Salt

by Srilatha Rajagopal

Appa died in his sleep Tuesday night. Charu ignores the flood of WhatsApp messages from her sisters asking why she wasn't answering her bloody phone, in all caps for as long as possible before calling Ro in Bangalore, who she is closest to. He didn't suffer. No, amma is fine, taking it stoically. With the pandemic raging, there's no question of Charu going home.

*

On the thirteenth day after Alamelu patti, her grandmother died, they made her favorite foods. Without salt. "The soul is attached to earthly matters," the priest explained to a stricken 15-year-old Charu in Tamil-flavored English. "How to tell them they need to leave, don't be in limbo? You offer their favorite food, but without uppu. The atma eagerly tastes the food…" He made a face. "Gets sad, disgusted. And would be on its way to the next loka or janma." Charu imagined her loving patti, eager to eat her favorite rasam rice, turning away, sad, hungry. Charu, whose love language has always been food, couldn't stop crying.

*

Appa was charismatic, playful, a funny storyteller. He was the raging madman chasing amma around their matchbox-sized house because the rasam was oversalted. Breaking amma's violin to pieces, yelling "mundai, you spend too much time at the violin whore's house" about the kindly neighbor who gave amma free lessons, the children freezing at the first contact of palm against amma's beautiful skin. Appa taught Charu to play chess. He slapped her hard when she refused to eat her brinjal curry. He was the generous appa who bought her sarsaparilla root sherbet at the corner store, which always made her cough after the first sip of the ice-cold drink which would then trigger a rant—she was thin, sickly, with a rat's tail for hair, with dark skin—she was a failure as a child.

When appa got a lucrative offer in Kenya, Charu was thirteen. She wondered if he'd be able to learn Swahili for a fleeting second, forgetting him in the trips to the beach with the neighbors, Vijay Softee ice-cream on Sundays, film songs on Radio Ceylon that appa forbade, and amma's smiling face.

For the next few years, appa was the blue aerogrammes, he was photos in his first car, on a safari. Charu liked this appa—too far away to hurt them, while still available as a show and tell figure.

When Charu found a well-paying job as a programmer right after college, appa quit his job in Kenya and came home. The years of living alone and the fat savings had softened him. Or so they thought. The newly affectionate appa who took them to movies and restaurants disappeared the night she came home from working late as he waited by the door to hit her on the legs with her grandfather's walking stick. What would the neighbors think of a girl coming home so late?

Appa canceled himself daily.

*

Nothing is as surreal as a distant death. The sun rises and friends plan lunches as Charu examines the idea that appa is dead. She's imagined this day a thousand times. A life no longer darkened by appa and his eternal discontent. About amma's refusal to socialize and her constant sleeping; about his grown daughters bullying him in his old age because he's now dependent on them financially. Now that it's here, she is terrified of acknowledging it. He's become her Schrodinger's cat.

Charu's days are a root-canal haze, thoughts like a bull plowing a field in its endless circles.

Ram, who's been her rock, who appa predicted "won’t even look at you, he’s out of your league” when he met him at an office party, who proposed to her after three months of knowing her, can’t take this anymore.

“Charu, come on, let’s get out of the house. We are eating out tonight and going to the beach.” As she watches the Atlantic Ocean, the memory of another beach, the Bay of Bengal in Pondy, rises unbidden. Appa sitting on the parapet wall, Charu climbing down to the beach. Appa being patient, watching her play in the sand, running into the waves and back, “just one more big wave, appa. Last wave, promise.”

*

It’s the thirteenth day, when the soul needs to break earthly bonds.

Charu sifts through old photos, not sure what she’s looking for, desperate to find it. She finds the one from an age she doesn’t remember, black and white, edges tattered. Appa carrying her and her sister Ro on his arms, smiling crookedly, crinkling his eyes against the sun. He is movie-star handsome, a lock of hair falling on his forehead. The pride on his face and the love that he could never manifest in real life.

The priest’s words about the soul stuck in limbo haunt her. She feels like she’s the one in limbo. She calls Ro in Bangalore.

“Charu, try to forgive him di. Not because he deserves it. But because you need it. I read that people with unfinished business with each other will be born together again and again. Today, amma told me she forgave him. Do you really want him to come back as our father, our mother, husband, child? CHILD!!”

She places the photo on the altar in their home and lights a lamp.

She soaks tamarind to make rasam. Extracting the juice from the tamarind, she flavors it with cumin and pepper, and chops two large juicy tomatoes into it. White rice cooked to perfection—not too mushy, not too dry. How many days had he thrown the plate because the rice was overcooked? And potato curry, seasoned with turmeric, hing, chili powder, roasted to a crisp golden hue. Appa used to fight with his own children for the crispiest pieces of potatoes.

Her fingers fight the muscle memory to salt the food.

She sets out the saltless food, tasting salt in her tears, tears that finally flow.

 __________________________

About the Author

Srilatha Rajagopal lives in Florida with her husband of thirty plus years. She loves to read, write, cook, garden, experiment with her iPhone camera, and watch birds in her backyard. She was an IT Project Manager in a former life. She has words in Shark Reef and the parenting magazine Grownandflown.com, and a photo in Rejection Letters.

© “Salt” by Srilatha Rajagopal. All rights reserved.