Abha Iyengar

The Gourd Seller

 

 

(An excerpt from the collection of short stories ‘The Gourd Seller and Other Stories’ published by Kitaab, Singapore.)

 

The gourd seller’s voice could be heard above the morning din. Over the pots and pans that Shantabai clanged in the kitchen. Over the swish of sweeper’s broom in the alley. Over the loud ratatttattttadddddhhhhhh of the machine guns from the game playing of Reena’s ten year old Anoushka in her room.

 

Anoushka was not in school because her nose had run for the umpteenth time and because the school was petrified of any kind of flu. So a child with a runny nose, cough or fever, which may be the symptoms of a mild flu, had to be staying put at home. Flu had become a potent and hidden killer striker in recent years. Its mildness often held symptoms of a larger menace.

 

Reena’s early morning sleep was disturbed most by this noise coming from Anoushka’s room. The usual sweeping noises were a necessary part of the household, except that the household help in Kanpur made a lot more noise than the ones in Delhi.

 

Reena had come to Kanpur from Delhi, the city where she had lived all her life. Her husband, Krishan, had died in a freak car accident while travelling to his Gurgaon office. A part of the Metro, that was still being constructed, had collapsed, killing many. Her husband had been one of the unfortunate ones. This tragedy had occurred a little more than a year ago, and she had then been persuaded by her in-laws to come live with them in Kanpur.

 

After a period of mourning, she had come to terms with what life had dealt her. She had soon found work and because it involved late working hours, she decided to move out. This she had done despite her in-laws protesting at the idea of her living on her own. Reena was glad to have moved into her own place for it gave her more time to herself and the independence she now craved.

 

She had stayed put in Kanpur. It gave her anonymity. Delhi was full of sympathetic friends and relatives whom she did not need. Here, she could quietly lick her wounds and get on with her life. Yet it was a city she was not willing to accept as her own.

 

*

 

She could hear the gourd seller’s plaintive cry from the streets. He was the only one who would not sell his stuff quietly like the others did. The street had its share of sellers of fruits and vegetables, but they did not yodel at the top of their voice as this man did.

 

She had told him, leaning out of the window, her big bosom heaving into place above the window ledge so that it got the required support; that he had no need to announce his coming. Those who wanted to buy gourds would keep a lookout for him.

 

“Why don’t you take your wares someplace else if you can’t sell them quietly?” Reena had said in the beginning.

 

“Why don’t you take your wares someplace else, you fool?” she had said thereafter.

 

He would ignore her outburst and carry on.

 

Eventually, sometime later, she had yelled at him, “Can’t you hear, are you deaf, why don’t you take your goddamn gourds someplace else? I’ll put the police on you! Shut up now!”

 

But he would just carry on. Reena hated being ignored in this way but had not yet taken the extreme step of running down the steps and giving him a piece of her mind.

 

“Green striped gourds,” he would say, and then his voice would rise a note or two, and then some more. “Long gourds, round and smooth ones, plain ones too. From all parts of the world, to lighten up your summer meal, so healthy, so needed for a light recharge of batteries,” he would go on and on.

 

There was no end to his poetry on the goodness of gourds. “There is magic in the gourd, it cures all desires, it lightens the inside, it creates balance,” his words would ring along the alley. While others got busy swishing the flies off their fruits and their vegetables, his gourds would disappear in the blinking of an eye. Women would pour out of their homes in their saris or in their kaftans billowing in the heat. Those who had their kaftans on made sure there was a petticoat under it. The even more discreet ones had a dupatta or cotton cloth draped over their shoulders. Reena cringed at the way they thronged to him and what he offered. Then his strident call would be replaced by an equally irritating cacophony of excited women’s voices.

 

*

 

She could hear this cacophony, which gave way to Anoushka’s ratatattttddddhhhh.

 

Then someone knocked on her bedroom door.

 

Shantabai was standing there. Reena’s face began to balloon with anger. Orders had been expressly laid out that Reena Madam was not to be disturbed in the morning.

 

Shantabai’s lips twitched nervously as she spoke. “Someone rang the doorbell, Madam. I opened the door. I found standing before me a man. I could not close the door on him. I did not know what to do, Madam. So I have come to you.” The twitching of her lips was uncontrollable now.

 

“No men,” Reena said, “I don’t want men here.” Ever since Krishan’s death, she had become wary of men. No man was allowed inside her house. It was an all-woman household.

 

“Well, it is only a man,” Shantabai said.

 

She could not understand her Madam at times. She attributed it to the waters of Delhi being different. Women from other cities were just so different. Madam was one stark example. Her friends who worked in homes where the ladies of the house were not from Kanpur, had similar stories to tell. Each city or town produced its own breed of women. It had to do with the water of the place, they knew that.

