The Green Chillies

The following is a slightly edited version of a short story I wrote a few years ago and won one of the MIT Ilona Karmel writing prizes for it.

“Ah! I forgot the green chillies again!” Arya’s mother exclaimed in disappointment, her hands busy rinsing yellow lentils. Nearby, the rice cooker hissed and puffed like a raging bull until it let out a loud whistle, releasing a jet of steam as if from its nostrils. The sweet aroma of onions, garlic paste, and ginger filled the small, two-room house nestled within the military quarters.

The kitchen, like the bedroom and the living room, was small and congested — just spacious enough for Arya’s mother. A kerosene stove was carefully balanced on a concrete slab protruding from the wall, which spanned the entire length of the kitchen. A cylindrical container full of rice sat in the corner below the slab. Onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and a box of spices were neatly arranged on a layer of old newspaper spread in the opposite corner. The sink featured an old plastic tap that continuously leaked, sending a small stream of water onto the floor where she stood.

A dim incandescent bulb, covered in layers of grease, struggled to illuminate the kitchen, but an iron-grilled window allowed just enough daylight into the cramped space. As she alternated between quickly chopping vegetables and washing lentils, she frequently glanced at the dust-laden clock on the wall behind her. Normally, she would start cooking at noon, but today she had begun an hour earlier. Arya’s father had invited two friends over for lunch to celebrate his promotion from a sepoy to a lance naik, and they were expected to arrive at two. The clock now read ten past one.

“Arya? Arya?! Could you come here for a second?” her mother called, turning down the heat on the kerosene stove. Five-year-old Arya, who was playing with her doll in the bedroom, dashed into the kitchen, her arms outstretched as if she were an airplane.

“Watch out, Arya! The floor’s slippery,” her mother warned. Arya slowed down and tiptoed across the wet floor to stand by the large rice container.

“Can you keep an eye on the rice cooker for a few minutes? When it whistles again, turn off this knob - like this,” her mother demonstrated, pretending to twist the knob on the stove. “Don’t touch anything else. I need to run over to Mantu’s for some green chillies.”

“Maa! Maa! I’ll come with you. Barby wants to go outside too. She’s so sad staying inside,” Arya bounced excitedly with the doll in her hands, pleading and disregarding her mother’s instructions.

“No, Arya! Papa will be back soon, and I need to get the chillies before the soup boils over. Did you understand what I told you about the stove?” her mother asked as she reached for a small hand-towel drying on the window grill.

“No! I want to go outside. I will buy the chillies for you.”

“But beta, I can’t let you go out alone, and someone needs to watch the rice. Your father will be upset if the food isn’t good. You know that. Also, Das uncle and Sabhar uncle are joining us for lunch. What will they think if the food isn’t good? Hmm? Be my good girl and watch the stove, will you?”

“Maa, you always let bhaiya go out alone but not me,” Arya protested, her voice tinged with disappointment as she tapped the metallic rice container with her little fingers.

“You are too young, beta! I promise we’ll go to the park this evening. Now, will you watch the stove for me?”

“No! I am not too young. Look, I can count all the way to a hundred. One, Two, Three, Four,” Arya began counting on her fingers. Her mother glanced at the clock again. It read seventeen past one.

“Uff oh! This girl is so stubborn. It’s all her father’s fault! Giving the princess everything she demands.”

Arya’s mother walked out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, Arya trailing diligently behind her. She took out a five-rupee note from her red faux-leather purse and handed it to Arya, who clapped with excitement and accepted her prize for persistence. Then, her mother opened a small box of kohl and applied it around Arya’s eyes, adding a little dot on her forehead to protect her from evil spirits. Arya beamed, feeling the cold kohl against her skin.

Mantu’s shop was just two blocks away, but Arya had never ventured there alone. She usually accompanied her mother on Sunday evenings. Together, they would purchase the same assortment of vegetables — a kilo of tomatoes, two kilos of potatoes, some green beans, a cauliflower, and a few green chillies. After their weekly shopping, Arya and her mother would stroll through the cantonment park nestled between two rows of soldiers’ quarters. The cantonment, securely guarded by military personnel, allowed for very little freedom of movement to the wives and children. While the soldiers were on duty, their wives prepared meals for their returning husbands and school-aged children. Evenings were the only time when women and children could freely walk around the park. While Arya played hide-and-seek with the other kids, her mother would join the other soldiers’ wives, knitting sweaters together and sharing tales from their domestic lives. But today was different. The kohl on Arya’s eyes marked a special occasion — she would be going outside by herself.

“Go straight to Mantu’s and buy green chilies worth two rupees. Don’t forget the change, and come back quickly!” her mother instructed as Arya dashed out of the apartment, soaring like an airplane with her Barby doll in one hand and the five-rupee note tightly clasped in the other.

