Devyani

With every little sound I listen to, I wonder what is so special about the ones that make up a name. Is it still my name if the sound leaving the lips of the speaker are devoid of love? Does it not become just another word assigned to an object in an ever growing vocabulary?

So what really makes a word, a name?

I don’t know. Yet, the breeze that enters my room, a stranger, whispers my name as it passes through the grills of the window. I know my home well enough. I am sure Leon, the money plant that snuggles with the grills of my window, had informed the gentle wind of my name as it arrived. Everything in this apartment, not just the newly arrived breeze, but the dusty old fan as it spins around, the table as it creaks and the chair as it rocks, all were saying my name. They know that I am theirs and they made sure anyone who visits us knows my name.

Suku. Sukumara.

I watch as Leon entertains our guest as words were being thrown at each other in the street below my apartment. Back and forth in-between all the loving names that were ignored. Among all that is trivial, I hear an auto-rickshaw nervously murmuring the name ‘Shantanu’. The alcoholic auto-driver who detests going home to his wife and kids. I am surprised to hear his name being mentioned so lovingly. Only if he could hear Mr. Auto.

Just then my doorbell announces my name to a new stranger. I don’t know if they noticed but my name had already been said thrice. Once by the doorbell, once by the locks and one final time by the door. Our new guest, a young girl, stood silently as I wait to hear her name. Instead she too throws some words at me, ignoring the efforts of those that were mine.

“Hello sir. I am the new …” is all I could pay attention to. As she proceeds to string together a seemingly endless number of words, I manage to find a name hidden among all that noise. Devyani. Her words were softer than the previous guest but devoid of anything that really mattered.

“Please come in, Devyani.”

“Sir, my name is Vaidehi.”

I see the look on her face. She, just like myself, has no idea what a name is. She looks at me like I got her name wrong but I know what I heard. To me, she is Devyani, my new design intern. To her, it is more important that she is a ‘Vaidehi’ more than a design intern, let alone Devyani.

With every instance I call her by her name, I realise that the word ‘Vaidehi’ is somehow very dear to her. Yet, it did not change the fact that her name is Devyani. She tries to explain to me how the word ‘Vaidehi’ has a better meaning than her name and how all her life people used ‘Vaidehi’ to address her. Quietly, I watch the sun leave the two of us to our insignificant matters of great importance. Disappointed that we had wasted another day.

Stepping outside of everything that loves me, Devyani throws some more words at me, ignoring every sound that is calling out to her.

“Do you think you could drop me home, sir?”

Still stuck in the thought that I had let the sun down (yet again), I nodded to her request hoping that maybe I could try my best to please the moon.

By now, even Shantanu had managed to bring a sense of serenity to his colleague Mr. Auto, who lay asleep outside the house, under a tarpaulin blanket. Happy just to hear Shantanu’s name from everyone and everything in their house. The more I listen, I realise that there is love hidden in Shantanu’s name even when it is from the lips of his neglected wife and kids. I wonder if that is why it is his name. If so, I hope he knows who to thank for still keeping his name alive with all its love contained elegantly within its three syllables. It has to be that since clearly the meaning of his name, ‘one who amplifies happiness for others’, has nothing to do with it being his. If anything, that should have made it obvious it wasn’t his name and yet to all who love him, he is Shantanu. Surely there is more to a name than just trying to describe its owner. I would know.

As we pass every house on the way to Devyani’s, I hear all the voices that echo through the streets of Mumbai. Mothers who didn’t know the names of their children. Children who respond to what they thought were their names. Men who didn’t know the names of their wives and wives who had accepted the names they were given.

I wonder if that is how Devyani felt. Maybe she is finding it difficult to understand why I have suddenly decided to call her ‘Devyani’. To her it is probably just another word that is thrown at her. Something she would just learn to love and accept like a ‘Vaidehi’. I’m sure there was a time when she knew ‘Vaidehi’ was not her name.

