Monsoon Memories by Renita D'Silva Read Free Book Online Page B

wares; the overpowering stench of rotting fish masking the salty-sweet tang of sea and the inviting spicy oniony aroma of churmuri; Madhu haggling for fish; Deepak wandering off to the little shop on the far side of the beach, drawn by the soda bottles, meticulously counting out all his pocket money; Shirin and Anita impatiently hopping from one foot to another—they were barefoot and the sand was quite hot, even in the setting sun—urging him to hurry: ‘Madhu will be looking for us, Deepak. Quick.’ Deepak looking up at the shopkeeper, eyes shiny with hope, ‘I have fifty-five paise here. Mummy also said I have five rupees in the bank. Will that be enough to buy the bottle?’ The shopkeeper smirking, displaying black, paan-stained teeth,
    ‘Shoo. Go away. The bottles are not for sale.’ Deepak’s face crumpling. And Shirin, boiling with a rage she hadn’t known she possessed, shaking her fist at the leering shopkeeper, using the very bad English word she had overheard once, ‘You—you bastard.’
    ‘What are you looking at?’ Kate perched on the arm of her chair, looked at her monitor and guffawed, ‘A Stella Artois bottle? You in the mood for a pint, girl, at barely nine in the morning?’
    ‘It looks just like the soda bottles of my childhood.’ If she closed her eyes, she could see the beguiling crates of blue-green glass bottles outside the thatched entrance to the little shop by the River Varuna, which sold sweet milky coffee, onion bhajis, green plantain crisps and whole clusters of tiny ripe bananas, yellow skin flecked with black, each shaped like the tail of the letter ‘y’.
    ‘The bottles were sealed with a marble on top to stop the gas escaping and they used to fascinate us kids. We often tried to prise the marble out, under the watchful gaze of the shopkeeper. We had to pay twenty paise—our sugar-cane juice money—for the privilege.’ Sugar-cane juice: thick, frothy, the colour of milk sprouting from between the brown hands of Ananthanna’s wife as she squeezed Nandini’s udders, sweet as Alphonso mango mixed with honey, served in cloudy glasses that had once upon a time been clear. It was freshly pressed courtesy of the booming enterprise that was Jenna Uncle’s sugar-cane machine, headquartered under the shady, all-enveloping branches of the banyan tree beside Muthu, the fisherwoman hawking fresh fish caught that morning arranged in neat piles on a dry banana branch, which slotted onto the two handles of her basket: an impromptu tray.
    Kate laid a hand on Shirin’s arm and smiled. ‘Shirin, your face, it’s glowing. From the inside.’
    ‘It’s such a relief, Kate, to let the memories come instead of always pushing them away, repressing them.’ The Varuna River rippling silvery grey beside the shop with the soda bottles; the coven of crows conversing in their secret language as they perched on coconut trees that bowed down to the river as if drinking from the water; the boatmen humming a catchy, elusive tune as they ferried people across, their dark muscles gleaming, beads of perspiration forming little rivulets down their bare torsos, soaking their colourful lungis. The bus from Dommur, creaking and complaining as it disgorged its straggling passengers, the conductor yelling instructions to the driver to turn the bus around, slapping the back of the bus when it was in danger of going too deep into the river, inadvertently waking the drunk snoring open-mouthed in the back seat; the conductor balancing on one leg on the steps of the bus, his skinny body dangling, yelling, ‘Dommur! Dommur!’ urging the few people clustered around, dressed in their best clothes for the trip into town, to climb aboard, and, once they’d boarded, blowing his ear-splitting whistle and shouting, ‘Right, Poi,’ scaring the few crows perched delicately atop the bus into squawking in fright and flying away.
    ‘Earth to Shirin... Shirin, you in there?’ Kate gently tapped Shirin’s