Chapter 5
Knitting the Yarn of Happiness

Dai Ma sneaked into Amit’s room and placed her knitted sweater over Amit’s school sweater. The knitted sweater was two inch short at the arms and one at the chest. Dai Ma was mid-way into completing it when she had come to know Amit was going to the boarding school, about twelve months back. She hadn’t expected such difference. She noted the new measurements on her hand and went to the storeroom. There was no yarn left. She opened her money box - just fifty rupees in it. Dai Ma had not received her pay since three years. But until now, she had no use for it. With Amit gone to the boarding school, there was no one to spend it on. She took the fifty rupees and went to New Market, paying ten rupees for the auto rickshaw. She asked the seamstress to return the saree she had left for mending. As per the policy, they returned back only half the advance. She now had sixty rupees with her. She had selected the yarn she wanted, and had almost paid when her eyes fell on a shiny red yarn kept on the top of the counter, wrapped in tight polythene, with the elegance like a king.
“Bhaisaab, how much does that cost?” Dai Ma asked.
“Hundred rupees,” replied the shopkeeper.
“What is the difference between this one and that one?”
“Madam, that one is imported and made of hundred-percent cotton. Its sweaters are more comfortable to wear. And it is also more in quantity. You can make a sweater plus a cap from it.”
The shopkeeper continued, “Shall I get you that one, or pack this only?”
She convinced the shopkeeper that she will come back by eight o’clock and that he does not sell it till then. Instead of hiring an auto rickshaw, she walked back. By the time she reached, her feet were blistered and the joint of her chappal had come out. She joined them with the Fevistick. By the time she had cooked the dinner, it was already eight o’clock. She hadn’t as yet ironed the clothes and watered the plants. By the time she was done with all the chores, it was half past eight; but only to realise a moment later the clock had stopped. The clock in Neetu’s room showed the time as half past nine. She could hear the sound of closing shutters. Tired, she went and sat in the balcony and ate peanuts. She saw Amit come in, two brimming glasses tucked between his arms and chest, a water bottle between his palms and the inflated pack of last night’s Kwality Banana Chips dangling from his lower pocket. He gave her a smile and placed the things down. He took out a paper from his pocket and unfolded it.
He said, “Dai Ma, it tastes better with salt. Try it.”
Veiled behind his smile, Dai Ma saw the pang of disappointment in Amit’s eyes when he looked at the meagre peanuts left on the paper. She poured more peanuts on the paper from the sack, and went out. She felt she had heard him call her name, but she didn’t turn back. After Amit had gone, she cleared the papers and swept the floor. She unrolled her cot, sat on it and looked at the moon, which looked even more blemished today.

Dai Ma looked at the clock; it was six in the morning. She turned her head and saw through the banister the sun peeking out from the horizon, and the still-sleeping city draped in a pale blue blanket. She rolled her cot and kept it behind the balcony door. She was passing by Amit’s room when she noticed he was not in his bed. He came out a moment later from the bathroom, the towel tied on his waist. He tried to pull over his shirt with his shivering hands, but it got stuck in his big head. Dai Ma took a step towards him, but drew it back. The shirt came down after some effort. He wore rest of the clothes in less than two minutes. He stood in front of the mirror and surveyed his hair. He picked up a comb and ran it through them. His wet hair stuck to his scalp, evenly. He passed a hand over a group of stubborn hair who had stood up. All sat down, but some stood up again. He pressed them down, and when he released his hand, none rebelled. He turned around and looked at the dishevelled bed. He spread the blanket over the bed. Then he picked up one corner, walked alone the bed, and placed it above the other; he did the same with other side. He did rest of the folds and kept it over the chair. Dai Ma noticed a few rebels had again stood up on his head. He made the bed and pulled out his shoes from under the bed. He didn’t tie their lace; he tucked them inside his shoes. Before he went to the boarding school, she always combed his hair, clothed him, arranged his school bag and tied his shoelace. She would tell herself there was no need for him to do it when she was there; he could always learn to do it later, when he grows up. He soon grew up enough to hold the glass of milk by his own. He grew up enough to pee on his own. He grew up enough to go to a primary school. He grew up enough to keep secrets. And then he grew up enough to go to a boarding school. When Neetu had said to Dai Ma, packing his bag, “Amit is now a grown up boy,” Dai Ma realised that her clock of years had stopped working long back, making her feel Amit was still five years old, just a kid, yet to grow up. Neetu’s words wound that clock, by five years in one second. But it was too late. He went to the boarding school; unaware of how to live without someone to tie his lace, bathe him, clothe him, feed him, love him.
