it turns

by Tanuja Viswanath

The ritual of dinner started with Meera rolling out the paai, a straw mat that smelled of the fine dust we brought in from the yard, and the old cobwebby dust from underneath the cot where the mat was stored. We sat on the mat, tallest to smallest, and Amma fed us from a large steel plate with raised edges. Each of us, in turn, got a mouthful of premixed sambar rice. The second course was curd rice. The older kids got to eat it with pickle gravy, the pieces of mango being reserved for Appa.

It seemed there was always enough, though I suspected that if each of us was given a separate plate, we would have fought. Amma always knew what to do. The day Kannan and I locked ourselves in the pantry, and the iron bolt jammed itself (why was there a bolt inside the pantry?), she left us there and took the rest of our siblings out for ice candy to make a point. We bawled in the darkness till our eyes adjusted, then took turns yanking at the bolt until our nails ached, ate the last of the murruku we had come for, then used lamp oil to ease the bolt open.

By the time our oldest siblings were married off, Amma’s hold on us had loosened. Her arthritic hands had become mangled. Amma could no longer cook to Appa’s standards, so he ate at his sister’s home. We scrounged, learned to boil rice and peel onions without crying, but the days of fresh murukku were gone.

Eventually, Kannan and I were the only two left so we took turns feeding Amma in bed, rolling each bite small enough for her to swallow, waiting for her to finish chewing before we shaped the next one.

Photo of Tanuja Viswanath

BIO: Tanuja Viswanath lives in Bangalore, India. She teaches literature and writes fiction about relationships, modern Indian life, and the weird things that happen to us. Her work has appeared in Out of Print, Sky Island Journal, and Luru Magazine. Website: https://www.tanujaviswanath.com/