It was 5am when she rolled off the charpoy and sat up bleary-eyed. Her hands went straight to her kurta, stretching out the crumpled cotton and then reaching under to tighten the drawstring on her pyjamas. The fan was whirring slowly on the ceiling, its arms catching slightly on each rotation. She stood, stretched and turned it off. A cool breeze was buffeting the curtain covering the front door. As was her way each morning she pulled the curtain aside and opened the door fully to the morning air. The stairwell was quiet, the first girls hadn’t started traipsing up the stairs, she could hear a few birds chirping in the trees and an occasional scooter accelerating below.
Sangeeta turned, now she would tidy the room. The charpoy needed to go out. She folded up the sheet and laid it along with her pillow on the chair next to where Amrita was sprawled out, asleep. Her middle son wanted her and Amrita to sleep in his room, he would sleep in the hall, but she liked knowing when everyone was home, getting them fed before they left again. She just wished sometimes someone else wanted to get up at this time, someone who could help her lug the wooden frame out the front door. Amrita was a good niece. She did shopping and cooking, got up when she was told, but she could tell she didn’t really want to and Auntie hated ruining the first light of the morning with goading. She could see the girl stirring to pull the sheet over her head. No chance today, she thought.
Amrita’s charpoy was in the way. Maybe I’ll tidy up around her, she thought and began to shuffle the cushions on the lounge chairs. Her youngest was asleep on the divan, snoring loudly. His legs wide and arms up behind his head. He wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. She wouldn’t wake him though, he hadn’t got home till one and he was the one running the restaurant. That other son of hers though, boy. He would lock himself in his room all day, staring at that screen. She didn’t know what an earth he was up to. He went on about films and writing but all she saw was a shut door and when she managed to get in there, a lot of English words on the fluorescent screen. She liked him talking to her – it was more than her youngest did – he even tried to cook sometimes, although she wasn’t sure she really liked him doing that. She shook her head, men these days seemed to have such strange ideas. She’d tried to convince him that his wife would do the cooking and had got an earful about equality, being self-sufficient, wanting to look after himself. She’d thought by now there would have been a woman in the home, someone younger, someone ready to get into her shoes. But neither of them showed any interest in marriage; they had restrained all her attempts at arranging to meet prospective brides. Dad wasn’t bothered either. He said they’d make their own decisions when the time was right. Didn’t he realise, with the oldest one at least, that there wasn’t much more time?
In the beginning she’d wanted them both to be with a family she knew, then a Punjabi girl, then as the years passed she’d opened up to Hindus, Muslims and now foreigners too. None of it seemed to have made much difference with the oldest. He’d brought home the odd girl, but none of them had stuck. He was too focused on that damn computer and trying to make it big. Her younger one was coming around, but slowly – she could see it would be another couple of years before he’d consent to her arranging meetings. He was just business, business, business. A more sensible boy, but would she ever get a grandson? She shrugged, enough of this. It was time to find her glasses and her prayer book.