 

Shantabai quaked a bit, for Madam did have a temper, something that did not suit women at all. It was the fault of the water of a city, of course. She bent her head.

 

“Tell him my daughter has bovine flu, he may catch it if he enters the house,” said Reena.

 

Shantabai looked shocked and scared. “Madam,” she told Reena, “he is at your doorstep! You should never turn anyone away from your door; you get a thousand curses from the Snake God. And why blame poor Mother Cow for an illness?”

 

Snake God? Mother Cow? What was this? Reena should have checked her out before employing Shantabai. She would fill Anoushka’s young mind with all kinds of things. This is what happened when you came to a backward town like Kanpur. Cows and snakes had to be venerated and street dogs fed.

 

“Who is this man?”

 

Shantabai spoke again, “He is the gourd seller, I think, Madam.”

 

The gourd seller! Angry light bulbs went off in Reena’s head. Her face became wired thick with purple, blue and green veins of anger rising hard against her pale skin, but Shantabai would not get the message.

 

“Athithi devam,” she said. The guest is god.

 

Reena said, “What about an uninvited, unwanted guest? If someone rings my doorbell he does not automatically become my guest, Shantabai!”

 

Reena stormed out of her room. She would have to deal with the man herself. She realised she was in her transparent nightgown, so she stormed back in and put on a dressing gown, a new navy blue one. A piece of armour.

 

She tightened its belt around herself and marched down the stairs leading to the hall.

 

“What does he want?” she grumbled as she brushed a curl off her face, tied her hair up into a loose bun and went down the flight of stairs, her slippers hitting the steps hard.

 

*

 

Reena was face to face with the gourd seller.

 

He was a slim and slender man. He had an even skin, burnt a deep brown by the sun, hairless arms, a taabeez or amulet on his left arm, and one on his throat, a crocheted skull cap, absolutely white on his abundant long black hair, and starched white pyjamas. His feet were clean, in plastic white sandals of the kind worn by men in Kanpur and which Reena still needed to get used to. Reena could swear his toenails were varnished, for they glimmered in the morning sun.

 

“Madam,” he said, and his voice had the culture of old-world Lucknow. Despite the white sandals, he was not of these parts. But he was a man, and he had dared her doorstep.

 

Reena gave him a look that had shrivelled many, but he stood his ground.

 

“Take this gourd,” he said, offering it into Reena’s hands. It was a longish piece, smooth and a very pale green, with a short stalk, and looked fresh and firm. She did not want to touch it or take it.

 

“Why have you rung my bell and disturbed my sleep for this? You want me to send the police after you?” She moved forward to shut the door on his face.

 

Meanwhile, the ddddththhh sound of rattling gunfire continued from Anoushka’s room.

 

“Anoushka, stop it.” Reena screamed with frustration, and the walls of the room shook along with her body. Yet the gunfire carried on, unable to hear anything but its own torment.

 

The rattling sound and her screaming left the man unperturbed. “Once you eat it, your life will change,” he said quietly. He looked her in the eye, this slim, diminutive man.

 

Despite the noise, she heard him.

 

“And why would you like me to do that? Change my life?” Reena spat the words out. The day was depriving her of any peace.

 

“Madam, may I come inside?”

 

“No.” She was firm.

 

“Then do just take this gourd.”

 

“Go away. Go away.”

 

Reena’s blood pressure was rising. She grabbed the gourd and slammed the door in his face.

 

*

 

Shantabai was standing behind Reena. Reena handed the gourd to her and stomped upstairs. No sleep would come, so she took a shower. Lunch had the gourd served, made in a style that Reena was unfamiliar with. She did not want to eat it, but then served herself a spoonful. It was delicious and she called Shantabai to find out what she had used.

 

Shanatabai came out of the kitchen, her eyes watering with relief that Reena had forgiven her. Nervously, she started rattling out a recipe. She said it was a South Indian recipe she had learnt; it had chickpea and tomatoes and roasted peanuts and sesame seeds. She began to elaborate how it was cooked. Reena stopped her in mid-flow, quite exhausted now by her tirade. The drama of the morning was telling on her.

 

Anoushka had not joined her for lunch, she was still busy with her games. Reena asked Shantabai if Anoushka had eaten anything and learnt that she had ordered a pizza. Reena bristled at this at first, thinking of going upstairs to scold Anoushka, then stopped herself. Let it be, she told herself. Enjoy the gourd and its promised lightness of being.

 

She helped herself to another spoonful and imagined herself as a small bird, alighting on a tree in a faraway garden, away from the din of her everyday existence. She closed her eyes and actually felt her blood pressure dropping.

 

*

 

The Gourd Seller and Other Stories

 

Available for purchase internationally here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Gourd-Seller-Other-Stories/dp/9810934017

 

Available for purchase in India here:

http://www.amazon.in/The-Gourd-Seller-Other-Stories/dp/9810934017