The Disappearing Uncle: and other stories

By D. K. Rajagopalan

There is always something happening in Shanthi Colony.
There's the young boy whose cricket balls keep vanishing. There's the woman who is convinced that her husband is being hoodwinked by a conman. Then there is the Uncle who went for a walk and then... disappeared.
But as long as Kummi Paati is around, there's always someone to resolve these little mysteries, too. At 65 years old, she is the picture of a warm-hearted grandmother. But she can also sniff out a scoundrel a mile away, and she definitely believes that it is her duty to step in when things are Not Correct.
Some people call her interfering. Others consider her actions altruistic. But at the end of the day, everyone's favourite grandmother knows that if she's helped to set things right, it was all worth it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649692290

Book preview

I. RAVI

‘Dai, Ravi! Get the bat and ball and come down! I’m setting up the stumps!’

A young boy, around twelve years old, was running into an open playground, calling out to another boy on a first-floor balcony above. It was just after 4.30 pm and the piercing heat – and worse, the humidity – of the Chennai summer afternoon was just starting to abate.

These evening hours were precious. Although the boys would have loved to play as soon as school was out, their mothers insisted that they have something cool to drink and wait an hour. Most of them had learned by now that it was useless to argue.

Ravi, leaning over the balcony railing, raised his hand in acknowledgement of Babu, the boy who had called out. Ravi was a tall, somewhat plump boy. His light brown eyes sat under heavy eyebrows and he had a button nose. His wide lips were generally stretched across his face in a smile, but just at present, he was gulping down a glass of milk, two white rivulets streaming down from the corners of his lips. Finally, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and ran indoors to make his way down to the playground.

Babu’s stumps were a piece of cardboard wedged in between a broken brick on one side and a large rock on the other. He was a lanky boy, having just grown three or four inches in the last few months. His eyes were jet black and his long lashes brushed against his glasses, which were usually cloudy with perspiration. He was squatting in front of the stumps, making sure the flimsy cardboard was secure, his dark brown skin shining in the afternoon sun. Once this was done, he stood up and carefully measured fifteen paces, counting them under his breath, to mark out the other end of the crease.

He took his job seriously. Babu was the captain of the Shanthi Colony cricket team.

Shanthi Colony was a group of ten blocks of flats, each of which housed six units. The blocks themselves were fairly simple concrete buildings, constructed in the seventies. They had originally been painted light yellow on the outside, a colour that the harsh sun had turned off-white over the years. The flats were surrounded by a large boundary wall with two gates, each manned by a security guard. These guards were not exactly of the ex-policeman variety – in fact, both of them used to work in shops – but they provided enough peace of mind to the mothers in the colony that their children wouldn’t run outside without their knowing about it.

The playground was just inside the colony gates. One end of it contained a set of swings, a jungle gym and a long-broken seesaw. The rest was open space. Boys would play cricket in the evenings and girls would play badminton or catch-catch. The playground was surrounded by a short wrought-iron fence and a flowerbed, which was being watered by a short, slightly plump old lady. She wore a burnt orange cotton sari, and her greying hair was in a bun at the nape of her neck. Everything about her was neat – from her carefully parted hair, to her perfectly round pottu (a round red dot drawn in the middle of the forehead as an adornment). Her smile was friendly and welcoming.

As the water hit the ground, the sweet smell of the wet earth began to fill the air. The old lady sighed happily. She loved this part of her day.

‘Good evening, Kummi Paati,’ Babu said.

Kummi – or Komalam, to use her full name – had lived in the colony for nearly forty years. She had come there as a young married woman with two children. Two children who, like Babu, used to play in this very playground every evening while she was in the apartment, cooking and cleaning and doing all the things that needed doing in running a household. Somehow the years had passed by, and now she was nearly sixty-five. Her daughter Shakuntala and her son Vivek were grown and lived overseas, and she had become the honorary Paati (or grandmother) to all of the young children who lived in the colony now. Like Babu.

She smiled back at the boy and replied to his question.

‘Good evening, Babu! Getting ready for the big match, yes?’

Babu nodded. ‘We have a lot of catching up to do. The boys from New Look Manere have been practising for months!’

New Look Manere was a high-rise apartment block, two streets away. It had only been built a few years previously and had much better facilities than Shanthi Colony – including, to the envy of the colony children, a swimming pool. But the New Look boys and girls were not inclined to share.

‘We are already behind. But what to do?’

Babu looked around and, as he did, his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, propelled by sweat and habit. He wrinkled his nose, using the action to push his glasses back into place.

‘See? My team still haven’t come for practice. Not even my vice-captain is here!’

As he spoke, though, a few boys started to trickle in. Kummi Paati gestured over his shoulder, her lips turning up at the corners.

