by Nillu Nasser
It angered her. It angered her that Soraya had taken Akash from her. That she had a son and a successful business. That she was beautiful. It did not seem fair. Nothing was fair. Soraya had thrived, while she had struggled. She doubted whether a single scar marred that perfect body.
Ravi had followed her out onto the street. “Are you okay?” he said, concern etched on his face.
“No, I’m not okay! I’m not okay!” Akash had a son. He and Soraya had created something she had always wanted. A loving relationship, a family of their own. How could this be fair after all she had been through? She wanted to be by herself. She began walking. She didn’t want to stay there outside the restaurant.
“What’s the matter, Jaya?” His fingers grazed her shoulder. “It’s okay. You don’t have to see me again.”
“You think this is about you?” she spat. How could he be so self-involved when her whole world had taken on a new shape? Jaya spun to face him. She lost her footing and tumbled to the floor. Her skirt crumpled around her thighs revealing her scars, pitted white skin amongst smooth brown patches. Horrified, Jaya checked to see if she had been seen.
Ravi rushed over to help. A group of teenagers passing by sniggered.
“Look at her. She looks like a cow.”
“Nothing holy about that.”
Ravi turned on them. “Leave her alone!”
To Jaya, he said. “Let me help you up.” He reached over to readjust her skirt, his eyes focused slightly to the left of where she lay sprawled.
She smarted. He didn’t even want to look at her. “Take a good look, go on! See if you still like me.”
He averted his eyes.
“No? I thought so. I don’t need romance, okay? I told you already. I open myself up to someone new, I get hurt. That’s just life. I give my love and I get punctured. And I don’t recover. Why does everyone always think people recover?” Her voice trembled and she hated herself for it.
“Jaya...”
“Go! Just go!” She picked herself up, anger coursing through her veins, vengeance even.
Ravi walked away, shaking his head.
I am enough, just as I am. I am enough chanted her internal voice, over and over. But she didn’t feel enough. They would all be sorry. She would not open herself to new suitors. She would never divulge the secrets of her past to a stranger, never let anyone see the marks on her skin, the curdled milky white of her legs, the jagged lines on her torso that reminded her of a shark bite when she dared to look at her naked body in the mirror. She would not open herself up to pain.
Chapter 11
Akash pressed his face hard against the window. He stood there for over an hour, his breath misting over the pane as he devoured the picture of family bliss in front of him. The objects of his interest immersed themselves in the hustle and bustle of family life, so much so they did not notice him. Soon they would chase him away, shouting obscenities, the mother fearful and the father full of rage. Little did they know Akash was no monster. He was a weary, broken man. He breathed in the everyday happiness of strangers because his had been lost to him the day he ran.
He was perhaps forty-six years old, but he and Tariq rarely marked their birthdays, and with no wife or children to spoil him, his certainty waned. His memories fragmented and the years fell away like a snake shedding its skin. The seasons came and went. His friendship with Tariq buoyed him, and he no longer needed wider social interaction, but love, he missed love. Long ago he had decided he could not live without love. It had taken painful years to accept his wife’s death. Now, with Jaya an ever-present ghost in his mind, he looked for Soraya, hoping to salvage something of the man he had been. He searched for her for so long he lost track of time, until even Tariq did not understand his driving need.
Akash walked the streets of the city, a haggard, foul-smelling man with yellowed, crumbling teeth, wearing his shame like a comfortable old coat. Self-important businessmen strode past him in dark, tailored suits, an army of men with tiny mobile phones pressed to their ears, moving fast and rendering him invisible. He revelled in his invisibility, grateful for it. He disappeared into the cracks and crevices of the bustling city, mingling with the dust from the stinking streets, merging with the spicy vapours that rose from Bombay’s kitchens and restaurants and street corners.
