Shyna banged open the front door and walked out towards the shore. Mother has been fighting with her for the last two hours over a call from the college principal. She was caught red-handed cheating in her exams, her answer sheet was found with another student who was copying from it. This had resulted in her being debarred from the exams. She pleaded and begged but nothing could improve her report card now. Mother was the last person she wanted to confide in but could anything ever be hidden from her? She would always get a whiff of things kept away from her! However at this moment more than the accusations and blames, Shyna needed some peace of mind. The humiliation in front of everyone was enough suffering for a day. Now she needed to think through things.
A walk by the shore had always been very calming. She always felt at ease in front of the sea. It was like coming back home after a long day and finding a loved one waiting for you. Here she wasn’t being judged and questioned. She could just sit down, breathe in the moist air and gaze at the water. As if the vast body of endlessly tossing and turning water could somehow sense her feelings and relieve the burden from her mind.
Shyna wasn’t really an unhappy person but she lacked the understanding of what made most people smile and go about their lives. Life seemed regular and mundane. For her it was simply a journey that she had to undertake before becoming one with the nothingness that followed after. This was definitely not something very happy to look forward to. Perhaps that is why she couldn’t understand why people would still want to laugh knowing full well that the eternity is empty. These feelings however were always soothed by the sea. Sitting here she would think of these thoughts and throw them out to the sea. The sea in turn would take them in and the wind would carry it away to a vast eternity. Sure, Shyna liked the eternity of the sea more than the one which hovers over human life. If anything, she wanted that she be consumed by the former than the latter.
As she continued walking, she realised that she had been hungry for over an hour now but her thoughts had kept her distracted. She walked towards the beach cafe nearby and ordered a bowl of Caesar salad. She sat at an isolated corner facing the sea and absent-mindedly gazed out again. A shriek bought her back to the reality and she noticed a four year old stomping his feet and trying to get his mother’s attention. Between sobs he said “Mom, don’t lie to me. I saw the money in your purse. Please just one ice-cream.”
Mom: “Honey I really don’t have a single penny now. Let’s go, I will get you one tomorrow.”
But little do kids understand. With a force of his restless energy he pulled down her purse and out fell its contents including the money. The mother looked at him with a guilty expression. Suddenly she snapped and commanded him, with a rage that was missing before, to pick up the scattered money. He did so hoping that this act will win him an ice-cream. However soon after he is done, she dragged him away from the shop. The boy remained silent this time knowing that not a single more word can be uttered.
As Shyna watches them leave her thoughts are swinging from lies to mothers and finally rests at a memory etched deep in her mind. There appears an image of her mother when Shyna was very young. She had not started going to school yet but she was very fascinated with the books she saw in her brother’s room. Often mother would tutor her brother Jay and help him finish his homework while Shyna will scrape through his books looking at the wonderful pictures. When bored she would run out to the backyard and play with her toys. As per instructions by mother she never went out of the fence all by herself to play with her friends. On this particular day however Shyna had to leap out of the broken fence as her ball aimlessly ran out of the gate. She ran after the ball and managed to catch it before it went too far. Just as she was returning inside the fence, she came face to face with their neighbours. Aunt Manny was running along Leo’s new bicycle as he pedaled it trying to ride in a straight line. They both seemed very joyous and Shyna couldn’t help grin herself. As they neared her, Aunt Manny saw Shyna and called out to her “Hey Shyna, why don’t you join us? I will teach you how to ride.”
Shyna: “Aunt Manny, I want to come play with you guys but mommy asked me not to go out of the fence when she or brother isn’t around.”
Aunt Manny: “Well why don’t you ask Jay to come along. He loves to ride and I am sure you will love it too.”
“Aunty but Jay is finishing up his homework and Mom wouldn’t let him come play at this time.”
Just as Shyna finished her sentence she could hear mother call her name out. She jumped in through the broken fence and ran back inside. Mother was concerned as she was missing from the backyard. When she reached the backyard Shyna explained that she had just gone out to fetch her ball that fell in the neighbour’s garden. Then she also told mother how Aunt Manny got a new cycle for Leo and they invited her and Jay to play along with them. Mother asked “What did you reply?”
“I said that Jay is finishing up his homework.”
Suddenly mother was uncomfortable and said “But Shyna why did you say that Jay is studying at this hour?”
“But mother what was I to say? Isn’t he studying?”
“Oh Shyna dear! You don’t understand. You should have said that he is sleeping.”
Shyna kept quiet as she didn’t understand what mother was asking her to do. She went back to Jay’s study and wondered why mother would ask to say something which is not true. Her little mind still did not understand the complicacy of the grown-up’s world. She couldn’t fathom how a wrong statement would help her or what it even meant in the first place. But somewhere she did feel that it would be wrong to not state the truth.
Coming out of her reverie Shyna smiled a bitter sweet smile. The sea had once again opened a secret door from her past and a memory had come gliding down. She smiled at the irony of how mother is now upset with all the lies Shyna told her when it was with her that the first seeds of lying were sown a long time back. This new realization made her feel slightly better and she felt a craving for some food. As she walked back home, she noticed that the evening sun had disappeared behind the horizon giving way to the twinkling stars.
