tales of Suchita

The sound of breaking glass alerted Rukmini that mummy and dadi were at it again, having a shouting match over whose fault it was that the dal for lunch had been burnt. Dadi said that mummy wanted to poison her father-in-law and son by feeding them inedible dal. In retaliation, mummy had broken the glass.

Rukmini giggled where she hid under her study table. She was twelve but she still fit under it. It was her favourite hiding place because mummy and dadi never looked for her there.

Once the screaming match had ended, Rukmini looked at the watch and realized it had lasted only fifteen minutes. She hummed to herself as she removed a notebook she had confiscated from her school pile. She opened it to the page where she kept score of when, why, where, what of all the fights she had caused.

So far, the longest fight between mummy and dadi had lasted about an hour. She was sure it would have lasted longer had papa and dada not come back home from work; because mummy and dadi did not fight in front of the men.

Rukmini had asked mummy why one night when she was brushing her hair. It was their night-time ritual that both adored. It relaxed them enough that as soon as their heads hit the pillow, they would be sound asleep.

Mummy said, “Pari, the house is your dadi and my domain. We don’t share territories with the men. Just like the office is their territory and if we go there, we have to abide by their rules.”

Rukmini hadn’t understood. By mummy’s logic, if dadi and mummy wanted to fight in their domain, they were well within their rights to do so. Because the men would have to abide by their rules. But she had given up trying to understand the ephemeral cloud called the adult logic when she had been nine.

She went through her notebook. She had to create an epic fight – one that could potentially lead to disaster or death. It was clear in her mind: the only way mummy or dadi or this house could know any peace would be to eliminate one or both women.

The question was…how?

*

The idea came to Rukmini in a dream. She had analyzed what had caused the biggest blowouts between dadi and mummy. She had concluded anything that would wound their pride – either as their standing in the family or as a woman – was prime area to cause that fight to end all fights.

But she had to wait for three years to put her plan into action. At twelve, her claims that she was pregnant would meet deaf ears. But at fifteen, they would be greeted with the horror that she needed.

She planned, methodically for three years. It occurred to her, in the three years she had given a pause to her petty machinations so focussed as she was on her grand finale, that the fights had become tolerable. And that the only thing she needed to do was not interfere.

But if there was one thing Rukmini had realized about herself, it was that she was no quitter. Even though the situation at home reached that peace she craved, Rukmini couldn’t stop.

Right after her fifteenth birthday, she went to mummy and declared with some defiance and carefully manufactured timidness that she was pregnant. She was mentally rubbing her hands, waiting for the fighting to begin.

What she hadn’t counted on was being poisoned in the name of that very womanly pride she had wanted to invoke.

Mummy and dadi, unable to bear the stain of their daughter’s indiscretion, had made a plan to poison her so they could kill the baby.

Perhaps they had been too generous with the poison because instead of killing Rukmini’s supposed baby, they killed her.

In her grief and despair, when mummy went through Rukmini’s room to find the identity of the boy, she found the notebook instead. And in that notebook she found the three year plan. What truly shattered her was the realization that it had been a game. Rukmini hadn’t actually been pregnant.

Rukmini got her wish, even if it was bought at a high cost. Mummy and dadi had their grand finale. Neither killed each other, but they did decide to live separately. And there was peace.

---

Song: Snuff by Slipknot

Check out the other posts for 2023 here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z