Amma's coconuts

[sarit11]

Parvathiamma was overjoyed. She thanked my mother again and again.
Then she said, almost in a teasing manner, “Shall I send him to your room tonight, after Hari is asleep?”
My mother did not reply.
“Shall I?”
“Aiyo…tonight?”
“Yes. He cannot wait any longer.”
As a teenager, at that time, I had already started experimenting with sex. I used to talk a lot about sex with my friends and we also used to watch a lot of adult movies in the local theatres. But none of us – at least, not me – had ever seen a blue film. It was my greatest desire to see a blue film. My mother was in her late thirties at that time. She was thirty-eight, I think. She was a very beautiful woman with a wheaty complexion and a body which was the dream of every man. At my age I was very much aware of the sensuality of her body. Since we shared a single room, it was impossible for me to turn a blind eye to her voluptuous figure.

I used to feel very guilty whenever I found myself eying at her large breasts, her midriff, and her deep navel. But she was not at all aware of my feelings. She thought that I was still a small kid. Sometimes she would change her sari standing right in front of me. And I already knew that Vasu had an eye on her. Although he hardly talked with her, I had so many times seen him gazing at her body longingly. He would hide behind his newspaper and ogle at her as she moved around the house with her work. Once I was in his room and he was helping me with a problem in mathematics. My mother was there, atop a stool. She was cleaning the ceiling fan. To reach the fan, she had to stand on her toes and stretch her arms up straight. Every time her arms went up, her sari would be lifted and her navel would come into view. All the time she was there the old man had kept on glancing at her unashamedly. And every time he glanced, his blood would rush up to his face. In another instance, I caught him staring at my mother through the kitchen window. She was in the backyard, washing clothes. Her sari had slid off her shoulder, revealing the tops of her heavy boobs seen through the low neckline of her blouse. And Vasu’s eyes were simply feasting.

That night mother was very silent. She was very thoughtful while we were having our dinner in the kitchen. After eating, we entered our room. There were two cots in the room, put close together. The room was so small that the two cots covered a large portion of the floor. The cots made an “L” shape; I slept on the cot laid against the wall that separated the kitchen from our room and she on the one next to the window. The window opened into the backyard of the house where there was a tiny coconut grove and a well.
I lay down. She also lay down after switching off the light.
“Hari, have you studied everything for your exam tomorrow?” she asked me now.
“Yes, amma,” I replied.

Then silence fell in our room. The window was open and silvery moonlight was flooding into the room through the space above the curtain. I was not going to sleep. My young mind was almost bursting with anticipation and excitement. I waited, counting the seconds, controlling the great urge to toss and turn on my cot. Time seemed to suddenly stand still and I just got on becoming more and more impatient.
The clock in the drawing room of the house struck ten. A moment later Vasu knocked at the door and called my mother’s name softly.