15-08-2026, 12:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-09-2026, 02:16 PM by Authorsunny. Edited 1 time in total. Edited 1 time in total.)
Chapter 16.5 Continued
I did not sit immediately. I closed the door and stood near it for a moment, taking in the rest of the small changes. The pallu of the red saree was dbangd over the back of the chair, neatly but not with the same precision she had used when she first put it on. One end of it hung lower than the other. The temple corner looked slightly disturbed — the steel plate with flowers had been moved a few inches, and a single marigold had fallen to the floor near the leg of the table.
The green-cloth box sat in the centre of the folding table like a quiet announcement.
“What is that?” I asked.
Ma glanced at it.
“He brought it. Dates and some dry fruits. And the attar. He said it was from their house. His mother still prepares these things for occasions.”
She said it without embarrassment. A gift from another household, offered on the night of Laxmi Pujan, placed on the same table where the pooja thali had rested an hour earlier. The cultural mismatch was obvious. She had accepted it anyway.
I walked to the table and looked at the box more closely without opening it. The cloth was expensive, the kind that was reused year after year for formal offerings. The attar bottle had no brand label. When I lifted it the smell became stronger — rose and something darker, musk or oud. It was the same scent that now lived in the air of the flat and, more faintly, on her skin.
“You accepted it on celebration night.”
“Yes.” She adjusted the neckline of the nighty with one hand. The redness on her throat moved when she swallowed. “He brought it with good intention. I did not see the point in refusing. Dates are dates. Dry fruits are dry fruits. The festival does not become impure because the box came from his house.”
The sentence was calm and absolute. It left no space for the discomfort I felt.
I sat down on the chair. The red saree pallu brushed my arm. Up close it still held the smell of incense and, underneath, the same heavy attar.
Ma watched me for a few seconds and then spoke again, her voice quieter.
“You are looking at everything as if the room has been changed into something else. It has not. He came. We sat. He gave the box. He left. The diyas were already burning when he arrived. I did not stop the festival for him. I simply allowed one guest inside it.”
“You extinguished most of the diyas.”
“Some of them were smoking. I put them out. Two are still burning. You can light more if you want.”
She said it as if the detail was practical and nothing more. I looked at the two remaining flames. They were low and steady. The rest of the temple shelf looked exactly as it had after the aarti, except for the displaced flower plate and the single marigold on the floor.
The jealousy sat in my chest like a physical object. It was not only about the time she had given him. It was about the red saree that had been worn for Lakshmi Pujan and then worn for him. It was about the tilak that had been partially wiped. It was about the attar that now layered itself over the incense. It was about the fact that a man who did not pray to the idols in our corner had sat in this room on this night and left behind a gift that belonged to another calendar of sacred days.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said suddenly. “You are thinking that celebration and his presence cannot sit together. That the gift is wrong for the night. That I should have asked him to come on some other evening. I considered all of that before I said yes. Then I decided that the house is mine as well, and if I want to receive one person on this night I will receive him. The goddess does not become smaller because an atheist man sat in the same room for forty minutes.”
“He is not just an atheist man, Ma. He is the man you are with.”
“Yes. He is. I have not denied that. I am not going to deny it on celebration night either. The festival is about light and prosperity and the home. I kept the light. I kept the home. I also kept the part of my life that now includes him. Both things happened in the same evening. You will have to let them exist together.”
She drank her water and kept the glass on the table beside the green box. The attar smell rose again when she moved.
I looked at the redness on her throat. She noticed the direction of my gaze and did not cover it.
“It will fade,” she said simply. “By morning it will be less. Do not make a story out of every mark.”
“You are speaking as if these things are ordinary.”
“They are becoming ordinary for me. That is the part you are still resisting.”
She sat back down on the bed. The nighty settled around her legs. One shoulder had slipped slightly, showing the soft beginning of her upper arm and the edge of her collarbone. The heavy attar scent moved with her. I thought of the afternoon glimpse through the bathroom gap — the unhooked bra, the full bare weight of her breasts, the petticoat — and then of the same body now sitting across from me after seventy minutes alone with him. The jealousy sharpened into something that felt almost like grief.
