The Violent Potter: Short Stories About Love, Families and Children

By Shobna Subramanian

When family demand clashes with the emotional world of the child, their laughter tripped up by rules, shadowed by opinions, marred by rage or blocked by apathy.
Criticism is aplenty when the need is for quiet support. Rage arises in short shrift when the need is for quiet understanding.
Trust vanishes. Family loses promise.
Slow realisation dawns.
Love is nowhere.
Yet, love may take kindly charge, as with Rajan and Sona. It may seem sharp of eye and tongue as Chanda has noticed, or faraway and mild as Ankush experiences.
Love moulds itself to hear the unspoken, to clarify the unclear and lay closed thoughts in the open. Honest conversation and laughter rule. Family holds promise.
Love is in process, in outcome.
Love is everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9789390266692

Shobna Subramanian

Many decades ago, Shobna chanced upon a book on research findings about babies. Babies learn to smile by mapping their face to their parents’, within days of birth. Soon they are mapping their bodies, making logical sequences and much more.When she had a child of her own, she observed that not only was this true, but elders were well aware. That was why they maintained a peaceful atmosphere around the young. The infant makes connections, trying to understand the world. All the time. That’s how they develop a sense of control of their surroundings.To understand a child’s mind, one has to be a child. They have to see the world anew, see each flower and every ant. All it needs is love.Considering the important but hidden processes the mind is undergoing when news of violence against the young appeared through different channels, Shobna felt a need to tell the world to stop. To wait. To observe. Not to raise a hand. To love.But it’s complicated. The meaning of love varies, sometimes confusion reigns.Shobna is based in Mumbai. She worked as an HR professional for seventeen years before she began to write first a myth then the stories. The stories are gleaned from personal experience and observation and leave people to make their own connections.It took long years to complete. There was much to tell.

Book preview

PART 1

1

Potter Tries Unconditional Love

Vaidehi wiped her forehead with the palloo of her saree. The heat was killing! Her kitchen work was done. Food ready, kitchen clean; she had made Babu’s favourite pineapple pachadi and fried a mountain of pappadams . He would be pleased. The thought of his expression brought a gentle smile to her face. She hoped he would like today’s afternoon movie show. Anyway, it was one o’clock, where was…

A loud banging on the door cut through her thoughts, ‘Babu!’

She rushed to the door and opened it with a big smile. A little boy, darkened and sweaty, with reddened cheeks ran in through the open door. He wanted a glass of water. NOW!

‘Wait, not cold water, baby, not cold,’ she cooed. She watched as he gulped noisily, her son, her blessing. Some good deed of her past life had allowed for this perfection. ‘Venkat and I are so dark, how did our child turn out so fair?’ she preened.

‘Are you going back to play now?’ Vaidehi asked.

‘No!’ he replied in a high pitch, ‘A dirty man spoiled my game!’

‘Bathe and come, we can have lunch.’

‘No, I won’t bathe, I’m hungry. You made pineapple, na?’ Babu’s face lit up.

Venkat thundered from the depths of the sofa where he had made himself comfortable, ‘Don’t you dare come to the table without a bath! Hungry, my foot!’

Babu hesitated, eyes on his mother.

Another shout from Venkat resolved his doubt, ‘Go! Don’t look at Mummy!’

He slouched to the bathroom, dragging his cricket bat. ‘You’re going to bathe your bat or what? Keep it down!’

Babu grimaced as he obeyed his father.

Silence descended for barely a few seconds before the doorbell trilled. As usual, Venkat would not open the door. ‘He can shout, but he can never get up,’ Vaidehi huffed.

A glowering tall, bearded man stood at the door. He carried a little girl in his muscled arms. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans while his fair face was red.

The man boomed, ‘Madam, do you teach your son that he can hit small girls? He told me, my mother will say it’s okay. My daughter is three! Is it okay? How old is your son?’

‘Ei-eight!’ she stammered.

‘What happened?’ Venkat had come to the door, arms folded across his chest, in a strong, warrior stance. If the sight of the red-cheeked girl in a frilly pink dress rubbing her eyes caught him by surprise, he displayed none.

‘He says our son hit his child.’ Vaidehi told her husband and turned to the irate man, ‘But your child should know to listen to elders, no?’

The man shouted, ‘I am saying that your eight-year-old son hit my three-year-old. My daughter is not going to listen to every bloody urchin, every bloody beggar, every bloody dog, just because they are older, Madam! She is definitely not going to listen to your bloody son!’

‘W-why?’ the father stammered.

Eyes bulging, the man shouted, ‘Because your son is a bloody fool! She was following a butterfly, my poor baby. Your son slapped her! What does he think? The park is not his father’s! If your son hits my baby one more time, you wait, he won’t return home. I’ll pick him up and break his bloody neck. You can call the police, I don’t care. You can do what you want to repair your bloody son’s neck. Good day to you. Huh!’ He stroked his daughter’s cheek gently, ‘Kukoo, their son is a dirty boy. If he comes near you one more time, I’ll take care of him. My way. Okay?’ and walked away.

Vaidehi began, ‘How can he talk like that about my innocent son? Such bad words!’ In a flurry, she entered the house and uncertain of future recourse, scurried around an undefined spot.

Her husband strode to the bathroom, ‘Why are you taking so long in your bath? Hurry up!’

But the bather was bent over in a fit of quiet giggles, hand covering his mouth, ‘How stupid that man is, everyone laughs at him. No one likes his stupid daughter. Hee-hee! Three years old, nyaa-nyaa, three years old… I hope they both die.’

The door rattled. His giggles died as he heard his father, ‘What kind of bath are you taking, haan? No water is flowing! I’ll break your bloody bat!’

The water started to flow.

‘Open the door, now!’

Harassed, his mother pleaded, ‘Let him bathe, let him bathe, what if he soaps himself in the eyes by mistake? He may fall. I would have bathed him but I was busy. He will come out and we’ll ask him what happened. See that man doesn’t understand Babu,’ she glanced at the general direction of the outside world. ‘Our son is a very good, a very rare kind of child … he is an angel.’

‘Excellent, prepare to see your angel’s neck broken!’ Venkat shouted. ‘He is going to become a bloody criminal! Angel! Hah!’

‘My little angel, come out child, I have to tell you something, finish bathing and come…’

Finally, the door opened and he came out, streaming water, soap on his ears, wearing a wet underwear.

‘That girl’s father said he will break your neck. Understand? You better stay away from her. If something happens to you, I cannot bear! I’m your mother, no?’ her voice broke, ‘How rudely he spoke, you know?’

‘Mummy! We were playing and she came in the way!’

‘Why hit? She’s small no?’

‘Because I got angry!’

‘Oho, oho, you got angry…’ she commiserated.

Venkat entered the room shouting, ‘You hit that girl!’ and notwithstanding the vague shake of head, slapped Babu. ‘Cry and I will slap you once again!’

Babu’s chin shook, tears pooled in his eyes.

‘Will you hit her again? Ever?’

‘N-n-no!’

Venkat stormed out of the room.

‘There! Now you’ve made your father angry! You have soap on your ears, can’t you even bathe properly?’ Vaidehi’s voice rose.

Babu looked sad.

At lunch, Venkat addressed his son again, ‘Angry! Bloody push your anger up your arse, who cares, you made the father come here. One more time someone makes a complaint about you, I’ll pack you off to a hostel.’

Poor Babu, tears threatened to roll down his cheeks.

‘No, no, no hostel or anything, our son is such a good boy. He never lies, whatever it is, he never lies.’ Vaidehi took her son’s plate and began feeding him until he was too