After The Fight

Poornima Mandpe

When Baba shouts, there is a wild thumping in my heart, like it wants to break free from my ribs. 

I feel like sitting on the floor and crouching, bringing my knees close to my chest, and burying my head deep inside my knees. I feel like hugging somebody tightly. Instead, I shout back, hurl words that hurt more than sticks and stones, till my voice becomes hoarse and my mind numb. Shouting down people to prove your point is a useful art. Sometimes, even when Baba is not really angry, I feel my voice rising from my throat as if it is the imperious charm that can keep my interests from being whitewashed in the flood of fury that keeps coming and going. 

After the tide recedes, we get back to normal, as normal as families get. Baba is no drunkard. He is not an unemployed, good for nothing fellow. There is no beating, only words slicing through to the heart. Nothing like my Grandfather had been, my father likes to tell us in his reminiscent moods. His abusive childhood revisits him – us – when he gets angry and scalds the people he loves the most – Aai , Dada and me, his darling daughter. 

Today is another cue to sigh. Just this afternoon, we had one of our fiercest rows in months. From Dada’s waywardness to my career and then to Aai, and her lack of attention in raising her children. Everything is usually her fault. 

In the end, Dada stormed into the bedroom. Aai went back to the kitchen, crying soundlessly as she has learned to over all these years, so that the neighbours don’t hear.  As if they haven’t heard enough of our yelling. Baba turned the volume of the TV up, as loud as it goes, as he always does to distract himself.

I suddenly recalled an assignment I had to finish, but I wasn’t in the mood to do it anymore. I went to the bedroom, the only bedroom in the house which Aai and I shared at night. Dada was already there, lying on the bed and busy with his phone. 

Why did I have to wear this tight salwar kameez to college today? I hadn’t had the time to change it since I returned home from the early morning lectures. My entire body was sweating from the October Mumbai heat. The itching because of the sequins  felt more unbearable with each passing moment. I unstrapped my bra. All I wanted to do was rip the clothes from my body, bra and everything, and fling them to the floor, then throw myself on the bed, windows open. Finally, though, I went to the bathroom to change. 

There was a time when the bathroom was not in the house, but at the end of the floor, after the row of four houses in the chawl that we live in. We had to pass all the open doors whenever we wanted to use it. It was worse when I had to go right after a fight—I could feel the eyes from the houses on me. Dada says it’s all in my head. I never looked up to check. When Baba built the bathroom at home, it felt like a tiny room in itself, which when closed would have the power to drown all the chaos from the world – even if only for a little while. 

It was evening by now, but still hot. I was very hungry; I hadn’t had lunch. Deciding against asking my mother for something to eat, I took a stroll instead. 

I went behind the chawl, to the place where the plants once grew so wild that they could hide me and my friends behind them in our childhood games. Now, the space is occupied by cars, of those living in the tall buildings beyond. Nobody plays here anymore. My brother doesn’t like me loitering there, especially at odd hours. 

We can see the local trains passing from here, and the rumble of the engine is so loud that you could feel the ground shaking for a fraction of a second it passes. My grandmother once told me that the noise made her anxious. But it was strangely comforting to me. 

As a child, when I was not allowed to take the train, I used to wonder how it would be to board one and go on and on, to strange lands. Dada had laughed when I shared this childish dream with him. “You don’t go on and on”, he said. “There is a point where the train stops and you come back the other way. To the same place where it started, and then again they go back”. 

In my mind, that had felt like an inescapable time loop. You rush to reach somewhere, and you come back again. Period. When Dada had too much of our Father, he took the train and went off somewhere, far with his friends, returning only very late at night when everyone was asleep. 

Two years ago, I had also tried this stunt, as my mother likes to call it. I stayed back long after college, at Marine Drive, with three of my friends. Watching the waves crash on the stones, drinking sweet tea, chatting loudly or just lying down on our backs to watch the clear night sky. I’d told Aai that I was having a sleepover and would be home only in the morning. I still remember her face when I entered the house at around two in the morning slowly turning the keys so no one would wake up. She did. She told no one, saying that I’d actually arrived in the early hours of the morning. 

