1 Close to the Chest

Somewhere in the enchanting edifice Ekaanth Bade Beeji’s crockery chest stood with its mouth wide open. It cradled in its lap a lifetime of collectibles of vintage bone china tea sets and teapots. had it known that there lay huddled close to its chest buried secrets and stories from bygone days, its mouth may have gaped wider. In that hanging moment between its stifled inhaling and exhaling, a hand reached out to let in more breath. Lollita leaned her fortyish frame and artistic fingers to pry open its glass door wider. “What beauties! But which are the tea sets Beeji wants to be readied for the big day?” she wondered aloud. Her Trishul nose-stud tickled open its third eye, sniffing and squiggling. The crockery chest creaked. From advancing age, from advancing arthritis. The chest let out a long breath. It had held its breath for so long, standing shuttered and sidelined, it had almost forgotten how to inhale and exhale. It let out a deep sigh, as if in the exhaling lay its liberation. Liberation from the secrets it had held close to its chest for so long. Time Warp tiptoed out for a tryst with Time ticking on, upon the rickety arms of the dusty clock perched atop the cupboard.

The crockery cupboard sighed again, mouth more wide open, for it knew that life was as fragile inside it as outside. One careless knock, and things that spelt fineness and fragility could collapse, crash, crack. Life outside was as fragile as a teacup, one rude jolt and it could all be shards and shambles—bubble-wrapped dreams of the common man; frilly lifestyles of the filthy rich; fashionable penthouses piercing the blue skies and blueprints of bulldozing urbanisation; fleeting relationships of the metropolis’ millennials; the fickle aspirations and upgrades of the humongous humanity hobbling on the metropolis’ Metros riding shaky handlebars of hope; the delusional existence in the ivory towers of cyberia. Outside, the enchanting edifice, Ekaanth, was chipping at the edges, like the relic teapots and teacups jostling to survive in its innards. Farther outside, their ancient Delhi neighbourhood was splintering at its seams. The neighbourhood was like a crockery chest with contents chipping and cracking apart. The ancient kothis now resembled overused tea sets, some with missing handles or snouts, some with chipped rims and roofs, some with leaking crevices, some with vulgar veins announcing their age and ancient-ness upon hitherto distemper-dressed, porcelain smooth skin. It stood facing a future as fragile as its brittle bone china collections. Kothis dotting the haut monde street harbouring Ekaanth were being splintered to smithereens to make way for condos and corporate skyrises, like redundant, relic ketlis being delivered a death-knell by glossy-faced, technologically superior electric kettles. Further yonder, it was a capital city fraying at the edges, many of its landmarks cracking like overused and over washed tea sets. It was another story that some central avenues of the Capital were being bestowed brush-strokes of murals for global galas of political gimmickry that made them resemble dowagers with overdone rouge. a piquant paradox in times when this crumbling kothi and its chipping crockery chest craved a facial, a manicure. The crockery chest winced upon its wobbly legs, as its innards were being laid bare for a special occasion. Its aged legs as tottering as the arthritic feet of Ekaanth’s nonagenarian Grande Matriarch, Bade Beeji. The crockery chest felt more fingers poking into its open mouth. Gazing, groping, grabbing. It gazed at the circles mapped around it. The inner circle, the outer circle. The concentric circles that made up the Ekaanth clan. A clan thus far knitted into a kinship by the Grande Matriarch, but its relationships now turning as fragile and frayed as the porcelain being fingered by the family. The crockery chest sensed the brittleness of the bonds. But for Bade Beeji, the binding force, it would all have cracked. Crash! Crack! Suddenly, a crash as shattering as that of the Gulmohar bough, being axed outside the window, pierced the somnambulant stillness of siesta time. “Bachaa ke, Bachchaji!” 

Bade Beeji’s silvery sound rang out, plucked unceremoniously out of the delicious peace of her customary forty winks post luncheon. Forty winks, that had now begun to stretch into an hour or two as stealthily as the slackness creeping up upon her once agile, but now rheumatism-ridden limbs. Pieces to be sorted and spruced stood stacked around the carved crockery chest. Pieces from a prized past, of wining and dining the crème de la crème. Pieces from a crashing present, crumbling like the teacup now sprawled into smithereens. Lollita, aka Laasyanga Mansingh, plucked gingerly at the corpse of the chinaware that had slipped from her slender hand. Surrounding hands stretched to assist her in the gathering of the scattering. Pieces lay scattered around the creaking crockery chest. Pieces of the broken teacup were swept up and stacked into a nook. Bade Beeji had assigned to them the task of rummaging out some prized porcelain, as also rearranging and reordering the crockery chest. The bait she had dangled to bribe them was what had done the trick. The Grande Matriarch had promised them each a tea set from her precious collection.