The Run | Madhumita Roy

The mornings were usually very slow in the Mukherjee household. But today, Srabani Mukherjee had woken up at the unearthly 4:30a.m; slipped in to her son’s tracksuit; wore a pair of sneakers; tied the laces and was ready to run her way, literally, out of mid-life crisis. Today was her fiftieth birthday. Her husband, her son, her daughter would eventually wake up and will usher it in with the inanity that she was finding increasingly unbearable. In a futile effort to be romantic, her husband might order a bouquet of flower. Her children will perhaps order a birthday cake; and maybe, all of them will present her with something extremely predictable such as a pair of earrings or a saree from her friend’s boutique, which the friend had been trying to sell her for a long time on different pretexts. Perhaps, some relatives will also be called to join the “party.” Either Srabani would cook mutton at home or the family will head out for a restaurant with the relatives in tow. Srabani could see the day spelt out in front of her. The worst part was that she would have to endure this uninspired display of attention towards her with a smile. She fervently wished that no one remembered her birthday.
Srabani had been tolerant of the lack of imagination in her husband since their marriage twenty-five years earlier. And since the family had updated itself on post-liberalization notions of Bengali middle-class good life such as celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, valentine days etc. with gifts and parties, she had also been tolerant of such clumsy materialistic efforts of showering affection. Surely, they were well-intentioned. But throughout the last year, she was having grave doubts. Maybe her husband was having an affair, her daughter was having premarital sex and her son was on drugs; and this was a policy of appeasement to look away, to act dumb and happy.  Why else were they giving her gifts? Or, perhaps, on a more sober note, they did not love her. Perhaps, her husband loved quiet and dullness more than anything else. Perhaps, her children, as dim-witted as they were, will one day find love later in their lives. No wonder, the gifts and the celebrations felt so moronic, annoying, insensitive and insulting.
Every day of her forty-ninth year, Srabani had asked herself “Am I unlovable? And if so, what could be the reasons for it?” Srabani’s cooking was good; the house was kept clean; she socialized well with the neighbours, relatives and the colleagues of her husband. In fact, in certain circles, she was considered a very successful homemaker—a faultless boudi whom everyone looked up to as the heart and soul of para pujo, family get-togethers and such other gatherings. Ostensibly, she was doing nothing wrong. As Srabani got increasingly paranoid, a special issue of a popular Bengali woman’s magazine on the seven signs of midlife crisis in women came to her rescue. She learnt that as and when one reached the middle-age, it was natural to feel dissatisfied with their present life and feel the urge to re-invent oneself. However, she also realized that it was not her family and their incapability to love her that contributed to her restlessness. For example, it was not the empty-nest syndrome. Her teenage children had not left the nest yet. They were squatting in the house, getting bigger and dumber and more demanding by each passing day. Srabani had never expected much out of her husband, so, it was not the husband either. Srabani realized with much deliberation that she was the cause of her own dissatisfaction; she was failing her own benchmarks; she was not where she expected to be. And perhaps, the true origin of the angst was the hidden, unfulfilled ambition, which Srabani had never thought of articulating, let alone following.
When Srabani was eight years old, a music teacher was appointed by her father to teach her how to sing. However, she was completely tone-deaf and the teacher left in a month or so. Srabani was also poor in other girly activities such as sewing, art and craft and so on; skills, which she picked up much later in her life. But she was very good in sports and particularly running. When she was in the primary school, she participated in running events of various lengths and won nearly all the prizes. Everyone considered her to be a talented runner. However, when she reached the secondary school, her parents stopped her outdoor activities, particularly because of an untoward incident.
Srabani, along with her friend Parul, used to take the 77c bus to her school, wearing a pair of white canvas shoes and a white saree with green borders. One day, on the way to the school she and Parul after getting off the bus suddenly realized that Parul had left her English grammar book on the bus, which had already sped off. Srabani without heeding to anything ran after it. Later, Parul told her that the run was absolutely spectacular; and everything had come to a standstill because of it. The shops, the pedestrians and according to Parul, even the vehicles plying on the road had stopped. Only Srabani and the 77c bus moved. Srabani did not realize for how long she had run—could have been few seconds or it could have been many hours. The bus eventually stopped, perhaps passengers made the driver stop prompted by the sight of a beautiful young lady of fifteen, who already looked like a grown up woman, running mightily behind the bus. With sweat glistening down her eyes, Srabani gave the bus conductor a dirty look. “Give me the book.” The conductor did not say a word; gave her the book; and the bus full of the startled passengers went away for its destination.