‘Look behind you,’ she said.

Without another word, Babu turned and ran towards his friends. Kummi Paati continued to water the garden, smelling the earth and the delicate scent from the many varieties of jasmine plants. As she lifted her gaze from the flowerbed, enjoying the riot of colours from the hibiscus, the bougainvillea and the crossandra, she took in the scene of the children playing together. Every evening, she watched these children play while she watered the garden. It was almost always the best part of her day.

As she stood there, hose in hand, three more people walked into the playground. As soon as she saw them, Kummi Paati smiled. Shakuntala, her daughter, was taking her twin ten-year-old nieces, Nina and Alisha, to meet a group of girls playing badminton at the far end of the playground. They had arrived a few nights ago from Sydney, Australia. The girls were tall for their age, and had warm russet-brown skin, like their father. They both had straight black hair. Nina’s was plaited in two and Alisha’s was in a high ponytail – both girls attempting to keep the hair off their necks in the heat. They were dressed to play with other girls, in shorts and t-shirts that had seen better days. Vivek, their father, had been planning to make the trip with his daughters, but a last-minute work crisis had nearly made him cancel the trip altogether. But then his sister Shakuntala had decided she ‘needed a break from Sydney’– whatever that meant – and so the trio had made the journey together.

Having left the girls with their new friends, Shakuntala – or Shaku, as she was usually called – walked over to Kummi Paati. She was tall, like her father, and had long, black, curly hair, currently pulled up in a high bun. Her face, like her mother’s, was pleasant and open. Both of them had the same rounded nose, the same thick lips. But where Kummi Paati had small eyes, covered by large, caterpillar-like eyebrows, Shakuntala – who had edited her eyebrows down from what nature had bestowed upon her – had large eyes that, just at present, were ringed with circles.

‘I might go upstairs, Amma,’ she said, using the Tamil word for mother. ‘I’m still tired.’

‘Jetlag?’ Kummi Paati asked.

Shakuntala nodded.

‘Shall I come up and make you some coffee?’ Kummi Paati asked.

‘No, no. I think I’m going to lie down for a bit.’

‘Okay. You go, ma, I’ll watch the girls,’ Kummi Paati said.

She glanced back at the girls, and then over to the boys. Ravi, the delayed vice-captain, had arrived and was shouting out as he ran towards the group. She continued her watering but noticed soon enough that the boys were not playing cricket. They seemed to be discussing something instead. A lot of the boys were pointing at Ravi, and Babu appeared to have taken up a placatory stance between him and most of the other boys.

The feeling of water on her legs startled her. She looked down to find that her sari was wet, drenched by her slackening hand as she watched the boys become agitated. Voices were raised, but she could not make out what was happening. She hitched her sari up a bit, tucking it in at her waist, and turned back to the plants.

She would find out soon enough, she thought.

Twenty minutes later, Kummi Paati rounded the corner and turned off the tap. The girls were still playing badminton, but most of the boys had left the playground. Ravi and Babu were still there, and she heard them speaking.

‘It’s okay, da. We can get another one by tomorrow. I’ll ask my father and you also ask, okay?’

Ravi responded in a slightly wobbly voice. ‘Okay, da.’

‘Come,’ Babu said, ‘let’s go home and play carrom.’

Kummi Paati could feel Ravi looking at her before she saw him. She turned towards him and met his glance with a smile. She had known Ravi since he was born, as she did so many of the young children in Shanthi Colony. She had been at the ceremony to bless his pregnant mother before his birth, she had been at the post-birth ceremony to bless him with a long life, and she had been at every birthday event he’d had after that. These children in the colony, while not related to her, were close and known.

‘You go, da,’ Ravi said. ‘I’ll come in a while.’

Kummi Paati gathered the hose the way she did every evening, and hung it on the rusty iron hook that had been used for that purpose for decades. She turned the tap on once again to wash her hands and her feet and when she turned around, Ravi was waiting.

He sat on top of the short wrought-iron fence that surrounded the playground. His shoulders were hunched over and he looked down, trying to hide his dirt-streaked face. Kummi Paati went and sat next to him. His little body heaved once, then he hiccoughed. He sniffled and turned away. Kummi Paati put her arm around him. After a few minutes, he brushed his arm over his face and turned back towards her.

‘Kummi Paati, the boys are all blaming me.’

‘What are they blaming you for?’

‘The cricket balls. They keep getting lost.’

Kummi Paati smiled.

‘Do they? And how does that happen?’

‘I keep them in a box in our scooter garage. And they keep going missing from there!’

‘How many have been lost so far?’

Ravi appeared to think for a moment.

