Bagugoshe (Pears): Read Swadesh Deepak’s story, in translation

Titled The Pear from Rawalpindi, the translation by the author’s son Sukant Deepak takes the candid portrait of a mother-son bond seamlessly into English.

All she needed was a dupatta to put over her face. And then, Shobha, my mother could sleep anytime, anywhere. The dupatta was always white, even when her husband was alive.

.

She was on the bed placed in the long verandah when I entered. Her translucent face was covered. I think she was born wrinkled. She lived with the middle son and made it a point never to inform when she would be coming. I had once dared to ask her why her visits were always a surprise. Shocked, she had said, “Why would I bother to inform?” What followed was a long session of abuses in Punjabi, directed at no one in particular. The middle brother had often asked her why she made so many trips to my house, considering there could hardly be any communication with my wife, children… different worlds, times and language. She insisted that it was important to see me — “what if I had fallen ill?”

Before me, there were two still borns. Nobody knows how I survived, not even my father, a doctor. Mother, would not let visitors, including relatives from my father’s side, see me for the first few months, lest somebody cast an evil eye. She once told me that she had asked him to keep his sisters away. “But they were really evil, besides being bitches of the first order, of course.” I wasn’t allowed to go out much, lest I contracted caught some disease.

My father was obviously the most educated in the family, and was, therefore, asked to give me a name. “It would be Sarthak. But I will kill anyone who would make it into a Sattu etc. Punjabis love distorting everything, including names.”

Yes, he could kill. Partition never left him. Nor his memory of massacring 11 people from the rooftop with his German rifle. Not that he regretted it. Though he had said once, “I wish most of them were not from the same mohalla.” He would recall how a feudal lord like him who had never worked before the country was split into two was forced to live in a refugee camp. In Rawalpindi, mother clearly him remembered, that he would take out his horse and rifle to patrol the fields late into the night. The clinic remained closed on most days. He didn’t like waking up early.

I made tea for us before waking her up. She looked at me for a few seconds, “You look weak. Are you sleeping with your wife every night. Don’t you know it can sap all your energy?” She could say anything, anytime – just like she could sleep. I smiles, “Leave alone sleeping, we didn’t even look at each other properly nowadays.” She was suddenly concerned, ‘What is the point of all this education, don’t you know a woman will make life your life hell if she is not satisfied?’

She also wanted me to work “harder”. The fact that I came back in two hours from the college always disturbed her. “Believe me, they will kick you out one day. No one respects a man without work, no matter how talented he is.” It did not really matter how many times I told her that being Professor of English who taught Master’s classes, I wasn’t expected to stay in the college for long. ‘Yes, I know those who know English don’t have to work hard. But you must save your job, no? Remember what happened to your father’s brother? He went insane listening to his wife’s taunts after losing his job.”

I’d served some biscuits with the tea. She pressed the biscuits and complained they were too hard. She saw me dipping mine in the tea and eating. She smiled. Did exactly that.

At first, she didn’t seem happy on seeing the four young women who came unannounced. But Rekha, who came every other day, managed to break the ice soon. She told her that I was one of their favourite teachers and that they seldom missed my classes. She was pleased. A reassurance that I was not going to lose my job anytime soon. Rekha also boiled an egg for her. The toothless old woman couldn’t be happier.

Mother spoke about her husband to the girls. … How the doctor would spend more time with women patients. “I once asked him why he would keep holding their hands. He insisted that he was checking their pulse. Of course, I knew the bastard too well for that..”

After my father’s death, I made it a point to send her money every month. She had never asked me to and had even opposed it once. I just said, “The money-order will stop only after my death.” We never talked about it again.

After the students went away, she decided to remember that I had a family. I told her that they had gone to Delhi and would come back after a week. She looked at me, relieved, and smiled.

It was time for me to go for a walk. I asked her if she needed anything. ‘Yes, get some pears, I suddenly want to have them.” She was quiet again. I know, on many levels she could not relate to anyone in this house, including me. After all, she laughed loudly, cried shamelessly. We were the middle class educated – measured in everything. We didn’t waste time. Even the kids were mostly in their rooms, reading. She lived in the magical world of irrelevant conversations.

I asked about the pears from the partially blind fruit seller. He didn’t have them. I didn’t ask from anyone else. There was a small famous chhole kulche shop. She loved them and would always say the same thing about them. ‘This taste reminds me of Pindi.’ She meant Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Nobody called it by its official name, after all, for those who truly love that city, never address it like a postman.

She asked me if I remembered Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister’s name. I was scared… for the past many times she had been talking way too much about the past. What if she really started living there? Well, not that there was much in the present, but still…

“I’d gone to meet his sister after your father contracted TB. He’d asked me to go and live with my brothers, but how could I do that? After all, I too was a landlord’s wife. I don’t know why he forgot that? After he was admitted to a hospital, a social worker got me a pension of ₹100 a month.”

Shobha, my mother, went back after four day. For years, I didn’t get in touch with her. She stopped coming too. My dreams had retired. All desires and relations too. I didn’t ask anyone if she was alive. I didn’t ask anyone if I was. During those long winter years of mental illness, my heart knew the shortest route to the nearest mortuary; it would often go and mourn itself there.

One day, the telephone rang. It was my middle sister. She asked me to come and see my mother. Perhaps for the final time. I did go. Shobha had shrunk. She looked at me. Her blank stare didn’t break my heart. Her expressions had lost their language, but so had mine. I could see a bridge with missing planks and on it a crawling Shobha. And one day, me.

I could not pray. I would not.I was not allowed to.

She finally spoke. ‘If you had to come only once, you should have waited for my death, no?’ There was a smile on her face when she called me a ‘bastard’. The middle sister told her that I was unwell, was in the hospital for months. “But why didn’t anyone tell me? I could have gone and cast away the evil eye.” There was quiet. Someone handed me tea. I lit up a cigarette.

Mother – What happened to all your hair?

I was quiet

Mother – Where is that intense gaze?

I kept smoking

Mother – And who stole your colour?

This time, I smiled.

“You must start praying,” she told me. I lit up another cigarette and said, “Now listen, never again will you ask about my illness from anyone again. No one will talk about it,” I addressed everyone in the room. There was quiet. it felt nice to be cruel again.

Now she started crying. A long howl without a sound. It carried on. Everyone was startled. I looked at her calmly. She was looking at me. Her eyes were wide open. The middle sister broke down. She knew death had entered the house. She was whispering something. I asked her to repeat, “I know you haven’t brought the pears. Don’t worry, I’ll get them from Pindi.”

(Excerpted with permission from the collection A Bouquet of Dead Flowers, stories by Swadeep Deepak translated from the Hindi, published by Speaking Tiger; 2024)