Amidst the sounds of the city I tried to understand what happened, for her to fight so hard for something that wasn’t her’s. Is she not Devyani to the ones who love her? Did she have to become a ‘Vaidehi’ so that she could be loved like everyone else? If so, were the ones who made her a ‘Vaidehi’ really belong to her or is she just another word that belongs to them?

In-between the flashes of light, I catch a glimpse of Devyani’s eyes in the rearview mirror. I see she, just like myself, was confused. The only difference is that she didn’t want to know the answers to any of these questions.

I listen to her silence, the moon watching us as we drive past trees that whisper names which have been long forgotten by the rest. A silence that is so delicate that she couldn’t hear in-between all the words. I tuned out every sound that was unimportant and singled in on her silence. It was different from mine. Her silences were short and scared; afraid that if left alone for too long it might lose the chance to hear another sound.

I know my silence. Of the very few things I am certain of in life, my silence is one of them. Endless and solitary, but hopeful. It remains, as it is waiting for the day it hears the whispers of happiness. A sound so beautiful, that the eternal loneliness from before seems like a forgotten memory. For that, I will always love my silence. For without it, I might never find that which I am looking for.

I thought of ways to explain to Devyani that she needed to love her silence. It only made sense to love the silence that is yours rather than a sound that is alien. These thoughts, like everything else that is mine, stay with me as she continues to throw words at me, undisturbed, trying to make sense of my name.

“Sukumara. What does that mean?”

It means ‘a beautiful man’. This confuses me, more than anyone. In all these years I have spent with myself, never once have I been beautiful in any way. Yet, I know this is my name. I knew the moment I heard my father whisper it into my ears, as various voices lined up to echo it. Even when all the words before and after it are filled with anger and hate, my name remains the same. Forever carrying the same love my father nurtured it with. Even then, none of this has made me a ‘beautiful man’. Just like Shantanu, I too have a name that I don’t deserve. Yet it is still mine. I am Sukumara to those who love me and Suku to those I love. Devyani is Devyani to none until now and Vaidehi to the rest.

As we reach her home I realise that I won’t be going back to my apartment. I am too tired. The only sounds that fill the streets are that of my hunger and Devyani’s mother could hear it from nine storeys above us.

“What’s your mother’s name?”, I ask as the elevator carried us up into Devyani’s little world.

“I call her aai but her name is Garima.”

Garima. That doesn’t sound right. Sounds just like a Vaidehi.

“Aai, this is my senior designer.”

I explain to Devyani’s mother that my name isn’t ‘Senior Designer’ but ‘Sukumara’. She repeats it as lovingly as the breeze that had visited me earlier today. She clearly understands the warmth with which a name has to be said better than anyone else at the table.

As the steam from the rice touch my lips I realise that ‘Garima’ didn’t make this. I finished whatever is left of the kolhapuri chicken on my plate as Devyani’s mother passes a karanji to me. Every last ingredient in that karanji tells me that this woman’s name is not Garima. I wonder what it is with this family and their issue with names.

“… but why do you call her Devyani, beta?”

“Because I know that she isn’t a Vaidehi. I also know that she knows this too. And I also also know that … I’m not sure but … I think you know too because I get the same feeling from you … that you know that you’re not a Garima.”

“You’re telling me you have a name for me as well?”

I did not. Wondering if I’ll be a disappointment twice in the same day, I try to listen to the murmurs of life, hoping it will tell me the name of the mother like it did for the daughter. At this moment, I hear Devyani’s mother and unlike her daughter, she knows what her name is.

Snehalata.

Snehalata, like most Indian women, had had a perfectly normal and very traditional Indian wedding. One where she was married off to some stranger who didn’t know her or her name. Like most Indian weddings, a Maharashtrian wedding involves a multitude of rituals. During one such ritual, known as Karmasamapti, the groom gives the bride a new name, followed by the brother of the bride teasingly twisting the groom’s ear, reminding him to take care of his new bride.