‘At least three or four. And if I ask my Appa to get a ball again,’ his voice began to wobble as he contemplated confessing to his father, ‘he will scold me badly.’

‘Hmm. I see. Well how about this. Go tomorrow and buy a ball from Mythili Mart. And keep it with you, in your room.’

She reached into her blouse, extracted a twenty rupee note and handed it to the boy.

Ravi’s face lit up.

‘Thank you, Kummi Paati!’

He jumped up, ready to run to his friend’s house. But after a few steps, he turned around and looked at Kummi Paati again.

‘But Kummi Paati, what about all the other balls?’

‘I am glad you have not forgotten about them. After all, your father paid money for them, didn’t he? So we will have to see about them too. But you don’t worry, kanna,’ she said, the Tamil endearment slipping out naturally. ‘Leave it with me.’

*   *   *

The next day, Kummi Paati woke at 6 am, as she did every morning. She started the day by cleaning the corridor outside the entrance of her flat and drawing a kolam on the floor, a pattern made with rice flour that could be simple or highly complex, depending on Kummi Paati’s mood. Then she went into the kitchen and boiled the milk. A container was left near the front door every morning by Anbu, the man in the back lane who kept cows. It was rare, these days, to get fresh cow’s milk and when Anbu had moved into the neighbourhood with his five cows, Paati was happy. Even though his milk was more expensive than the packet milk delivered by the newspaper boy, she enjoyed it a lot more.

After she had boiled the milk, she made her morning coffee. She and her husband still ate the traditional way, and so did the grandchildren when they visited. None of these cereal breakfasts for her. They had coffee in the morning, and a full meal at 10 am. And so, once she had finished her early morning coffee, she began to cook. She started with the rasam, a thin lentil and tomato soup that was eaten with rice. Then she made beans kootu, a thicker stew made of green beans and lentils. Next up was the sambhar, a different type of lentil broth. And she was just finishing the potato curry when she noticed the time. It was just after 8am. Time for her second coffee, and for her husband’s first one. She measured two tumblers of milk into a stainless-steel vessel and placed it on the stove.

Her husband, Somasekar, was known in the colony as Somu Thatha. Somu was a nickname for Somasekar, while Thatha was the Tamil word for grandfather. He was from the same small town as Kummi Paati. Both of them had grown up with very little. Soon after they were married, Somu Thatha’s father started a new business, manufacturing and selling water pumps to builders. In due course, Somu had joined the business, which had prospered. When things had started to improve, they had purchased the three-bedroom flat in Shanthi Colony. At the time, it had seemed luxurious to Kummi Paati.

The business had expanded even further. Her husband often spoke to her about it, talking her through decisions he had to make and wanting to know what she thought. Despite the increasing profitability of Sekar Pumps, they had continued to live their life the same as before. She did not want for more. In fact, now that her children had moved out, the flat felt too big to her – except when they visited, at which time she was grateful for the space. What would she do with a bigger house? Just more rooms to keep clean, with no upside. Or a fancy car? They had a good car, a Maruti 800 that her husband felt comfortable driving through the hectic Chennai traffic. It took them from point A to point B. Wasn’t that the purpose of a car?

She wore little jewellery apart from her thali (her wedding chain), the diamond earrings that had been given to her by her father on the occasion of her marriage and two gold bangles on each wrist, a sign that she was a married woman. She had some more eye-catching wedding jewellery, for special occasions. And she had saris enough.

The money Sekar Pumps made had been useful when first her son and then her daughter had wanted to study overseas. The fees at the universities abroad had shocked her. And yet, an overseas education was what her children had wanted. So, as she wished for them to have the choices and opportunities that she had never had, she convinced her husband to pay the exorbitant fees for her son and daughter to go to a university in Australia. That had been twenty or so years ago. After their education, both children had settled down in Sydney. First her son, and then her daughter.

She still missed them, every single day. Visits like the one now seemed few and far between – but it kept the heartache from becoming entirely unbearable. Just.

She was brought out of her reverie by the milk starting to foam. As soon as it boiled, she added the thick coffee decoction to it. She had made the decoction the day before by allowing hot water to slowly drip through a large amount of coffee over a number of hours. She was mixing in the sugar and frothing the coffee when her husband walked into the room. He went straight to the prayer room, just off to the side of the kitchen, to perform his morning devotions.

Somu Thatha was almost six feet tall. Kummi Paati looked tiny next to him. But then, she looked tiny next to most people. Where she was pleasantly rounded, he was bony and gangly. But like Kummi Paati, he had a kind face. Kummi Paati had not known him well – or at all, in fact – when her marriage to him had been arranged. She had been sixteen years old, which was old to be getting married compared to many other girls of her generation. She hadn’t minded not being married – she had enjoyed school, enjoyed learning. But she had known it couldn’t last.