“Papa would be so proud of me!” she thought as she paced through the rows of quarters. She imagined her father’s hug and a pat on the back, with acknowledgement that she had grown up enough to go shopping and play in the park by herself. A chuckle escaped her at the thought of her brother’s sullen face when she would later boast about her adventure.

Her yellow frock adorned with blue polka dots sparkled brightly in the afternoon sun. Arya’s long hair, neatly parted down the middle and braided with red ribbons, carried the rich scent of mustard oil. A honeybee buzzed loudly above her head, but with a quick swipe of her hand, she shooed it away. Today, she felt fearless, radiating bravery like a soldier. Today, she was a superhero on a mission. Wearing bright pink but over-sized sandals, she walked briskly towards Mantu’s vegetable shop.

Mantu, known affectionately by the children as ‘pumpkin uncle’ due to his round, plump figure, resembled an owl with his large, round eyes and thick glasses perched on the tip of his nose. His sparse stubbly beard made him look like a dried cactus. He scrutinized every coin with suspicion through his glasses. Every morning at eight, Mantu arrived at his shop on a moped laden with bags of vegetables. Despite the cramped space in his little cabin, he diligently cleaned, prayed to Laxmi — the goddess of wealth — by burning incense sticks and reading a few verses from his prayer book. Then, he meticulously arranged the vegetables on the two charpais in front of his cabin. As customers began to trickle in, he would be busy placing weights and vegetables on his hand-held scales, and incessantly complaining about the middlemen’s commissions. He never shied away from discussing global crop failures — even when irrelevant — or from lamenting transport union strikes that he claimed affected prices. He would justify in detail why he was charging two rupees for a lemon, and could wear down any customer trying to bargain by retelling his stories until they relented.

When Arya arrived, the shop was bustling with the sounds of metallic weights clanking against scales and Mantu’s loud voice announcing prices, all mingled with the occasional murmur of customer discontent. The scent of the morning’s incense offerings still hung in the heavy humid air. Squeezing past the women clad in colorful saris, who were meticulously inspecting every tomato, potato, and bean, Arya reached the counter. Mantu was engrossed in his usual stories, weighing onions on his scales. Standing behind the counter that stood taller than her, Arya raised her arm as high as she could, waving the five rupee note and demanded,

“Mantu uncle, give me green chillies for two rupees.”

Mantu looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice.

“Uncle, here! Green chillies for two rupees.”

Arya waved the five-rupee note again. Mantu appeared annoyed at being interrupted while explaining to a young lady how a strike in Mumbai had caused potato prices to jump to twelve rupees a kilo, two rupees more than yesterday’s price. He peered at Arya over his glasses perched on the tip of his nose, then scanned the crowd, seemingly looking for her mother.

“You came alone today? Where’s your mother?” Mantu inquired.

“Yes, I came alone. Maa is cooking, so she sent me to get the chillies. Can I have them now?” Arya said, waving the five-rupee note in front of the counter, feeling proud that Mantu noticed she had come to buy the chillies all by herself.

“Bring me exactly two rupees. I don’t have any change right now,” Mantu replied, before resuming his story to the young lady.

“But Mantu Uncle!”

Mantu wasn’t paying attention to her. Confused by his disinterest in the five-rupee note, Arya examined it again, noting the clearly marked number ‘5’ in shiny blue at the top left corner, below which was the face of a smiling bald man wearing round glasses.

“One, two, three, four, and five. Five is more than two. Why doesn’t Mantu want it?” Arya wondered as she counted on her fingers. She squeezed past the sari-clad women once more and stepped out of the shop. The thought of returning home to ask for ‘exactly two rupees’ crossed her mind, but she worried her mother might not allow her to come back. How could she return home without the chillies? How could she let her mission fail so easily? Beads of sweat formed on her forehead as she stood anxiously under the afternoon sun. She feared her father would no longer be proud of her. There would be no more hugs and pats on the shoulder. Her brother would laugh at her failure, just as he had laughed at the clown in the circus last week. Then, her father would be upset with her mother for not preparing good food, and her mother would be disappointed with her for failing to bring the chillies. She might never be allowed to go out again, not for shopping, and not even to the park.

“No! We must bring the chillies home,” she told her Barby.

Her mother needed the chillies before the lentil soup started to boil. She couldn’t afford to waste more time. Returning home for ‘exactly two rupees’ was no longer an option. She looked at the note again, more carefully this time. Suddenly, a clever idea popped into her mustard-oil-scented head. She counted on her fingers again and beamed with pride. Then, she carefully tore the five-rupee note into two equal halves, and each of those halves into two more halves.

She counted the pieces, “One, two, three, four. Four?” Realizing she had only four pieces, she tore one of the pieces into two, making a total of three large pieces and two smaller ones.