Dai Ma walked to the kitchen and made poha. She called out, “Amit baba, breakfast is ready. Come.” He ate on the dining table, while she sat on the floor besides him. “Amit baba, you need anything?” He shook his head. She saw the milk pour out on the stove from the overheated tumbler. She rushed to the kitchen and transferred it with tongs to the counter. She turned back, and saw him eating without any of distraction. Amit kept the plate in the sink, washed hands and went to the drawing room. When Dai Ma went to Amit’s room, she felt there was little left to do; Amit had already done most of the work. She was horrified when she saw the little stain on his blanket. She washed and left it for drying on the terrace. It had happened for the second time since Amit had come. She thanked God Neetu hadn’t seen it.
She went to the storeroom and reluctantly took out forty rupees from the two thousand rupees she had kept aside. Her legs were still paining from yesterday’s strain. In her way to the shop she often stopped and, there being no bench around, sat on the steps of houses for a minute. She sighed with relief when she saw that the red yarn was still there, on the top counter. She kept the money on the counter, and was about to keep the yarn in her bag when the shopkeeper said, “Madam, it costs hundred and ten rupees.”
She said, “Bhaisaab, I came yesterday, and then you told me it was hundred rupees.”
“It is hundred and five.”
She searched among the darkness of her purse for whatever she could find. Four fifty-paisa coins and two one-rupee coins.
“Madam fast. Tell me you want it or not.”
“Bhaisaab, just one minute.”
The man sitting on the chair saw all this, and gave her the yarn for hundred rupees. She thanked him and walked back, without stopping, as the pain was evanesced by joy. At home, she saw Amit was still sitting in the drawing room, smiling at the fishes.
Dai Ma went in the kitchen to make lunch. She kept the parathas on the dining table, and said, “Come Amit baba, lunch is ready.”
She sat leaning by the divan and said, “Mummy has gone to her friend’s house and Papa is eating at the office today.”
He didn’t look at her.
After he had eaten, she went down to water the plants. Every now and then she turned back to see if he was coming down. He didn’t. When she was done, she went upstairs and saw him sleeping on the sofa.
Alone.
With no one by his side.
She sat next to him and pressed the rebels on his head; they went to sleep. She had been knitting since three hours in the storeroom when she realised it was time for Neetu and Rajeev to come home. She prepared the dinner. She knitted for the two hours she got after the dinner and before sleeping. When she came out, it was eleven o’clock. Amit was sleeping in his room. She rolled her cot on the cold, white moonlit balcony and poured peanuts on a paper. She saw Amit cross the drawing room to fetch water from the kitchen. He stopped on his way back and looked at her. From the kitchen, he brought a bottle of water and kept it next to Dai Ma and went back to his room.
