Our refrigerator as I remember it back then was an old Godrej unit, a small maroon coloured little box that spent more time in between repairs than actually cooling things. It was wobbly most of the times - one of its legs had come apart before I was born, and my father, resourceful as he was, had supplanted the vacant space with a piece of wood to ensure the unit itself stood resolute. Of course the chunk wasn’t a perfect fit. I remember how I used to slam the door shut because I used to love the confident THUD followed by the slight wiggle - which used to send my mother in an anxious fit because little though the fridge was, I was even littler and she was always worried that someday it’d topple over me and send me to a rather untimely and unwarranted death. Natural causes not withstanding, I imagine kids who die in their childhood are usually victims to absolutely fucking stupid situations not unlike the one my mother would often try to prevent me from meeting back then, which is darkly comic in a way, if you think about it. But I digress.
During summers my father would wake up early in the morning to prepare shikanji for the entire house - me, daadi, mom, and my elder sister. Shikanji, by the way, is just regular lemonade with some sugar and a variety of spices (the exact mix varies by household). It was often finished with some crushed ice on top. He’d go to the mandi early in the morning to fetch some lemons, and would as a rule of thumb only use two and a half for the entire jug that was supposed to last our small family of five the entire day. The remaining half of the third lemon was often left to rot in the egg tray (which, by the way, mostly held lemons). This annoyed my elder sister more than it annoyed me, because by that time she had already started showing symptoms of what would turn out to be a full blown OCD later on in her life, her always being so assiduous about symmetry, everything in its right place, all that. Upon waking up, I used to rush to our little fridge to check if my dad had also brought some mini Dairy Milk bars he used to from some spare change left over from his daily grocery shopping. I was often surprised. I loved our little fridge - not only did it give my little idiotic self something to be excited about first thing in the morning, but also because its maroonish-red hue brought some colour to our otherwise dull home - peach walls that contracted chronic acne during monsoons, and decrepit sofa, most of which eventually fell victim to a major termite infection.
Apart from the usuals - mango shake, lassi, shikanji - I remember being excited about phalse1 ka sharbat that our mom used to make. Right around the time we’d come back from school, the local phalse-waala would go around the corner announcing his arrival; which used to colour my otherwise moody, bookish sister in a consistent shade of happiness, who would then immediately ask our mother for a 5 rupee coin to buy some. This hale and hearty, nomadic vendor would often give us a little extra berries than we’d paid for, and would without fail tap my sister’s little button nose and pat my head and would then immediately be on his way, whistling away cheerfully. We’d immediately take our bounty to our mother who would then put it all into an old Inalsa mixer grinder and turn it into a gooey purple juice, and add some water and sugar to it. She’d then immediately put the purple concoction in our little red fridge to cool down, and once it was chilled, she’d pour it out for us over lunch. This was one of the few things that used to make my sister happy enough to plant a million little kisses on my cheek. That sudden burst of happiness was perhaps too much for her to contain within herself, and so I welcomed it. We used to think that the fridge assisted our mom in this magic trick, conspiring behind closed doors - a furtive, silent nod from our mother in the maroon unit’s direction asking it to turn her kids into the two happiest little siblings on the planet - an instruction it’d gladly obey.
We were kids and our mother was trying.
The maroon fridge survived long enough to see this new, somewhat nicer shithole we’d eventually move to within Delhi. This area had a few nice parks and open spaces, which I back then didn’t even think could exist within the vicinity of a house, so congested was the place I had grown up in. It lacked the hustle and bustle of our previous area, but at least the park right next to our place had swings and and a monkey bar us siblings had grown quite fond of. The fridge however had sustained some injuries during the move, as a consequence of which it now required even more frequent repairs. The handyman responsible for the same found himself a part of our routine life now - he’d often come by on a whim and talk to our father about our exam scores, about daadi’s health, and dad’s new business. I think he’d wanted to do the ventilation units on dad’s new textile factory, but dad was skeptical about hiring him. I mean, considering how often he had to work on our small little fridge, I doubt anyone would’ve entrusted him to do the ventilation unit of an entire factory, certainly not our annoyingly prudent father. He was quite persistent for a while though - often slipping a casual taunt or remark in regular conversation that betrayed his hankering. This did eventually stop: our daadi who was by then mostly in a catatonic stupor (but still somehow observant) rained hell on him that one day when he’d bothered my dad enough. Dad’s always had a roundabout way of handling difficult conversations and still avoids conflict, something that he maybe inherited from our daada whom I never really got to know. Daadi, quite obviously, was the diametric, dramatic opposite. Her tone and mannerisms that day shook me a fair bit, my sister even more so, which dad took a notice of. He then took us in a corner and told us that daadi was going through her personal epilogue of sorts, which when we inquired what it meant, he simply asked us to not make a ruckus around her lest we might be next.
