The Tale of a Lunch Box

Rinka opened her red lunch box with lily white cover, one glimpse and a mass of dark clouds gathered on her face. It was the same dry chappati and potato fry. She pushed it back and snorted derisively. She looked at her friend’s lunch box, well not friend but with whom she had to share a table according to her teacher’s instruction, spiralled noodles slathered with dollops of ketchup and shreds of fried egg. She wanted to reach out and stuff her mouth with those delicious looking noodles, but she knew what would happen next so she tamed the little monster rising in her. Rinka was always thankful that she alone was privy to her satanic thoughts. She closed her lunch box and put it in the bag. At home she knew that in the evening her mother would ask her for the lunch box. She had to wash it clean for the next school day. If her mother found she had brought back the lunch box just the way she packed it she would have her ears pulled till it went beetroot red. After all, everyday her mother woke up when the sun was still stretching its hands languorously after a peaceful slumber. With lights on, she would the knead the dough and prepare freshly made chappatis and something to go with it before she had to rush out to do an eight-hour gruelling shift. But Rinka was never a thoughtful child. She took the chappatis out of the box and put it in the deep secretive folds of her text books. She couldn’t put it in the garbage bin as it was taken out daily and she would get caught. It was just not this one instance, always a terrible eater she had the habit of hiding, disposing of food she didn’t like. Her parents’ everyday ten-minute harangue before dinner, how they should consider themselves lucky never to go hungry a single day, while there are others who struggle to get a decent meal, fell on deaf ears. Sometimes her mother would serve her rice and move on to do other chores. It was just the moment she would wait for. Naked feet, she would take soft padded steps just like their neighbour’s cat, and empty the plate in the drain. She would then run the water in full force so that the food flows out to the main drain. Once or twice her mother had cast doubt over her polished plate but she was too washed out to play the sleuth. Then one day she was sitting at the table dressed in her creaseless skirt and lemon scented white shirt, her mother had used some lemon soap and she couldn’t stop sinking her nose in it, when her mother served her a mound of rice with piping hot yellow lentils and fried aubergine. Food was always simple but fresh before she left for school. She took a few mouthfuls, and decided it was enough. Her ears tried to trace her mother’s whereabouts. She was in the bedroom getting dressed up, she had to leave for work soon. She would not be out of her room for another ten minutes, that was enough time for Rinka to put her plan into action. There was an enormous cavern in the centre of the backyard, the best place to dump the food without a chance of getting caught. After all, who would go and peek into that cavity. She gingerly and stealthily walked towards the hole and was ready to throw the food into it, when her legs slipped on the loose earth and she fell into the dump with a thud. Her clean dress was now smeared with filth, her hair disarranged and she smelled of garbage. Worst, it was so deep she couldn’t climb out of it without any assistance. Her mendacity and deception caught up with her. Her cries of help pierced the mellow morning air and reached her mother. She ran out of the house, her body shaking like a leaf in wind. She tried to figure out from where the desperate cries were coming. Ma, I am here in the damp, Rinka cried her voice trembling with fear. When her mother came to the edge of the hole, and saw her with the big round stainless plate in her hand, she knew what was it all about. Terror mixed with hot molten anger run through her body. She could see her mother’s rage engorged face, and thought would it better for her to stay in the hole forever than face the heat of her wrath. Of course, her mother pulled her out with all her strength. Her mother didn’t hit her, nor did she give her an earful but her trust in her was broken into tiny fragments like glass. The trust which Rinka could never win back.