“Did you offer him prasad?” I asked.
She looked at me for a long moment.
“I offered him tea and the dates he himself had brought. I did not make a performance of the prasad. He did not ask for it. We did not turn the evening into a religious debate. He came as a guest. I received him as a guest who is also more than a guest. That is all.”
“And the saree?”
“What about the saree?”
“You wore it for the pooja. Then you kept it on while he was here.”
Her eyes stayed steady.
“Yes. I did not change between the aarti and his arrival. There was no time and there was no need. The saree was for the evening. The evening included both the pooja and his visit. I am not going to split myself into two different women for the same night.”
The statement landed with quiet finality. She had refused the separation I was still trying to maintain in my head — the sacred and the physical, the mother who did Laxmi Pujan and the woman who carried a man’s mark on her throat and his attar on her skin. In her mind they had already become one continuous person.
I looked again at the green-cloth box and the small bottle of attar. The cultural dissonance remained. A gift that belonged to another rhythm of faith and celebration now sat in the centre of our table. She had accepted it, placed it there, and defended the decision without raising her voice.
“I don’t know how to feel about any of this,” I said finally.
“You do not have to know tonight. You only have to sleep in this house and get up tomorrow. The rest can take its time.”
She stood up, extinguished the two remaining diyas with a wet finger, and switched off the fairy lights one by one. The room fell into the softer darkness of the single night bulb near the bathroom. She came back to the bed and lay down on her side, facing me.
“The box can stay on the table until morning,” she said. “We will put the dates in a steel container later. The attar — I will keep it. I like the smell.”
She closed her eyes. After a few minutes her breathing slowed, but I did not think she was fully asleep. The redness on her throat remained visible even in the dim light. The heavy scent of attar continued to move quietly through the air of the small flat, layering itself permanently over the memory of incense and oil lamps.
I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.
The seventy minutes were over.
The guest had come and gone.
The festival had continued around his presence.
And my mother had returned to her side of the bed carrying both the tilak of the goddess and the mark of the man, refusing to treat them as contradictions.
The green box sat on the table in the dark.
The attar remained on her skin.
And the small house held the full weight of a celebration night that had refused to stay simple.
I did not sit immediately. I closed the door and stood near it for a moment, taking in the rest of the small changes. The pallu of the red saree was dbangd over the back of the chair, neatly but not with the same precision she had used when she first put it on. One end of it hung lower than the other. The temple corner looked slightly disturbed — the steel plate with flowers had been moved a few inches, and a single marigold had fallen to the floor near the leg of the table.
The green-cloth box sat in the centre of the folding table like a quiet announcement.
“What is that?” I asked.
Ma glanced at it.
“He brought it. Dates and some dry fruits. And the attar. He said it was from their house. His mother still prepares these things for occasions.”
She said it without embarrassment. A gift from another household, offered on the night of Laxmi Pujan, placed on the same table where the pooja thali had rested an hour earlier. The cultural mismatch was obvious. She had accepted it anyway.
I walked to the table and looked at the box more closely without opening it. The cloth was expensive, the kind that was reused year after year for formal offerings. The attar bottle had no brand label. When I lifted it the smell became stronger — rose and something darker, musk or oud. It was the same scent that now lived in the air of the flat and, more faintly, on her skin.
“You accepted it on celebration night.”
“Yes.” She adjusted the neckline of the nighty with one hand. The redness on her throat moved when she swallowed. “He brought it with good intention. I did not see the point in refusing. Dates are dates. Dry fruits are dry fruits. The festival does not become impure because the box came from his house.”
The sentence was calm and absolute. It left no space for the discomfort I felt.
I sat down on the chair. The red saree pallu brushed my arm. Up close it still held the smell of incense and, underneath, the same heavy attar.
Ma watched me for a few seconds and then spoke again, her voice quieter.
“You are looking at everything as if the room has been changed into something else. It has not. He came. We sat. He gave the box. He left. The diyas were already burning when he arrived. I did not stop the festival for him. I simply allowed one guest inside it.”
“You extinguished most of the diyas.”
“Some of them were smoking. I put them out. Two are still burning. You can light more if you want.”
