Doing nothing, in Doon

I knew Ankit had to finish his omlette and milk before his mother let him go to Dheeraj’s place with his Physics book. He said it was 10 am and he’d be down by 10:30, “maximum sey maximum”. His voice had to travel from his second floor balcony to the driveway across the road, over the oval jhoola park and skipping the circular lane skirting it. Of course he had to scream (I’ve heard it runs in the family since 1950, or so). A toddler was going berserk on the swing and his grandmother even more with her vocals. A theli wallah’s nasal was trying to drown it all down under a list of fresh vegetables straight from the hills. I had never heard those names before. Some sounded obscene. In the hibiscus shrub that stood in the corner of the garden a very sweet sounding bird was decidedly delighted to see at least seven different shades of purple blooming in the flowers. Clearly, my father-in-law loves that colour. 

Not that I looked up to see any of this right then. Just the sounds surrounded me, of a sleepy semi-retired colony of officers-of-yore sometimes entertaining visiting grandchildren but mostly themselves; in corners where narrow lanes met, over pickle-bottles lining low boundary walls or even while turning clothes over on clotheslines on roof tops. I didn’t look up to see all that. I was staring. Staring sleepily at my wriggling toes beaming in bright Doon sunlight after a dreary existence inside woollen socks in Delhi’s cold. When was the last time I saw them? Hello Big Toe. Hey there Tiny One. Long time no see …

‘See, mumma, see! I found a bag of toys in the gar-garage. Look! See! It was behind the bucket of tube-lights!’ I had to look up this time. Who knows what he held in his hands in the name of toys! In a grey matted cloth bag which must have been embroidered by some woman of this house and carried in her trousseau – with huts in cross-stitch and trees in rose-stitch – were orphaned pieces of puzzles and broken toys which were once his father’s treasure. His father’s? His father’s! Imagine the preservation sans preservatives. What stories each piece held, how must he have played with them. Fought over them. With a Dheeraj and an Ankit, perhaps an Ankita, from the hugging houses around? A hurtling sound snapped the thought as the bag was excitedly emptied on the grass. Wonderment made way for concentration, the kid’s tongue popped out, trying to make whole what seemed so out-of-place in the present to me a moment ago. The tongue was a good sign. It meant he was busy now. So I went back to where I was. Hmm. Where was I?   

I ran my fingers in my short crop looking straight up at the sky, stretching my legs all the way to the cacti and folding the slightly wet layers of hair inwards as I went from root to tip, root to tip. The chair creaked a bit, threatening to give way … but oh the sky. Blue. Clean blue. As blue as it gets. But then who knows what the bluest of blue looks like? Would there always be a bluer blue somewhere? No, this is blue. This sky, now is …

‘Did you keep my blue muffler somewhere?’ he asked, standing at the door of the verandah with an expression which meant he didn’t know what to wear on his birthday after many decades of being born and still needed help. Let me think. I had kept it wrapped on my head all night, because the room had refused to warm up to its visitors. I thought why not try some Scottish wool. While the check on it was so handsome, the icy cold proved the stronger suitor. I asked him to check under my pillow, or in the outside pocket of the suit case, or the living room sofa, or the book shelf on the first floor lobby, even as my lethargic hands ruffled my hair and my head refused to jog its memory too hard. Of course I wanted to get up and help, but I was sitting here because … because ...why was I sitting here? Since how long? What time was it anyway?

A few more minutes and I’d get up... 

‘I’ll be back in five minutes. It’s almost 10:30 and I forgot to get the milk. No, no, you are not going to get it. Just relax and be. Haan, the phool wala will deliver three plants. Just have him put them near the postbox. I’ll plant them later’ and my father-in-law walked out the gate, a bag in one hand and a newspaper cutting in the other. Hah! He’s meeting friends near the chowmein shop at the bend for a breaking-news group discussion. He’s not coming back soon. No sir, he isn’t! Wait, did he say 10:30? It’s 10:30? Only? 

I pushed my happy toes into the slippers and suddenly stood up with hair dry and glowing. The antique wood under me groaned at the careless treatment. Oh! Here’s the muffler, dear, I was sitting on it all this … but he was already dressed for the day, maybe. I noticed then that Ankit and Dheeraj were together now, poring over a thick book in Dheeraj’s lawn. And it wasn’t Nutan Physics. Not at all! My son in the meantime had engineered an airplane out of pure waste and was chasing a butterfly in it, with a round stone as the pilot. 

Hmm. 

That was a nice, relaxing moment of, of … doing nothing. Doing nothing? Is one ever doing nothing, no matter how lazy the morning or how small the town, asked I wisely of the bird witnessing it all near the Bottle Brush at the gate. I breathed in and then out and wrapped the muffler around my neck with a swish and a swirl and a sorry face ready for mister …

‘Miss, uncle ji told me to put these three dahlias near the postbox’ said a good-looking pahari from over the boundary wall and looking lovely from between the morning glory vine. Miss? One after the other in what seemed such slow motion (but then you never know on certain syrupy mornings) he put those delicate darlings down in a row. There they stayed gleefully, three new born dahlias, watching the blue sky and busy boys, flying planes and butterflies. Waiting, as if, for my father-in-law to get back with much news, much gossip, and hopefully some milk in the jhola too. Three wonderful dahlias, in different shades of purple, of course.

Some things exist to never change. Like ... like doing nothing in Dehra Dun.