Daughters Inherit Silence

by Rasana Atreya

  She also worried: what would happen to Ananta if Kovid took Nina back to America?

  23

  Jaya

  Jaya sat at her desk at the centre, checking the logs on the server to make sure there were no problems. Another day, another DDoS attack. She sighed, reaching for her bottle of water, wishing it were coffee. She could do with some caffeine about now.

  Kovid sat ten feet away, furiously pounding away on his computer. He had been here for hours. Other customers had come and gone. Now, he and a young college-aged girl were the only ones left. She knew he had his own laptop. She wondered why he didn’t ask to use her Wi-Fi at home. All it took was a booster to extend its range over to his house, and she already had one at home. Maybe he didn’t ask because he wasn’t aware it was an option. Also, he was sure to know that his father wasn’t a fan of hers. Though he was spending time in her computer centre.

  Dusk wrapped the room like a blanket, muting the sounds outside. It enclosed them in the comforting warmth of a pleasant evening.

  The street lamps came on. Saturday evening. Sunday stretched out ahead of her. Madhav had picked Ananta up from school and taken her to his home, as he did each Saturday. Many times, after closing hours, Jaya headed there herself. Her other alternative would be to sit at home with her in-laws. The uncommunicative couple would exchange nods with her, then go back to whatever it was they were doing. Even when Anant was alive, her father-in-law didn’t talk to her directly, with everything conveyed through Anant or his mother. After Anant’s death, his mother had lapsed into almost complete silence. Before her in-laws shifted in with her, Jaya hadn’t known silence could be oppressive. Since that time, she’d gone from a bubbly young lady, excited about the possibilities life had to offer, to a reticent widow. She struggled to focus, trying to force her attention away from loneliness, to the logs on her server.

  “That bad?”

  Jaya looked up sharply.

  “Sorry,” Kovid said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She sighed, rubbing a hand against her forehead. Stress had brought on yet another headache. “Someone ran a DDoS attack against me a couple of days ago. I’m still trying to clean it up.”

  “A what?”

  “Dee-dos. Distributed Denial of Service,” Jaya said. “Have you heard of botnets? IoT devices?”

  “You’re making up words now,” Kovid said. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I bow to your technical superiority.” He stood up, joined his palms together, and theatrically bowed down to her.

  Startled, she laughed.

  The girl sitting in the last cubicle, a student of hers, was eyeing them with speculation.

  Jaya’s face burned from embarrassment. It would be all over college tomorrow that she’d been overly familiar with a foreigner. Again.

  Kovid looked at her curiously, obviously waiting for an answer.

  Careful to keep her tone circumspect, she said, “I-oh-T is just a fancy word for ‘Internet of Things.’ If you have an electronic device that connects to the Internet—a smartphone, a smartwatch, baby monitor, anything—it is IoT. Botnet is short for ‘robot’ and ‘network.’ If you have the skills, and the intent, you can hack into these IoT devices and connect them up in a botnet.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You know, when you Google something, it sends a message to a remote server? You can programme these devices to each request information from the same server. When you have thousands of devices requesting information, they can cause the server to collapse from overload, which is the point of such an attack. These attacks have different purposes,” she said, trying to make it sound like a dry lecture; she didn’t want her student to get ideas about Kovid and her. “The aim is to bring down the website. The reasons can be varied: business rivalry, differing ideology, wanting to steal data, stealing money, etc.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this.”

  The girl piped up. “Ma’am teaches a cybersecurity class in our college. Ma’am also told us that you don’t need to have hacking skills to launch such an attack. If you want to, you can hire DDoS services for a small fee, though that is illegal. That is why computer attacks are on the rise.”

  “I bow to your knowledge too, young lady,” Kovid said.

  The girl laughed as she packed up.

  The man knew how to charm.

  Jaya stared at the computer screen, trying not to smile.

