Pritika Rao
It was in the Tamil month of Aadi that my mother fell and broke her back. “Not auspicious,” she grumbled. But that was the least of our concerns, given that my brother had just killed himself a week prior. And so it happened that while other women were out shopping for sarees and gold, I was trying to locate an old sofa.
I was already in town because of Anna’s death. I extended my leave to care for Amma, aware that my manager assumed this was an elaborate excuse. He was unfamiliar with the oddities that marked my family and how unnecessary it would be for me to fib. In fact, I had downplayed the whole incident. All I’d said was that my brother had died while vacationing in Thailand.
I did not say that this was an assumption, that he had disappeared, and that his body had not yet been found. All they’d found was a Ziploc bag containing his phone and wallet, set neatly on his folded clothes on the seashore.
***
To most, Anna’s antics were a cautionary tale. And if you looked at him from the outside, he’d appear that way. His dishevelled appearance mirrored his attitude. He bunked classes, forgot to complete homework, failed his exams, and refused to participate in sports or extracurricular activities. A sour expression coloured his face constantly. Dropout, loner, dreamer, drifter. He was called all sorts of things. “Kulambu” probably stuck the longest—a word that referred to a hodgepodge gravy of spices, vegetables and lentils. The main ingredient in a kulambu, however, is the tamarind. I thought this name suited him best. He ran with bad company but there was so much good in him too. I saw it. This rebellion continued through two half-finished bachelors’ degrees. He maintained a cool confidence in the face of all these monikers, for the most part. Occasionally, he would run off—but he’d always come back.
Later in life, I would ask him why he didn’t try harder to fit in. To the family, to conventional ways of being. And Anna would say he only ever wanted to fit into his own skin. That there’s a price you pay for the freedom to live your life the way you wanted to.
When I was six years old, and he was thirteen, we took a trip to the local aquarium in our white Maruti Omni van. Anna had wanted to go to the planetarium instead, but had been vetoed, so he sulkily declared that aquariums were pointless; who cared about fish anyway? Appa told him to shut up. Anna stared out the window at the passing roadside network of stray dogs, cows and wires.
At the aquarium, he pulled me by the elbow to a large tank which contained a plastic castle, intentionally lopsided on a bed of gravel. An Indian flag had been hoisted on the turret. Neon tetras darted through the water, and our eyes followed them. “Ooh, colourful fishies,” I squealed. “Look carefully, what colours do you see?” I named them all—green, pink, yellow, orange. “Fleuressent”, I stressed.
“They’re all dyed. Fake,” he whispered. I looked at them innocently fluttering about, like scrap fabric in tailoring shops. The water in the tank itself looked too blue to be true. I couldn’t unsee it. “But now you’ve ruined it for me,” I whined. “Good”, he replied plainly. “Don’t believe everything you see.”
***
“Have you found the sofa yet?” Amma asked, trying to scratch her back with the fork I’d given her, with a plate of mangoes. “We haven’t found his body yet, and you’re concerned about a stupid sofa?” I scolded her. “What’s this obsession about anyway?” She tugged at a long hair on her chin. “If I could get my hands on that bloody umbilical cord, I would wrap my fingers around it and drag him back to me, just like that.” She snapped her spindly fingers. “When he was in my belly, he stretched it out wide. He was the first one in there, and the marks they covered me like patchwork, as if he was carving me out from the inside. The two of you were much smaller, so the damage you inflicted went unnoticed. And he always stayed more to the light of the linea nigra. Makes perfect sense, his right brain and all.”
With that, she yanked her chin hair out and gazed at it for a second before she tossed it to the floor.
***
When Anna was born, Appa had just set up the travel agency. It was spread over two modestly-sized rooms, covered in felt carpeting with a dusty brown air conditioner that gave you a migraine. One room had a welcome desk, a plastic flower arrangement, and countless brochures. The other was an office space, with two computers and two telephones for local and ISD. On the walls were pictures of white-skinned families wearing sun hats and skipping across fields. Photos of the wonders of the world were plastered on every available surface, accompanied by our name in red and yellow—Columbus Tours & Travels. That was also Anna’s name.
Amma maintains that Anna was named first, before he emerged from the womb. Appa contradicted that narrative, insisting that Anna was named after the business. Either way, the onomastics do not matter. Being christened Columbus in a Tamil town foreshadows a life prone to suspicion and scrutiny. And when Anna failed (which he did—multiple times and at nearly everything), Appa told him it was his responsibility to live up to his namesake—the successful family tours and travels company. Businesses and families can crumble under pressure. The business dwindled during the pandemic and Anna, as usual, vanished from our lives. I believe that the name itself was cursed. Truthfully, Columbus, too, was lost most of the time.
