She moved in with us in March when I was seven and Ivy was four. Not like a tornado but the aftermath of an unpleasant hailstorm. My Aunt Meena. Papa's sister. Five years elder to him. Childless and therefore, alone, after her husband, Uncle Ravi, passed away, Papa insisted we accommodate her as had no one else in the world besides us. Ma didn't like it and made it clear. But Papa had the final word. Fortunately, there was an extra room meant for guests. So we didn't have to give up ours. So that was it. Aunt Meena became a fixture in our house with her sturdy figure, tight bun and spectacles not daring to fall off her nose. Ma grumbled initially but, surprisingly, Aunt Meena proved to be a help for her. When the maid didn't turn up, she would wash the utensils and clean the house. Otherwise, she kept to herself and her room. The only exception was at 5 PM when she would go to the neighborhood park for a stroll with Ivy and I. While we would play, she would briskly walk around the pathway. She would return with us at 6 PM, flop on the brown weather beaten recliner next to the couch and talk about the dead, her fingers tapping on the arm rest of the recliner as if she was making music. No. Not talk. Criticise. That’s a polite term. Bitch is the right word. Ma would get mad at me for using it but that's what she would do. Everyday, unfailingly from 6 PM to 8 PM. Irrespective of whether someone was present in the room or we had guests. It didn't matter to her.
Ma would sometimes sit on the couch and watch television during that time. Papa would be sipping his tea after returning from work. Ivy would spread her crayons on the carpet and immerse herself in coloring in her drawing book. I would idle around till Ma rapped me about completing my homework.
Aunt Meena’s droning would start with Uncle Ravi.
“He was a difficult man to please,” she would lament.
“Your Uncle Ravi,” she would specify if Ivy or I were in the room.” “Your brother-in- law,” if Ma or Papa were there. “This doesn't have salt…there is too much salt ….or too little salt .. was his permanent complaint.”
“He wanted his shirts perfectly ironed…He insisted on the house being spick and span.”
I found all the accusations difficult to believe. Uncle Ravi has been a quiet unassuming man. I couldn't quite visualise him as a demanding person.
The stories about Uncle Ravi were the same initially. But gradually they grew like the Beanstalk.
“One day he came in ….must have been some problem in the office ..he banged his fists on the table angrily.”
“That night….I was so frightened….he smashed a plate.”
“That terrible evening …it was raining…he slammed the door shut and glared at me,” she would bemoan aggrievedly.
Uncle Ravi after a couple of months became synonymous with a monster. For those who didn't know Uncle Ravi, it was impressed upon them he just stopped short of being a wife beating alcoholic. I felt Aunt Meena believed the tales she narrated. She liked to imagine herself as a victim. She enjoyed imagining herself as a sufferer, a woman who was tormented. What I objected to was that Ma and Papa didn't counter her claims. When I asked Ma, she shrugged.
“We don't really know what happens in a house…besides it’ll cause unpleasantness in the house…Papa wouldn't like to hurt her.”
It was easy to defame the dead I realised.
It was in August that we heard that Daisy Paul who lived down the street died in a car accident leaving behind two children. Ma was shocked. Daisy and Ma had been on friendly terms. Ma wept for the children. Aunt Meena also fell silent for a few days. After the funeral rites were over, things settled down to normal. Aunt Meena resumed her walks, returned and repeated all the things we had already heard a million times about Uncle Ravi. It was on one of these days that she mentioned Daisy Paul.
“That woman, the one who visited us once in a while, I have doubts about her character.”
Ma, Papa, Ivy and I were all in the living room.
“Are you speaking about Daisy?” Ma asked. Her voice took the tenor of a quietly veiled threat that she didn't want to hear about this particular subject anymore. Aunt Meena was clever. She kept quiet. But everytime Ma wasn't there, she would raise the issue but with a statutory warning.
“Don't tell your Ma.”
“Don't tell your wife.”
Then she would continue in a low monotone as if afraid Ma would hear.
“That Daisy, she would neglect her children and galavant around chatting with the neighbours.”
