Sep 22, 2015 Original Short Story, Writing 101
Bidi, Bibi
©September 22nd, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Suresh sat on a little box under the makeshift shade of his fruit stand-shack. The sun burned high overhead, and the air was thick with yellow dust and smoke. Fumes from the diesel trucks and rickshaws plunged his senses into a nightmare of asthmatic cloudedness. From his greying blue cloth bag, he dug out the inhaler the doctor had prescribed, and took two puffs.
After replacing the inhaler in the bag, he reached under his shirt, and pulled out a small bidi, which was in a little pack he had wrapped in a grungy handkerchief. This would soothe him, he thought. Then, remembering how his wife, Meena, berated him when he smoked it (it stank to high heaven, and burned a hole in his earnings), he paused, then shrugged. A man had to have something to ease the mindless monotony of the day. He took out a stick of agarbatti from a wooden box, where he kept his money, and lit it in front of a small Ganesha he always had in his store for good luck. Immediately, the fragrance of sandalwood and amber filled the air, and made his spirits rise a little. Ah, that would make things better! Then, he lit his bidi, and took a deep, satisfying whiff.
Who cared if his asthma would overpower him again shortly? Who cared if the diesel fumes killed him? He had his bidi, and was at peace with the world for the nonce.
He forgot his mother, who had coughed all day and all night long, and then given up the struggle a month ago — he was too beaten by her struggle towards the end to grieve. He forgot his twelve-year old son who had been getting into trouble at school. He didn’t care if the rich housewives, from the fancy apartments nearby, haggled with him over the price of mangoes or apples, or custard apples or bananas. He didn’t care if any dreams he had once had, had disappeared in a puff of smoke. He could ignore the nagging pain in his gut. He could focus on the here and now of the world before him.
With interest, he watched the pretty teenaged girls go by in their churidar-kurtas, chattering like parrots, and as gaily bedecked in beautiful colors. He shook his head when he saw them holding hands surreptitiously with their boyfriends, but a part of him envied them their freedom. He had had no such luck. Married at twenty-one to a village girl, he had no idea what romance was — sex, yes, but romance? He saw it in movies, and wondered at it. Would he ever weep over a lost love? Would he care? He was numb within. The bidis helped. The agarbatti helped too.
He stuck the bidi in a pot of earth near him, and turned to adjust the beautifully arranged towers of fruit arrayed in pyramids behind him. He liked doing this. To him, this was a sort of meditation, an art.
Suddenly, he heard a footstep in front of him, and turned back. His heart did a double-take. In front of him stood a golden apparition. It took him a minute to recognize her — Meena, his wife. Her hair shone like a raven’s wing, and her large, limpid black eyes, always expressive, but usually only registering tiredness, irritation or worry, were shining. She was wearing her wedding sari, a gold-edged red sari, with shiny spangles of gold. She looked happy (when was the last time she’d looked happy? Oh yes, at the birth of their son.).
She didn’t even notice the bidi stuck in the pot of earth (thank Ganesha, he’d stuck it in there).
“What are you doing here?” Suresh asked stupidly. A strange feeling was flooding him. He had no idea what it was. It could have been love. He was happy to see her — something he didn’t often feel, because of her constant tiredness and lack of interest in him.
Meena opened her fist and showed him the paper she was holding.
Suresh took a look at it, and the fruit-stand shack revolved around him.
A real-estate developer was willing to pay them fifty lakhs for their little plot of ancestral land on the outskirts of town — the land of his fathers, his forefathers, not much to boast of, but something that was theirs. He stared unseeingly into the crowds of people passing by, not saying anything for a minute.
Meena looked anxiously at him. “Aren’t you happy? Why don’t you speak? We’ll be rich. You won’t have to be here all day, and smoke that nasty stuff. Our son can go to a better school than the municipal school. You won’t have to haggle with those fat housewives who think they’re better than you and I are.”
He looked at her then, saw her shining eyes, and the strange feeling swelled inside him. And yet … the land, his land!
“Let me think,” he said.
With exquisite instinct, she knew not to press him. Together, they sat and watched the crowds go by. No one bought any fruits from him that afternoon. The sun beat down ruthlessly upon his little shack-stand. The agarbatti died, and was replaced by another. They ate the roti, dal and sabji that she’d brought for him and for herself. He drank some coconut water, which he bought from a nearby vendor, and offered her half of it.
And through all this, he was silent. Then, he pulled out the bidi he had stuck in the pot of earth, lit it, and smoked. Meena said nothing, nothing at all. She just looked at him. He made up his mind. He had fallen in love.
“Okay,” he said.
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Glossary:
Bidi: A thin, Indian cigarette filled with tobacco, and wrapped in a leaf. There is much more nicotine and risk of oral cancer in bidis than in cigarettes.
Bibi / Biwi: Wife in Hindi
Agarbatti: Incense sticks.
Churidar-Kurta: Leggings and long tunic worn by girls in Northern India.
Roti: Whole-ground wheat-flour flatbread (resembles a tortilla)
Dal: In this case, cooked lentils, usually moong dal.
Sabji: Curried vegetables
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(Note: The photograph featured here is from The Deccan Chronicle article: http://archives.deccanchronicle.com/130716/news-current-affairs/gallery/ap-and-south-india-pictures-16th-july-2013)
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Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, acceptance, Bidis, Fruit vendors in India, love story, poverty