And so our grandmother and the maroon fridge were both quite miserable in their final few years. The muck in the fridge’s white plastic cavities where water bottles used to go had by then turned a bright orange, so much was the sludge deposit. The vegetable basket had enough cracks that my mother had gotten rid of it altogether, now shoving vegetables in as she’d received them from the grocer, in cheap blue polythene bags. The central knob, if it had even worked before, certainly didn’t now. Not that I could reach it to check: I was still small (I haven’t grown much since, and at 5’6”, I like to think life is humbling in an odd sort of way), but I could infer as such since the knob had pretty much stayed in the same position for over a year now. It had gotten way wobblier now in its final years, the fridge, but it was still abundant. I like to think it persevered till it couldn’t. So did our grandmother, and when fate inevitably caught up with both of them within a month of each other, my sister only unmasked sentiment at the latter’s parting. My dad eventually told us that he was going to get us a new Samsung double door to replace the maroon unit. I remember overflowing with joy at this. Until then, I had only seen double doored fridges in television, and so had never for a moment held on to the belief that we possessed the money or the means to see one at our house, not in our lifetime at least. A fridge with both doors that open out sideways, fully away from each other, a Bosch-esque invitation: a-la-Garden of Earthly Delights. The TV adverts also spoke of a built-in water dispenser so we wouldn’t have to go through the absolute drudgery of filling up our water bottles through a broken Aquaguard with its grating rendition of Für Elise for the millionth time during daunting summers. I was excited, my sister did at the very least pretended enthusiasm.
But Icarus fell, and so then imagine my surprise when the new unit arrived and us siblings found out that it wasn’t in fact the double door they showed on TV, but a single door split into two, a single tall unit with an upper freezer compartment and the lower one for regular refrigeration needs. I was heartbroken, and so I made my displeasure known to our mother when dad was at work, who then made her displeasure known to me in absolute terms which taught me rather quickly to never make my displeasure known to her ever again. When she had calmed down, I was eventually told that dad had worked really hard to afford that unit, and that one day I’d understand. It was a dull grey, this new one, and extremely reliable. I never could love it, because it felt almost perfect, which to me now is funny in an odd sort of way. It was also incredibly capacious, but just like how people who seem magnanimous and abundant from the outside, it held very little inside - mostly vegetables and the occasional mango shake on Sundays if dad felt up to it. The phalse-waala didn’t roam in this area, no one really did, except for the occasional grocer with a somewhat broken cart, and an ear shattering cry that announced his arrival. It used to annoy me back then, and would often make me wonder why people didn’t ever give him a sizeable chunk of their collective minds. Often times we’d go revisit our older area, me and my sister, when she was older and would allow me to pillion on her bicycle. Sometimes we’d try to look for the phalse-waala. Our old neighbours, still there, still kind, would always welcome us with their usual homemade concoctions and sliced fruits. They’d often ask us about our exams, how the new area was like, and if our parents missed them. We didn’t know for a fact whether they did or didn’t but I remember my dad some day consoling my mother during a bout of what I now know as loneliness. He tried to tell her that he had to move out for us, that we deserved better, so we told our old neighbours that yes, yes in fact they did miss them dearly, at least our mother did. Upon hearing which they used to pack some homemade sweets for us to take back to our home and stuff us with food that was clearly meant for multiple people. We couldn’t exact a choice in the matter. Our neighbours never really had any kids, so I imagine they perhaps treated us the way they did back then because the only thing that brings pure distilled joy to jaded adults is a proof of innocence. Aunty also solved the mystery of the missing phaalse-waale uncle: she told us that he had passed away due to tuberculosis, and since he’d never gotten married, there was now no one to take his place, no spry and pink distributor of those magical berries. I sensed my sister being upset at this, and I tried to console her by telling her that we could always get some at the mandi on our way back, but much like present, I got her wrong even back then.
