Vini

Twelfth standard or HSC is hard and what you do in that one year can make or break your life – or so they used to program us kids in my day.

So when the year began, the tuitions amped up, the homework stretched into nights and the tests became the incessant reminders of how you’re never getting there. The house I lived in then, was a government quarter on the first floor. An apartment in a fifty year old building. With rugged cold stone floors and walls that were weeping from floor to ceiling. Electric wiring that gave us some exciting times growing up and plumbing that had stood the test of time.

It had huge rooms. Tall ceilings and just many many doors. Very unlike the “price of a kidney” matchbox apartments that they make today in the cities. It also had many many storage spaces lining the ceiling, up there….or “maada” as they were called. Smaller than attics…but there was a time I used to be small enough to hide there when I wanted to escape the consequences of my mischief.

Difficult to climb for mom and hence difficult to clean. Everything old or broken that didn’t find its way to the kabadiwala, because someone in the house foresaw a use for it, went in the maaadas. Needless to say, they were dark spaces. Full of cobwebs and that’s where I stopped my imagination because I wanted to keep using them as my hiding spaces.

But then I grew up and grew big. And the maadas became the backdrop for all my ghost stories. I’d scare my younger cousins by telling them how I saw red eyes and sometimes green eyes and slithery things and how they hid monsters that floated through the house when everyone slept.

But I digress. So in my twelfth, when my sister left for college and it was just me with mom and dad, I started staying up late nights and waking up early morning for classes and tests and homework. Lights on in the dining room with the dining table, which was the only table we had then. As the house slept and so did the streets outside.

I still remember the first night we met. It was a chemistry test. I heard the vessels clank very slightly.

So let me give you context. It was an old house. It had an entire wash area with a small tank and we kept dirty dinner vessels there for washing. The small half room half bathroom like thing had a maada too. But it also had pipes running thru that maada and a drain.

My first instinct, obviously – given all the real life forensic files I was into watching those days was that we had a burglar in the house. I was too naïve  and too much of a story buff to not think of something thrilling. So burglar it was. I got up quietly from my chair, trying to not let it scrape like it always did and let the burglar know I was up. I tiptoed to the vessels shelf and slowly extracted a kitchen knife and a pair of tongs – at the time it seemed sufficient to overtake a fully grown man. The clanking continued. I couldn’t figure why the burglar was interested in stinky used vessels but I wanted my thriller so I slowly slinked towards the noise, quietly and gently pushed the door of the weird room open and turned the lights on with a sudden movement, flashing the kitchen knife and tongs at what in my head I had imagined to be a six feet tall mean looking man clad in a black ski suit and a mask.

And that is how I met her.

The tongs and knife were pointing at this tiny little 40cm like mouse who had the cutest biggest brownest eyes I ever saw, with a furry dark brown body and a lovely long curved and thin tail.

It was just a moment when our eyes met and then she ran. Hopping and jumping amidst the dirty vessels and finding her way into the pipe that she had climbed down from.

Mom and dad had woken up with all the noise and found me, clad in my pink pajamas, laughing and embarassed staring into a pile of dirty vessels with the knife and tongs pointing at nothing.

I gave them the full story with the tiniest detail before letting them go back to bed. After all, I could have saved them from a burglar tonight. I deserved my two minutes of fame.

There was talk of getting a mouse trap and all. I nodded my head. I was thinking of the cute big innocent eyes and the furry body and the tail. That girl didn’t deserve to be out on the road amidst the dogs and the big rats.

Next morning, I very cautiously refrained from reminding the family of last night’s adventure and they also forgot.

As I was studying into the night, a part of me wanted the little thing to come out again. And she did. Sharp at 3 am, the vessels clanked. I had kept a string of left over roti pieces from the weird room to the kitchen. She eventually found my bait. And slowly nibbled her way to the kitchen platform. From darkness into the light. I was quiet…as a mouse…or not. But she didn’t run. I sat there…my organic chemistry formulae staring at me and I staring at her nibbling the last bit of roti near the sink. Perched on the window sill.

I sneezed…our eyes met and before I could move, she was gone. I decided to name her Vini. After my sister. Teen siblings don’t often admit it but I was missing my sister. This dance continued for a few nights. Sharp at 3 am, Vini would come out to scavenge her meal and I would try different routes of roti pieces for her to explore the house. I knew mom wouldn’t approve. But let’s just say, I was a first bencher, tomboy teenager with soda batli glasses and a fashion sense matching govinda’s from the time, the reputation of being a nerd and hence I did not many friends.

Vini was my stress buster and I had started having conversations with her. In my head ofcourse. If I spoke, she’d scamper right back up her pipe.

