Rose
The winning entry in our Annual Short Story contest is a coming of age tale by Ananthu MC, who weaves in the complex symbolism of a fake rose to tell a tale of masculinity, fragility and the loss of innocence.
“I was impressed at how well-structured the stories were, with the narrative following a logical flow, even when they moved in different ways in time and space,” said our judge; editor, author and scientist Indira Chandrasekhar about the three chosen winners.
Photo by Priyadarshini Ravichandran for Soup
The boy with the unfortunate gap in his teeth and a haircut that did him no favours was walking back home. The dreary and impatient horn of his school bus, which had dropped him where the main road ended, still not a thing of the past. At least Arjun was absent today, the boy thought. That made the day somewhat better than yesterday. Yesterday, the boy was standing in the packed bus behind Arjun Suresh, who always stood near the door, and he had, without turning and with his heavy bag, shoved the boy onto the shrieking lap of Lakshmi, the class topper, and the bus, the entire bus, (it pained him to think now), rose to laugh at him.
Except for Lakshmi. Who shot him a piercing frown and looked out the window, embarrassed that a boy had touched her, that he had touched her.
But he hadn’t, not really.
Even growing another year last month hadn’t taken away his clumsiness, hadn’t righted his poor coordination. Although he barely caught the ball as a wicketkeeper – a position he was condemned to – the neighborhood boys having agreed that’s where he could inflict minimal damage, although he often fumbled with the vegetables Amma asked him to hold at the market, although he could never scissor his way neatly out of a circle for his Math homework, despite all that, he had managed to not fall on Lakshmi. He had, miraculously, grabbed the window bar with one hand and the handle of her seat at the back with the other.
He had mumbled a ‘sorry’, which he did not think that she, entombed in her misery, heard.
Lakshmi, she of the goddess’ name, the boy thought. Varun and Sachin, who sat behind him in class, would often make fun of her name while she was not around: Oh Lakshmi, please grant me my wishes and desires, Oh dear Lakshmi I will do anything for you. How fearless they were, but when the answer sheets came, he wanted to tell them: see what happens when you make fun of Lakshmi? But he never did.
He would only smile at his own answer sheet, almost always a score in the neighborhood of 50. But never 50/50. He was one of the top five in class, although he often thought he didn’t really know much, despite his marks, because then he could have clearly solved Karthick’s doubts that day, who had come to him for help, but then the boy saw the doubt only grow in impatience on Karthick’s face as he tried to explain, and then he had seen Karthick later, during recess, go up to Lakshmi!
Except for Shamir almost no other boy breached the girls’ side of the class. Shamir. He smelled nice in the perfume his Vappa surely must have gotten for him from Gulf. Shamir whose grey pants fully covered his socks, unlike the boy’s, which he was to wear for at least two years, but they had grown short this year already, a surprise his Amma and Ammamma regarded with vague giggles in the kitchen. A girl who so much as turned her head in his direction, he thought, would flinch the moment she saw the length of his pants.
His shoes, which Appa polishes every morning, were now caked with the day’s dust. He wondered if Appa had an Arjun or even a Tony Abraham when he was in school. He wondered if Appa, like him, did not really have friends back then, but that man who called this morning, whose call he had answered (because Appa was in the bathroom), who had asked him if Appa was home today, Appa said he was his old friend.
I want to punch him, the boy thought of Arjun. I want to punch him hard on his fat arm. But then he looked at his arms, still unveined, whereas Govind and Karthick already had veiny arms that held the promise of muscle. He stepped on a stone and he kicked it into the unslabbed part of the waterless and grassy drain that ran the length of one side of the road. He did believe in time, but sometimes it was hard to believe, that time would better him, would shape him into the boy he wanted to be, like some others in the class, and he would longingly thumb down the list of changes puberty had promised him in his Biology textbook, having nothing to tick against with his pencil, except, perhaps, if he looked really hard in the mirror, a dark whisper above his lips.
Here was Alan’s two-storied house. His Mamma was always in the garden, watering her roses. But he didn’t see her now. The gate was locked from inside, like the boy’s, because several shady types, even many a relative, often asking for money, were freely walking in ever since Appa left the Chennai business last year. Alan’s Dadda—haha—Daddy, Alan’s Daddy, was a bad man, according to Amma, who had left Alan and his Mamma alone when Alan was very little.
Almost all the roses were in full bloom, blood red. The rose plant Alan’s Mamma gave Amma the last time she had come to talk (about divorce, Amma later told him) had not bloomed yet. In their meager garden, Ammamma had filled one of the old paint tins with sand and planted the rose in it.