He wished at these moments of invisibility to disappear altogether, but his bond with Tariq kept him from the precipice of suicide, as well as the hope that he could one day have what he had given up: a family. Not even the oblivion of sleep soothed him. His only joy arose from his nightly escapades to the families of Bombay, witnessing them love and argue and comfort each other. Sometimes he pretended he was their grandfather, out on an errand to bring sweets home for the children, jelabi perhaps, or some mango lassi. These moments of make-believe became a balm for his soul. Akash dove deep into their worlds for as long as possible each night, sustained by their lives, rooting and hurting for them. His alienation was complete.
Tonight had come to pass like every other night since he lost it all. As darkness fell, he made his way through the city’s streets in the sticky air, drawn to a white-washed bungalow in Juhu he hadn’t visited before.
“I know you don’t like me doing this, Jaya. I’ll be careful, I promise,” he said out loud. It had become his habit to speak to Jaya. Somehow, their separation did not seem so final that way. Apart from Tariq, she was his sounding board. He didn’t need or expect an answer from her.
Glittering white lights framed the house as if from a fairy-tale and, as Akash approached, the pungent smell of pink rose bushes overwhelmed him. He crept across the courtyard, camouflaged by the grime and dust that had become his natural attire. It was the best and worst decision he had ever made.
As he peered through the glass, a maid with flour in her hair kneaded dough for roti. A baby slept in a basket, wrapped in a deep orange swaddling blanket despite the heat. Nearby, a young woman in an embroidered salwar kameez, perhaps twenty years of age, sat in a rocking chair. At the table, a man read a newspaper, his dirty bare feet in contrast to the sterile extravagance of the floor tiles. From time to time, he looked up to speak to the woman by the baby. Then an older woman entered the kitchen and Akash’s stomach lurched as if he was riding a ramshackle fairground ride.
“Forgive me, Jaya,” he whispered.
He recognised Soraya before she turned. His mouth fell open in shock and his heart thundered. The hair on the back of his neck rose in anticipation. His chest constricted as he caught her in profile.
She stood taller than the average Indian woman. She pushed her shoulders back with pride and her sari pulled tautly across her body in haughty dismissal of accepted styles for older women.
As she turned towards him, Akash’s head emptied for a moment before an explosion of unwarranted thoughts filled its cavity. Is this my chance at happiness, Jaya? I wish I could be someone else. Someone without my history. Someone cleaner, fitter, richer, more deserving. The old me. His legs shook, and he flailed as his feet became tangled in the fairy-lights, falling against the pane of glass with a dull thud. For a moment he held his breath, considering himself lucky.
Then all hell broke loose.
“Yeh kya hai? Maa, call the guards! Muna, stay inside with the baby!” shouted the man as he grabbed a flour-covered rolling pin from the kitchen worktop and dashed out of the room.
Akash staggered up, held captive by the almond-shaped eyes of his former lover for a long moment before stumbling back into the shadows on feet that didn’t want to do his bidding. She couldn’t have recognised him. Relief replaced his shame at his sad state. He ran, his legs weighted as though submerged in tar, passing landscaped gardens and a swimming pool. He headed for the street, still reeling from the sight of her, and made it onto the gravel drive before the man even reached outside. His pursuer fought against the humidity, slow and heavy, cursing as the gravel slowed his bare-footed progress. Glee bubbled up inside Akash as if from a dormant volcano, uncontr
ollable and unwelcome. He imagined the story he would tell Tariq. Joy at finding a link to his past threatened to send every other emotion into the stratosphere.
He had to get away. Experience taught him the rich were the most vengeful if they caught him. Like gods in their palaces, with iron-wrought fences, sleeping guards and noisy dogs to keep them safe, they rose up in squawking outrage at their pillaged sanctity. Fat, manicured men, with great wealth and photo-ready families, belonging to the ranks of the privileged few in a city where the streets teemed with the god-forsaken. This one continued his cries of outrage as he chased after Akash, driven on by his anger and hatred.