After the first month of this routine, Vini had started feeling comfortable in the house. She would hang for some 30-40 mins and go right back in her cozy little space. After a while I figured she did know about my existence and had accepted it. When I moved now, she didn’t scurry away. She would continue nibbling and whisking around. We co existed…That was a win. I wanted to pet her. No no, don’t go ugh. I know what you think of mice. They bring plague and all. But Vini was very clean. Her brown fur was specless and she didn’t leave any slimy trails. I used to sweep away her poop train so mom wouldn’t buy that mouse trap, but come on now, any pet parent had to do that much.

Over weeks, chemistry started becoming less taxing as I would read the formulae aloud teaching Vini. She found her way on to the stone platform across from my chair. She knew her boundaries and never put her tiny feet on the dining table. But she would perch there, nibbling the treat of the night as I read aloud to her. Her eyes seemed to understand what I said. I was sane enough to know I didn’t speak mouse. But well, let me have that ok?I started telling her about school. My first crush and how I will definitely fail physics. She would listen, on most days. On some, she would just pretend to ignore me. And that is how I figured the treats she liked and didn’t like.Then one night, sometime around Navratri, when things got really loud and late, she came out, not scurrying or scampering or nibbling. Just slowly, dragging her tiny feet. She didn’t explore the house before perching on the platform in front of me. She came directly there and sat there. Her tail curled and her big brown eyes looking at me, trying to tell me something.That was the first time she let me touch her. I extended my hand and picked her up gently in my palms. I could feel the tiny organs inside. It was mushy. I was scared. I checked for any visible injuries beneath her fur. I could find nothing.

She sat there staring, sad. I put some water in a small bowl and offered it to her. She put her tiny little head in the bowl and sipped. I felt helpless. I could feel she was sad. Do mice have breakups? Could there have been another mouse in the house? Who were her friends? Where did she meet other mice? The pipe only went from the maada to our house. I had always assumed she came in through the drain and found the maada and relocated. But this was when I realized I didn’t know anything about her life.

She gave me a beseeching look and returned back. I followed her till the pipe. I tried to hear her tiny footsteps but I couldn’t trace her path outside the house. I got back to my math homework. Pushing her sadness to the side. The next night she was back to her usual chirpy self. Life continued as usual. School, home, studying and Vini.

Then one day it struck me she had grown really fat. I wouldn’t have realized it but I had sewn her a tiny shirt for Diwali and when I tried to put it around her, I realized it wouldn’t fit. Yes, our friendship had reached that place where she would now feel comfortable in my palms. That day I was a little troubled. Computers were new and my dad had one. Internet was newer and my dad had a connection too. So I knew how to search. And I googled why mice would gain weight.The answer terrified me. Apparently Vini could be pregnant. And one mouse would give birth to 5-12 pups. I was aghast.

While I loved Vini, having 7 mice in the house didn’t sound right. I also was now scared that there was a whole village up where Vini came. In my story building head, I created many scenarios of what could happen next.

For the next few nights, I talked less and less with Vini. I knew what I had to do and it wasn’t pretty. I had to tell mom. All these nights, I had covered all traces of Vini, wiping her tiny footprints from the leftover sprinkled flour near the containers or the platform and ofcourse the poop. If she bit into rags or bedsheet corners, I’d tuck them away. Not that Vini was very destructive. But still. I had to tell mom. I gathered the courage and narrated the whole story to mom. I ofcourse got my dose of well deserved telling to. But mom understood why Vini was important to me. We pondered on what the best route would be. Dad found an unused shed in the building next door. Vini and her pups would be safe there. Dad guaranteed. I could visit. I agreed. That night they kept the mouse trap. I put in all her favourite treats in the path. She came to meet me and the clank of the trap tore the silent night for me. It still rings in my ears when I have to make tough decisions in life. I sat by her through the rest of the night as she pranced around the trap, squeaking and squealing. Her eyes would search mine asking why. And I tried to explain her. I even told her about the shed and how I’d keep visiting. How it was a safer home for her pups. But she kept screaming. The next morning, dad walked the trap to the shed. I walked with dad. Vini had tremendous energy. She hadn’t sat still all night. I was exhausted looking at her trying to escape. I put some water containers and a pile of hay in a corner. I had even cleaned the place the previous day and made a box home for Vini. After all, she liked darkness and I could atleast give her that. Dad opened the trap and she sprang out and scampered to the darkest corner of the shed.

I never ever saw those brown big eyes again. I had tears in my eyes as dad held my hand and led me back home. “It was the only thing to do beta”…he said. You had no choice.

Didn’t i? I asked myself several times in the days that followed. That evening, when I went to the shed, I could find no trace of Vini. That Sunday I dared to climb to the maada and checked inside. Fearing to see a village of mice. But all I found was a dusty cobwebby dark space with lots of boxes and little trinkets of mine that must have fallen on the floor. Broken pen caps, empty keyrings, lost beads broken off from a nice dress, uniform buttons.

And I wept. Vini had loved me after all. Almost as much as I had her. Or more.