If it were me I would be twisting his ear for changing my sister’s name.

Snehalata tells me she doesn’t mind the new name she had been given. I’m glad, as she knows that in this universe there will forever be something that is hers. A fixed point in time when she used to be Snehalata. That was something nobody could rob her of.

I watch Devyani observe the two of us as we discuss Maharashtrian rituals, the value of one’s name and karanjis. I wish I could discover what runs through her mind as she watches us. Had she realised that she might have to adopt another sound that wasn’t hers once she got married? Did she finally understand that her name wasn’t Vaidehi? Is she planning on learning how to make karanjis? I don’t know. Her supposed thoughts, like everything else that was forced up on her, would stay with her as Snehalata and I continue listening to each other.

I notice the sound of the silences in-between our laughter grows louder with every passing minute. I get up and say my thank yous and goodbyes to Devyani, Snehalata and Jaywant — Devyani’s father, Garima’s husband and Snehalata’s roommate.

I walk past the gates and out onto the empty road, tracing my finger along the ridges of Devyani’s Dairy Milk Silk bar that Snehalata had given me. Every dip along the chocolate bar took my heart with it. The only difference being that my finger would manage to find its way back up after every fall. On one such fall, I noticed the chocolate bar, Silk, was slowly melting and losing its shape from my interference.

The city and I stand still. Yet, this stillness too feels slightly overwhelming. The swiftness with which reality hits the two of us, is truly unforgiving.

From what we understand, I have to stop holding it and Mumbai needs to lower its temperature and we both know that neither is possible. In the five minutes it would take to walk to my friend Rakshak’s apartment, Silk would be deformed into something unrecognisable, much like the sound that’s made every time Devyani says ‘Vaidehi’. In our combined grief, we break into tears at the thought of losing something that is Devyani’s. Another one of her possessions would cease to exist without it truly being cherished because of our incompetence.

Luckily, the tears are not a complete waste. At least one of ours. As Mumbai cries with me, it manages to cool itself down a little. Just enough for me to run past Rakshak and his pug Coco, and place Silk in the fridge.

Once Rakshak had gone back to sleep, I watch all my thoughts on the ceiling of his hall. Coco sleeps peacefully on a bed of me, for he knew I am Suku. He could hear my heart chanting my name effortlessly to keep me alive. I hear with every gush of air that comes through his tiny nostrils and out onto my chest, that he is Coco. Yet Devyani still couldn’t hear her own name. Is it because she couldn’t hear the love that filled the gaps in her name or did she just choose not hear it?

Eventually, Coco’s breathing drowns out, as Mumbai shouts its name and everyone in it wakes up to repeat their favourite mantra.

“Got to keep moving. Got to keep hustling.”

A toxic self-help mantra the city has taught its inhabitants to keep them going until there is nothing but lifeless bodies with no names attached, riding the local trains back and forth.

I lie, staring out at the slums below me and all those who live there not knowing what their names meant anymore. A ‘Vishal’ in the slums knows he is anything but that. I wonder if he too is unbothered by a name that isn’t his like Devyani or is he just enjoying the humour in it. Maybe Devyani couldn’t hear past the idea of being a ‘Vaidehi’ — an alternate way to address Sita. To be a ‘Vaidehi’ means that she belongs to Videha and not to herself. But did any of that really matter?

In one of the most minimalistic living spaces I have seen in a while, I notice a ‘Vishal’ yawning as he looks back at me and my grandiose surroundings. By virtue of name, Vishal should be here and in return he would trade me his beauty. Yet, he waves back at me charmingly, happy as ever, with no thought of trading places with me in order to justify his name. I’m sure Vishal knows none of this matters. He probably knows his name isn’t Vishal and hasn’t found his real name yet.

“Naam kya hai bhai?”, I shout, hoping Vishal would reply.