The guards, woken by their master’s shouts, unleashed their snarling hounds. Akash screamed when a large dog, its fur ravaged, sank decaying teeth into his bare leg. Fear filled his belly at last, like a serpent unfurling and stretching deep within him. The young man from the kitchen caught up to him and the men surrounded him, their eyes filled with self-righteous anger. Vice-like they gripped his forearms, paying no heed to the dogs still snapping at his legs. An outbuilding with dimmed lights nestled in bushes a few hundred yards away. There they made their way as Akash’s leg bled and bruises sprang up beneath his skin as if he were an ageing piece of fruit.
He had grown accustomed to this dance. There would be no police: sweet relief. The beating he’d receive would render him unrecognisable, even from his Soraya’s eyes. This amounted to a small mercy. Having looked for her, Akash no longer knew what he wanted, whether he could betray Jaya’s memory in this way. He knew what would happen now. He would become the outlet for his tormentors’ collective rage. They’d guard him selfishly, unleashing their fury until they decided to free him. When it was over, they would nurse their bloodied knuckles with satisfaction and retell the story of this night a thousand times, earning praise from their listeners for the justice they delivered. When the surge of power and pride left their slackening bodies, it would be replaced by seeds of shame, but only in the best of them. Either way, Akash would return to the pink-rose bungalow as soon as his body healed. His self-destructive nature knew no other way.
So it began. Like countless times before, Akash gave himself over to reverie as the men did their worst, but this time his ageing memories of his Soraya intertwined with the ones he had just made. He let himself see her soft body through the vibrant blue of her sari. He breathed a sigh of relief. Jaya might be dead, but Soraya was alive and well. He consoled himself with this as the blows rained down on him.
The men found their rhythm.
It did no good to fight back and Akash took the punishment gladly, not for the crime he had committed by trespassing, but as penance for that ill-fated day long ago when the fire had engulfed Jaya. His blood tasted salty on his lips as they took it in turns to pummel him.
The men grunted from exertion. One struck him with a slipper, and the slap of the leather made Akash groan. The young man from the kitchen lashed out silently, his expression grim. A rib cracked with the ease of glass.
Akash curled up into a ball on the cool stone floor, screwing his eyes shut while he waited for the flurry of punches to stop. He heard a belt-clasp being unfastened and braced himself for the impact.
Stillness filled the room.
A rustle of silk reached his ears.
Akash kept his eyes clenched shut, too afraid to open them.
Chapter 12
Firoz paced the room, taking care to avoid creaky floorboards, stopping to provide encouragement to one student and advice to another. He paused by Jaya’s easel.
“You’re quiet today,” he said, interrupting her train of thought.
She had been conjuring up images of Akash, Soraya and their son. The interruption blew one such image out of her mind in which Akash sat with his family around a dinner table while Soraya fed her toddler squares of torn chapati.
“I’m always quiet,” said Jaya. Blue paint had tinged the pads of her fingers.
“We’ve known each other long enough. Your spirit is compressed today. Your energy still.”
“Any other revelations you have for me?” said Jaya. Her attempt to sweep up her tumbling thoughts with the strokes of her paintbrush had obviously not worked.
Firoz was a yogi, in his sixties, very new age. The type of man who rose at dawn for his sun salutations and stopped painting to contort his body into different shapes. Pupils here learnt not to bat an eyelid when he did downward dogs, tree poses and cat cows in the middle of class. With his long ponytail, harem trousers and loose shirt, he was always yoga-ready.
After all these years, she still found peace in this art studio. Her skill had progressed, and she no longer needed guidance. She continued to come for the sense of community she found here, the freedom. She could have painted at home, but it felt good to cocoon her art away from her mother’s lip curls, to have a home away from home. Being here healed her. Some weeks, Firoz didn’t even take payment from her. They had become friends. The payment he did accept subsidised materials: paints, canvases, the steaming chai he prepared for students at the end of the class. She found ease in their shared passion and her friendship with him.
“I love this game. You tell me my quirks, I tell you yours. Where would you like me to start?” Firoz teased. When she did not respond as playfully as she might have done, he squeezed her shoulder, moving to her side to consider her canvas. “Who is this fine man?” he asked.
