Kopi, Puffs & Dreams by Pallavi Gopinath Aney

Author:Pallavi Gopinath Aney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epigram Books

The letter went across in the morning. The little boy who took it swore that he had handed it over to the lady of the house, a dishevelled-looking woman.

No reply came. Not that day or for the next seven days. On the eighth day, the mutiny ended, and signs of life began to return to the city; and with those, the Pillais arrived in the morning.

Puthu showed them in. The restaurant and the shop were still closed.

“Will you have something?” he asked the couple.

They said nothing. They looked smaller somehow.

“I will call Pushpa…and Krishnan.”

Pushpa came down, followed by Krishnan. They entered the living room slowly and sat down. No one said anything and the room suddenly felt cramped.

Puthu decided to speak. “Mr Pillai…I know you are upset. But Pushpa and Krishnan are now married. And they would like your blessing.”

“Married! Where was this marriage performed?”

“At the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple. It was a proper ceremony.”

“Proper ceremony! A ceremony where you ran away like rats in the night, to get married at the Ceylonese temple! That’s what you think is proper?”

Puthu said nothing.

Pillai addressed his daughter. “You ran away with this man, a bloody cook, to get married without your family, without the blessings of the priests we have known for years! Do you feel like you had a proper ceremony?”

“Appa…Krishnan and I want to be together. And we knew you would never agree.”

“Did you even ask?”

There was no point in saying that asking would have resulted in Pushpa being locked up and married to the first eligible man her father could find. They had to allow her parents this moral high ground.

“You broke your amma’s heart. She hasn’t slept in eight days. You should have seen her that day, before your letter came! We gave you all this freedom, let you study, and this is our reward.”

“Sir, I promise to keep Pushpa very happy…” It was the first time Krishnan had spoken.

“You! A cook! If she had married even this uncivil idiot, it would have been better! At least he’s ambitious! You are happy to stay a servant all your life. How do you think you will keep her happy?”

“By loving her.”

Pillai burst out laughing. And Mrs Pillai started crying.

“You will never come to our home again. You won’t get a penny from us. You are never to contact us again. Ever.”

And they left.

Pushpa spent the rest of the day, and much of the next few days, weeping.

The news of their elopement was discussed in Serangoon almost as much as the mutiny and the subsequent trials. Customers stared at Krishnan. People stopped speaking and gawked when he walked down the street.

“Pushpa, they will come around. They will. You are their only child. Your mother will convince him.”

“You don’t know him. No one can convince him to change his mind once he’s decided on something.”

“You could always convince him to see things from your point of view.”

Noisier crying.

“They will come around. If not immediately, they will once we have a child. Your mother won’t miss out on seeing her grandchild.

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