“Majhe naav Young Koko ahe. Sorry sorry. My name is Young Koko bro!”

I laugh. How easily Vishal had become Young Koko. I am delighted to know that he has found his name. Before I could ask him why he is ‘Young Koko’, the self-named man preemptively answers.

“I am a rapper. Me and my friends. Amhala Lanka Boyz mhantat!”

Clearly there is more to him that I’d thought. He isn’t just a ‘Vishal’ in the slums. He is a rapper, an artist who has managed to find himself a name and a home within the slums among his Lanka Boyz. I’m sure every one of the Lanka Boyz know that the meaning of their names could place no limitations on who they are. Instead choosing to reincarnate themselves with names which they had given birth to out of love. Love that comes from the love of oneself. Love that helped them identify who they are.

My phone, indifferent to any of my thoughts and my lack of sleep, dances on the table to the sound of Devyani’s name. It too knows better than her that this is her name. So why couldn’t she hear it? Were there things about Devyani that I didn’t know that stopped her from accepting her name? As I pick up the phone to answer her call, I wonder if Young Koko has any songs that could help her accept her name. I wouldn’t mind using it as my caller tune.

“Sir could you please come down? Quick! I’m waiting for you. We’ll take my mom’s car back to your office.”

It made sense not to go back on the scooter. Maybe it is leftover grief from yesterday or maybe Mumbai could sense the disturbance within me. Whatever it is, the city has broken down into tears all over again. I watch it cry in my place as I realise that one of the worst feelings one can experience might be that of having to witness a catastrophe play out, knowing they can’t do anything to stop it. This isn’t a terrorist attack or a ravaging cyclone. There are no preventive measures to be taken, no army to call and no shelters to hide in. This is the demolition of one’s inner self. I am going to have to watch Devyani slowly lose herself to a world that didn’t love her.

I let out a single dramatic tear drop which I patiently watch, as it runs through the maze of hair on my face. I can’t see it anymore but I feel it, holding onto a single strand of my beard, unsure whether it should continue holding on or if it should just let go and fall to its fate as a teardrop.

Finally, as it falls, I hear it whisper something. Right before it merges with my cotton shirt, cooling a vast two millimetres of my heart that lies beneath, the teardrop calls out to Devyani.

Why is something that is meant to be mine uttering the name that belongs to another? Was that teardrop not mine? Shouldn’t the sound it birthed be my name?

Heavenly bullets lash down upon me, as every drop of rain chants Devyani’s name like a war cry. Yet, through the ear splitting cries, the sound of my name breaks through and reaches me. What is even more surprising is the origin of this sound. Devyani had managed to finally say my name. “Suku!” she shouts at the top of her voice without a trace of love. The rest of what she said is unclear but the actions she made probably meant that she is irritated by my lack of punctuality. Yet I know it is my name and not one of the thousands of words Devyani had thrown at me from the moment we met.

Walking without anything to protect me from this violent show of affection by Mumbai, I realise she is too busy shouting at me to listen. Ironically, this meant that all she could hear was my name as she repeatedly used it as a prefix to a string of curses. Yet again, there is no love cushioning the sounds that make it up but I could hear it. I hear her say my name. So what is it then? What is it that made it my name?

Maybe it is all the punishment I suffer for the sake of Devyani, or maybe it is the lack of sleep mixed in with the knowledge of the impending doom. Maybe I am just tired of how ignorant someone could be to the combined efforts of every single bit of the universe trying to call out to them. Whatever it is, I stop walking. I want to wave to her but my body is ice cold and my hands couldn’t be bothered to work. All I can do is muster every last bit of strength I have left in me and call out to the hearing impaired girl who looks like she is driving away from me.

I don’t know how she hears me, but she does. Through the mist of the rain, the brake lights appear as bloodshot eyes.