She said it as if the detail was practical and nothing more. I looked at the two remaining flames. They were low and steady. The rest of the temple shelf looked exactly as it had after the aarti, except for the displaced flower plate and the single marigold on the floor.
The jealousy sat in my chest like a physical object. It was not only about the time she had given him. It was about the red saree that had been worn for Lakshmi Pujan and then worn for him. It was about the tilak that had been partially wiped. It was about the attar that now layered itself over the incense. It was about the fact that a man who did not pray to the idols in our corner had sat in this room on this night and left behind a gift that belonged to another calendar of sacred days.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said suddenly. “You are thinking that celebration and his presence cannot sit together. That the gift is wrong for the night. That I should have asked him to come on some other evening. I considered all of that before I said yes. Then I decided that the house is mine as well, and if I want to receive one person on this night I will receive him. The goddess does not become smaller because an atheist man sat in the same room for forty minutes.”
“He is not just an atheist man, Ma. He is the man you are with.”
“Yes. He is. I have not denied that. I am not going to deny it on celebration night either. The festival is about light and prosperity and the home. I kept the light. I kept the home. I also kept the part of my life that now includes him. Both things happened in the same evening. You will have to let them exist together.”
She drank her water and kept the glass on the table beside the green box. The attar smell rose again when she moved.
I looked at the redness on her throat. She noticed the direction of my gaze and did not cover it.
“It will fade,” she said simply. “By morning it will be less. Do not make a story out of every mark.”
“You are speaking as if these things are ordinary.”
“They are becoming ordinary for me. That is the part you are still resisting.”
She sat back down on the bed. The nighty settled around her legs. One shoulder had slipped slightly, showing the soft beginning of her upper arm and the edge of her collarbone. The heavy attar scent moved with her. I thought of the afternoon glimpse through the bathroom gap — the unhooked bra, the full bare weight of her breasts, the petticoat — and then of the same body now sitting across from me after seventy minutes alone with him. The jealousy sharpened into something that felt almost like grief.
“Did you offer him prasad?” I asked.
She looked at me for a long moment.
“I offered him tea and the dates he himself had brought. I did not make a performance of the prasad. He did not ask for it. We did not turn the evening into a religious debate. He came as a guest. I received him as a guest who is also more than a guest. That is all.”
“And the saree?”
“What about the saree?”
“You wore it for the pooja. Then you kept it on while he was here.”
Her eyes stayed steady.
“Yes. I did not change between the aarti and his arrival. There was no time and there was no need. The saree was for the evening. The evening included both the pooja and his visit. I am not going to split myself into two different women for the same night.”
The statement landed with quiet finality. She had refused the separation I was still trying to maintain in my head — the sacred and the physical, the mother who did Laxmi Pujan and the woman who carried a man’s mark on her throat and his attar on her skin. In her mind they had already become one continuous person.
I looked again at the green-cloth box and the small bottle of attar. The cultural dissonance remained. A gift that belonged to another rhythm of faith and celebration now sat in the centre of our table. She had accepted it, placed it there, and defended the decision without raising her voice.
“I don’t know how to feel about any of this,” I said finally.
“You do not have to know tonight. You only have to sleep in this house and get up tomorrow. The rest can take its time.”
She stood up, extinguished the two remaining diyas with a wet finger, and switched off the fairy lights one by one. The room fell into the softer darkness of the single night bulb near the bathroom. She came back to the bed and lay down on her side, facing me.
“The box can stay on the table until morning,” she said. “We will put the dates in a steel container later. The attar — I will keep it. I like the smell.”
She closed her eyes. After a few minutes her breathing slowed, but I did not think she was fully asleep. The redness on her throat remained visible even in the dim light. The heavy scent of attar continued to move quietly through the air of the small flat, layering itself permanently over the memory of incense and oil lamps.
I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.
The seventy minutes were over.
The guest had come and gone.
The festival had continued around his presence.
And my mother had returned to her side of the bed carrying both the tilak of the goddess and the mark of the man, refusing to treat them as contradictions.
The green box sat on the table in the dark.
The attar remained on her skin.
And the small house held the full weight of a celebration night that had refused to stay simple.
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