A COUP OF FIVE

Mumbai | Colracker Street | 34th Avenue

Mr. & Mrs. Vanar's Residence

CHAPTER 1: 1970

Mridhula wrote the account of the day, humming under her breath. The children were in bed, fast asleep. She had finished all her household chores, her work, and all she had left was this:

* Vegetable:

* Carrot (2 kilos) - Rs. 3.10

* Brinjal (4) - Rs. 4.20

* Tomato (6) - Rs. 2.50

She went on noting down the vegetable prices. They seemed to be going higher and higher these days, she mused. Truly, the vegetable vendor was a money swindler, she thought sweetly.

She reached over and absentmindedly searched for the dial of the smooth, wood-cased Philips radio, her fingers flickering for the familiar countdown of the Binaca Geetmala. It was the same radio he had bought her when they were newly wedded; he had slid it across the table with a sweet grin.

"You will never be alone in the kitchen, darling!" he had declared happily. "You will have company."

Those words that had come from her husband in affection now felt like a sentence.

What-what was wrong with her?

What was she thinking?

Her husband was a loving one.

He had given her this as a gift of his love. She must be grateful.

As Asha Bhosle's voice finally broke through the static, the music was rather lively tonight. Ah... Asha Bhosle never fails to marvel. Maybe she could even-a wave of panic struck her. What was she thinking? Seriously dancing-dancing?!

She froze.

Dancing?!

Dancing, what on earth was she thinking?

She was a woman, a wife, a mother-not a babbling, bumbling dancing girl. Her hands went to her mouth as if she had committed the greatest sin in the whole world.

She forced herself to sit and do the accounts; she was a sensible woman. She was a wife.

She tried to steady her breathing, pressing her pen hard against the paper. But the temptation was too great, and soon she found herself dancing around the room, shaking her hips as she maneuvered around the table.

The air in the room began to feel fresher and cooler. The wind kissed her cheeks and face. Mridhula turned up the heavy Usha ceiling fan another notch; her curls blew wildly from her face. She laughed out loudly and immediately took off the seashell clip that bound her hair. She danced as if she didn't have a care in the world-as if this moment belonged entirely to herself.

No husband. No children.

Mridhula closed her eyes and spun free in her faded cotton nighty. The radio and Asha Bhosle's voice filled every corner of the house. The curls around her face flew in the wind as though they wanted to be free too. The seashell clip fell with a clunk, leaving behind the soreness of the account books and the ache in her fingers.

The accounting ledger flew to the floor with a thud as Mridhula happily tossed it aside. If she closed the accounts book usually, it meant the end of her authority; but today, today was her independence day.

She stopped for a breath and began to step again.

The ledger lay on the floor splayed, its spine bent. The ink of her sharp, neat handwriting-the battle against rising prices, the sharp arguments against the cost of living-rested there. But tonight, it was just silly, stupid paper. Just a tombstone of her own anxious rumination of thoughts. Just markings that had no business making her heart ache.

She looked down at where the ledger lay... and then she felt something hot and molten bloom in her chest.

How had she let this life define her? The carrots, the kitchen-the kitchen with its strawberry walls, the stubborn smell of tang, the mango juice, the fried coriander seeds, and the guava peels. She stared at the wooden floor of the kitchen, her breath coming in shallow, jerky gasps.

She looked at her hands: skin worn, nails wrinkled from the turmeric. Something sharp like a stake shot through her chest. Had she spent all her life letting the kitchen and its ingredients become a part of her soul?

She exhaled sharply, firmly shutting her eyes like a child.

The kitchen seemed to recede into the shadows. She imagined she was on a stage-a smooth wooden stage with purple velvet seats and a fresh smell like a movie theater. She let out a sharp, cranky laugh, a laugh that should have horrified her, a laugh she was sure she shouldn't even make.

She twisted and gyrated, reaching up her fingers to scratch sharply at the air. She wanted to capture the feeling-the feeling of Mridhula, not Mridhula the wife. Every crick and ache in her legs, the accounts, all of it-she was purging all of it out. It was a physical christening, an exorcism. A wild, sweating purge. She wasn't dancing to the tune of the music; she was dancing to the drumbeat of her own heart.

She spun, her nightgown billowing like a tornado of wind.

This kitchen, these cramped four-layered walls, the smell of turmeric and tang slowly fading... and then her breath hitched.

Who was she?

Was she a ghost?

Was she she?

Was she who?

Was she Mridhula the wife who accepted her husband's caresses and playful jokes?

Was she Mridhula the adoring mother who adored her son and daughter, played with them, gave them cuddles and kisses?

Who was she?

Who was she?

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror-the woman in the mirror. Her eyes were wild and bright, her hair tumbling down in a dark, curly, tangled cascade that defied the sensible pins that usually bound it.

Who was she?

Who was Mridhula?

Was this her?

Who was who?

Mridhula stopped spinning the world. She seemed to stop. She lunged at her own reflection, her hands pressing against the cool, smooth surface of her mirror.

The woman in the mirror lunged back. She blinked in surprise and jumped back.

The woman in the mirror jumped back again.

She jumped front.

The woman jumped front.

She jumped back.

The woman jumped back.