Summer vacations weren’t as much fun at our new area, so I used to spend pretty much the entirety of those two months at my cousin’s. Both my sister and I, and our mother. Perhaps I should correct myself here - it’s not entirely because our new area was unexciting: we had always preferred spending our vacations at our cousin’s, even when we were living in our older, shittier area. Mostly because I loved my cousin brother, we used to get along incredibly well back then. But then also because his father, my uncle, was also affluent and wealthier than our father, which meant that his home had nearly everything I wish ours did back then, including an abundant fridge. It was huge, and almost always stocked with a variety of imported goods: packets of ready to eat salami (which was a blasphemy at our place, all sorts of frozen meat were), assorted chocolates my uncle would bring back from his travels, and colourful tetra packs full of all sorts of beverages. His fridge, while not the full double door we’d seen on the TV, was still a huge one; and perhaps in terms of ratios it was probably to our new fridge what our new fridge was to our older one. It was also the only place I knew back then that had access to fast internet, a 50 Mbps connection, which was a luxury in those days. Probably still is in a lot of India. I was 15, and my cousin was only a year older, so we’d started using the internet for its intended purpose - tracking video game releases and looking at bikini models online (we hadn’t discovered pornography yet). The fridge came in handy during these (understandably) late night activities, as we’d often make runs for salami or some leftovers from dinner to keep us going through our surfing sessions. We’d barely catch any sleep; only my sister, who used to sleep in a separate room with my maami. But then maami one day told us that my sister talks a lot in her sleep, so we used to wonder if she ever really caught proper rest. Either way, we were often scolded the next day by my (embarrassed) mother for finishing the week’s supply, but then maama would restock it all by evening anyway, buying all the paraphernalia for our late night escapades with an oddly understanding smile, something I only understood much later in my life. Another activity I often found myself engaged in with my cousin was plastering the front door of his fridge with a barrage of wacky tattoos we used to get for free for buying unhealthy quantities of Big Babol and Loco Poco chewing gums. From skeletons to zombies to sharks to zany Power Ranger derivatives, the entire fridge was full of pop culture artefacts of that time, which to my 15 year old brain was the coolest thing ever. I’d often ask my sister if she could convince our father to allow us to do something similar to our fridge, which she said she wouldn’t be able to, ours was a father who was the sworn enemy of fun, of all things fun. On this I used to fight her often, because to me she was dad’s favourite and I had reasons to believe that, if asked nicely, she could get anything from him that she wanted. This, too, would be something I’d be proven wrong about later on in life, but I digress. And so I’d begrudgingly go home at the end of my vacations - back to the unexciting, nicer area, back to no internet, and back to the “new” fridge, the one that wasn’t nearly as charming as the broken maroon unit I’d started missing dearly, and wasn’t even stocked to its capacity, like my cousin’s was.
And so a few not particularly noteworthy years passed till we eventually got a huge double doored fridge that was on TV adverts, by which time I had already stopped caring about TV adverts. My sister had left home a few years ago - she’d gotten a kick-ass job right after college at this big shot company, and had started making more money than either of my parents had ever thought of, at an impressive 23 years of age. I remember when she’d broken the news of the job offer at our house, and I remember my mother’s reaction to it not being quite what we had expected. Mom was very much against the idea of her moving away and living on her own in a different city. She didn’t trust my sister to take good care of herself, and declared that it’s only going to be allowed if I were to move in with her somehow - to which I was very much against. Among the two of us, I’ve always believed her to be the more well-adjusted; me tagging along would’ve probably been detrimental. It also seemed completely illogical to me - I was in the second year of my undergraduate education by then, so I didn’t even know why such a condition was even being stipulated. I’d reckoned therefore that there was probably more to my mother’s concerns than what she had initially conveyed, something I was proven correct about later when I’d overheard a loud argument from my study room involving these two women whom I had till then loved equally - lots of off colour remarks flung out by the elder towards the younger, remarks which I think unintentionally affected a part of both of us siblings’ respective hearts in a deeply insidious sort of way, my sister’s certainly more so. After things had settled down and my sister had left for her room to sob quietly, we voted on the affair, and both dad and I were in agreement that this opportunity was too good to be passed on because of our mom’s reservations.
And I’m glad we did, because only a few years into her career, my sister had done so well that she’d become an important person of sorts. I didn’t inquire much into her day to day activities, I wasn’t particularly interested in computers anyway, but she used to go on business trips often and bring back a variety of chocolates and other confectionaries. Our huge fridge by then was mostly just this - a wide spectrum of colours, a miscellany of packaged sugary goods. She’d bring back tons of weird KitKats, Lindt’s assortments, Reese’s cups that I had only seen on American shows (and which are legitimately disgusting), and packets of sour candies which I adored. Occasionally she’d also bring back cookies and cakes that could survive the flight, which we used to devour together as soon as she was home. Our parents however barely ever tried anything - they said they were growing older and would rather not consume too much sugar, which I used to fight them on because they’d devour laddoos dropped by some random “relative” six degrees removed in under an hour, which has to be some sort of world record if you think about it. So I tried to finish as much as I could, but there’d always be some left over in our fridge. Since my sister used to visit us every few months, we pretty much never ran out of imported candies. On some level though, I think it used to affect her, the knowledge that most of those candies remained uneaten by our parents. This one time she found some chocolates she’d brought back a whole year ago, which were probably expired by the time she’d discovered them. I consequently received the silent treatment for the entire day, which I mean, fuck her anyway: I wasn’t going to risk diabetes to keep her heart from breaking.
