Sleeveless

By Priyam Gupta

Sleeveless

It was day three of the misery, Meera’s entire family had tested positive to the corona virus that had taken the world by storm. She was a writer, a gifted one, and had settled in Bangalore. But, the pandemic had caused her to move back to her hometown or more aptly, her father’s discomfort with letting her daughter stay alone at an apartment 1949 kilometres away. “No, you can’t stay there if your roommate’s gone! How will you sleep alone at night?” were his exact words. Meera had to give in because her father is a diabetic and an insulin surge wasn’t the present she was planning to give him this birthday, so she agreed. She was always welcomed into her small town home at the footsteps of the railway station by her father or her brother while her mother kept her eyes glued at the main door, boiling the morning kadha for everyone. Meera’s joint family included her grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, kids, mother, father, brother and herself. She stepped inside the house wearing denim jeans and a kurti as opposed to her Instagram pictures where she loved to dress up in colorful skirts and tank tops. Her mother had always told her that wearing “sleeveless” tops was against her family customs which she later realized was originally inoculated into her mind by her grandfather. Meera lived her real self in the virtual world where she was often appreciated for pulling off outfits with utmost grace. Writing and fashion were her genres of choice while her family could only light the torch on the writing aspect.

Meera kept her luggage in her room and went to freshen up. She came back into her room and opened her laptop to start typing stories her boss had assigned to her but she was interrupted by her grandmother’s voice. “Meera, can you make me some tea?” She was sitting in the hallway, smoothening the table cloth with her palm.

Meera looked at the kitchen through the peephole of her middle class house’s pored door. She could see my mother juggling between stirring a curry and rolling a chapati. She took a deep sigh, shut the laptop and walked into the kitchen. “Go wake your brother up, he’ll get some ginger for tea from the nearby market”, her Mom said, stirring the curry. Meera didn’t want to disturb her brother’s sleep so she walked towards the keyring stand and took the scooty’s key. Her grandfather immediately walked out of his room and prompted her.

“Meera, hey Meera, where are you going? Give the keys to your brother or your father. They’ll go to the market if needed.”

And there it was. In all these years, nothing had changed back at home.

“Why can’t I go to the market and my brother help you in the kitchen?” Meera confidently said. Her grandfather nodded his head in disappointment, looking at Meera’s mother in disgust. Meera’s mother bowed her head down in shame. Meera shrugged.

Suddenly, her grandmother who was sitting in the hallway, started coughing uncontrollably and fainted. She was to be taken to the hospital immediately. While everyone called and waited for the ambulance, Meera drove her off to the hospital, on the scooty. And rightly concluded, nobody objected this time.

A few days after this incident, Meera’s mother kept convincing her to apologise to her grandfather for her behaviour but she believed that there’s no point in saying sorry if you don’t mean it. Her mother convinced her by saying that she was “younger” but Meera knew that in their family, only the women had to bow down their head because the men could never shatter their egoes. Meera recalled how her aunt had walked out of the house with her entire family when she had asked permission to open her own beauty parlour because she wanted to earn money and appreciation, apart from being a homemaker. She was straightaway denied and she had denied to accustom her decisions to someone else. Meera still believed that her aunt’s only fault was seeking permission because why should she?

Few days later, her entire family tested positive for Covid except herself and her father. Everyone was isolated in separate rooms. While Meera hated to step into the kitchen because it was always a position of suppression, she was bound to walk in everyday at 5 am to make kadha for everyone. Her father, a renowned businessman in the town, who had never entered the kitchen before, started cooking simple food for everyone. The father-daughter would distribute food to different rooms, go to the market to fetch groceries, buy medicines. Since the only point of division of duties was existence, they’d shuffle duties, not caring about “man” and “woman.”

Meera had seen her mother wake up at 5 am everyday, even after nights she had spent puking. But it changed suddenly. She wasn’t allowed to enter the kitchen because of the quarantine. Meera often peeped into her mother’s room through the pored door to see her lying comfortably on the bed, learning to use her mobile phone, weaving sweaters, and reading books. She saw her father light the stove, cook meals, plate them and speak softer. She saw her grandfather cribbing in his room, her grandmother trying to put on kajal secretly. And then the next day while her father was making tea, he told her to get some ginger from the market and she, victoriously, flew away on her scooty and her sleeveless top swaying. When the change was mandatory and the humans were too apprehensive, destiny had to step in. Meera’s father was never against walking into the kitchen but, the duty of cooking is so casually put over a woman’s shoulder that nobody realizes when it turns into a barrier. Duties that are basic human needs have become sexist. The day when Meera could finally acknowledge the people around her apart from their gender roles is when she felt she was finally home.

By Priyam Gupta