Look Maa, No Hands

Khushi Bajaj

The first hole appeared when I was in the fourth standard—during an English spelling test, to be exact. It was right in the middle of my palm, just small enough that I would have to squint through it if I wanted to see the teacher’s silhouette against the black board. I felt a small wave of sadness tug at my chest and then put a pencil through it to amuse the kids sitting around me. I had seen Manish from 4-A become a star by putting two pencils up his nose and making them stay, so I knew that this action would be rewarded by giggles. It also ended up being rewarded with a trip to the principal’s office, where my parents were called and told about how I had been purposefully distracting kids during a test.

The ride home was a silent one, until my Maa finally turned around and asked, “What was the magic trick that they were talking about?” 

“I put a pencil through my hand.” 

“Is this like when we pretend that our thumb has been cut off?” 

“Rina, how does it matter?” my dad did not look away from the road, “this is the third time we have been called to the school this year. She is on track to break last year’s record.”

When I noticed the second hole, I was practicing the group dance sequence for my cousin’s wedding. I was fifteen, and the hole was just a centimeter away from the first one. 

“Do you see this?” I asked her sister-in-law-to-be, holding up my left hand and pointing towards it with my right. She ducked instead of answering.

“What is wrong with you, Sana?” Binni Didi dragged me out of the room, “you can’t joke around with Anisha like this.” 

The third and fourth came together, a week after I started college. I wore a glove to all my first semester classes. In the second semester, I fell in love with Amish and one day when we were cuddling on his bed, I decided to take it off. “Amish,” I asked, touching my left hand to his cheek, “do you think this makes me weird?” 

“Nothing could ever make you weird,” he replied and kissed my knuckles. I smiled and sunk deeper into his chest, where I stayed till four months later. 

“Another one appeared,” I told him when we were out on a date. He looked at me blankly, and I put the tip of my napkin through the fifth hole to demonstrate. “How are you doing that?” he asked. I broke up with both him and the glove that night. 

I never mentioned my hand to anyone else for the next two years, which was surprisingly easy since it never came up in casual or academic conversations. Holes six, seven, and eight made their way into my hand without any hesitation.

When I came back home after graduating, I waited for my dad to fall asleep before I went into my parents’ room. 

“Maa, do you think there is anything different about my left hand? Look at it closely, please?”

“Yes, I do,” she ran her thumb across my fingers, “both your hands used to be so soft, but now they are hardened because of all the work that you have been doing. I hope you know that we are proud of you.” She leaned in to kiss my forehead, but I took her finger and put it through my palm. Her eyes went wide and she jerked herself up to take me to my room. 

“Show me again,” she demanded, and when I did she started crying, “I need to talk to your father.” 

When my father woke up, he heard my mom out, asked her to show what she was talking about, and then declared that we needed a priest to come the next morning. More holes appeared while we were waiting for him, but I had stopped counting. 

After the priest settled in, he asked, “Have you recently had a family member die?” and all three of us shook our heads. 

“In that case it is a stranger’s spirit. When did you first notice these occurrings?” This was directed at my parents, not me, but I decided to answer anyway

“When I was in the fourth standard—”

“Last night,” my dad cut me off. 

The priest held up a hand, “It could be the spirit speaking, please don’t interrupt.” 

“There is no spirit.” I said softly, my eyes looking at the ground. 

“Okay, okay, seems like we will need a bigger hawan than I had initially imagined.” He gravely added a few items to the list that he had been carrying in his bag and handed it to my dad. The saamagri was bought, two days of rituals took place, and more holes appeared. When he asked at the end if I felt free of anyone else’s control, I said yes. And then made that happen a month later by getting a placement two towns away. 

There were enough holes now for sunlight and water to obviously pass through, so I started clenching my fist whenever I was out in public. After I accidentally scratched myself too many times, I stopped getting manicures and started keeping my nails really short. I taught myself how to wash my face using only my right hand and made friends who I could watch movies with and attend the weddings of and then throw baby showers for and go on picnics with. I could no longer tell which holes were new or old.

When Binni Didi called me crying, I knew Maa had passed. She had been unwell the last time I visited, but I had not known that this would be the end. I booked my train ticket and was zipping my suitcase when I noticed the hole in my right hand. My best guess was that the left one had run out of space, and by the time I reached home both my hands looked exactly the same. The house was full of people, so I had to make sure to only wipe my tears with my fingers, and when they started getting holes as well I stopped crying altogether because I couldn’t lock my room. Multiple relatives were sharing it with me. 

Two weeks later, when everyone left, the tears did not come back. When my father tried to get me to hug him while he sobbed, I patted his head, careful not to caress it and give him a chance to realize that his hair is going through my hands. I went to bed after he fell asleep but got up in the middle of the night and decided to go through my mother’s cupboard. Saris and suits spilled out, each one smelling more and more like her. Beneath them was a half-finished maroon sweater in a child’s size. My mother had tried to knit it for me when I was in school but had never really managed to finish. The needles were still sticking out where she had quit on it, so I took them out and started unravelling the wool. 

Once it became a pile of twine, I picked it up and put it through one of the holes in my left hand. And then another, and another, until it was time to tie a knot at my wrists. I repeated the same steps with my right hand and then kept the rest of the material in my purse. 

A part of me wanted to leave without telling anyone, but I packed my suitcase and shook my father awake. He was still rubbing his eyes, so maybe a verbal goodbye would have sufficed. But I knew I was not coming back and that’s why, when I reached the gate, I made sure to turn around to look at him and wave.