The Routine Squabble and a Plate of Golgappe

By Kriti Arora

Your world is crumbling. You’re crying and your new piercing hurts when you pull on it to blow your nose and yet, somehow, all you can think of is the floral pattern on one of dining table chairs. You never quite noticed how ugly it was. It was only when your world crumbled that through tears and a nose full of mucous could you see it. It’s funny how the miniscule details about ordinary objects become apparent to us only through the haze of sadness. 

Although, the most absurd thing of it all is how you haven’t touched the golgappe your mom got for you. You, who would sell your soul for a plate and a half of golgappe, somehow haven’t even looked at them even though they’re lying on the kitchen counter just a few metres away from where you pen this miserable account. A pair of warm hands rest upon your shoulder. Your grandma tells you to be strong. She says crying is for the weak. Well grandma, I never pretended to be strong, now did I? 

Somehow all your family members go back to their routine humdrum without even thinking of what just happened. By morning, they’ll forget all of it. But, as somebody you knew in a past life used to say, “The axe forgets but the tree remembers.” And you would make quite an exceptionally sensitive tree, wouldn’t you?

You splash your face with water and look at yourself in the mirror. Your nose is all pink, not unlike that of a clown. And you do feel like one as you wait for the apology that’ll never come, the comfort you might have to beg for, yet you will not receive and you stare at the screen in front of you, hatred brimming for the words you just typed. You’re not going to erase them this time around though. 

By Kriti Arora