The change in Amit’s behaviour had stirred a cord of fear in her. She remembers how until last year—after the formulation of The Half Love Rule—he would rebuke her if she didn’t allow him to eat with her. “Dai Ma,” he would say to her, “if you tell me to go away I will tell my friend Raman to come and beat you. He is my best friend and he will not say no to me.” Looking back, she felt she preferred those threats to his present silence. It was spreading inside him like a disease he had picked up at the boarding school. Since he has come back, he has been spending his days lying on the divan, looking at the fishes or the ceiling, with a gaze so still that it seemed he was competing for stillness with the ceiling. He hadn’t opened the TV since he had come. Two days back Dai Ma had switched on the TV and tuned to his favourite show, Dragon Ball Z. He didn’t even look at the TV. Not even when Goku, his hero, had come back to save his friends. Not even when Vijeta, the creature he loathes most, was defeated. He didn’t say uff! when the intervals came. He didn’t even dance or sing the song along when the credits rolled. He just smiled at the fishes. Dai Ma remembered what had happened to him last year when the serial was not aired for two months – he restricted himself to a meagre diet, resisted the temptation of the chocolate ice-cream that Rajeev brought, cursed the makers of the anime and even forbade himself from watching any other show. One day, he dug his head in Dai Ma’s lap and cried his heart out. And it was at that moment that Golawalla came into his life. Amit looked at the old crippled man as he crushed ice and moulded it into cones, dressed it with colourful nectars and presented it to him in a paper plate with a broad smile. Thereon, like a last-bencher waiting with vigilant ears for the ringing of the school bell, Amit waited for the tolling of the Golawalla’s bell. After silencing the TV, Amit would stand in the balcony ten minutes before four o’clock to look out for him. A notorious cow often came around the bend and shook the bell in its neck at sporadic intervals just to fool the eager waiting-for-Golawalla children, who, at the first hint of the sound, would come rushing out of their doors shouting out their colour preferences, while their mothers shouted out from the balconies that they will break their kneecaps if they eat more than two. Amit earned the distinction of being the only person in the colony who wasn’t deceived by the cow. Amit’s being a daily customer—and the most patient one—the Golawalla often poured extra nectar (and that too the red one) on his gola. Soon the anime started again. Amit ate golas while he watched the anime. Since then Golas and Dragon Ball Z accompanied each other like a couple made in heaven. When Amit had gone away, like most people, the Golawalla was heart-broken. Not because Amit was a regular customer, but because he was the only one who said Hello to him daily. Dai Ma had told Golawalla two weeks back and Amit would be coming back soon. Last week, at precisely four o’clock, the silence of the afternoon-napping colony was disturbed by the toll of Golawalla’s bell. It tolled and tolled and tolled. Like someone calling out for his beloved across two worlds. It tolled and tolled and tolled even after all other children had eaten stomach-full golas. One last forlorn toll, and then it stopped, leaving the air impregnated with a melancholy silence, like that of a battlefield. The old man adjusted his heels, turned the handcart around and went away.
Dai Ma kept her rosary in the tin box, unfurled her blanket and stretched out on the cot. A sharp sound woke her up few minutes later. She listened closely: it was the whining of a dog. She tried to go back to sleep, but the sound didn’t allow. The sharp whines pierced the silence of the night like arrows fired from a bow of pain. Dai Ma turned about and saw Amit standing in the kitchen, looking down the railing. He took out a hardened chapatti from a jar and gently threw it down the railing. The whines continued.
The next day, Dai Ma again found stains on Amit’s blanket. She wondered how many more days are left before Neetu comes to know Amit still pisses in bed. In the afternoon, she saw him carrying a mug of water to the garden. From the balcony, she saw him sprinkle it at one particular place on the rose bed. When she went in to water the plants in the evening, she noticed he had sprinkled the water on the sick rose which he had pointed out the other day. It was shrivelled and decaying. Dai Ma took out the large stones from around it and levelled the soil. She tried to lift it up, but it fell again. She took out a small quantity of manure and dabbed it around the rose. She noticed Amit was standing behind the hedge, looking at her, like a child who looks at the doctor who has come to see his ill mother. Dai Ma saw a small paper folded and kept behind the rose. Picking it up, she saw a photo of Lord Krishna on it; overleaf were the words, ‘Get Well Soon’. She kept it back.
That night, the whines again woke her up. And like the day before, Amit was standing by the railing. She saw him go downstairs with the door key in his hand. She went to the railing and saw him come out a few minutes later, carrying an empty gunny bag. He placed it over the dog. Dai Ma hurriedly went back to her cot. He came up and stood by the railing. The whines continued.
Early next morning, when Dai Ma went downstairs to get the newspapers, she saw a puny dog below the steps of the opposite shop, covered with the gunny bag, with a piece of bread kept next to it on a paper, untouched. Its black body was patched with large reddish spots; it looked as if its skin was falling off. Dai Ma kept a bowl of water next to it, but when she was buying the vegetables in the noon, she saw it had remained untouched. She heard the whines that night also, but this time Amit wasn’t at the railing but in his bed. When she went to the railing, she found the dog missing. But the whines continued all night. She was strolling in the garden next day when she heard muffled voices coming from behind the gazebo. She went there and saw Amit squatting besides the dog, trying to feed it the bread-and-butter slice he had pinched at the breakfast. She went up and tore open the packet of dog biscuits she had brought. When she went down, she saw Amit sitting on a bench with a copy in his hand. She asked, “Amit baba, where is the dog?”