  As the girl neared the door that led out to the street, she moved her gaze from her to Kovid and back. She wasn’t blatant about it, but Jaya knew the girl was aware that once she left, Jaya and Kovid would be unchaperoned.

  Another busybody.

  Jaya glared at her screen. Why should she care? This was her place of business, and Kovid was a customer.

  Kovid seemed oblivious to the undercurrents, though. He waved at the girl. “Take care.”

  This was the kind of behaviour—talking with strangers, joking with them—especially with ladies who weren’t personally known to him, that clearly marked him a foreigner.

  The girl giggled. When she stepped out of the centre, she left the door wide open.

  Jaya’s lips tightened. That’s all she needed, a lesson in morality from a girl half her age.

  “What kind of name is Jaya?”

  “What?”

  “Your name. What does it mean?”

  “Oh.” Jaya cleared her throat. Was she making more of the situation than it warranted? “Uh, Jaya means victory. But my full name is Jayalakshmi, which is another name for Goddess Durga.” She decided to indulge her own curiosity. “What kind of name is Kovid?”

  “I’m surprised at how many Indians don’t know this.”

  Jaya was confused. “Why would you expect us to know?”

  “Because it is in the Hanuman Chalisa?”

  She focused inward, mentally reciting the forty verses to the god Hanuman. Her face cleared. “Oh! Kavi Kovid.” She smiled at him. “You don’t really look the type, you know. Poet Kovid?” A part of her was taken aback at her own forwardness. Girls from good homes did not flirt. Definitely not married ladies like her who knew that, in Telugu, “sakala shastra kovid-udu” referred to a scholarly person.

  “I’m more than my looks, you know.”

  This time she couldn’t stop her smile. “How’s that?” She continued to type into her computer. Gibberish, all of it. But she couldn’t afford to look at him.

  “For all you know, I have a string of gopikas pining away for my poetry back in San Francisco.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “You do know that Krishna was the mythical lover?” she said, stumbling over that last word. “Not Kovid?”

  He thumped his chest dramatically. “You break my heart.”

  She laughed softly.

  It was dark outside, close to nine p.m. The street lamps cast ovals of pale yellow on the tar street. A stray dog curled up in one of those ovals, fast asleep. Autorickshaws and scooters whizzed past. A goat sauntered past, unconcerned about the young boy who hung on grimly to its leash.

  The watchman she hired to keep an eye on the centre, Ramesh, peered in, impatient to lock up and grab dinner.

  What was she doing here? She was a widow. She had responsibilities. To her daughter. To her in-laws. To her late husband. Abruptly, she rose to her feet. “It’s getting late. I need to close up.”

  “I have a confession to make.”

  Jaya looked up sharply. “What?”

  “I lied.”

  Jaya’s throat dried. What now?

  “Kovid is not the name of a poet. It means a boring old academic.”

  Jaya’s lips twitched.

  “So, when the verse says ‘kavi kovid,’ it is talking about poets and academics. I’m sorry I made my name out to be more romantic than it really is.”

  She shouldn’t encourage him. She really shouldn’t. Struggling to keep the smile off her face, Jaya reached for her purse.

  24

 
Jaya

  The smell of parched soil, slaked by the water that jumped over rocks and onto the banks of the stream, was earthy. It brought back to Jaya childhood memories of brothers and torrential rains; of paper boats sailed in the newly formed streams on the road; of big fat toads, lured out of their hiding places by the water.

  Ananta and frogs: Jaya laughed at the very idea of her prim daughter chasing the toads through muddy lanes, like Jaya and Madhav had often done.

  Kovid looked down at her, his smile tentative. “Am I intruding?”

  Jaya sat up. She should leave. She really should. Instead, she shook her head, inviting him to sit.

  “Has it been hard?” Kovid asked. “Setting up a computer centre in the village?”

  “A little.” That was an interesting start to a conversation. Could it be that he was as awkward as she? “I do have a silent partner, though. My brother’s friend. He helps out with the logistics.”

