Fiction
Rotten Perfection / Prasanthi Ram
Image by Alan Cabello.
Gayatri was disturbed by her first trip to the supermarket—she still could not believe what she had seen there.
Four bananas, of the Cavendish variety, for two dollars. That converted to about a hundred Indian rupees. All for a fruit that grew in abundance and could be plucked for free from wild trees that no one owned back home in Tamil Nadu; the town she specifically came from was surrounded by Rasthali trees that her little children sometimes shook for sport. In this country though, every tree was marked, manicured, and monitored by the government. How sad, Gayatri thought, that even Bhumi-Devi’s boundless generosity was curtailed here.
Gayatri and her family were set to stay on this floating island of restricted nature, at least until her husband’s contract expired. He had been offered a forty percent raise in his salary as an incentive to take the transfer and start working in Singapore. It was an opportunity he could not refuse, not with their three children, and she too had stayed silent (though not that he asked) because she knew his mind was already invested in the prospect of a different life; he insisted it would be “better”, just as his parents did, but she was not as sure.
Maybe she was the odd one out in their family. It had been only a week but she was already longing for the sometimes lush, sometimes dehydrated greenery of their district where children grew up with the language of the earth on the tips of their tongues. Twigs, petals, bark, termites, husk, saplings, buds, stamens, vines, and bushes, all words that belatedly strove to articulate what one already knew by instinct. The blooms and the withered. Afternoon shade under peepal trees. Flame lilies picked for sacred offerings. Bees sucking nectar from oleanders. Heavy jackfruits falling from trees. Wet warm cow-dung along one-way streets. And still, there was always more to feast one's senses on because the earth was bountiful.
Here, on the other hand, the language was distilled. The words people used seemed to reflect the essence of things but lacked soul. Clipped, curt, quick, hastened even. If she was not careful, she too might become a lesser version of herself, sterile at a cost. A coconut shell hollowed out, the delicious flesh of her mind thrown out carelessly with the garbage.
What then of her children?
In their new home, a rental HDB flat courtesy of a middle-aged Chinese lawyer, Gayatri's oldest daughter Deepa was already enamoured with the bananas. She commented on their unusual size in an approving tone before eagerly asking for her favourite dessert: caramelised banana slices that her late maternal grandmother, Gayatri's mother, used to make for her. The large slices of banana easily covered the cast iron pan that was usually reserved for thosai-making. As the sugared fruit sizzled over medium heat, Gayatri wondered what the seven-year-old would remember in years to come. Would it be the palm-sized Rasthali that they raced to eat before the fruit rotted in their un-air-conditioned heat? Or would it be the gigantic Cavendish, specially bred by men to eerily bright yellow perfection? The answer was, perhaps, obvious to anyone else. But she let herself hope, for the sake of her own sanity.
A few days later, the last of the four banana peels, still in stellar shape and condition, was tossed into the bin. What kind of fruit remained unblemished till the end? The thought left her slightly nauseated. But as the rest of the world spun on, unbothered by her visceral horror, she too saw no choice but to move on.
On her second trip to the supermarket, Gayatri avoided the banana section entirely, afraid that her stomach might revolt against the very sight of that monstrosity. Instead she focused on selecting fruits she had never eaten before. Raspberries, golden kiwis, rambutans, even mangosteens that she assumed was a cousin of the mango, another favourite of hers that grew in neat orchards along the outskirts of her town. But as delicious as these new fruits were, aside from the sour raspberries that had cost her too much to admit aloud, her yearning for bananas from home only heightened.
Her saviour came days later in the form of an elderly Tamil woman from their apartment block whom she happened to meet on the lift. She was a local who took one look at Gayatri’s youngest Deepti and leaned in to pinch the toddler’s cheeks. As the lift descended towards the ground floor, she mentioned in passing about something called a mama shop: “It's a name for Indian provision stores here owned by our Tamilan folks. You should visit it someday.” The nearest mama shop in their neighbourhood was apparently a kilometre walk away, a modest establishment tucked under a HDB block. But if the old lady was to be believed, the walk would be worth the effort because the shop would probably have everything Gayatri ever dreamt of: maybe they would have her favourite fruit too!
True enough, Samy’s had an entire basket filled with Rasthali bananas, many soft and lightly spotted with black, just the way she liked it, albeit for a jacked-up import price that she wilfully overlooked through gritted teeth. That day, she returned home triumphant with Deepti fast asleep in one arm and a dense comb of seven bananas hanging in a plastic bag from the other. But when her oldest frowned in mild disappointment, having become an overnight fan of the Cavendish that stretched beyond her two little palms, Gayatri felt like she had already lost. Still, she refused to admit defeat. Gathering herself again, she removed the comb from the bag and placed it in the wooden bowl that sat in the middle of their dining table—a rightful centrepiece no matter anyone’s opinion.
Each time someone in the family asked to eat the bananas, even her husband, she would swat their undeserving hands away. She had braved the oppressive afternoon heat for the bunch. She would not be emptied of them unless on her own terms.
Days came to pass. The Rasthali remained gloriously untouched.
They continued to blossom under the warmth of the island. Browning flesh seeping into skin that was blackening at a pleasingly rapid pace. The basket becoming moist at the bottom from the juices that oozed out generously. Tiniest of fruit flies gathering at their dining table, hovering over the comb like unsubtle predators waiting to feed. Gayatri felt compelled to marvel at Bhumi-Devi’s work, at the way life was created to thrive then perish in a single breath. She deeply inhaled the fragrant stench, which she had dearly missed, taking it as an olfactory confirmation of her sentiments.
But the rest of the family did not share her marvel at all. Her toddler cried every time she was brought to the dining table, while her older children, Deepa and Deepika, stayed as far as possible lest their mother screamed at them for being bad daughters. Her husband openly admonished her too for not eating up the fruit earlier: “Mad woman, can't you smell how bad it is? The girls will get sick! How can you just leave it there?”
Oh, how easily he threw that word around. What was so mad about nature taking its course? Fruit was meant to rot. That was the beauty of it. That was the beauty of home. Creation begot destruction begot creation. Why did they not understand?
“Get rid of it already! Why can't you do something so simple? My mother was right. I should have never married such a low-class uncouth woman in the first place.”
“I never wanted to come here!”
Gayatri reached for the bowl with outstretched palms and dug ferociously into the bananas. Peel and flesh had become indistinguishable. The soft meat disintegrated wetly under her eager ministrations as flies danced in tandem on her skin. With every harsh squeeze and churn, the fruit mass juiced between her knuckles, flowing down to her fingertips. This was the way the world was meant to be, with nature left alone to be her unruliest. The island was learning; she was forcing it to learn.
Unhinging her mouth, Gayatri pushed her soaking fingers in for a taste, unruly. The putrid pleasure of the Rasthali embraced her tongue, unruly. Her husband shouted, unruly. Her children cried, unruly. Her husband yanked her hair, unruly. Her children dashed into their room, unruly. She swallowed with an ecstatic groan, a primal declaration, unruly. And there, amidst their chaos, was Bhumi-Devi, free from the island’s shackles at last.