Karthick and Syed and Unni all had brothers, unlike the boy. He would sometimes try to imagine their rooms, leavened by a voice more than one, perhaps they played with each other, perhaps that’s why they were all good at cricket, and perhaps he would have been too if he had somebody to play with, the neighborhood boys only made fun of him, because practice is important, PT Sir had told them, practice, practice, practice, but the only practice the boy got was for his fractions. And since Ammamma was scared of dogs and there were no cats around, the boy had turned to the rose.
He watered it every day, sometimes too much, Ammamma had warned. But you ask me to drink lots of water every day, he wanted to say. Every day he would return from school, eager to see a rose, only to be disappointed. Once, Ammamma, sitting on her chair near the garden, seeing his face, had quipped that he should maybe make a rose out of paper and sellotape it to the stem. Maybe that will urge the plant. But he ignored her. His plant would bloom on its own.
Which girl are you going to give it to? Appa had once asked. No girl, he had replied, although it was not entirely true, because he had, in fact, imagined how nice it would be to give a girl you liked a rose, ‘a rose I watered myself every day’, he imagined saying, sometimes even from my own water bottle, but the face of this imagined girl was rather fuzzy. It was the whole act of giving the rose that was clearer, although sometimes he did see, surprisingly, Tanya, who had asked for his notebook that one time, but that was a silly thing to do, not her asking the notebook, but to imagine her face, because she does not study well, does she, she almost failed that one time in Chemistry, and it is no good to give a rose to someone who doesn’t care for her studies very much. Here was the empty plot of land where he played cricket with the other boys. He had also imagined giving it to Lakshmi, although that was also silly, it was all silly, giving roses and all, Valentine’s day, things you see in films, all men and boys time had shaped well. Instead, what he really wanted was to give it to himself, the rose, which the plant would make, thanks to his careful watering. He didn’t mean to pluck it from the plant; it’s like taking a child away from its mother, Amma had said that time he plucked a marigold, but Amma sometimes plucks flowers before she goes to court, those jasmines growing over their wall, putting them on her hair, for the smell, she says, and they do smell nice. Maybe he should start watering the jasmines instead. They clearly grew. Maybe Alan’s Mamma, who the other boys said was a cheap type, had tricked Amma. Maybe she had picked the worst of her lot for us so that we would spend our precious time and water over it. That was a bad thing to do. Because Amma had helped her with her case. Maybe Tony and Arjun would all grow up to be such bad people. Maybe Alan’s Mamma had once been like Tony and Arjun, and also not studious like Tanya, and was not only into nursery but also trickery.
Here was old Mr. Chacko, sitting in his chair on the verandah, the Malayala Manorama crumpled with sleep, his snores the sound of the balloon stuck inside his stomach, straining to burst. He always looked like he would fall from his plastic chair. Someone should tell him to buy a better chair.
The boy heard the rumble of his stomach and started walking faster. He hoped that Ammamma would allow him to have his chai and snacks (chips?) today without changing out of his uniform.
Here, at the end of the road, was his house. Here was the gate.
Not locked.
Ammamma’s chair sat outside. On it: Deshabhimani and last month’s Vanitha, Mohanlal on the cover. He tried the door. Locked. This was new. He had never been left alone with the house before. He lowered his bag to the doorstep and went to the plant.
No rose.
Crouching before it, he stroked the hard green of its stem. “Grow”, he whispered, and then, suddenly prickled by hurt, “please”.
Anu?
He saw the polished black shoes first. Then the grey pants without a belt. The light-blue checked shirt was neatly rolled up to reveal pudgy arms full of hair, a hand holding a Seemati Textiles bag. On the round amused-looking face a bushy mustache, with few streaks of white, was swallowing the man’s upper lip.
The boy, stung by the sight of the open gate, stood still. Appa, he wanted to say, was not home.
The man went to the doorstep and gestured to him to come sit.
Appa is not here, he finally said, sitting an arm away.
I know, the man said. “I was coming here only, and I saw him rushing for an auto, your Appa. For your Ammumma.”
Ammamma.
Apparently, Ammamma had fallen or hurt herself, and Appa was taking her to the hospital, and no, the boy didn’t have to worry, it didn’t look serious, not at all.
The boy looked at Ammamma’s chair. Her plastic chair.
I will go back, the man said. “Well, that’s what I thought. Think your Appa was glad to hear that, but why waste a bus ticket? Money. Be careful with money. Don’t waste it. Your Appa forgets that sometimes.”
The man yawned.
I also wanted to see this house, how your Appa is doing, all that. I was actually behind you. I thought you would look back at uncle. But no. You were lost in your dreams. Some girl, is it, eh?
The man moved closer, lowering a hand into the plastic bag. Something clinked against a bottle, probably his wedding ring. “Here”, the man said, handing him a KitKat, and another one, and another. Three KitKats!