  Jaya tossed twigs into the stream, watching it flow, conscious of him sitting mere feet away. She didn’t know what she was doing anymore. This was the second time he’d come by to the stream to talk, and she was doing nothing to discourage him. No one who saw them together should be able to accuse them of impropriety. But just because they couldn’t, didn’t mean they wouldn’t. She was spending time with a man not her husband, and there was no denying it.

  “Men don’t like being told what to do?”

  Jaya smiled. “Some don’t. For the most part though, it’s been easier with men with some education, men who left school after 9th or 10th, for example. I’ve had greater problems with men who are more educated.”

  “I noticed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My parents live next to possibly the most technically competent person in the district,” Kovid said wryly. “Yet, they have a Wi-Fi that functions only when it feels like it. I bet my father couldn’t get himself to ask you for help.”

  Jaya shrugged in embarrassment. “We’ve all been busy,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t have to make excuses for him. I’ve known him all my life. He can’t even get himself to acknowledge my profession. As far as he’s concerned, I’ll always be the son in the sissy profession.”

  “Any middle-class Indian parent would be proud to have a doctor for a son. Or, son-in-law.”

  “Yeah. Well. Dad wanted me to be an engineer, like him. Like Diwakar. Or, if I had to be a doctor, I could have redeemed myself by choosing something more macho, like a surgeon.”

  “Pity, isn’t it, that parents make our choices all about them? Almost like a validation of them. Instead of being happy with ours?”

  It was obvious from the expression on Kovid’s face that he was curious. But talking about her issues with her parents with Kovid, even though he seemed a nice man, felt oddly intimate.

  “I was in Hyderabad last week,” Kovid said, “and heard something curious.”

  “What?”

  “I hear that kids in India read Ayn Rand.”

  Jaya appreciated the change in topic. “It’s more a college thing, but I did read her books when I was in my teens,” Jaya admitted. “Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.”

  “Really?” Kovid seemed amused.

  His smile threw her off stride for a second. She cleared her throat. “Why? You didn’t expect that of me?”

  “Oh, no! That’s not what I meant. It is just that her philosophy is often associated with the far-right in the States.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Jaya laughed self-consciously. “I read it because it was the thing to do. Because everyone else was reading it.”

  “One of the books,” Kovid said, “I don’t remember which one, starts off with rape.”

  Jaya squirmed in discomfort. “We didn’t linger on that. The rest of it? Reading it made us cool. Because reading Ayn Rand was cool. However,” she said slowly. “Isn’t it interesting that you tend to gloss over things that are uncomfortable? Rape is such a serious issue, but no one talks about it. That horrific incident in New Delhi? It has opened up some conversations, but not much.”

  She couldn’t imagine having this conversation with any other man, not even her brother, and he was one of the most supportive men she had in her life.

  Was it because Kovid was so matter-of-fact casual? Or because he was a foreigner, and one did not have the same cultural expectations of them?

  “That’s true,” Kovid said. “I don’t think my parents would feel comfortable talking about it even today. Mom, maybe. Dad, most certainly not. I think maybe because I’m a physician, and certainly because of the #MeToo movement that has brought it out into the open.” He made a self-deprecating face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Ayn Rand.”

  “We’re having a conversation, not a debate.” She smiled at him before turning back to the stream. She wondered why it was more comfortable to talk to him when she was facing away. Social mores? Her personal discomfort, even though they sat a respectable six feet apart? “So. Ayn Rand. I don’t remember too much. Honestly, I don’t even think I was mature enough to process it. All I remember is that she advocated extreme individualism. At some level that appealed, because India is the complete opposite of individualism.”

  “Putting yourself last does seem to be a virtue for Indians,” Kovid said. “Especially if you’re a woman.”

  Interesting comment, coming from a man.