The incident created quite a buzz in those days as it happened in the peak hour traffic in the prime location of the city. It was also mentioned in the newspapers without revealing her identity. The onlookers were at first mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the speed and the force of her action. However, their meditated responses were less generous. The principal of her school informed her parents that Srabani henceforth would be expected to behave with the dignity befitting a young woman of her age. It was rumoured that the men in the college adjacent to her school were talking about her inappropriately. For many days after the incident, there were catcalls and whistles on Srabani’s way to the school. Naturally, Srabani also stopped travelling by the 77c bus. Her parents were in no mood to encourage her talents in athletics anymore; and she was strictly prohibited from participating in any sort of intense, outdoor physical activities for her life. Thus, her genuine talents in sports came to an abrupt and untimely end.
“Here lies the problem,” Srabani thought. Thirty-five years had passed since the incident. Most of the people who had objected to her running that day were either dead or too old to offer any more dictates emerging out of the rights and concerns of a guardian. In fact, after many years of being suspicious of Srabani’s athletic tendencies, her parents and the remaining elderly aunts and uncles were advising her to engage in some physical activities urgently because Srabani at fifty was well past her youthful charms; and Srabani at eighty-five kilos could very well be considered obese. As overweight could cause heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes, pain in the knee joints and several other ailments in middle age women, Srabani, after more than three decades, was being coaxed by her family to join a gymnasium or go out for walks or mild joggings in the mornings. “Hypocrites,” Srabani cursed softly.
Running, since ancient ages, have caught the civilization’s imagination because it is a physical enactment of the larger metaphorical impulse of transcending barriers. From Jesse Owens to the closer home Milkha Singh, various illustrious people had been running against their personal and collective odds to majestic glories. Srabani knew that women could never really be as fast as men; and that is why they get paid less than men for achieving the same feats. Srabani was never really good in physics, but she also knew extreme speed results in time-travel. In a nutshell, running too fast might break some barriers; it might transpose her, if only momentarily, to her celebratory moment thirty-five years earlier; but Srabani was not interested in metaphors. She wanted to run; perspire; feel tired; come back home and sleep the entire day, which would perhaps also help her escape her birthday celebrations.
She had deliberately chosen to start a little early than the average morning walker because she wanted the street to herself. Meanwhile, although the neighbourhood was mostly asleep, two of the lucky audience included grandmother Biswas and her six year old granddaughter, Trisha as both of them had erratic sleeping hours. It took them some time to realize what was going on, but soon they figured out that Mrs. Mukherjee was actually running at a very high-speed despite her bulk. As Srabani ran the first round, the old woman could not contain her hysterical laughter; but the toddler looked on in awe and reverence. As Srabani made the second round, they exchanged reactions—the child, perhaps taking a cue from her grandmother, laughed in a high pitched voice; but the old woman inspired by her granddaughter’s thoughtful mood, adjusted her glasses to observe the proceedings. But when Srabani made the third round, both of them ran out of available options of reacting to the early morning burlesque and sublime. As the twinkle-toed fat lady created a storm of dust, which mingled with the fog to eclipse the movements  for the child and the old woman, they thought it might be in everyone’s best interest to go back to sleep.

Indian Review | Author | Madhumita Roy writes on Indian Review. Madhumita is pursuing PhD in English at IIT Kharagpur, India, writing her thesis on Salman Rushdie.

Madhumita Roy is pursuing PhD in English at IIT Kharagpur, India, writing her thesis on Salman Rushdie. She lives in Kolkata and writes short stories. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Out of Print (India), Brilliant Flash Fiction and others.