In His Custody ✎ | (MaNan)

✰ 52 - sabotage

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11 November 2010

I placed my Appa's pen between the pages of my homework module, and floated down the staircase towards the fragrance of cinnamon and roasted coriander seeds.

Chikkamma was by the stoves, estimating the salt content in the chole she was stirring purely based off its scent! I have no idea how older women do this, Babbu, it remains a mystery to me.

The comforting smell of a hearty bowl of curry churned my guts. Until then, I had not thought about food, but my cravings for chai weer unsatiable. With an unexpected flutter in my chest, I briskly galloped across the kitchen, sprung on my Chikkamma's shoulders and startled her as the ladle splattered into the gravy.

"Nandu! Dara diya tumne!" She yelped habitually in the language she was most familiar with, and swatting my shoulder mischievously, she reluctantly let herself wobble in my grip from side to side. A smile adorned her face however, as she registered the child-like thrill in my mannerisms that had disappeared on Diwali night but were slowly springing within me.

I genuinely was happy! And the source of that unbounded was one senior from school. The one I shared my ghee-shakkar roll with – Manik.

As his name trembled on my lips, I jumped on my palms and plopped myself on the kitchen counter, wiggling my feet over the drawer handles beneath me. "Chikkamma," I cooed in a tone that most often had things working in my favour. Especially in this family.

"Hmm?"

"Can you make an extra box of lunch for me, tomorrow?"

Chikkamma looked up from her pot, raising an eyebrow. "Why, hmm?" She placed the ladle within the bubbling pot, and my heart skipped. "What's cooking?" I profusely flushed at her uncanny ability to read me like an open book. 

Part of me wanted to tell her the truth, that a boy from school never brought his lunch and that I wanted to do whatever I possibly could to make sure... to make sure he had the energy for the rest of the day. That was basic human compassion, wasn't it? I just wanted to help someone.

Even if it was not Manik, I would have asked her.

"Cooking... um, you are cooking! Haan... of course!" I grinned extra wide to hide the redness on my cheeks from being caught nearly red-handed.

Aiyappa, why was it so hard to get those sentences out of my mind? Why was I overthinking it and making it seem like a bigger deal than it truly was?

Those unnatural symptoms for something so trivial itself might trigger some alarms in Chikkamma. That was the last thing I wanted, for the family to permanently keep tabs on me.

"Nandini..."

My incisors pressed on an index fingernail as I formulated the next perfect excuse, crossing the other hand's fingers by my side... out of her immediate vision. "That... heh, my friend Navya na... she doesn't eat her lunch only. That's why..."

"Navya, the talkative two-braided girl who comes over? Why doesn't she eat her food?" In her authoritative tone, she put a hand on her tip and frowned at me.

It spiked my blood pressure.

"No, it's not that she doesn't eat per se... sometimes the food her mom gives her isn't... enough. I mean it's not filling..." I quickly added, stumbling on my words, "...and you know how much sports they – I mean, we – have after school." "Sometimes, the food her mom gives her isn't... enough." The wince as my inadequate words left my lips hopefully did not reach Chikkamma's ears.