  Kovid continued, “At mealtime, we were not allowed to reach for food on the table. My father, my brother, my sister and I sat at the table, and Mom walked around the table, serving. She waited for Dad to get done before she’d eat. It was embarrassing when my friends came over. Because they all ate together in their own homes.”

  He had a sister? How come Aunty never mentioned her?

  “I know what you mean. In my parents’ house, we all ate together. But when I got married, it was a rude shock. Their family was so much more orthodox. My in-laws got up early, so it would have been awkward for me to sleep past 5:00 a.m. I had to take a bath, clean the kitchen, and cook food in time for my mother-in-law’s prayers. But I couldn’t eat till all the prayers were finished, and my father-in-law started his very late. After he finished praying, the food was offered to the gods, then served to him, then to my mother-in-law. By the time I got to eat each day, it was past 2 p.m. Migraines were a daily part of my life.”

  “No breakfast?”

  “Not in their house.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Kovid said.

  Jaya shrugged.

  “You still do that?”

  “Not anymore, no. Maybe having them live in my house is the difference.”

  “In our house the order of serving was clear—Dad first, my brother and I next, then my sister. Mom came last. If Dad took extra servings, sometimes my sister, and certainly Mom, went without.”

  “Why didn’t Aunty just cook extra?”

  “Dad doesn’t like wastage, and he won’t tolerate leftovers.”

  “Oh.”

  “When you grow up with this, a part of you knows that something is not right, but you don’t have the words to put to it.”

  Srinivas uncle might look down on girls, but Jaya had seen how Aunty was with Ananta and Nina. Yet, in all this time, Aunty had never mentioned having a daughter. Curious. “When did you recognise this?”

  “Fights between Kriti and Dad were regular feature. I remember a time when Mom had made vadas. There were seven left over from lunch—vadas were an exception to the leftovers rule—so Mom served my father, my brother and me two vadas each. One for Kriti. None for Mom. My sister protested at the unfair division, my father shouted at her for disrespecting Mom, and Kriti stormed off, refusing to come back to the table.” He paused, reliving that memory. “None of us had dinner that night. Other than Dad.”

  “And your parents are not uneducated people.”

  “No, they’re not. They’re extremely giving, too. They’ve donated thousands of hours of their time, and I don’t know how
much money over the years. And yet, their ingrained prejudices make them the people they are.”

  “Is that why your sister hasn’t visited?”

  When Kovid didn’t answer, Jaya rushed in. “I wasn’t judging her. I can’t. I haven’t had a proper conversation with my own mother since Ananta was born. That’s ten years of not talking.”

  “I’ll tell you about her another time,” Kovid said, abruptly. “I don’t normally talk about personal stuff.” He threw a quick glance at her. “I’m not really sure why I am, with you.”

  Both stared silently at the flowing water, lost in their thoughts. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though, this silence. It was the silence of companionship. She was amazed at her own temerity at seeking out friendship with this man. She realised that, other than her brother and his wife, and Prakash uncle and Paavani aunty, she had no one who she could talk to as an equal. Certainly not in the village. Certainly not with a man.

  She thought again of the isolation the cloak of widowhood had cast about her. She was afraid to talk to men because it would almost certainly be misconstrued. If the man was married, she would be accused of trying to lure him away. An unmarried man would be younger, and would not want to “waste” his time speaking to her. Her brother was a dear friend, and since she had no male cousins, that was the extent of men in her life.

  That left the ladies.

  Her friends from school and college were scattered around the world. She was grateful that she’d been able to reconnect over WhatsApp, but it wasn’t the same. In the villages it wasn’t uncommon to find lady engineers and doctors, but it wasn’t common, either. Regardless, once a girl was married off, familial obligations—mostly on the husband’s side—took over. There was no time left for personal friendships. Maybe friendships with other couples, mostly the families of the husband’s friends. They hadn’t had those, either, because Anant’s father had controlled who they socialised with. Tears flooded her throat without warning. Poor Anant, to have never had the chance to make friends.