When Appa set up a modest restaurant to offset the losses of Columbus Tours & Travels, he gave it a generic name—Mukesh Sweets & Savouries. “It is not generic. It is a multimillionaire’s name. That’s important. Ask any numerologist.” We decided not to rehash old habits and set aside arguments on nomenclature, but the debts began to accrue, eating away at Appa’s will to live. I was convinced that Appa’s stroke was what prompted Anna to return, although he was far too proud to admit to it. Appa now lies in the room at the far end of the house, hooked up to a ventilator that we don’t know how long we can afford. Anna promises he will succeed this time. At what? We don’t ask. “My numerology number is 8+1 now,” he declares. “Leadership. Ambition. Completion. You’ll see.” And so, Appa’s son and business (both reincarnated beings) put up a strong fight as Amma and I watch, hoping this time will be different. That is, until he disappeared again.
***
“You must find that sofa, it was the last place he sat,” Amma repeated before I went to bed, having given her the nightly dose of her colourful pills—blue, yellow, red, green. I recalled the neon tetras as she gulped them down, chasing them with water. I imagined them swimming in the blue of her stomach, churning round and round until she exploded, and there was just fluffy cotton and upholstery fabric from that ridiculous sofa floating everywhere.
The next morning, I was woken by a phone call. They had not located a body, but there was a receipt for a sofa tucked behind the phone cover—the sofa was synthetic, navy blue with a mango motif. They’d send over more details.
“He’s pocketed it, I knew it.” Amma tut-tutted and thumped her thigh with her arm. “I knew it, all my veins have turned from green to a blue–purple, can you see it? Look at them, it’s a sign they’re running deep, tracing him back to me, like a map. I knew it, I knew it.” If I told my manager that my mother had lost her mind now, he would most definitely fire me.
Amma’s exaggerated chattering continued into the late afternoon. I was preparing tea when the doorbell rang. I peered through the peephole to see a delivery person from Anna’s logistics company. Atlas A to Z. Perhaps to sort out something legal?
“Madam, delivery. You Sheela?” Behind the man is a large moving van, and I hear the sound of other men shuffling in the back.
“Please don’t be a corpse.” I think to myself.
I wipe my hands on my kurta and nod.
“Yes, Sheela,” I say tentatively.
“Please sign,” he shoves a pad at me and walks back to the van.
I glance over the page and find that the sender’s details are blank. I look up to hand it back to him. My eyes and jaw are wrenched open in shock.
“Is it the sofa?” her raspy voice echoes from the room.
“Yes,” I called back, my voice shaking. “How did you—”
“I knew it, I knew it. Ask them to put it in here.”
I follow the men who drop it unceremoniously in the middle of Amma’s room and walk away. Amma opens the bedside drawer and pulls out a knife. She lunges at the sofa and rips it apart. “Amma!” I yell as she rips the upholstery apart.
“What is this –”
“Your bac–”
And then, no words follow because stacks of money tumble out of the sofa onto our floor.
“Madam, something else. For you?” the man at the door calls.
I’d forgotten he was there. I walk back to the door in shock. He points to a box by the door. “Careful, madam. Fragile,” he cautions. I tilt my neck to read the label. From the corner of my eye, I see another delivery agent make his way over to me. I expect it to be another consignment form to sign for. Instead, he hands me a clear plastic bag filled with water. I gasp.
“What is it?” she calls out.
“Neon tetras,” I say.
“I knew it. I knew it.”
Pritika Rao is an economist and freelance writer who lives in Bangalore, India. Her work has been published in two anthologies: A Case of Indian Marvels, by Aleph Book Company, and Constellations, by The Written Circle. She was shortlisted for the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and won second prize in the 2018 Sunday Herald Short Story Competition. She was also runner-up for the Soup Short Fiction Contest in 2023 and longlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize in 2025. Her works of fiction have been published in adda, The Bangalore Review, and Beetle Magazine, while her poetry has appeared in Gulmohur Quarterly, Madras Courier, and The Alipore Post, among others. She has also written articles and essays for Vogue, Elle, Tweak, The Times of India, The Soup, and more. Instagram: @pritikasuzanne; X: @PritikaRao; Substack: https://substack.com/@actuallythough
