Anuja Varghese looks at death, life & the shackles of identity in this original short story

Meditations on a Lake is an original short story by Anuja Varghese. It is part of Identity, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts. 

“I did some freewriting to see what was coming to the surface around this theme of ‘subverting identities.’ The story that emerged revolves around three generations of South Asian women and girls coming together upon the death of their highly respected family’s patriarch. Told from the grandmother’s point of view, the story reveals how each of them, in her own way, is quietly shattering traditional identity shackles (of gender, of culture, of class, of sexuality) and forging new possibilities for who they can be,” Varghese told CBC Books.

CBC’s IDEAS will host an episode featuring participants from this original series.

Varghese’s short story collection Chrysalis won the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. 

You can read more works from the Identity series here.

WARNING: This story contains references to domestic violence.

Meditations on a Lake

I am watching the lake move through the open window in the kitchen. It’s a million-dollar view. Literally. I know this because the lady lawyer told me to have the house appraised. Arjun never spoke to me about financial matters, always said I didn’t have a head for numbers. He bought the house on the lake 45 years ago and I have been watching the water through these big windows ever since. It is blue by day, black by night, and sometimes glows purple and yellow and red by sunset. The lake is a bruise; a reflection of my skin. It is a constant, violent comfort. It crashes and it shines and every year, it erodes the foundation of this beautiful house a little more. I always thought that someday, it might swallow me up, and I had made peace with that.

The lake is a bruise; a reflection of my skin. It is a constant, violent comfort. It crashes and it shines and every year, it erodes the foundation of this beautiful house a little more.

“Aap taiyaar hoja, Ma?” Are you ready? My son’s words are soft, but his grip on my arm is too hard. He is so much like his father. I know this from the way his pretty wife flinches when he touches her; from the way she stares at the lake and recognizes her body there too. 

I release the urn I have been clutching and my son releases me. We named him Adam. Our first-born. Then, after several failures, our only-born. His success (and he is so very successful) is our success; everyone knows it. What is there to complain about when we have been so blessed? What is there left to wish for? What is there to fear? 

I follow Adam outside, onto the dock, where my daughter-in-law is waiting. Behind us, the screen door slams and my granddaughter picks her way down the hill towards the dock to join us. She is wearing ripped jeans with an oversized button-down shirt and a wide belt. A pair of gold bangles pilfered from my dresser glints on her wrist and there is a sheen of pink gloss on her lips, a hint of shadow making her eyelids glitter. She slouches, all boredom and defiance. Not an ounce of grief.

Behind us, the screen door slams and my granddaughter picks her way down the hill towards the dock to join us. She is wearing ripped jeans with an oversized button-down shirt and a wide belt.

I see Adam’s jaw tighten. He doesn’t know what to do with this child. His only son. His only-born. Confusion makes him angry. Anger makes him liquid — cold, changeable, a danger. I see the wave building in him, but before it can crash from his mouth, I say quietly, “Come, let’s begin. Before it rains.”

He huffs, but he is solid again, stoic, as he gives a eulogy for his father. The wind picks up and the lake smashes against the rocks, almost drowning him out. It has concealed so many things over the years — secrets and screaming and the sound a head makes when it hits a wall. Also — the silly things women chit-chat about while sipping sangria at the end of a dock, things like recipes and charity fundraisers and the name of a lady lawyer and whose children are marrying who.

My son pours the contents of the urn into the lake and we watch Arjun’s ashes float, scum-like on the surface, then sink, swallowed up. He will have to make peace with that, I suppose, among other things.

He huffs, but he is solid again, stoic, as he gives a eulogy for his father. The wind picks up and the lake smashes against the rocks, almost drowning him out.

Adam has to go back to the city, back to work, but the other two will stay with me for a few weeks, here, at the house, to help me pack. He doesn’t think I can live here alone, with my old body and my empty head. He has a very nice seniors’ residence in mind for me. He is quite certain that Arjun has left the house to him. But I don’t think that’s true. That’s not what I told the lady lawyer anyway. Poor Arjun, he was so confused at the end. It was good I was there to speak for him, to make sure his last wishes were known. 

It starts to rain and Adam strides back towards the house. We three remain and there is a terrible weight, a shared guilt, at all that is to come. But also — a giddiness, a freedom I haven’t felt in 45 years. I have never been a surprising woman, nor a brave one. But it’s never too late to become something new. I take my granddaughter’s hand and turn my back on the lake. I never liked the view much anyway. 

For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services. ​​If you’re in immediate danger or fear for safety or that of others around you, please call 911.

About Anuja Varghese

Anuja Varghese is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer and editor based in Hamilton, Ont. Her work has been widely published in Canadian and international literary magazines and her debut short story collection titled Chrysalis was released last year. Chrysalis won the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. 

The English-language books that won the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Awards in many respects reflect on the idea of changing or shifting identity. 

CBC Books asked the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Awards winners to reflect further on the theme of identity in original works. The special series explores the complex ways we maintain, construct and subvert who we are and what we represent in the outside world. Meditations on a Lake was Anuja Varghese’s contribution to the series.