Mughlai Affairs

Now that the concrete footpaths have taken over the city, Dushka foolishly started missing the dew dropped grass paths. It was rainy season again but there was no mud anywhere. The sky was covered in nimbostratus and the sun had not shown up since last afternoon. It was drizzling since morning. Sitting on the old woven chair- one of those worn out furnitures you couldn't get rid of because they carry a lot of memories- she looked on through the glass pane towards the potted plants and the endless city buildings until they got lost in the gray of the rain. The gloominess had seeped into her skin while she was caged inside home for another day.

Memories of the two-room house, where she grew up as a child, flashed in her mind. It had a tin roof. Rainy days used to be so noisy that the TV's sound used to get drowned. Her father didn't use to like TV noise. But he liked the noisy raindrops splattering on the tin roof because, he used to say, he was a poet at heart. Sometimes, she'd sit on her mother's lap quietly counting the frogs' croaks. Sometimes she'd make a huge fuss over the power cuts during the rains. But she never got wet. Her mother told she caught cold very easily. That's why.

A heavy sigh escaped her while she raged a futile war against her inertia to get up and feel the rain. She reasoned with herself that she'd catch a cold.

“Are you bored already?” her mother who was sitting close by asked.

“I wanted to go out, explore the city again before I have to leave. Did it have to rain?” Dushka caught a vehemence in her tone.
“It will stop soon. For now, look at the rain. Isn't it beautiful?”

Dushka thought to herself, “Another day, another time I might have enjoyed it. But today's not the one for her. Maybe for her mother though.”

“One gets used to these walls and balconies and stops wondering what more worthy can lay outside for exploring.” Mother seemed to empathise with Dushka, “I have not been anywhere outside except for the journey to workplace and back.” Dushka felt a pang inside her, the usual guilt an independent child feels for the woman who sacrificed her life to motherhood. The guilt that nags at you when you are ready to spread your wings to reach the sky leaving everything behind but the mother- whose sole life revolved around you- has not found a new purpose in life yet. Mother continued, “There was a time I was young and newly wed to your father. I used to walk through the whole of this old town merrily enjoying evenings at street shops. Lack of means didn't put a single scar on my will to be happy. I thought, my spirit was invincible.” Dushka shivered looking at her mother's current mechanical life, the life she did not want for herself, the life she wished her mother didn't have. It was flat. But what is life if sadness doesn't make you cry and joy doesn't wrinkle your eyes? Dushka wished otherwise. And 'otherwise' things hardly happen.

Evenings after rain used to be cold earlier. If mother used to be free, she used to take Dushka for a walk down to the Golei Square. Often Dushka would demand for a sweet and mother used to relent in a few minutes. But she hardly ever took for herself. There used to be money enough only for one. Those days Dushka hadn't learnt to share. Empathy doesn't come naturally to children. On the way to the square was this beautiful restaurant they never dared venture into. Dushka's family never went to any restaurants. Father said it was for people who did not have a mother in their family, hence nobody to cook for them. But this restaurant had been different. It was painted scarlet outside. In the dull evening light, the red used to attract and hold Dushka's attention from a long distance for a long time. She'd tug at her mother's scarf and whisper, “Can't we go inside and not tell them that you know how to cook?”

“Do you remember the restaurant on the way to Golei Square?” Dushka asked suddenly.

“The cosy little red one whose lights attracted you?” mother enquired understandingly.
“Yes. The same!”

“I haven't been to that side of the city since we moved here. It's been what? A decade?”

Dushka nodded, “Probably more.”

The restaurant was called 'Mughlai Affairs'. It sounded exotic to Dushka's uninitiated ears at that time. It had stained glasses through which orange light shot outside and used to fall on the alley. The stained glasses' patterns only made it look even more beautiful. While Dushka passed by the Mughlai Affairs, her pace used to slow down so as to bask in the lights a little longer. A hushed murmur also used to escape through those windows that contained words from people who did not have a mother who knew how to cook. They were different.

“Mughlai Affairs- wasn't that the name?” mother intervened her thoughts.

Dushka smiled and said, “You remember.” It was not a question, just a memorable shared pleasure.

