Monsoon Memories Read Online Free PDF Page A

if this had all happened in one day, you wouldn’t have been so... together, I guess.’
    She thought of how, after one of her nightmares, she couldn’t function without a visit to the counsellor; how, after a dream of Taipur like the one she had had this morning, depression settled heavy and stifling like humidity before the monsoons, and she felt parched like barren fields aching for rain. ‘I know.’
    ‘But none of this happened all at once before. You’ve had the nightmare, but never on the same day or even the same week as the dream. And hearing Madhu’s voice...’ He nodded, ‘A good sign.’
    ‘Your point being?’
    The furrows on Vinod’s face relaxed into a smile. Triumphant. ‘Shonu, it’s the healing process, that’s what this is. You are finally ready to revisit your memories; you have put enough distance between you and your past...’
    ‘You sound exactly like that counsellor I used to see.’
    ‘Well... I am quoting from one of her books...’
    And then they were laughing, tension erased, nightmare if not forgotten then pushed aside—for the moment at least.
    In bed that night, as Shirin closed her book, pulled the duvet up to her chin and nagged Vinod to switch off the light, he said, voice hesitant, ‘So, Shonu, did you really mean what you said this morning?’ A pause. ‘About going home?’ He played with her hair, fanned out on the turmeric pillow like shadows dancing in the sun, concentrating on threading strands between his fingers. He did not look at her.
    Shirin stalled, focusing on how, even though they had spent the last eleven years in Harrow, North London, they both still referred to India as home.
    ‘I ache to go,’ she said finally. ‘And I know you do, too.’ A whisper. ‘I made a deal, Vinod.’
    He closed his eyes. ‘Yes.’
    ‘I want to break it.’ She watched Vinod’s eyes fly open, settle on her face. She held his gaze.
    He smiled. That beautiful smile. Like the first delicious bite of a perfectly ripe, juicy mango. ‘The healing process,’ he said.
    She smiled.
    ‘When?’ he asked.
    Her mother’s face. The horror, the accusation. ‘Soon. Very soon.’
    ‘Invite the memories in, Shonu,’ He paused. ‘Even the bad ones. Then the past will not have such a hold over you.’
    ‘What I did...’ The baby’s cry, a high-pitched wail. And her, running, running barefoot, cars tooting, rickshaw drivers yelling, her hair flying in all directions, nightie soiled. Running.
    ‘You did what you thought was best.’ Vinod said. ‘She will understand. One day.’
    He knew her so well.
    ‘Part of me was being selfish.’
    ‘Rubbish.’ A hint of impatience in her husband’s voice. ‘Stop beating yourself up. You did what you thought was best, in the circumstances.’
    Really?
    She looked at Vinod, wishing, as she always did, that she shared his certainty and saw the exhaustion etched in lines around his eyes. Eyes. Don’t think about that.
    ‘Sleep,’ she said.
    He reached across to switch off the light.
    ‘Let the memories come. Goodnight. Love you.’ He whispered.
    A feather-soft kiss on her lips. Darkness. Her husband’s gentle snores—phut-a-phut-phut—like the ramshackle Bajaj moped that conveyed Doctor Kumar into Taipur every weekday morning. She fought the weariness weighting down her eyelids, afraid of what might be prowling behind closed lids—another pair of eyes? In the end, weariness won. She dreamt...
    Of Sister Maya.
    * * *
    Shirin, along with a group of boys from her class, had sneaked out to steal ‘bimblis’, a sour-sweet fruit, from a tree just outside the school and visible from their classroom. The tree, laden with bimblis, tempted them with its spoils and made their hungry stomachs growl. They had scaled out of the window, jumped over the wall of the school and were enjoying their hard-earned feast when they were apprehended by a tight-lipped Sister Shanthi, their class teacher.
    Shirin was marched back to the school, along with