“I also”, the man said, laughing, “got this. This morning on the phone, I thought I was talking to my Lechu—my daughter, Lakshmi, you sound just like her! Then I heard your Mummy calling you Anu. Lechu likes this very much, always coming to the shop and taking it home, for the dining table, the walls, her room…”
The man was holding towards him a bouquet of roses.
He gestured towards the empty rose plant. This is not original, he said. But this will stay.
My voice is not like a girl’s, the boy wanted to say. Amma never said so. If it was, Amma would have told him. The old tape recorder, he remembered, has a recording option. Amma might have empty cassettes, and he could, after this man leaves, anytime now, record his own voice and check. Not like a girl’s. Not like Lakshmi’s. Before the boy could tell the man that there is a Lakshmi in his class and ask him, is she your daughter, he found a hand on his shoulder.
It rested there at first, then it slid down, smoothly, silently, to where the sleeve of his shirt ended, remaining there for a moment, gently squeezing where Gokul and Syed had already received their share of biceps, and then it moved down towards his hands. “Soft”, the man said, “soft arms you have, so delicate, what eyes, such long eyelashes, longer than Lechu’s. Once that tooth grows out, you are going to look like a cinema star. Your face on the posters, the Capitol Theatre playing your movie! Hey, why do you look like that ha? Are you hungry? What did you eat for lunch?”
Karthick had brought bread and jam for lunch the other day, and the boy didn’t know that bread could be had for lunch, it was always rice and curry for him, and Karthik gave him some, and it tasted good. So, today, Amma had given him, reluctantly—
“Bread and jam,” the boy said.
“Boys your age should eat rice. Lots and lots of rice. Bread and jam. You must be hungry”.
The searching hand was on his stomach, finding, easily, the outline of his ribs, “You should eat more”, and then it went down, circling his navel, like Amma applying flour to the small circle of chapati before she rolled it and made it into a bigger one, and the man whispered, the hand moving to the right, “Is the bread here inside? I can’t find it!” and then to the left, “What about here?” Then, a prodding finger, or two, or more, easily found their way in, discovering the hairless slope that began from his belly button, and the boy wondered and worried if the whole of the cold hand would carve its way into his shirt and slip further down because that Tony Abraham—why he always picked on him the boy had no clue, the boy never hurt anyone in any way, although he had made fun of Govind’s Appa that one time, but when Govind was not around, and only when the boy’s friend, Syed, was around, but then Syed went and told Govind, and Govind came to his desk and slapped the boy on the back so hard and so loud the entire class turned its head, even all the girls, and the boy could only laugh through the pain, could not even pretend to hit back, because it was all his fault, he had said a bad word, and that was it, he had never ever hurt anyone at school or anywhere else after, but that wretched Tony Abraham was always after him, had pushed him while he was peeing today, and he had wet his pants, had to dab it with water here and there, and some of it had also gone into his underwear, and then the bell rang and there was no time because it was Bindu Miss’s Math class, and now the hand, the whole of the hand, was going in and it was going to come back, if it was ever going to come back, dirty and then--
The sweet hurt and release of an auto’s horn.
*
Here was Alan’s Mamma, watering her roses, looking up at him, smiling. He smiled back. Maybe she was not bad after all. She had smiled first, she always did, and that was a relief. He didn’t know if he should smile at all.
Here was the gate, locked, and Ammamma, the bandage around her head no more, opened it. These days, he only checked on the rose after his chai and snacks. Some days he even forgot about it. But today, as Ammamma went inside to make chai, telling him to get changed fast because she had bought him chips, he looked for it.
Here was the plant.
And here was a rose.
He touched it, stroking it with a slow thumb, but then he knew. Then he saw the stem, the leaves, all a different shade, and the careful sellotape. After the man had left, Ammamma took the bouquet to her room. The boy had never touched or even looked at it again, but he knew this was not his rose. Behind him, on Ammamma’s new wooden chair with reliable armrest, and on top of the Deshabhimani, the boy spotted the scissors. Ammamma coughed in the kitchen.
He unlocked the gate, undid the tape and freed the rose, and reached out a fumbling hand for the scissors.
The road was empty. He went to the unslabbed part of the drain and held the rose above it. It looked helpless. He first cut off the stem, a clean cut. Then the petals, attending to each one carefully. But this will stay.
Then he took the whole of it between his sharp blades and cut off every blood-red and lifeless inch of it he could cut, the scissors growing louder until he cut himself and winced in pain and dropped them.
He nearly ran back, and when he reached the gate, he looked back at the green length of the drain. From here, he could barely see the patch of red. But this will stay.
Anu?
The boy went inside, hiding the bleeding finger behind him.
*