Dating : 2. Aami Leth

Character List

Aami (Aam) Lett: Narrator
Haripriya (Hari): Am’s best friend
Girish Lett: Aami’s father
Chitra Lett (Step): Aam’s aunt, her dead mother’s sister
Faizal: An old watchman
Munna: A younger watchman
Ghost: The ghost of Am’s dead mother
Stoneman killer: An unknown, unapprehended serial killer

The prayer meeting, rather, the party, was stuffy, and Hari came along. I found it difficult to believe I grew up in this house — it felt like my aunt’s house now. But it was my aunt in my mother’s house celebrating my mother’s death. My father read out an eulogical prayer, after which my … step-mother went around talking to the mourners, while I secretly helped myself to my father’s secret alcohol stash. She found me in the corner I had found for myself, away from the painful crowd.

Step: Did you hear that hear that Aam? Your poor, broken father’s words.

I heard his words, for sure. I was at my nonchalant best.

Step: Are you alright? It’s been a year now, Aam. Your mother lies in the same plane as the gods now… in swarg, in heaven.

Lying, yes. I do get that feeling that someone’s…

Hari appeared and interrupted: She’s fine. We are both tired from moving Aam’s things into the Worli house.

Don’t be an ass, she hissed once Step was gone. You are lucky they don’t get your jokes, or else they’d never talk to you again.

Yes, I do have such a grave family.

Keep making those dad jokes, and I won’t be talking to you, she retorted, leaving me by myself in my rotten mood. She took a cab back home and didn’t wait for me. I walked out the first chance I got soon enough and walked all the way home. The curfew would start tomorrow, but people were already inside their homes. The Stoneman killer, who’d been killing the poor and homeless people sleeping on pavements had stuck terror in the city. He/she was known to bash people’s head with gigantic stones while they slept. How did he lift such heavy stones, I wondered. Nothing scared me. I don’t think I’d care if the killer confronted me and asked to bash my head in right now. I might even agree. He only kills the poor and homeless, and I still have a home, I told myself. But I met no killers and reached home to find Hari already tucking into dinner in front of the TV.

I could say it was the cold that woke us, but I’m not sure. We’d fallen asleep by the TV after some drinks. To us Mumbaiites, cold is a mere concept. We are in jackets and winter clothes when it’s barely 22°C outside, and this was positively teeth-shattering cold. Munna had been knocking on the door loud enough to wake the dead.

He was breathless: She’s here. It’s this cold when she’s coming Little Memsaab. Uncle Faizal said he will do the guarding… he called me to make sure you are both safe…. Please Little Memsaab, let’s leave…let’s go… I’ll see you to Hari memsaab’s hom….

He was looking over my shoulder, so I turned around. She stood there. True, she resembled my mother in her lavender sari and top bun, but there was nothing of my mother in her. She didn’t radiate my mother’s love for me. She began to glide upstairs, and I followed her. Munna and Hari were far too much in shock, it looked like. We reached her room, and she just kept pacing around.

Stop it! What are you doing? I yelled in frustration.

Ghost: I am glad I saw you. I was only waiting to talk to you once before I left this world. You need to help me… I didn’t commit suicide. I didn’t want to die. I was killed. But as long as the world says I’ve committed suicide, I will be in limbo… in the twenty-third hell, where I’ll be impaled on a trident and birds will peck on my body. I will suffer the depravity of food and water much like the living as well as tortures you cannot think of will be inflicted….

Stop it. What do you want?

Ghost: You must avenge me. Let the truth be known so that my soul can be free. I want to go to heaven, to swarka, like I deserve. I didn’t die by my own hands. I didn’t poison myself. I was killed…. She killed me… my own sister. She killed me because she needed my wealth and my husband, my security.

Are… you sure…. mother? Am I seeing things?

Ghost: Trust me daughter. I’ve loved you all my life. You are me and I’m you. I made you in my image. Free me, daughter… free me.

She disappeared then and left me looking at the mirrored door of her almirah, the one with all her saris, where she would stand looking at herself, adjusting the pleats, the flow of her sari.

Where is it… Hari asked. I turned to see Manu and Hari standing behind me. A sudden feeling of exhaustion made me sit down on the bed.

She told me there’s a killer….

We know that… Hari said. Manu joined in: We know that very well Little Memsaab. It’s an especially difficult time for us watchmen…. I mean even now, I’m worried Uncle Faizal is outside by himself. But he won’t let anything happen to you girls…. So, he sent me in.

Just promise me both of you… Promise me you won’t say anything about this to anyone.

Hari: Of course.

Manu: Yes, Little Memsaab.

And if I act strange in the next few weeks, don’t be worried . Just trust me. Trust that my antics are not me and that they are necessary….