“I'd try to take you to the park, where other kids played; it was the opposite way. But you insisted to walk always to the Golei Square, along the restaurant.”
“I never liked the park. The kids' mothers stood guard there. There was no freedom. Who plays on a see-saw and a swing standing on a queue?”

“Is that why you'd come back crying? I never understood why you didn't like other children.”
“It's not the children. It's the mothers. And you are different. You never came to my rescue.” Dushka continued in the same breath lest her mother felt accused, “Not that you should have. But other mothers also should not have.”

“They fear for their children.” Mother almost always never failed to look from the other's point of view.

It was not long before Dushka realised they weren't rich enough to afford visiting Mughlai Affairs. But the restaurant only grew prettier and beckoned her more and more. But with their steps always moved past the inviting lights, never stopping. Sometimes Dushka would look back and mistakenly catch the eyes of the security guard cum valet standing in front of the restaurant with elaborate costume. She'd turn back quickly feeling like a culprit. The guard wore a feathered hat which sat askew on his head. Dushka feared for the hat lest it got blown away by the wind. But unfailingly, it always was there perched on the guard's head. He never laughed at Dushka. “Do you think the guard eats at the restaurant after everyone has left?” Dushka's mother replied, “I do not know. It'd be a sorry thing if he didn't though.” Dushka would nod her head. She sometimes caught her mother looking with the same wistfulness at the restaurant as hers. But they had reached the silent agreement to never talk about going inside. It was an uncomfortable question.

“Ah, the drizzle has died down!” mother's exclaimed.

Dushka got up from the chair to the balcony and stretched out her hand to feel if the rain had stopped. Indeed it had. She put her hands in her hair and revelled in the coldness. A sudden excitement aroused her senses. “Let's go to Mughlai Affairs!”

“What?” her mother cried “Now?”

“Yes! Why not?” Dushka ran to her and started pulling her up from the chair.

“It might rain again!”
“I'll book a cab! And we have umbrella!”
“I have to cook for your grand mother, she will not eat outside.”
“Let father cook for once!”
“Rubbish! You go ahead with your friends if you want. I will not come.”

“I have been to numerous restaurants with my friends.” said Dushka. What she didn't say was, “Nobody will appreciate Mughlai Affairs like you will. With me.”

Dushka's mother relented. And the excitement seemed to slowly build up in her too. When she got up from the chair, her feet had caught on a merry tune.

The cab was about to arrive in fifteen minutes. Dushka's mother had taken time wearing the peacock blue sari with golden embroidery. Dushka had helped her with it. The post-shower wind had not stopped and it gushed through the balcony trying to make the sari folds awry. It also nestled in Dushka's short hair and danced with the door screens. Darkness of the night had overpowered the darkness of the tired clouds who had rained themselves off incessantly. Street light cast shadows on their balcony through the dwarf coconut tree leaves. Mother looked beautiful but Dushka just said, “The sari looks beautiful.” Mother hopefully understood what Dushka didn't say. That was how it always had been.

“Life's being served on a platter to your generation.” Mother said implying at the cab's arrival through a few touches on the smart phone, “And yet it has not succeeded in making people a little happier than people were in our times.”

“You talk as though you're old and about to die.”

“Ain't I? I don't forget to dye my hair black fearing all my hair would have already turned white and I have no guts to face it.”

“Hair doesn't decide youth.” Dushka said dismissively, “what would you like to eat? Isn't this your first ever visit to any restaurant at all?”

“Let us first get there. They will give us a list, won't they?” Mother asked nervously, “I am not going to do any talking there!”

“Of course they will give a menu. Why do you have to be nervous? We are customers. We will take their service in return of money. There's nothing to be nervous about.”
Mother turned away to look at the moon through the cab window which was also travelling with them. Rain had left the concrete roads shining in the night-light. The cab ran past the very familiar highways, the slightly familiar streets and the unfamiliar short-cuts. Temples, medicine shops and movie theatres fell behind us. The city, bustling and alive, evolved yet remained the same. Dushka had been born there. She was brought up there. Although her parents had migrated there, she was a native of the city in her heart. And from inside a car, the city looked quite different, as if the troubles didn't exist. The potholes in the side walk weren't visible, the crowd's ramblings were blocked and one almost believed it to be a posh city. From inside the car. But Dushka had been on the other side before. The outside of the car.

