By Prachi Shah
I inhaled movies growing up
teaching myself every dance step
spouting every dialogue and
dreaming about future meet-cutes and
daring escapades.
Then, fifteen days before I turned twenty
my mother died.
The audacity of that woman,
leaving me on the cusp of womanhood!
Our lives were suddenly empty-
Of her songs mixing with aromas in the kitchen,
Of arms always outstretched for a hug
Of card games played late into the night.
But with this void came confusion.
Because it didn’t happen like the movies.
I didn’t crumple on the floor, screaming.
My first response…diarrhoea.
I spent my first motherless hour
Squatting on the toilet
And beating my chest with my fists because
I felt it was strangling me.
Even nature didn’t acknowledge
The death of the woman who
made the best mohanthal in the world.
I was expecting rainfall and thunder.
But we stepped out to a sunny sky which never darkened…
not even when my mother went from being
Reeta Parekh to Reeta Parekh’s body.
One thing that the silver screen almost got right
was the procession to the crematorium.
Her body was laid out on a white sheet
dressed in a bridal red saree and
a multitude of garlands caked with
haldi and kumkum covering her torso.
But the eyes were not covered with cotton pads.
They were open.
Some people removed the garlands off of her
and the Kumkum fell straight into her eyes.
And this woman, who became a baby when she had a cold -
She didn’t wake up!
She didn’t even flinch.
We returned home, and time didn’t stop.
We didn’t see her visions everywhere.
I did dream about her once, though.
I was so happy she came back.
And then I woke up, had college
And dinner to cook.
A few months later,
My brothers, my dad and I
watched a movie and laughed.
It felt like relief because
we never thought we would
But it also felt like betrayal, because we could.
In films. the next step was always the montage.
The heroine gets up one day,
ties her hair back in a ponytail
and doubles down on living her best life
because ‘that’s what her mother would’ve wanted.’
Five to six cut scenes later, she is
laughing with her friends,
making headlines at work and
begins each day by blowing a kiss
to her mother’s garlanded picture.
I tried and I crashed.
I sat huddled near her cupboard
clutching the house expenses book
and sobbed into my brother’s arms.
In my defence,
We were supposed to be staring out the window
Sharing a bowl of ice cream and reminiscing.
Mundanity is supposed to take a hike in grief, isn’t it?
As years go by, grief is supposed to manifest
in wistful smiles, short conversations at family dinners
and wet eyes while going over old albums.
The silver screen is a cold-hearted liar.
The pain doesn’t lessen.
It disappears.
Sometimes for months at a time.
Then, the radio plays ‘Jab koi baat bigad jaaye,’
and it comes stabbing back.
I scrummage through old junk and find
a grocery list written in her hand
and it comes stabbing back.
I see my daughter plastering her face with lipstick
and it comes stabbing back.
And sometimes, it tears me apart on a random Tuesday –
just because.
But I am grateful. Truly grateful that
real grief isn’t covered in fluffy clichés.
That it is raw, relentless and vicious.
Because if it stopped hurting me, I would forget.
And then she would truly be gone.