She had discarded a landscape she had started, of the outlook from Bandstand across the Arabian Sea, a recurrent theme of hers. Instead, a face emerged from beneath the swirls of her paintbrush, made up of monochrome blues.
Firoz knew her work. He had noticed her talent for life drawings in particular. At the beginning, she had often painted self-portraits. Initially, they had been dark, painted in blacks and greys, her face either in profile or distorted. Over time, her catalogue had grown, and as the years progressed she had realised her colour palette had evolved, becoming brighter. This latest painting presented a regression of sorts.
She had drawn Akash, too, hundreds of times.
The face before them was new for Firoz, just as it was for Jaya. She transcribed it from the picture she saw when she shut her eyes, the image that floated under the nebulous pink of her half-closed eyelids. This likeness proved tough for her to do justice to. She had seen Soraya and Akash’s son only once, after all.
“He has your eyes.”
Jaya resisted the urge to swipe her paintbrush across her work. It wouldn’t do to bring drama into this calm space. She took a deep breath and examined her work. Had she really inserted herself into the picture?
She kept her voice steady and light, baiting him, taking the opposite view to the lectures he gave his students, the ones she had heard a thousand times over. “Oh, to be a computer scientist rather than an artist; to find wonders in binary code rather than the convolutions of life.”
“That’s why we are artists, Jaya, to see the world in all its colours,” said Firoz, his voice gaining volume as he turned their private conversation into fodder for the class. “And to choose which shade represents us. Painting is about perspective, after all.”
He addressed the class, his eyes shining. “How lucky for us that we are Indians!” The class tittered, looking towards the white girl in the corner of the room, the one from Spain with basic Hindi. The Spaniard watched Firoz, riveted, a bright tie-dye scarf wrapped around her neck. He smiled at her apologetically, his hands waving in a flourish as he continued. “Do you ever wonder why there are so many artists, singers, and dancers in our culture? Why every Indian is a poet? It is because our culture, our traditions, suffocate us. Our duties confine us. And so, creativity becomes a conduit. It frees us, allowing us to understand ourselves and others better.”
The class, many long-time attendees, listened respectfully. They had heard variations of this theme before, and Firoz’s energy captivated them more than his observations.
His reflection swam in the window behind him.<
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“This need to understand led to the invention of language, of alphabets, of arranging sound into music, of putting colour on a canvas. What we paint here does not have one meaning. Art is complexity, ambiguity. It has unstable and multiple meanings. It is unmaking and remaking. It is creating anew.” Firoz clapped his hands together, two staccato beats. “Okay. That’s all for this week. Finish what you’re doing, clean up and join me for chai.”
After the pupils had gone, Jaya helped Firoz tidy away the bronzed tea urn and chipped cups.
“That was quite some speech,” she said. She loved him for his ability to divert her from the darkness she contained.
“I meant every word.” Firoz chuckled. “Besides, you know me. I love being the centre of attention.”
“I hadn’t guessed.” A wry smile twisted Jaya’s lips.
“I’m not blind you know. Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”
She wiped her hands on a dish cloth and impulsively hugged him. They were over fifteen years apart in age and he had become a father figure to her. Even so, she didn’t want to vocalise what had been bothering her. Saying it out loud would make it real. She didn’t want to believe that Akash was playing happy families with another woman, that he had stolen a future that should have been hers. That he stayed with Soraya when he walked away from her.
She drew away from him, rebuilding the wall that only Firoz and Ruhi could scale, if only briefly. “Ghosts from my pasts, that’s all.”
“You can overcome anything.”
Jaya tilted her head to tip the curtain of her hair forward. “Can we really overcome our pasts?”
“I’m certain of it. We can’t change the past, Jaya, but we can move beyond it. Just as flowers overcome by weeds sometimes need to find another route to sunlight.” His eyes pierced hers and in the bright studio light, it was almost too much. “One thing I do know. There is no escape from our demons without self-love.”