It could have been worse. Somu Thatha, the boy who had been chosen for her, was only four years older than her, which was not too bad. And she had not heard anything negative about him. In the small town in which they lived, gossip spread quickly. Had he been one of those rowdy boys, always whistling at girls or chasing them on his bicycle, she would have known. And after she had been told what was to happen, she had managed to take a look at him over the compound wall that separated their two houses. Not that she could have done anything about it if she hadn’t liked what she saw. But she wanted to try and get a sense of what was in store for her.

He had spotted her staring over the wall. And he had smiled.

She thought to herself that he had a pleasant smile. Not the smile of a boy who would beat her or say cruel things.

He approached the boundary wall and she had stood, rooted to the spot. If her stepmother had come out and seen her, she would be beaten with a stick. Such behaviour was considered fast, and if people heard she was speaking to boys over the boundary wall, she would never get married.

‘Hello,’ he had said.

‘He-hello.’

‘Did they speak to you, then?’

She nodded.

‘And what do you think?’

She stared at him. What did she think? Why was he asking her that? Was it a trap?

He was waiting for an answer.

‘Do you wish to be married to me?’ he asked.

‘I – I believe our horoscopes are a good match,’ she said. ‘My father said so. Said it was a much better match than–’

She broke off, blushing.

His smile broadened.

‘I am glad they are a good match. I would be very happy to be married to you. But if you are not–’

‘No, there’s nothing like that! Nothing like that at all. I – I, too ...’

She trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence. Then she jumped as she heard her stepmother calling her.

‘Kummi! Where is that child? I asked her to wash and sweep the front porch ten minutes ago!’

Still she stood rooted to the spot, until he spoke again.

‘You should go now.’

She nodded, and had just picked up the broom when her stepmother spotted her. She barely heard the scolding as she silently swept the porch. She was thinking of a pair of kind, smiling, brown eyes.

*   *   *

‘Coffee smells good,’ her husband said, emerging from the prayer room.

Kummi Paati turned around and handed him a stainless-steel tumbler full to the brim with hot, frothy filter coffee. She poured the rest of the coffee into two similar tumblers.

‘Pooncholai! Come and take your coffee!’ she called out.

The small maidservant, who arrived between 7.30 and 8 every morning, appeared in an instant. Kummi Paati handed her one of the two remaining tumblers and carried the last one out to where her husband sat on the balcony.

Their flat was on the first floor of Block A, on one end of the colony, right beside one set of scooter garages. The other scooter garages were on the opposite side, next to Block E. When they had initially looked for a home, she had hoped for a ground-floor flat. These were slightly more expensive but came with a small garden area. But none were available, so they took a first-floor flat. Over the years, she had come to appreciate the vantage point that the balcony offered her, even as she regretted the growing impact of the stairs on her knees.

On the balcony were two wooden armchairs. Despite the heat, they almost always sat here to drink their coffee. Only when the monsoons were upon them, and the rain was pelting down sideways, did they sit inside. Even then, they would leave the door slightly ajar. Kummi Paati loved the smell of the rain.

Somu Thatha was already seated in the chair on the right-hand side, gingerly taking small sips of his too-hot coffee, as he did every morning. Kummi Paati usually sat in the other chair. But today, she walked to one end of the balcony and peered down towards the scooter garages. There was a lot of activity going on. All the office workers were leaving for the day, chatting to one another as they sped off. As she watched, she saw Mr Suresh, Ravi’s father, walk towards his garage and unlock the door. He walked in and almost immediately exited backwards, holding his scooter upright. Then he kickstarted it and drove off, leaving the garage door unlocked.

‘Coffee is very good today,’ Somu Thatha said.

Kummi Paati still stood at the edge of the balcony, watching the other people leaving for their work.

‘Kummi? What are you thinking?’

‘Me? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.’

She turned away, sat down in her armchair and gave her husband her full attention.

*   *   *

Just before 4 pm that evening, Kummi Paati made her way to Mythili Mart, the corner store just outside Shanthi Colony. She smiled politely at Dilruba, one of the security guards, on her way out.

‘Namaste ji,’ he said. Kummi Paati smiled and returned the greeting.

Dilruba was not from Chennai; he was from what Kummi Paati called The North. She had never been to The North. She knew they spoke Hindi there, and Punjabi and other languages that were as alien to her as French or German. They had different food too – she had eaten it occasionally, mostly when she visited her best friend, Neela. It was good, but her rice-based diet, as opposed to their wheat-based one, suited her much better. Rice filled you up in a way that roti did not. She had heard that it was supposed to be bad to eat too much rice – but she and