My annoyance peaked that one particular day however - she’d brought back some weird purple-looking shortbread cookies made out of yams from her trip to California. I found American sweets mostly terrible, mostly because they substituted corn syrup for sugar. Either way, I’d decided to confront her on this - I had to end this nearly Sisyphean task she had forced upon me. Considering my parents didn’t care either way, I took her to rooftop later that night and after some meaningless small talk I took a small pause and started:
“Why’d you bring so many again?” I asked, making no efforts at all to mask my annoyance.
“I thought you liked them?” she said and assumed an enthusiastic smile. “Look, I know they’re purple but they’re delicious. You’d love them! At least give them a try!”
“I will, but that’s not the point, bro.” I said and paused for a bit, looking away. “You know I love you and I love whatever you bring, but like, you spend so much on these things and I can only finish so much without the threat of early onset diabetes looming all over me.”
She laughed and pulled on my left cheek and kept pulling on it without saying anything at all.
“BRO.” I exclaimed when I couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled her hand back and then broke the few seconds of silence with something I had been anticipating anyway. “Have you tried to get them to help you?”
“They barely even try it. Dad’s trying to be more health conscious now. Mumma too. Buddhe.”
“Try being more persistent?”
“Look, I don’t care either way,” I did. I think she knew and understood very well why they didn’t try it, but sometimes the way you save someone from anticipated hurt is by not addressing the anxiety that birthed the anticipation in the first place. “I’m anyway busy with coursework. Don’t think I can get a job without a Masters. Shit man, wish I had your brains.” I soft punched her left arm. She didn’t say anything for a minute and then,
“I wish they’d at least try a few every now and then, you know.”
“It’s just chocolates. Wish for better things, man. You know dad doesn’t even make mango shake anymore - it used to get me through fucking June, and now he just doesn’t.” I said and watched her expression shift.
“What? Really? Shit, just last month I was craving mangoes.” she said.
“You don’t get them in Dublin?”
“You do. I mean, I do. But they’re pretty damn expensive, often unripe, often sour. Plus, you know, you have to slice them yourself and shit. Who’d even bother?” I agreed. “Anyway, you should’ve pressed him to continue making mango shake at least. Not like he has anything better to do in the mornings?”
“He says I’m old enough to make my own. But, bro. I’ve been old enough to make it on my own since I turned, like, 14 or so. I think he just doesn’t care. Maybe it’s one of those old people things.”
“Or,” she started, “it’s probably because I’m not around much anymore, and mumma’s in a sour mood more often than not?”
I couldn’t conjure up a reply immediately, so I started after a bit.
“Just age catching up with her, you know.”
“Keep chalking everything up to age. You have a lot to learn, Golu.” she said and pulled my cheek again, this time a bit more surly, more softly.
“You could always visit us more often, then.” I said when she was done.
“It’s just, you know. I’m busier than you’d be willing to believe. Plus,” she paused, maybe bouncing out sentences in her head, being careful about what to say next. “I don’t think I can just come back and fit in now. Like, you won’t get it.” she said. “I don’t have any hatred or reservations against this house, or any of you. I love all of you. But I’ve been away for a while - and after just a couple of weeks here I feel, um. Like leaving? Going back? So I can go there and miss you guys and see you again and as soon as I’ve seen you all enough go back again? Am I making sense?”
“You’re dating someone aren’t you?” I inquired.
“None of your business.” she smiled. “And it’s regardless of whether someone’s waiting for me or not. Like, you won’t get it, you have to move out someday yourself and you’ll get it once you’ve been away for a while.” she said and went silent.
I took a long sigh. I felt like Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, all jaded and weary. I’d never smoked a cigarette in my life and never intend to, but I imagine moments like these are where people cooler than myself usually light one up and look into the distance.
“Yeah, whatever. Just stop bringing more chocolates over, man. I’m not even sure why you continue bothering. Just bring a few for me. Mom’s just fine with a Dairy Milk Crackle. Dad was never into chocolates as much. Like, I don’t think they care.”
“Yeah.”
As I had expected, she continued bringing back the same amounts. As I had not expected however, her frequency of visits became lesser as we grew older. In a way, you could perhaps say that she did obey my request. I didn’t blame her for visiting less often, what else could she do? Ma had started fighting her more and more over a variety of things - to relocate back to Delhi, find some job in Gurgaon, to marry up. Constant back and forth - mediated by my somewhat weary father, always torn between these two women - one he’d chosen to love, and one he just loved. And so the fridge - with all its space and advanced features - now held only some water bottles, uneaten vegetables, and maybe one or two chocolates I’d spare from my sister’s yearly haul, spare for mom and dad to eat someday, and maybe call her back and tell her that they liked them, those chocolates.