The phone fell down from his stunned hands. As the news seeped inside his brain, the blood flowing in his veins seemed to clot and clog. A heaviness spread all over him… Rigor mortis seemed to set in his live body! His wife looked at him quizzically. ‘What is wrong with you?’ she asked. He looked at her helplessly. He tried to move his tongue. He could not even move it. He looked down at receiver oscillating with a cackle of sound from the other side. He watched mutely as his wife picked up the receiver and cradled it… Then as though his own actions were being replayed, he watched as the receiver fell a second time… from his wife’s hands. Then, as she started shrieking her heart out, he felt his legs fold under him… blissfully the world blurred and muted and grayed till he could see and feel no more.

* *  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He felt  her cold soft hands on his forehead. He opened his eyes to meet her warm, tender ones. ‘Amma,’ he sobbed, ‘My pattikutty (pup)….!’ His eyes overflowed and her gentle hands wiped those tears and she gently crooned and consoled him… She knew he was devastated that his pup had been run over by an errant truck. He had been so very fond of the creature. In fact, when she had told him that orthodox Brahmin homes can just not have pet dogs… he had begged and cried and refused to eat till, worried about his health, she had pleaded with her in –laws and her husband and  got permission for the animal to be raised in the barn behind the house… he had been so happy…he had hugged her and showered kisses on her till scared that the elders in the family would reprimand her for such display of affection, she had pushed him off.

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He gently touched her head… her tonsured head. She looked like a stranger bereft of that lovely long hair of hers and her 8 anna –big   kumkum that was her trademark. How many days had he, as child, held on to her ‘pinnal’ (plaited hair) while she crooned him to sleep. He moved his hand on her head which had already started getting a stubble. He watched horrified as hot tears fell on his hand. ‘Amma, stop crying,’ he had pleaded. ‘I am there for you… I’ll take care of you…’ And she had wept even more, holding on to both his hands.

He had promised himself that he would never give her another chance to cry.

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He watched her in silence. She seemed to implore him to support her. He turned and looked at his wife’s relentless eyes. Her scorching tongue would whiplash   him… She would in temper hurl fire and brimstone at him and his mother. The neighbourhood would gather to watch the drama! He turned his hollow eyes away from his mother’s sad eyes and told her in a voice devoid of any feelings. ‘Sign it, Amma.’ And she had signed her earthly possessions over to him and his wife. The ancestral home and all the land and the orchard would now be his. His mother would shift to the barn, which has been refurbished into a cottage. After that day he never again dared to have eye contact with her. He had broken his promise to her for the sake of peace at home. He couldn’t watch as his virago of a wife nagged and insulted his widowed mother day in and day out. Spineless as he was, he had opted the easy way out…of banishing his mother from her kingdom where she had reigned as a benign, gentle and magnanimous queen! He watched silently as his mother’s hands ached to cuddle his only son, her grandson. But those hands always remained empty. Once in a while, he would sneak in a hundred rupees or some vegetables into the barn. He would sit there, with downcast eyes – a picture of utter failure.

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His son grew up, became a doctor and eventually got married. On her grandson’s marriage, she had not even been allowed out of her barn. The couple had come and had fallen at her feet in the evening, after the reception. She had blessed them with her wrinkled hands. ‘May God give you long life to keep your parents happy and our family line extended,’ she had murmured. When the couple and the other guests had left, she had called him and asked him to take away all the sweets and fruits they had brought. ‘Why Amma, it is for you,’ he had told her quietly. ‘I don’t want it,’ she had said firmly. ‘When you didn’t want me to see my own grandson’s wedding, I’d rather not take any offering made for the sake of pretence.’ He had looked into her eyes startled by the tone. There had been so much of vehemence and emotion in her voice. He cowered before her blazing eyes. She just murmured , ‘Kanna, I hope you don’t go through what I have gone through…’

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He returned from the crematorium. He had performed his duty as a son, for a change. He had cremated his mother. Why hadn’t she called him? She could have sent word through someone that she was ill. That she hadn’t been eating for the last fortnight. How could she starve herself to death? Could any human being do it? Will oneself to die? He cringed when he realized that he could well have averted   this tragic end of a woman whom he had idolized in his childhood and youth. He had erred… and God! He may have to pay for that sin…

Next week, he tried to atone for his sins. He had got his mother’s old photograph enlarged and framed. He had hung it in the living room and put a garland on it. His wife had promptly taken it off and hurled it out saying that she didn’t want such an   inauspicious thing hanging in her house. As he bent to pick up the broken photograph, his mother’s eyes seemed to mock at him… He simply averted his eyes as he took the picture to the barn!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He opened his eyes… All around him there were people. Someone helped him up and steered him towards the big living room. His son’s body lay there covered in a white cloth. His wife and his daughter –in –law were crying their hearts out. Mechanically he performed  the rites… As he put the blazing torch to the pyre, his mother’s gentle voice seemed echo… “ Kanna… I hope you don’t go through what I have gone through…” The fire seemed to cackle in delight that retribution had been done finally… A mother’s tears were avenged…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thirteen days after his son’s death, Swaminathan shifted with a few of his clothes to the barn. He had decided to seek solace in a self imposed exile. In the huge bungalow, his wife would reign all alone…the daughter in law had been taken away by her parents. Now two adults would pay for their sins as they deemed fit. Swaminathan was often found hugging the photos of his mother and his son, weeping his sins away… It was a long sentence for him… a life sentence!