“Did you notice the clothes Daisy wore…the make up…she only thought about herself.”
“I don't think she even knew how to cook,” she would constantly claim. Her assertions dripped with self righteousness.
The pace at which she spun her yarns could surpass the fastest growing bacterium vibrio natriegens. Soon Daisy became a bad mother and a worse wife. I knew Aunt Meena never thought she was lying. She was sure her assumptions were true. Her imaginations real. Papa ignored everything. Ma,of course, overheard everything. She was furious but held herself back.
“Toxic! That's what she is,” she would mutter to herself.
Aunt Meena didn't even spare her own sister. Aunt Nandini. The youngest of the siblings. She lived in America. She had migrated when migration was just migration. She had married money and had three children. She used to visit us annually laden with gifts for us. A couple of years back came the news that she was diagnosed with cancer. Papa had been shaken. Chemotherapy followed. Finally, she passed away. I may be mistaken but there was a fleeting glimpse of triumph in Aunt Meena's eyes when she heard about her sister's demise. Fleeting but masked quickly. Perhaps she had always been envious of her sister's life. Now she was enveloped by a feeling of victory at having outlived someone who had led an apparently more successful life. Initially, she showed her sadness. But soon, she was unable to restrain herself.
“Nandini was a bit of a show off,” she started. Papa’s jaw tightened.
“Stop it didi,” he snapped.
Aunt Meena shrugged. “It's the truth,” she said.
“No. It isn't,” Papa retorted and walked away.
Somehow Aunt Meena seemed to be egged on by a force of its own.
“Nandini had an attitude…was quite haughty.”
“She was quite a snob.”
“She thought too much of herself.”
The list grew longer over the years. Not that long though. Luckily, death visited us rarely. Nani, my maternal grandmother passed away peacefully in her old age. Mr Nair, Papa's boss died suddenly in his sleep. Deb, our maid’s husband, had been ailing for a long time. His death didn't come as a surprise.
“She was a miserly Scrooge. She was a selfish self obsessed woman” Aunt Meena commented about Nani. We bristled with indignation. My Nani had been a loving and affectionate woman.
“Mr. Nair was a nasty tyrant.”
I had never heard Papa complaining about his boss.
“Deb was a good for nothing wastrel.”
Ma stopped watching television between 6 to 8 PM. Papa started having tea in his room. Ivy had grown older. Aunt Meena didn't seem to bother her. She would curl up on the couch next to the recliner and read. Aunt Meena's rambling seemed to have a soporific effect on her. She could be heard snoring after a while. I had made it to the school’s junior basketball team and spent my time in the evenings in practice. There was no one really to listen to Aunt Meena. But it didn't deter her. Silent ghosts stood around Aunt Meena and she picked one at random to hurl darts at deriving pleasure from the fact that she had beaten them in death and that they couldn't retaliate and defend themselves against her attacks.
But death is funny. Everyone knows they are going to die one day but they are sure it isn't going to be today or the next day. It was in the autumn of my sixteenth year and when Ivy was thirteen that Aunt Meena suddenly had a cardiac arrest. She was ensconced in her recliner as usual around 7 pm when she collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital but she… well….departed to the heavenly abode didn't really describe it. Gone. She was gone. No one would admit it but no one shed a tear. The funeral rites were performed dutifully. The only argument that ensued was Ma wanting to get rid of the recliner and Papa refusing to do so. Papa agreed after a few days on the grounds that he would get a new one.
A black leather recliner arrived. Shiny. Brand new. Motors for adjusting the headrest and leg rests made it super comfortable. To top it, one could revolve it to face any direction. Ma, Papa and I tried it excitedly. Ivy didn't show any interest. It was at 6 0’ clock that Ivy clambered on to the recliner. She leant against the headrest and tapped her fingers on the armrest.
“You know Aunt Meena wasn't a nice person,” she said.
I suddenly shivered.
Glossary
didi: elder sister
Nani: maternal grandmother
DoubleSpeak 
oohhh! Nicely spooky!
Excellent story, thank you.
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