Eudaimonia | Mandira Pattnaik

When I’m alone, I welcome ghosts of the haunted banyan, devour their hunger, their unsatiated passions, and when I’m done consuming, I string their memories into a long-beaded string because they tell me so, to hang around their girth. Only the ghosts are simulacrums, pointing me to join in the mirth of a hundred sunrays as they sieve through their leaves drawing an unverifiable mosaic on the soil bed below; the grass just beyond lush, dew glistening like gold dust.
The newly varnished chair on the verandah, where I sit now, smells faintly of Woodberry. Of childhood abandon! How the girls teased I’d be married early, and Ayn was the loudest. How I thought otherwise, dreamed of a life and choices of my own. Like Ayn.
Ayn? Ayn insisting on meeting, that call last night, twenty years after we parted, first time since school, the way the conversation unfolded…
Ayn succeeded in life, travelled, held top corporate positions, found time to get married, a daughter. Who would not be proud to have such a friend?
Breakfast, and seeing the husband off, I fetch the tea-set unused since long, for we don’t entertain guests. We like our solitude. Or so we believe. And now, to have her home, this humble place, apartment block for the working class—how I wish I’d made some excuse the umpteenth time.
Gusts of cold wind blow in, unmistakable harbinger of winter, carrying Sulphur from the not-so-distant chimneys, dark against the flaky white clouds traversing the sky.
The sky, endless, dreamy, waits to tell me a tale, if I would listen. Would I? No!
I fasten the kitchen window. The latch needs a repairman, but I make do.
Until late afternoon, the ghosts hover around me as I ponder if I really want to meet her, expose the promising girl I once was, and who now, having accomplished nothing, runs a humble household.
Having reached nowhere, and with thoughts of if she’ll pity me, I get dressed in something the husband brought for me a year ago, still unused, a pink-and-ivory skirt and blouse.
Placing the kettle on the stove, I survey the kitchen, the order, bearing my touch, tastes, love. How was Ayn’s house? Must be bigger, what riches to show!
My ghosts remind me I’m happy—what if I didn’t become what I wanted, a banker, somewhere abroad. I tell myself every day I’m happy with what I got.
My hungry memories don’t hesitate to fill my hours. They tell me what could be and what isn’t.
I keep thinking of answers. I practice the things I’ll tell her should she ask, be curious of my plain life.
The bell rings. I open the door to a woman smartly dressed.
“Ha-llo, Szu! You-are-still-so-beautiful!”
Ayn at her exuberant best. Just the same as years ago.
“Twenty years? Is it true or am I dreaming?” she continues, loud, shrill, “And what a pretty home, peace and—and—”
She tells me excitedly.
I love the way she is, comfortable in pastel blue pant-suit, hair tied loosely, mouth dark magenta, deep-set eyes, kohl-lined heavily.
Ayn reclines on the sofa, looks around the place. I guess she is evaluating the picture of quiet domesticity.
“Szu! Just as we all had predicted!”
“That’s right, Ayn. You knew me better than… Tell me about yourself. How is Jaye? And little Tanni?”
“Husband is in Dubai. Tanni’s just turned three! Mum keeps home for me. By the way, remember? My wedding anniversary today!”
Ayn winks, lowers her head to enact the part of a coy bride.
We laugh.
“Of course, I do.”
I think of why I’d not attended, in spite of her sending me air tickets to travel. I remember my best dress, and how shabby it was, how I’d cried.
“Let’s then have our own little party here! I’ll bring in scones I’ve made for you. Don’t you love them as you did?” I say with enthusiasm.
She licks her lips.
From the kitchen, I watch her.
Dusk light paints her face in a different shade, looking older for her age, stressed. Eyes, with bags, under layers of makeup—excesses of her life showed.
“Ayn, to you! To a happy life!” I say as I bring in the tea-tray.
“To tell you the truth, Szu, I was absolutely famished.”
Perhaps Ayn had skipped lunch. I feel an unexplainable empathy for her as I watch her gobble the spread.
“Well Ayn, how dull you must find this city after all the places you have been!”
“One feels for the place one grows up in. But then, money, my friend, is never enough!”
“Proud of you, Ayn. Of your success!”
We giggle. At the same instant, tears roll down.
Without bothering to rein in her emotions, Ayn says,
“Tell me, have you seen a soccer star after the first goal has been scored? The relentless pursuit, frenzied motion, burning eyes, sheer pace? I am like that. There’s no stopping now. To tell you the truth, Szu, I’m tired — very — tired.”
She is now howling.
I gather her in a tight embrace.
Ayn’s voice trails on, “I am exhausted, Szu. Consumed. A kernel really.”
I comfort her, tuck the loose ends of her hair.
When Ayn is better, she gets up to leave. I plead,
“Do stay, Doris will be absolutely delighted to meet you!”
“Sorry, friend. I’d, if I didn’t have a meeting this evening. Don’t feel hurt, please don’t!”
“… only on the promise you stay with us on your next trip.”
“Certainly, Szu.”
Ayn powders her nose. With another coat of color on her lips, bids adieu and fades into the thin mist and darkness descending on the street.
The chaos of rickshaws, the traffic and emotions cloud my sight.
I brace myself, walk round the apartment switching on lights, ensuring windows are fastened.
It feels warm. Cozy. The embrace of pleasant, the contours by which all maladies are kept away.
I watch the chimneys at a distance, still spewing, spitting at my bare existence. The sky, endless, dreamy, waiting still to tell me a tale, if I would listen.
Am I happy?

Mandira Pattnaik's nonfiction work has appeared in Emerson Review (Pushcart-nominated), Timber Journal (Pushcart-nominated), Pithead Chapel, Common Ground Review and Hypertext Magazine, while fiction has appeared in Wigleaf Top 50 (2023, 2025), Quarterly West (Prose Contest 2025 Runner-up), The Rumpus, The McNeese Review, IHLR, and The Cincinnati Review. Longlisted in 2025 Commonwealth Prize, she writes across categories and genres.

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