The Sun On Our Kitchen Floor

I sat close to her and watched. 

She wiped off her wet hands in front of her favourite yellow saree. She sat with her haunches hanging in the air – a breathy little sun setting in the middle of a morning on the red oxide floor of our shared kitchen, looming over the grinding stone: one house, one kitchen, one spice-crushing slab of sandstone. “The rule of a lifetime”, my grandmother would say, “is to find ways to get on your haunches – those rotten imps begin to rust sooner than you can imagine”. 

She was right, perhaps, the little joys of an active body are a wealth worth having in a small suburban town far north of Kolkata. There was never much to do here except for your own thing: chores or more. However, you have to come up with them on your own. So Ma came up with a quest of her own – first thing in the morning, she would rush to the Uthaan (the must-have wide, cemented parapet on the ground level that caught the day’s warmth and spread it evenly around the house like a carpet woven by angels). With a jute basket in hand to gather flowers for her afternoon puja, leaving the crape jasmine or periwinkle in the sun for too long turns them into popped pixie balloons. Then she would visit the timed tap beside the local pond to fill a jerry can up to the brim and emerge with it in the kitchen like the constellation Aquarius. 

That water was usually used in miscellaneous tasks in the kitchen. However, these tasks were no less than Herculean labours, one after the other. Especially on a day like that, when the pristine April sky grew irresistible in its beauty and vigour. How could Ma keep inside on such a jolly morning baffled me. She hardly spoke when she was working, but she sang now and then, like in the legends. 

Often on Sundays, when Baba stayed at home the whole day, she would hum the Bengali songs by Manna Dey, especially the ones that the radio stations never played – ‘Kaw Fotaa Chokher Jawl Felechho?’ (how many tears have you shed?) or “Hajaar Taakar Jhaarbaati ta’ (The Chandelier Worth A Thousand Ruppees). She would sing them in a quiet exchange for Baba’s remembrance.

The melody of remembering how one wishes to be remembered. 

But that morning the quests were rearranged. After the grinding stone was freshly etched with a chisel and hammer to form small carvings that help in grinding the spices into finer masala, Ma was more intent on its performance than ever before.

She threw some turmeric and ginger clubs on the slab and began pushing the pestle in a kneading motion. To and fro, her haunches gilded and her saree was drenched from perspiration in no time. It wasn’t a cruel ordeal, tough nonetheless, and the wrinkle in Ma’s brow wasn’t helping in my plight of fathoming how to grab her attention. I was sitting on the floor with my legs crossed and the rhythm of the moving stones bouncing under my calves. Ma wasn’t singing either. Usually, when she was by herself, she secretly indulged in singing Rabindra Sangeet of the Vichitraa or Puja sect. 

Her most beloved song was ‘Phool Bole’. Phool bole dhonno aami maatir pore - ‘The flower says I’m blessed by the dirt’, which made me wonder a thing or two about beauty. The most organic essence of beauty, perhaps the blemishes carried with grace. The beauty of Ma’s palms in the very lines that the rolling pestle couldn't erase. The beauty of her solitude in the songs that muffled the murmur of the grinding stone. I made a few attempts to try and break the silence by mentioning the fantastic aroma of whatever was brewing in the kadhai on the stove. Then I said I hoped Baba would bring prawns in the evening – prawns are her favourite, that should do the trick. But the incessant clicking of the stone surfaces couldn’t grow louder than her intent silence that cast an eerie spell on our kitchen.

For when you enter this sacred room of a household, out of all the other rooms, it is the perfume factory of every home. Whenever I found our home empty with everyone gone to their schools, offices, colleges, and businesses, I knew which corner glowed with the presence of waiting. I had developed a muscle memory –navigation made solely by my heart, whether I was overjoyed, overwhelmed, disappointed or hungry. More often than not, everything together – I knew which way I was headed as soon as I stepped inside the gates. If every home is an Earth of its own, witnessing the history and evolution of the lives that build and break it, then every kitchen is an After-earth. A promised land with the delight of ordinary blessings performed upon us by a goddess with sacred Amrapali in her hands. 

Her songs, the silver beads of rain pattering in the first week of June. The kitchen was living proof that the smell of rain-drenched soil doesn’t fade; the Earth locks it in and revels in its preciousness. If Ma was quiet, the Earth was quiet. That would mean the first time the map in my heart had betrayed me, led me to an unfamiliar solemness that trapped my breaths and refused to release them, no matter how deep the pestle reached into the damp mud of silence.

Her hands rubbed over the pestle like the hands of a sculptor in Kumortuli, sculpting the plump arms of Maa Durga. The turmeric and ginger juices oozed like the liquid soul of a mango. The mango flowers would soon begin to burst into laughter and leave the air heavy with their maddening scent. Wouldn’t Ma smile then, too? I worried about her like she worried about the delicate, white conch bangles on her wrists. In the middle of the grinding, she would take time to push them up to prevent them from slipping into the force and breaking. Her hands pushed the pestle up to a point, then drew it back towards her lap. Her hands, the soft tide of a young river that couldn’t see what lies on the other side of the stone bank. Her bangles murmuring to one another - how – why – why?

As the rooty fibre slowly separated from the cream and yellow paste, my eyes felt droopy and meditative. For a few moments, the surroundings – even Ma, darkened, and all that was left for me to hold were the stark white etchings on the grinding stone that had the silhouette of a house I had drawn in my nursery year. The short, sharp scribbles seemed to tremble amidst the heavy friction and at any moment they could grow tired of this all. One by one, they were floating up from the chest of the grinding stone and unfolding in the air like some ancient, magical scripture! They rearranged themselves over and over again into a stunning map as if to show that the boundaries of tradition are not merely limiting but more often the guiding lines for where to begin and where to belong. I leaned back into the wall to take it all in and perhaps slowly become the cosy corner of that lull kitchen. 

Isn’t it strange? How a secret map to our hearts is etched on our mothers’ palms long before we come into this world? And although ample blue was right outside, Ma’s voice refused to go after it. At that moment, I had to decide between saving the joy of a hidden map or the beauty of a wilting flower.  I lifted myself and drew nearer to Ma. “Can you show me how to do it? I want to try –” I spoke, and Ma looked up. She didn’t hurry her lucid smile, but I knew it was coming. She slowly moved aside and gestured to squat. Placed her hands firmly on mine and pushed the pestle forward. I realised they were not so different after all, the dilemma was the mere result of us being used to Ma singing only by herself. I pushed the pestle as far as I was allowed, carefully, without doubt. A breath I didn’t know I’d lost came back to me, and something in my heart said “Sing –”

By Sristi Sengupta