The Half-Empty Coffee Cups

She read the menu card from back to front for the third time in half hour and placed it on the table. She had arrived early at the South Indian restaurant because she had needed time to settle into a cozy space of mind, preparing for the imminent meeting.

Except for the bottle of Bisleri that had replaced the steel jug and the upgraded manner of people, nothing much had changed from the last time she had come there.

In those days, people came to eat, now they were there more to converse and catch up. Those who came alone then read newspapers or magazines while they waited for the food. Now they fiddled with their phones. Everything else remained the same – the menu, the interiors, the smell of coffee and the masala dosa from the neighbouring table. Even the memories they evoked had not altered in all the years she was away. Every corner of the room reached out with old familiarity and shook hands with her.

Her eyes eagerly sifted through the people walking in. Shortly, he would arrive. It was a meeting that he had arranged and she was surprised that he had chosen to reach out after all the years. Why did he want to meet her?

They had parted at a point when they had nothing to say to each other. They didn’t even seek explanations from each other. They split so lamely that she could not even remember who was at fault, to begin with. Some departures are like that, she concluded. They happen not for a reason except that the time is up. One should move on without leaving ugly stains behind. The pain shouldn’t linger lifelong. It must eventually die down.

She opened her mail box and read the message he had sent her a week ago and briefly regretted accepting his invitation. Snatches from the past flashed before her eyes. There was no resentment left for her to express. In the light of the fading past, she had very little to speak to him. The thought of having to force a conversation with someone for whom her sentiments were ambivalent made her consider if she should leave without meeting him. She had no appetite for cloying ruminations.

Just then she saw him at the entrance, his eyes flitting around and stopping at her. He looked worn. The old playful smile had matured and it matched with his greying hair. She wondered if so much time had indeed passed.

‘I am late. Thank you for waiting.’ he said, pulling out the chair.

‘No, I came in early.’

Moments of uneasy calm passed. They were fraught with unspoken thoughts that struggled to find a medium of exchange.

‘Nice to be back here. What will you eat?’ he asked leafing through the menu.

‘Nothing.’

‘Coffee, may be?’

‘You look tired,’ she said noticing how lifeless his eyes had grown from what she remembered of them.

‘All night I was rehearsing for this meeting, you see,’ he said, half-jokingly and motioned to the waiter. ‘Are you nervous?’ he asked after placing the order.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Were you not rehearsing anything to say to me? It is not easy to revisit the demons of the past.’

‘No, not really. The hard feelings have all been spent. It doesn’t matter anymore.’

‘To me, it does. I have been waiting for this day for several years,’ he said choosing his words carefully. ‘I have something to say to you. A confession of sorts. It took a long time for me to summon the courage to look you in the eye again and say it.’

‘You really didn’t have to drag you through this, really. We had moved on and found our own spaces. There are no regrets.’

‘We had moved on with life, probably. But my soul has been suffering. It won’t be redeemed until I say it to you.’

‘I wonder what it must be,’ she mused aloud. What uncouth truth did he want to shake out of the cupboard now?

‘Sorry,’ he said, looking intently at her and paused. ‘I owe this one word to you. It has been languishing for years, imprisoned by my mulish ego. I want to let it go and be free now.’

She searched for words to say as he placed the money in the voucher flap and handed to the waiter.

‘Things could have been better. I confess that I didn’t try enough and I let you go. I am sorry.’

She took a deep breath and ventured a placating smile.

Unable to say anything further, he stood up. ‘I must go. I have a flight to catch tonight. I hope you accept my apology,’ he said abruptly and left her waddling in waves of silence.

The waiter took away two half-empty coffee cups as she sat considering the poignancy of the moment. She slowly opened her handbag. Inside one of the compartments was a folded paper, yellowed and softened with age. She smiled smugly as a vague sense of vindication swept over her.

The note read –

‘I don’t rant anymore.

I now wait in silence, absolute silence

that one day

will stir you from sleep and

bring you back to me.”

Untitled

I AM NOT A MOTHER, BUT A MOTHER I AM

“How about your children?’ I got asked again yesterday.

‘No, we don’t have children,’ I said smilingly.

‘Oh, I am so..so.. sorry,’ the lady was very apologetic, almost as if she feared she had touched a raw nerve inadvertently and hurt me deeply.

I took her hand in mine, smiled and said, ‘No, you don’t have to be. It’s OK. I am fine with it.’

I have been in this position numerous times. It invariably happens when I meet people for the first time and have a conversation, especially with women. Interestingly, it has not always been this courteous.

I have had instances of people telling me that I am lucky to not have the hassles of parenthood. Occasionally, I have also had people telling me with a twinge of disdain that I would never understand the struggles of a mother, could not imagine the stress that comes with it at every stage of life and it was easy for me to wax eloquent on exam pressure, adolescent behavior and other parental concerns. I have even had people comment that I look young and slim for my age only because I never bore a child. Perhaps. Perhaps.

But here’s the real thing. I am a mother. In several ways. Every time someone apologizes when I say we have no children, this is what I want to tell them with my touch.

‘Don’t feel for me. I don’t feel deprived. Not because I have overcome it. Not because I have resigned to life and its vagaries. But because I have been a mother, without bearing a child or rearing one.

I have been a tutor for 18 years. And being a tutor is not the same as being a teacher in a school. The difference is the love that grows between me and my children in the long years that they spend with me. Every time I have taken a student in, I have felt as if I became a mother again. I adopt them for the period that they are with me, feel responsible, feed them with every nugget of knowledge, wisdom and love that I can and pray for their well-being.

I do whatever I can to bring out the best in them and not for a split second think that I can be sloppy in my duty.

It is unconditional, because I am fully conscious that they are not ‘mine’ in the real sense of the word and will leave me as soon as the time is up. But then, they would have left me even if they were ‘mine.’

The absence of possession makes me feel free. The fact that the children who come into my life, my students or others that I know, are not essentially ‘mine’ helps me love them equally. I have loved them impartially. I have accepted them into my life without judging their qualities.

There is no selfishness in my affection for them because there is no string attached. And at some point during our journey, they become part of my soul, and that is enough for me.

Today, as the world celebrates Mothers’ Day, I want to give all the mothers who handed their sons and daughters to me for a point in time a hug and thank them for giving me my moments of motherhood. I want to tell them that in a strange, unintended way, they added more meaning to my life.