Mridhula felt a ridiculous laugh bubble up in her chest-a laugh that quickly turned into a sharp cackle. She looked at the woman in the glass, really looked at her. Not as herself, but as some distant person she met on a train whom she decided was far too tired and needed cheering up.

The woman in the mirror looked like some old thing that she might have decided was tired. This woman didn't look old or ugly, just done-utterly done with life. Worn in the way only a person who repeated every single schedule of their entire life could be:

Wake. Love. Cook. Clean.

Wake. Cook. Clean.

Wake. Cook. Clean.

Wake, cook, clean... and cuddle.

The words marched through her mind like grumpy brigands.

Cuddle the children, smile at her husband, wash the pots and plates and cups, rinse, repeat.

Rinse, repeat.

The words marched through her brain until they no longer sounded like words at all. They became like the ticking of an hourglass that refused to let down.

Rinse, repeat.

Wake, cook, and clean.

Count, smile, sleep again.

Mridhula's breathing grew more frantic. This wasn't a great tragedy. Was this? No, this one had lost its life. She had a husband who adored her, children whom she adored; yet why did her chest feel as if someone had laid a heavy rock upon it?

Mridhula blinked at the woman in the mirror.

The woman blinked back.

Mridhula blinked and blinked more, and then she cackled like a witch.

The woman cackled back harder, pleased.

Mridhula resumed her game of jumping up and jumping down again. The woman in the mirror jumped with her. The woman in the mirror jumped up and down again and again and again.

A sharp laugh burst out of her diaphragm.

"THAT'S IT!" she screamed, shrieking in delight like an utter banshee. The woman in the mirror shrieked in delight as well, her laughter bouncing across the strawberry tiles.

Mridhula doubled over with laughter until tears blurred her vision. They rolled over her cheeks like waterfalls in wet, chill streams until everything around her just blurred...

She scrubbed at her face. The blurred reflection laughed back at her. It seemed funny.

She realized for years, the body she had resided in was a stranger.

She stood very still, suddenly. The silence was loud-too loud for her taste. The radio still continued to play aloud. Asha Bhosle's voice continued to play from the radio, yet it seemed to come from far, far away from the room... she felt like she was in a dream.

Mridhula's breathing slowly shallowed. She let it shallow. One, two, three. She let her chest tighten... She wanted the ache of it... The taste of it... The taste of her lungs, of her chest struggling for breath...

She remembered when she sat beside her son Arjun when he had wheezing fits growing up every night. She remembered worrying and fretting. She remembered staying by his side all night with worry, but also carrying a small, tiny, traitorous part of her thought:

At least he can feel it.

The moment it crossed her mind, she felt horrible shame rush into her head. How could she think that? How could any sort of mother think that, watching her small son's body jerk up with coughs as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and tears streamed down his cheeks?

Yet, still very still, a small part of her had thought: At least he knows what to feel. Her son felt pain; she just felt routine.

A routine that had etched itself so deeply into her bones that she never noticed the heaviness of it.

And then another. And then another. And another and another. She exhaled sharply, closing her eyes.

She wanted that feeling back! She didn't want the damn routine any longer. She wanted to feel. She wanted to feel.

So what did she do?

She began to madly switch the boxes and containers. The steel tins began to bang wildly against one another. Rice, turmeric, chilli, sugar-one by one, she began to change their places without method, without thought. The spice containers sat where rice should have been; the chilli container occupied coriander beside the sugar.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Everything so wrong.

But Mridhula couldn't bring herself to give a damn. The kitchen looked so nonplussed, so confused. She liked that. She liked that it...

She burst out giggling, cackling like mad again. "This was what I was afraid of?!" she wheezed out. "This?! This miserable loud pile of molecules?!"

Another hysterical fit of laughter overtook her. "Rice with the salt! Sugar with curd!"

Another fit of laughter overtook her, and another. She rubbed the tears from her face, shaking her head as the shelves stared at her in complete disorder. The laughter spilled out of her in sharp, helpless bursts.

"T-this is what I worried about each day?"

Her shoulders shook with amusement. She waited and waited and waited and... well, nothing happened. The ceiling did not crack open. Nor did the dinosaurs which her son loved watching in movies appear. The walls did not weep; the house remained as it was.

She stepped in front of the steel-stained glass mirror again. The woman in it looked less tired, brighter; her cheeks seemed to sparkle.

And then she beamed.

And then, naturally, to feel more, here is what she did:

She smashed her head against the mirror.

A sharp crack echoed through the glass. It parted the mirror like a slab of lightning. For a moment, she felt no pain, nothing. The woman in the mirror was in pieces, but Mridhula... Mridhula was free.

Free. Free. Free.

Dazed, she put her hand on her head, stumbling back a little...

The radio continued to hum its sweet tune.

"Oh... this is good," she murmured, a sharp, crazy thrill coursing through her. And she smiled.

And then she danced around. She beamed. "Ah, darling, are you still asleep?" she danced over to her husband, Ramesh, on the couch playfully. "Is your work rest still not done? You said you were gonna take a nap for an hour after dinner. You said we could even watch a movie?"

She giggled as she poked her husband's head, which slumped, his white starched collar poking out.

Mridhula batted her lashes. "You look so handsome like this..."

Red liquid continued to drip from Ramesh's neck. No breath came from him.

The End