He looked up from the book, briefly, and then continued writing.
She asked again, “Where is the dog?”
He continued writing with deep concentration.
“Amit baba—”
He said without looking up, “Yes?”
“Amit baba, where is that black dog, which you were feeding just now? Don’t worry I am not telling Mummy anything.”
He looked up in her eyes, and pointed his finger to a corner. At first Dai Ma felt there was nothing there but a large stack of bricks. But when she went on the other side of the stack, she saw a small room in the brick structure, curtained by a cloth. She raised the cloth and found the dog inside. Gunny bags were laid on the floor and a small torch was fixed in between two bricks. The dog was covered with the piece of bed sheet which Amit had taken from Dai Ma the day before to clean his study table. Next to it were untouched bread and cookies. Dai Ma turned around and saw Amit standing by the gazebo pillar, looking at her; his hair were falling over his eyes, hiding the creases on his forehead. She kept the dog biscuits inside and went away. Turning back from the stairs, she saw Amit squatting besides the kennel, trying to feed the dog with the biscuits.
When Dai Ma woke up the next day, she saw that Amit was not in his room but in the garden. Nursing the two sick. There was still an hour before Neetu woke up. Dai Ma went down carrying more dog biscuits. Amit was squatting next to the kennel, peering in.
“What happened, Amit baba?”
He pointed his finger towards the dog and said, “Dai Ma, he didn’t eat.”
The dog had bitten a small portion from a biscuit. Milk, water, bread, cookies – all were untouched. Dai Ma brought the biscuit to its mouth, but it showed no sign of opening its mouth.
“Dai Ma, will he be fine?”
“Yes, Amit baba.”
But Amit knew it was not. The dog was dying, not of a disease, but of the secret grief that was hidden somewhere in a dark nook of his heart, eating it away. When Dai Ma returned from the market in the evening, she saw Amit sitting cross-legged next to the kennel.
“Amit baba, Mummy is at home, you should—”
“Dai Ma, Dai Ma, look! See! He ate, he ate! I swear he did. Come, see.”
It had eaten three biscuits.
“Amit baba, how did this happen?”
“Dai Ma, you won’t believe it! I was sitting here and I was just talking to him, I was telling him about my school and I was also reading him my comic and you won’t believe it when I looked up from my comic I find him eating the biscuits.
Dai Ma, now I think if he eats your moong ka halwa, he will be just fine.”
Dai Ma examined the sick rose while she was watering the plants. Amit didn’t peep from behind the hedge; he came and squatted besides her.
“Dai Ma, will this be also fine?”
“I hope so.”
“I will read it my The New Adventures of Superman comic and then it will be fine.”
“Yes. But Amit baba, be careful; only come down to see the dog and this rose when Mummy is not at home.”
The next day, Dai Ma went in the garden carrying moong ka halwa in paper plates. Amit took out a pinch out it and kept it next to the sick rose. He kept the plate next to the dog and said, “Eat it. It is good.”
He turned to Dai Ma, “Dai Ma, where is mine?”
“Upstairs.”
Amit looked at the dog as it hurriedly licked it up the.
“Here,” Dai Ma said, giving a mischevious smile and handing over the other plate to Amit.
Dai Ma went upstairs to cook dinner. An hour later, she heard muffled barks. She ran downstairs. “Amit baba, Mummy is at home! She will see it. Silence it.”
“Dai Ma, Dai Ma, look it is fine now! I told you it will be fine if it eats your moong ka halwa. Look! It is speaking! It is speaking!”
The dog was frenziedly barking.
Dai Ma felt it was expressing its gratitude.
But Amit knew it was speaking out that secret grief.
Amit listened closely to his words, like a consoling friend. “Don’t worry, doggie, don’t worry.”
“Amit baba, come upstairs, dinner is ready.”
“Yes, Dai Ma, in just few minutes. He is talking first time today.”
When Dai Ma looked at him, she thought she had seen a glint of tear in his eye. She had been wrong. There was one thing that that one year couldn’t take away from him. He still loved more than he was supposed to.