Rains, amma and wipers

Oh look, a wiper. Instead of a regular broom, to literally sweep away the water. I remember looking at this ‘wiper’, wide-eyed as a child. It had been bought to clear away water that was streaming down the staircase of our under-construction first floor.

I remember being allowed to stay up till pretty late at night, using this wiper to clear away water while I watched any cartoon of my liking, on television. I must have been twelve years old, and my delight knew no boundaries.

Since the staircase came down into the living room, my uncle and I took turns keeping the room dry. I was so amazed by this ‘wiper’ and how one didn’t need to mop after using it, that I even proudly compared our house to the Taj hotel for being so ‘fancy’, for having a cleaning utility item that most middle-class families at that time, would have coveted as pure, unadulterated luxury.

Tonight, I came home to a water-logged apartment at my sister’s place. We had two wipers this time around, in a house meant for one person. They did not register in my mind as novelties. As we cleaned up, complaining unabated, about the horrors of living on rent in the big city, the laxity of a money-minded maid and how pitiful our lives were, I thought about my grandmother.

My father had arranged for her funeral for the next day, so that I could see her. I arrived late in the night; our drawing room had been cleared out to place cold, unaware-of-their-doomed-presence ice slabs on the floor. On them lay my grandmother. My first reaction was to run to the closet and cover her in a warm blanket. She always complained of being cold; how could they put her on a slab of ice? She’s too delicate.

For hours, I cried by her side, nudging her shoulder, pushing away that one astray strand of hair, and asking her to wake up and smile at me. This is not a heart-rending tirade of her death. This is the story of wipers.

Eventually, I gave up on waking her up. My mind told me, ‘Look, she’s finally extremely mad at you. For leaving her, for going away, for not understanding the pains of old age and for forgetting about her. She won’t wake up, she’s mad at everyone. She will pretend to be asleep, hold her breath and rather disappear into an electric crematorium than wake up for any of you.’

I did not give up trying for four hours. Then I decided, she likes the ice. I’ll make her more comfortable. My grandmother could never stand a messy house, and always had a problem with spilt water. She feared, endlessly, that someone might slip and break their backs. And now, slowly seeping from below her, was a cold, unending stream of water, collecting in pools around the room.

I grabbed a wiper and began mopping. I did it all night long. I would look over my shoulder at her, wondering if she’d approve. I would look at my uncle sleeping in the next room, who would awaken with a start to not find his mother by his side. But the wiper, my constant companion kept my tears at bay.

The cold, white dead body of my grandmother, the yellow poled wiper and the thinning ice are images I carry with me. Each time I mop away rain water, each time I sip a drink cooled with ice, and each time I look at that empty bed back home, whose occupant never welcomed me without a smile.