Arya dashed back into the shop, squeezing past the women still debating over which tomatoes to buy. She approached Mantu, who was still detailing the strike in Mumbai to a customer. She carefully selected two of the larger pieces from the five she had torn and placed them on the counter.

“I brought ‘exactly two rupees’ for you. Now, can you quickly give me the chillies?” Arya demanded with confidence.

Mantu stopped his story, staring in astonishment at the torn pieces of the note.

“Uncle, I need the chillies now!”

He picked up the two pieces, examining them suspiciously through the thick glasses perched on his nose. Arya grew impatient, unable to understand why Mantu was hesitating. She thought she had given him exactly what he wanted; in fact, she had given him the two largest pieces, which she believed were worth more than ‘exactly two rupees’, yet he was not ready to budge.

“Uncle! The chilies!” Arya shouted.

Mantu stared at Arya with a twisted eyebrow, continuing to gawk at her and the torn pieces of the note. Meanwhile, Arya’s anxiety grew; her mother would be waiting for the chilies, and she hoped the soup hadn’t started boiling yet. She just wanted to grab the chillies and run home as fast as she could.

Suddenly, she heard Mantu burst into wild laughter. He fumbled onions off his scales onto the ground but couldn’t contain himself. Arya looked around to see that all the other women at the counter had joined in, pointing at her and laughing hysterically. Some clapped loudly, while others held onto the charpai to keep from falling over.

Arya’s face turned as red as the tomatoes in the basket. The air around her felt prickly hot. Thick sweat formed on her forehead again, mixing with the mustard oil. Drops of oily sweat clung to her thick black eyebrows. A couple of honey bees hovered and buzzed over her head again, but this time, she didn’t want to scare them away. She tried to focus on the buzzing instead of the laughter, but her concentration shattered when someone from the crowd yelled,

“Your mother is going to beat the hell out of you today!”

Arya couldn’t hold on any longer. Her eyes filled with warm tears. Through her tear-filled eyes, Mantu’s laughing face seemed to grow larger and more distorted. The images of the women in colorful saris, the tomatoes, the potatoes, the torn pieces of notes, and the buzzing bees all blurred together into a chaotic swirl. The colors — blue, black, green, yellow, and red — all flashed in front of her, blinding her from the laughing faces. She could hear Mantu’s raucous laughter, followed by giggles and claps from the women. Even her friendly Barby seemed to be mocking her. She recalled the circus where everyone laughed uncontrollably at the clown’s foolish antics. But now, she was the clown at the center of relentless laughter. She waited for what seemed like an eternity for the first teardrop to trickle down her red cheeks. Then she began wailing — first softly, then loudly.

After regaining some composure, Mantu picked up the onions that had spilled onto the ground. He grabbed a fresh white polyethylene bag and dropped a handful of green chillies into it. He then reached into his shirt pocket, searching until he found a crisp new five-rupee note. Tearing off a piece of paper from his billing pad, he wrote in his semi-legible handwriting, “Mrs. Jena, you owe me five rupees for the new note I gave to your daughter. Consider the chillies free.” Beneath the message, he scribbled a couple of symbols meant to be his initials. Still chuckling, he folded the paper and looked up at Arya, whose face had shriveled up like a dry tomato. She was wailing uncontrollably, her eyes swollen. Dark smudges of kohl mixed with tears had smeared across her face, some even reaching her lips and mixing with the snot in her nose.

Mantu looked at the note he was about to hand Arya, paused, and glanced at her again. He seemed lost for a moment as he turned his head towards the family photo hanging near the image of Goddess Laxmi. In it, he stood beside his wife, holding their three-year-old daughter, who also appeared to be crying. With a wry chuckle, he crumpled the piece of billing paper quietly, dropping it on the floor.

“Aye, shh, don’t cry, little Arya. Don’t cry,” Mantu said, taking Arya’s hand.

He handed her the chillies in the polyethylene bag along with the crisp new five-rupee note and the torn pieces, smiling benignly.

“Take these home and tell your mother what happened. She won’t be angry, trust me.”

“What happened? That’s what I don’t know!” Arya thought to herself. Without saying anything, she took the bag and the money from Mantu. She clasped the new note tightly in her palm, still puzzled about what had been wrong with her original note. Did she not count the ‘exactly two rupees’ correctly? She could count all the way to one hundred. How could she have failed at counting to two? Or was it the size of the notes that was wrong? She wondered as she squeezed past the still-laughing women in colorful saris. There was a brief moment of silence as she left the shop.

Then, suddenly, everyone burst into another round of laughter. But Arya only wailed louder, still unable to comprehend what had gone wrong. Wearing her bright pink but oversized sandals, she walked briskly towards home.