But I knew she was upset. "Marine Drive is safe," I argued the next day, when we were alone in the house.

She’d asked me why I felt the need to do that."I just wanted to be alone. I just wanted to chill, like Dada."

She said a few things about the presence of strangers, and I remember replying that we were safe, the police were patrolling, Neha’s house was close by, and Manali had accompanied me on the train. I didn’t mention that part of the experience was being among those very strangers — people who didn’t know me, people who didn’t care about what was happening in my life. 

It became our little secret, though. I’m sure it wasn’t as big a deal as she thought. Mumbai is safe. Sometimes, I even felt the thrill of me loitering alone at night excited her in some way, and keeping it a secret kept that thrill alive.

I turned back and took the lanes. Again, I had the feeling that people were looking at me with sideways glances. I shouldn’t have ventured out in my pajamas. But I didn’t want to turn back. 

Like always, I could hear the sound ringing in my ears—my own too. He hated it when I cried. “Stop howling like someone’s dead in the family,” he had said, like so many times before, until my sobs turned into muffled cries, and then into a silence that echoed inside me.

I headed towards the park. The park always relaxes my mind. It was completely vacant, just the way I wanted it to be, to feel the tranquillity of the falling darkness and silence around me. The grass was muddy and strewn with plastic. I sat down on the only swing which was in working condition. I sat there swinging, like a little child, till the mosquitoes caught up with me. The darkness was really falling by then. The guard was already looking at me, his eyes sharp with impatience as he waited for me to leave. I rose to my feet.

I turned again and started walking down the main road. I had lost track of time but could not shake that nagging feeling at the back of my mind – that I was not supposed to stroll around like this, leaving everyone tense at home. A few more minutes and I would go back, I decided. 

The skywalk loomed large in the night, emptier than it is during daytime. Some view I would get from the top at this hour, of the traffic below and the stars above, especially on this moonless night. Should I check? But I stopped after climbing a few steps. The skywalk was desolate except for a few boys, and a few homeless beggars. Time to go back. 

People were openly staring at me now, though not necessarily in a bad way. It must have been really late. I wished I had carried my cell phone with me. I would at least be able to call up Aai. I hurried on. 

Hunger and tiredness were slowing me down. Dada always boasts of the omelette wala near the lane of St. Teresa School. I must try it! True to his word, the aroma of freshly made omelettes wafted in the air as soon as I entered the lane. Thank God I had some money in my pocket. I stood near the stall.

More stares. Piercing, accusing ones now. Was I snatching one of your omelettes, I wanted to shout at the guy with a cigarette, who was unashamedly looking at me.  The omelette wala was calmly cutting the bread. I waited. Finally, he looked up and asked the guy right behind me- “what do want, sir?” 

I didn’t even hear what that man said. Why was I not asked the question? It must have been five minutes since I’d been standing there. What did he think I was doing here? What was going on in the other men' s minds? 

I desperately wanted to go home now, even if that meant another row with Baba for coming late. Would Saadat Hasan Manto have been Manto if he’d been a woman? Would he have dared to roam the underbelly of the city, trudging the narrowest lanes and the darkest corridors at all hours? Would he have gone wherever he deemed comfortable, looking for experiences, for inspiration, for stories? 

Suddenly I heard a foot fall behind me. Soft but steady, stopping when I stopped. I didn’t dare to turn back and look. I quickened my pace. 

***

About the Author

Poornima Mandpe describes herself first as a dreamer, a bookworm, a cinephile, and a lover of stories—before calling herself a budding writer. With over a decade of experience in the social sector, her career not only fulfills her but also fuels her with stories worth telling. A Mumbai girl at heart, she is endlessly fascinated by urban spaces and the lives they hold. She also runs a Substack blog, Culaccino Reviews, where she shares reflections on her favorite books, films, and web series.