Rajshekar - The Grudging Garment - chapter 11- The Chronicles of the Youngest Child
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He was at the tailor’s with the cloth material that Amma had given him. This tailor, Mr. Bangera, had had his shop in the same spot for many years. Daddy used to get his own shirts stitched by him. Raj was standing at the entrance with the cloth in a plastic bag. He was hesitant to enter. He looked down at the bag and, through the gap between his hand and the opening, saw the lavender flowers peep up. Thinking that this was not for a shirt, he stood in the same spot, hesitant. The tailor was busy with another customer, so Raj still had a minute in which his thoughts went back to the time he had first asked for new clothes.
When he had told Amma that he wanted to buy a couple of shirts about three months back, she told him that he still had the clothes from when he had come back from Bangalore in his box. So, he wore those clothes without complaining.
Now, the evening before his visit to the tailor, he was wearing one of those shirts and could feel across his torso that it had become tighter. Maybe he was getting bigger because that was normal, or maybe he had relaxed into his life in Bombay now. He could definitely feel that his shoulders were very squeezed in the shirt and had even had to open a couple of buttons to be able to fit into it. He stood in front of Amma and in front of the mirror and said that it was high time he had another couple of shirts.
Amma thought that buying a readymade shirt was unnecessary for a boy who would outgrow it in another six months. And she preferred the shirts the tailors stitched anyway, as they seemed to last longer. So she rummaged through some of the wholesale cloth material that she still had at the back of the cupboard and pulled out the different options.
Raj did not think any of them were appropriate. Everything looked like what his younger sister wore, and he did not know what to tell his mother. She did not seem to get the idea that it was okay to buy something especially meant for him. All she felt was, why buy something new when there is cloth at home? She convinced him that the pale yellow material with the very small flower detailing would pass for a boy of his age.
Raj looked at her and decided that he would rather have a new shirt than no shirt at all. Luckily, he had his school uniform dress pants that were long enough, and so he did not need new pants. This yellow material would have to do. He would at least have one new shirt that fit.
His thoughts were back at the present moment when Bangera Uncle addressed him. He walked up to the counter and pulled out the material. Uncle asked Raj his full name and, when he heard "Warrior from I.C.Colony", uncle said that he did not even know that Mr. Warrior had a fifteen year old son.
Raj was used to that. No one in the colony knew him, except the children in his own building.
As he got measured for his new shirt, Raj looked at himself in the mirror behind the tailor’s counter. He then looked at all the shirts hanging neatly on hangers, freshly sewn. None looked like what his shirt would look like. He closed his eyes and countered his thoughts and convinced himself that he was getting too obsessed with the whole business of what was suitable and what was not. It was exhausting.
He even reminded himself, in gratitude, that Amma had not insisted on stitching him a shirt as she usually stitched his siblings’ clothes and that they would spend money on this tailor for him.
He left the shop with the paper receipt in his pocket. The shirt would be ready in three days. He could not wait to have something new.
This is a series about my older brother Rajshekar who passed away in 2019.
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You may enjoy all previous chapters here
and
Rajshekar - Back Home in Bombay - chapter 10 - The Chronicles of the Youngest Child
or you can read something completely different about someone I interviewed...
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