Dusky Lady In The Dark Shop

This was a time when condoms hadn't seen dots, ribs, and flavors yet. I think.

We were in Kerala. In a car from Cochin to Kumarakom. After a long day's journey, we were as tired as the day itself. The skies turned while we waited for our place to turn up.

Our 6-year-old elder child started puking. We spoke to the doctor on the phone, and he suggested that we gave him a medicine called 'Ondem'. It was the outskirts of a small town.

The language on signboards had again turned Malayalam.

We scanned for crosses that were not churches.

Finally, we find one tucked in a dark corner. I get down from the car and walk a couple yards back to the store. It’s that time of the evening, when the human mind can't decide if it is dark enough to switch the lights on.

The store is dark. And the keeper is this dusky Malayalee woman my age, seated at the counter. As I look around to get a feel of the shop, I ask for 'Ondem'.

Everything happens pretty quick. Yet in the stretched paradigm, when I sense the lady hasn't reacted, I look at her to see if she has understood me. And I find her looking at me. The eyes. It is very momentary before she turns but the look is extra enough to pique my curiosity. I see her properly. And I am ensnared.

She goes deeper in the darkness looking, and I find it impossible to take my eyes off her.

There was something profoundly sexual in her. But it was not just about sexuality either.

I had a fleeting sense of an obscure space between desire and prurience.

Ready to quickly shift my glance if she looked, I stared at her as long as her search for the medicine allowed. But when she walked back, I noticed she consciously avoided my eyes. Like she knew I was watching and felt coy about it. She reached the counter with a small cardboard carton and demurely placed it between us.

I look inside. It is filled with condoms!!

I keep a straight face and tell her, "Not condoms, Ondem."

A quick change in her being suggested, she had suddenly found I was not Mohanlal.

More than embarrassment, she showed disinterest now. She slid the carton aside and went back to get the right medicine.

The half a minute that took us to exchange the medicine and the money made me both nervous and sad. I don't know why, but those were the two emotions.

The lady never looked at my eyes again. I paid in change, took the bottle and walked ahead to the waiting car. I didn't look back either.

Six years later in Belgium when my younger six-year-old began puking, I had to again walk up to an 'Apotheek' (pharmacist) and once again ask for 'Ondem' to a pretty lone Dutch lady managing the store. It was again evening but the store was well-lit this time.

I suddenly remembered my Kerala incident.

She smiled and brought the right 'Ondem' to the counter at the first go.

Sadly, though I neither felt nervous nor sad, I missed the Kerala woman in her unlit shop.