. The family deserved to be informed, but should not be allowed to get too nosy. The mother should’ve felt relieved that her little girl, stroking whose velvety back had filled her with unfathomable tranquility after her birth, didn’t need her anymore. She was an independent woman, sorting out her adulthood crap on her own.
There used to be a time when the mother called the daughter every morning when it was the daughter’s night-time. It was a routine the mother looked forward to eagerly while sipping her morning tea. But she stopped when she gathered the daughter did not want to be called every day. The daughter had her courses and exams and even a relationship to manage.
I appreciate your support, and having normal conversations helps me, where we talk about different things, the daughter texted a few days later.
Normal conversations? What the hell are normal conversations? The mother wanted to yell so loud her voice would carry across the oceans. Normal conversations? What exactly are those? No uneasy silences? Nothing messy? No emotional oozing out? What exactly is a normal conversation? Normal from whose perspective? Their conversations were becoming more and more normal, with the daughter defining the parameters of Normal.
The next time the daughter called, she talked about her indoor plants that weren’t doing too well.
They are dropping leaves.
The mother said: Show me.
They switched the call to video.
Maybe you’re overwatering them? Or maybe they’re not getting enough sunlight?
No. It’s something else. Not sure what it is. I’ll Google it.
Yes, Google it. Google has the answer to everything.
Have you baked anything recently Mama? We made red velvet macaroons. But they came out looking like crinkled hamburger buns.
The mother studied the crinkled red velvet macaroons on her phone in the photos the daughter shared. But it was her daughter’s face that looked more crumpled to her. Did they make the macaroons after the break-up, or before? The mother wondered, but dared not ask.
Afterwards the mother texted: You looked tired. Fatigued. Are you sleeping ok? Can you go for a walk during lockdown? Get some fresh air?
And against her rational self’s advice, the mother impulsively added: if you need help and I can help in any way, without intruding on your personal space of course ... please let me know.
The daughter texted a day later.
I am tired because of the semester just piling up towards the end. Didn’t even really get a spring break, and I have to work on weekends to keep up. There’s housework. Groceries. Cooking too. And all these restrictions on going anywhere.
Hmm … it must not be easy…
listen ... I don’t … don’t send me flowers for my birthday, ok?
No flowers? You don’t want flowers, Mama?
No, no flowers. Donate money to a good cause instead.
The daughter called early on the mother’s birthday. I made a donation to a charity that’s helping internally displaced people in Yemen.
Good.
The mother surprised herself. She chatted on cheerfully, almost mindlessly. She could make quite a normal conversation when she put her mind to it. Or removed her mind. She talked about all sorts of normal things.
You know my sourdough starter wasn’t bubbly enough even after I left it out for 5 days. I’ve started watching YouTube videos on how to fix my starter.
You know the sparrow couple that built their nest outside my window? They had their babies.
You know what Dodo did? She got hold of a little bird this morning and I had to scold her and run after her before she dropped the poor bird. It was still alive, thank God.
How are you getting your groceries? Ordering online? There aren’t enough masks or sanitisers in US stores? Is that possible? This sort of thing is supposed to happen only in this part of the planet.
Do you want the link to this really yummy raw foods Vegan no butter no sugar brownies recipe?
I don’t know why I check Worldometer Covid stats every morning. I shouldn’t do it. Not good for my sanity.
They ended the conversation on a genteel note. The daughter asked her: Ma, what are your birthday plans?
Birthday plans? Nothing. I plan to deliver a ceiling fan to a woman who’s without a fan. You can’t imagine how hot it is.
Ma, be very careful when you go out. Don’t stay out too long. I don’t know where all this is going. I hear ambulances in the street 24/7. It’s very scary. The sirens keep me up.
*
The next weekend when the daughter called, the mother related her fan delivery adventure. The mother didn’t tell the daughter what delivering the fan really meant: Expansiveness. Craziness. Escape. Hope. Courage. Happiness. Meaning-making. Instead, she blabbed about the logistic details of fan delivery.
So it was around 10 am and I was following P in her car. She said ‘I’m going to try the back roads. So just follow me.’ At the next roadblock, we were stopped by the police. P talked to them. Then she called me. ‘I told them we have a sick relative who needs to get to the hospital. If they ask you anything, say the same.’ Luckily, the policeman let my car pass. I just followed P. I don’t know how they let us through the barrier. We drove on mostly empty streets and we reached Asma’s place in no time. It was a great experience to drive during lockdown. No traffic. Empty roads.
Sounds like you had a bit of fun dodging the police! The daughter said.
Yes! I did. We did. My fanventure! Making up that sick relative story was daft. On the way back, we had to take another route because the policeman would’ve noticed we had no sick relative in the car.
The mother didn’t tell the daughter about the gaping hole that was gnawing at her insides. The hole grew wider, knowing that the daughter didn’t care to hear about the hole. The mother didn’t say it’s hard not knowing when they’d meet next. The mother didn’t speak of the loss of the sweet way in which the daughter used to kiss her cheeks. The mother didn’t speak of her incomprehensible, lingering bewilderment. The mother didn’t tell the daughter how she was growing impatient with her own inability to accept the inevitable. The mother didn’t mention nights of anguish, mornings of weeping, evenings of waiting for the daughter’s texts and calls. The mother didn’t say anything about feeling gloomy, especially at dusk. None of that stuff. No talk of waking up from sad anxious helplessness-filled dreams: crying-worrying-grieving-lamenting-remembering-hurting-angering.
None of that stuff.
The mother is telling the daughter she will drive her to her friend’s house which is in a far-off place. But on the way there, the mother has to attend a lecture. She parks the car in the street. During the very long lecture, the mother forgets that she had to drop her daughter to her friend’s house, and she can’t remember what she told her about waiting. She tries to call her daughter. But the lecture organiser comes over and orders the mother to sit in the front row, because she was trying to use her phone. The mother obeys, moves to front row, but is still worried, so she leaves the lecture hall, goes to the toilet to make the call. But her phone has shrunk. It’s become so little, she can’t find the daughter’s number on the screen. She wonders if the car has been towed away. She shouldn’t have parked the car in the street. That was not a very responsible thing to do!
She feels guilty. Worried. Anxious. Trapped. Her breathing is quick. Her throat is parched.
The mother wakes up and turns on her lamp. Drinks water. Swallows her tranquiliser pill. Another anxiety dream. Thank God it was just a dream. She writes down the dream in the dream journal she keeps by her bed.
What was that about? She scribbles in the margin.
Go back to sleep, go back to sleep, old woman. It was just another anxiety dream. It’s not your responsibility to drive anybody around anywhere anymore.
*
Nighat Gandhi is a mental health counsellor, a mother, a South Asian, queer-feminist, Vipassana meditator, and a student of Taṣawwuf (Sufism). She wrote many of these stories armed with cups of Leo coffee, riddled with self-doubt, and bothered by back pain as a result of spending hours hunched over her laptop, in the comforting company of her two dearest companions, Dodi and Heidu, who snoozed on the floor and kept sleepful watch over her. Waiting is her fourth book.
Nighat Gandhi’s work, both as a writer of short stories and as a translator from Urdu, has appeared in Out of Print.