Smoke and Illusion

“Aamma, don’t make food for me tonight. I had something on my way back”, shouted Naina as she crept into her room without once meeting the eyes of Aamma.

What started off as a cordial tenant-owner relationship between Aamma and Naina was now a constant game of hide and seek. For Naina, the past seven days had already been a struggle beyond expectations with all the work and exhaustion but the ordeal with Aamma was a whole new level of difficulty.

“Yes Aamma, the food is good. I am just not very hungry tonight” said Naina every night, to evade the question of why she ate only 1 chapati after a long day of work and 3 hours of trek to office and back. But there wasn’t a better way to tell her how Naina couldn’t get a morsel down her throat without being totally overcome by an overwhelming urge to puke it all out.

After days of cooking up stories and imaginary meals on her way back from work, Naina was now running out of excuses to offer to Aamma. It was about time that Aamma would come know how it was the smoke that made the food unpalatable to her. Years of city upbringing had left Naina handicapped in more ways than she knew. It was a choice she made to work in this village for the summer but her limitations monstrously looked her right into her face as they grew bigger with every passing day. Having lived a life as cocooned as hers, this one on one with the harsh realities of life was slowly beginning to take a toll on her. Every night as she lay her head on the pillow strewn on her unmade bed on that pine wood floor, she longed for the comfort of her bed, of the soft silk pillows and fur blankets and as a tear rolled down her cheek silently into the night. And every morning as she woke up, she found herself wondering what made that solitary tear to appear the night before? Was it her longing or her loss? The loss she felt eating her up every time she questioned her decision to drop that swanky intern in Delhi and come to this village. The loss of her self that always challenged her boundaries. Has she really lost it all?

This morning she woke up with her mind made up. She would leave for the city quoting some excuse. She would tell Aamma that there was work back in college. She would tell the kids she taught that she would come back soon. She would tell herself that she tried. So officially, today was her last day at work.

She walked to the office but the trek didn’t leave her all spent. The kids too were a little too lovely today. She stuttered before she told Sushil she won’t be continuing with her work. Everything for that one day was against what she was determined to do. The mountains as they glowed in their lulled glory of green slumber and fluff clouds, were almost calling out to her. She reached home and announced her return with a shout to Aamma for water. The dreaded platter of Chapati with smoke in every bit of was all that kept her firm in her decision of leaving. She almost longed for the validation that plate full of food would have brought to her.

It was well past 8 and Aamma had not called her out for food. Her day being the last there, she decided to help Aamma with the dinner tonight. She called her out but there wasn’t a response. As she entered Aamma’s humble mud walled hut, she found Aamma was not back from her day’s work yet. She waited outside playing with zero the bhutia dog as she heard Aamma calling out to her from a distance. She was carrying a stack of wood on her head while endearingly smiling her way back to the hut. Naina for the first time felt something snap in her. As Aamma kept the wood stack on the ground she hugged Naina for the first time. In that one momentary hug, Naina skimmed through lexicons altogether and couldn’t come up with a word for that feeling. And as she struggled to bring herself together Aamma went in to start preparing one last dinner for her. She slowly sneaked into the cramped kitchen with a mud choolha as Aamma’s hands deftly moved to set the fire for the dinner.

“The wood nearby was all wet due to rains Naati. Had to go to the village across the hillock to collect extra wood left at Mohan’s house or there would have been nothing to cook food on” continued Aamma as she blew through a discarded plastic pipe into the smoke to set the fire.

Naina stared at it all from a distance, less in reality but miles in heart. The smoke was all over Aamma. In her eyes, nose, all around her. All Naina did was stare at the sheer wonder that was unfolding in front of her eyes. Aaama teared up due to the smoke soon. She started coughing but continued blowing till the fire ultimately cracked up. Naina all this while couldn’t bring herself to believe that this woman travelled 8 kilometres to bring wood and sat there smiling through the tears all engulfed in smoke only to prepare a meal that she shunned each night. Naina teared up too. No, it wasn’t the smoke. It was this old woman sitting amidst fumes looking no less than a magician’s illusion when it finally struck Naina.

Aamma was never the illiusion. It was her idea of home. Home was an illusion. The comfort she associated with it was an illusion. No. Amma was never the illusion.

• Asmita Joshi