“Madam, where do you want me to stop?” The driver's impatient tone broke through her musings. Her mother was looking at her expectantly.
“Arey, where are we? I think we're close. It should be a little far ahead. You drive on, I will tell you.” Dushka said. She bent down to look outside through the cab window. “See, this used to be our old street, no?” Dushka tugged at her mother's hands.

“Yes! Yes! Things have changed so much! There used to be a Banyan tree by the bend of the road. Do you remember? I can't see it any more!” Mother said anxiously.

“It is before Golei Square!” Dushka told the driver. “Please look for a restaurant named 'Mughlai Affairs'!”

“I am not from this part of the city, Madam!” said the driver with his usual impatient tone, “You should ask someone!”

“No, no, I can recognise!” Dushka said vehemently with absolute confidence. It was that cosy little red restaurant with red lights coming through the stained glasses with an angry security man guarding its doors. Surely she'd be able to recognise Mughlai Affairs! The cab ran past the old apartment Dushka remembered; the big water tank she remembered was still there, a couple of grocery shops had sprouted that she could not recall and beyond that she could see the snack shops huddled together where she used to demand sweets from her mother. Instead of a couple of vendors, now stood there a dozen of vendors attracting customers with their sly tricks. After that came Golei Square.

“We're already at Golei Square!” mother cried.

“We must have passed right by the restaurant without noticing,” said Dushka turning to the driver, “could you turn back, please?”

The cab turned back and this time Dushka made sure her eyes went through every building that lined up along the street. The tailor's, the goldsmith's, the grocer's, the small bed and breakfast's, the few offices', the chemist's, the few residential flats', the furniture showroom's, more grocer's and they ended up again at the bend of the road where the Banyan tree should have been there.
“No! No, I think we should ask someone around!” Dushka cried, “Please turn back!”

Dushka did not bother to look at the irritated driver.

Rain was again threatening at the sky. The clouds were rumbling with occasional lightning. This time the driver took it slow. The grocer's, the carpenter's, the residential flats and before the office buildings started the driver stopped the cab. Dushka open the door. First rain drop hit her on her forehead.

She hurried to the nearby chemist's shop and asked urgently, “There is a restaurant nearby. Mughlai Affairs! Could you possibly show me the way?”

It had started drizzling. She could hear her mother's faint voice calling her to come back inside the cab before it poured heavily. She might catch the cold.

“Mughlai Affairs? I have not seen any restaurants nearby.” The lazy chemist answered pulling his head out of the small TV screen perched on one of the shelves of his shop.
“There used to be one nearby!” Dushka repeated adamantly.

“I do not know about that.” He was confused at her desperation, “wait, I will call the old lady owner. She'd know.” Thus he vanished through one of the doors in the shop. Dushka looked back at the cab. Her mother and the driver looked on at her expectantly. Her mother beckoned her with her hand and Dushka gestured her to hold on. The rain clouds were getting heavy and any minute it would burst open with all its wrath. But Dushka could not budge. An old, yet strong lady appeared through the same door in which the chemist had vanished earlier.

“Yes?” The lady asked in a strong, confident voice.

“Mughlai Affairs! Do you know the way to...”

“Mughlai Affairs? The restaurant?” The lady asked cutting Dushka off.

“Oh yes!”

“It went broke and the restaurant was closed 8 years ago.” She replied in a cool voice.

“8 years ago?”
“Yes, 8 years ago, in 2007.”

“Oh!” is all Dushka could say.

The rain had started falling in all earnest now. Dushka wasn't hearing it though. The lady, she went inside through the door. The chemist went back to watching the TV. Dushka turned back slowly and found that the cab was barely visible through the heavy rain. Her mother must want her to stay where she was until the rain slowed down because she'd supposedly catch cold. But that day Dushka wanted to get wet. The cab driver would get pissed off with a wet passenger but it'd be worth it. Yes, Dushka would first get wet that day. Later she would catch a cold.