“Suku! This is not the time. Get … ”

I couldn’t hear the rest of it but these are just words. Unimportant and being thrown at me as always. What mattered was that she had said my name once again. With every drop that hit the pavement, I count the seconds I am losing. Time that is never enough seems even more scarce now that there is a death approaching. The murder of Devyani by Vaidehi. Foolishly, I call out to her once again, hoping I could somehow figure out a way to avoid all that I feared. Before I could take a step towards the car, the owner of brake lights’ anger steps out and stomps her way towards me.

“Why do you want to call me Devyani?! Did you not hear me when I told you my name is Vaidehi?”

“I’m sorry but I really didn’t. I was listening to your voice then and forgot to hear what you were saying. Although I am sure you said ‘Devyani’.”

“I would never say that. My name is not Devyani! If you’re going to call me that one more time, I will quit right here, right now! I’d rather die than be called Devyani.”

Right there, as she said her name, I hear everything else that I had up until then never noticed. Love isn’t the only thing that fills the gaps of a name. Anger, anxiety, awkwardness, confusion, disgust, fear, annoyance, nostalgia, sadness, and so much more that I was yet to decipher. Love, from others and yourself, is surely important to make a name yours but that didn’t mean everything else is unimportant. I realise that you need every little piece of you to make a word, a name.

This is where I had gone wrong. She needs to hear all of it. I was trying so hard to say her name with just the love I had heard all my life that I didn’t realise that for her to truly understand her name she needs to hear everything that is hers in it.

I wait, to find a gap in-between the sound of the raindrops. She needs to hear me say her name clearly, even amongst the millions who are chanting it. Just as I find the perfect moment and manage to reach the middle of the second syllable, Devyani turns around ignoring me and the whole universe. Before her feet touch the ground for her fourth step away from us, a feeble old tree who had been watching everything decides to use his last bit of life to explain to this girl that she needs to listen. Between the third and final syllable leaving my lips and reaching her, Ganesh the old peepal tree lays himself down onto Devyani’s now damaged-beyond-repair car.

Following the powerful dying sound of Ganesh is a deafening silence. A silence in which she hears only herself. I try to listen as best as I could.

“Who am I? What’s my name? Vaidehi? That doesn’t feel right. I feel sad. I am sad. I want to be happy. Why can’t I just be happy? Why can’t I just do what I want to? Why am I so useless? Do I hate myself? Do I hate everyone? Is that why nobody loves me? Aai loves me. But she gave away the Silk I was saving for myself. I told her it was mine. I’m being stupid. That’s not really important. Right? I’m sure she loves me. I am her daughter. But who am I to me? Baba loves me though. He always tells me how I’m his favourite daughter. Would he not love me if I wasn’t the only daughter? Would I still love me if I wasn’t theirs? What happens when they’re gone? Will I not have anyone to call mine? What about me? Am I not mine? I want me to be mine. I don’t want to belong to anyone or anything. I want me to be mine. I want to love myself for what I am. But who am I? What is my name? I know it. What is it?”

Lost, Devyani sits down on the road softened by the stream of water that exists for her. As I place my hands on her shoulder she looks up at me. Her tears too have lost themselves in the raindrops that fell for her.

“Get up. You’re not meant to be sitting here in the streets with me. You’re meant to sail the heavens with the Gods.”

“How did you know, Suku?”

“You told me.”

I don’t know if she remembers but she was the one who told me. I might have not been paying attention, and I might not have known back then what made a word a name. What I do is that she had mentioned her name to me. I watch her mouth the words she had said back then. She finally remembers.

That’s when I hear it. The silence of someone who has finally found themselves. It is different from mine. Clearer and more vivid than anything I have ever heard before. If my silence is devoid of anything, then this is better for it held everything that makes her who she is. Unlike mine, it stays with the confidence that if a sound didn’t arrive, she would materialise it into existence. A sound that belongs to no one but itself.

“Hello sir. I am the new graphic design intern. Your assistant told me you probably wouldn’t remember that I am joining today. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. My name is … Devyani.”