As she unlocked the door to the hallway she could hear the TV in her mother’s room. She felt relieved for not having to face mother again. The light in the kitchen was still on and there was a plate of spaghetti on the dining table. Her first instinct was to let the plate be as a form of revolt towards her mother but on second thoughts corn-flakes for dinner didn’t seem very appealing. So she sat down and ate her dinner in silence. When she had kept away the dish in the sink she noticed a note on the refrigerator door “Be ready by 10am tomorrow, we have been summoned to your college”.
Shyna felt her stomach clench as she didn’t want mother to meet the principal. She had secretly planned about asking Jay to meet the principal instead. Standing there for a moment or two she couldn’t tell what was worse, whether it was that mother would once again get the chance to prove herself superior or whether it was that the whole college would get to know about her disbarment. She didn’t want to be questioned and talked about by her small circle of friends. She wished she could disappear from the face of earth to never be remembered by anybody.
Silently she crept upstairs to her room and locked the door behind her. She wished that she was closer to her father, that she could have packed a bag and took off at night but that was not possible now. She did try to take off once when she was 12 but father and aunty had talked her out of it and dropped her back home. Now he doesn’t even live in the same city and she had not talked to him since her last birthday, which of course he had forgotten. She wanted to cry but she decided against it. It would be of no use. With a sigh she dropped on her bed and dozed off gazing at the stars far away and listening to the music of the wind.
When she woke up, the sky was overcast with a soft drizzle that could be seen on the window pane. It was 8 in the morning. She freshened up and walked downstairs hoping that mother would be busy in her room. Instead mother was sitting in the dining table sipping her masala tea and gazing out of the window. She knew overcast weather always dampened mother’s mood. However this morning mother was not engulfed in sadness rather she had a calm look on her face. Shyna knew this expression only too well from the time when father had left home. Many a times she wondered whether father had left because he wanted to or was it mother who had finally pushed him over the brink. When mother noticed her in the stairway she motioned her to sit in the empty chairs next to hers.
Mother: “Shyna, I know you don’t like me interfering with your life and you would rather not talk about what happened in college. But right now we have no options left. I can’t blame you for your need for independence, after all I was a difficult child myself. However at this point it would be best if you tell me what exactly happened before I hear it from your principal.”
Shyna: “Mom, why do you care? You can talk to the principal and he will tell you what happened.”
Mother: “But I need to hear it from you so that I don’t judge you by other peoples account. If you did wrong, you must have the courage to speak about it. That’s the price of freedom. When you are free, you judge yourself and so you must be fearless to admit the wrong in you.”
After a long period of silence, Shyna started relating the incident without omitting any detail. She narrated how her answer sheet was found with her best friend, how the professor kicked her out of the exam hall, how she almost threw the answer paper on the professors desk, how the professor followed her in rage at the insult and gave her a mouthful in the corridor in front of the entire college and then finally her conversation in the principal’s office. Mother was quiet for sometime and finally got up from her chair.
Mother, “You made a mistake and now I cannot protect you from the consequences. However I am glad that you had the courage to speak the truth.”
None of them said anything anymore. Mother went upstairs to get dressed and Shyna kept pondering over the fact the mother didn’t say anything more about the issue. When they arrived at the college, they were ushered to the principal’s room. Mother and Mr. Lee had a long conversation. She kept tuning in and out of their conversation wondering about the freedom mother had talked about.
Finally when the discussions were over it was decided that Shyna would remain disbarred for the current exams. However she could still attend classes for the next term. Additionally she would also have to assist the history professor, on whose complaint she was disbarred, as an assistant in his class. The last condition made her very uncomfortable but she remained silent hoping not to make things worse. When they were back in their car, Shyna couldn’t remain silent anymore.
Shyna: “How can you agree to his last condition? How am I to stand in front of his class as an assistant? They all know me by now and I just won’t be able to stand the humiliation.”
Mother: “You have to figure that out my dear, you are a grown up now. You will have to own up to your mistake even if you don’t want to. If you find it very difficult just start with an apology and slowly take one day at a time.”
Mother continued after a pause “When I was your age, I hated my mother as well for interfering in my life. For telling me what to do and how to do things but now after all these years when I think about that, I always feel that she was only trying to protect me. It’s a natural instinct of mothers to protect their babies, even if that means hurting them a little, lying to them a little, getting them upset a little. Because in the end her baby has to survive long after she will be gone and she must teach them the way of life she has known.”
A silent tear slid down mother’s face and Shyna turned just in time to see it trickle away in her hair. This was new to her. She had never seen mother crying since the time father had left. Not knowing how to react, she kept her quiet. Mother drove up to the parking lot by the sea and they ran up to the beach cafe under an umbrella. The cafe was empty today and they took seats on the corner table. Shyna pictured her mother as a young girl, independent and fierce, as her grandmother had often described her. The lights from the ceiling cast soft shadows of Shyna and mother on the floor. Irrespective of how far apart they were emotionally, their shadows peacefully rested on one another in the floor.
Shyna was glad the day was saved and started thinking about how she could apologize to her professor while mother sipped her tea, gazing at the sea.