Mama’s boy

While it was still night in their small cluttered flat the old woman rose quietly and flicked on the harsh, naked light of the overhead bulb. The sleeping figure of her son on the bed parallel to her stirred. Some days she let him sleep longer, till she had lit the stove and put on the kettle. But today, she rudely pulled off the sheet which he had drawn over his head, and called in her throaty, rasping voice:

‘Percy! Percy! Are you getting up? Are you awake? I haven’t slept all night.’

Percy sat up in bed and groaned, rubbing his eyes. Outside, it was turning grey and birds had begun to chirp softly.

Mother and son went about their morning chores and ablutions silently. Banubai lit the wick stove and put the kettle on. Percy took in the milk bottle from the verandah, switched off the night lamp and proceeded to fold the sheets. Then, using a polythene hose fitted with a nozzle, Percy filled water in the large plastic drum and brass pots in the kitchen and bathroom. The plastic nozzle had become loose, and the force of the water in the tap created a fountain of spray which drenched his shirt and wetted the floor all around him. While the steaming water in the soot-blackened kettle soaked in the colour of tea leaves, the old woman and her son stood outside on the verandah facing east, flicking their kashtis and reciting their morning prayers. When they had finished, Banubai noticed that his sudrah was very damp, and she made him change it; Percy was prone to colds.

After tea, Banubai and Percy swept and swabbed the three small rooms and kitchen of their flat (Banubai had long ago decided to dispense with servants, whose slave she didn’t want to be), taking turns with the broom and mop. Next, from her collection of rangoli boxes the old woman selected a little one, perforated with the outlines of a pair of fish, and printed patterns of chalk on the threshold of every doorway. By now the coals on the fire would be hot and sparking. Using a pair of pincers, Banubai arranged them carefully on the afarghan and sprinkled them with incense dust. Then, raising the silver smoking receptacle high in the air, and mumbling her prayers softly, the small figure of Banubai walked through their rooms, circumnavigating the many old pieces of furniture, fumigating every corner with the incense smoke, dispelling the last vestiges of night and ungodliness from their homestead. She had had a traditional upbringing. She liked to do everything right, the way it was prescribed by her ancestors. Ever since her husband died, eighteen years ago, there had been no one to prevent her from doing things just right: the way she liked to do them.

Soon it would be time for Percy to leave for work. The firm of Bhairam Cheliram & Sons Pvt Ltd opened early, at a half past eight, and closed at half past four. He had been working there for the last fifteen years, first as delivery boy, and now as Chief Clerk (as it happened, there was only one clerk employed by the firm).

Percy was thirty-four, and was going to turn thirty-five next month, but Banubai didn’t trust him to fry his own eggs for breakfast.

‘You’ll splash hot oil on yourself, you ninny. Don’t even try!’ she had said cuttingly the only time he had put the frying pan on the stove to make his own breakfast. ‘And how much oil! Marere mua, you’ve finished half my tin! Do you know how much this one tin costs?’ She bullied him too much, she sat on his head. He knew it. Sometimes, in his heart, he rebelled against her tyranny, her strict routines. But he never spoke his resentment. It was better to be obedient if you were a duffer. And Percy had had long training in servility. Maybe he could have managed quite well on his own, better than she thought he could. But he wasn’t sure. He had never been without her, and the thought had never occurred to him that he might, some day.

Half an hour later, as Percy was getting dressed to leave for office, he discovered there wasn’t a single button on his trouser flies. His other two pairs were with the dhobi.

‘Mumma!’ he called out to Banubai in his flutey, quavering voice. ‘Mumma, all my buttons are gone. Not one left. Stitch me some now, will you? How can I go like this?’

‘My eyes don’t work so well anymore. Haven’t I told you, start doing things with your own hands now. How much can one person do? I have but two hands,’ Banubai harangued her son. ‘If something happens to me tomorrow, God forbid, what will become of you? Give, give. . . Bring needle and thread. And my specs.’

Her protestations notwithstanding the short and wiry Banubai, who was sixty-eight, was very active still. Holding the needle within an inch of her nose, she threaded it skillfully, at the first try. Then, bending over the trousers, she muttered under her breath, softly but audibly, ‘Where will I find you a wife? Who will marry you, a chap like you . . .?’

And Percy, who was standing beside her in his shirt and his shoes, with a towel wrapped around his midriff declared, ‘I don’t want anyone, Mumma, I don’t want! I’ll stay here with you. You can look after me better than any wife.’

‘Ja, ja gadhera! Show some sign of brains when you open your mouth,’ Banubai shouted at him; but it was playful ire, and a half smile diffused her grouch of concentration.

As soon as Percy left the house, Banubai retired to the kitchen and began furiously to knead the dough which she had left overnight in a wet cloth. She had an order to meet today, for one dozen popatjis and two dozen bhakhras. Three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, Banubai walked from door to door in her own colony and to neighbouring Parsi homes, with a bag full of doughnuts, pickles, sweet malido, spicy vasaanu, and other homemade delicacies, which she sold at a modest price, in this way supplementing Percy’s small income.