Daughters Inherit Silence

by Rasana Atreya

  Kovid stretched overhead and grabbed a small suitcase.

  Yawning, Jaya picked up her purse and followed him down the aisle and off the bus.

  At six in the morning, the town was already clothed in a miasma of brown. Dusty roads of brown, smoky effluents that were brown, storefronts and trees coated with particulate matter that were also brown.

  After a quick stop at the restrooms to brush and freshen up, Jaya checked the ride-sharing app on her smartphone. There were three cars in the vicinity, with surge pricing in effect—for a twenty-five-minute ride, it was six times the regular price.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?” Kovid pushed aside her phone. “Let’s get an auto.” He raised a hand to hail a passing auto rickshaw.

  “Do you know where Anand Bhavan is?” Jaya asked the auto driver as they got into the auto from either side of the narrow doorless vehicle. By mutual agreement, Kovidn was letting Jaya do the talking. Whichever the language involved—Telugu, Hindi or English—his accent was a dead giveaway. Jaya didn’t care to be honoured with “foreigner” pricing.

  The auto shot into traffic almost before Kovid was all the way in.

  “Of course, I know, Saar,” the driver said, even though it was Jaya who had spoken. “Have I not been driving here for over twenty years?” He turned back, looking over his shoulder. “Where are we going, again?”

  A two-wheeler with four young boys was barrelling head-on.

  Jaya shouted out a warning, bracing for impact.

  The driver turned around and jerked the vehicle sideways, barely averting disaster.

  The boys, teens all, and whooping, zoomed past.

  Jaya held a hand to her chest, her heart galloping.

  “Stupid boys.” The auto driver bent sideways and looked over his shoulder and back at the traffic, shaking his fist at them.

  The boys hooted.

  “Senseless parents, letting loose brainless fourteen-year-olds with a death wish.” The driver met Jaya’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Thankfully, his rearview mirror was facing the right way. Many drivers turned it around, facing away from the driver, so the high beams from behind didn’t blind them.

  Kovid’s eyes shone with glee.

  “Do you have a death wish, too?” she hissed, digging her nails into his arm.

  He pried her grip off, grinning.

  “So,” the driver said. “Where now?”

  Radha had assured them that “everyone” knew Anand Bhavan, literally “happy building.” The relative’s house was three lanes behind this auditorium. Or was it a sweet shop? Jaya wished she had thought to ask. She called her friend, but she wasn’t picking up.

  “Anand Bhavan,” Jaya repeated.

  The driver pulled over to a side, leaned out and conferred with fellow auto drivers. “Okay,” he said, “It is near the railway station.” He shot back into traffic.

  “It looks like it is behind the cantonment railway station,” Jaya said, looking at the GPS on her phone. “Not the main one.”

  “How would you know?” the driver asked.

  Jaya held up her phone so he could see it in the rearview mirror.

  The driver stopped.

  In the middle of angry traffic.

  He turned around in his seat, a hand gripping the low barrier separating him from them. “Amma, if you trust the stupid Internet more than me, please get off.”

  “Here?” Jaya said faintly.

  The traffic readjusted and flowed around them, leaving behind outraged honks.

  “What’s it going to be?” the driver demanded over the cacophony.

  Kovid reached for Jaya’s phone-holding hand, lowering it. “Sorry,” he said.

  Grimly, the driver nodded and shot back into the flow of traffic. A fresh barrage of outrage sounded. He drove for five minutes or so. Then, abruptly, he angled through traffic—at times going vertical to oncoming vehicles—before pulling over to the side.

  Kovid and Jaya exchanged glances.

  A policeman hopped in the front, progressively nudging the driver with his hip, till he had enough room. Both men clung to their half of the narrow seat.

  Jaya watched, tensely. What now?

  “Mandi police station,” the constable barked.

  Kovid raised an eyebrow.

  Jaya shook her head and turned away, hoping he would get the message and say nothing. There was simply no occasion where interaction with the police was a good thing.

  The driver made a u-turn, right in the face of traffic.

  Colour leached from Kovid’s face.

  Jaya held herself still, hoping, somehow, that the complete absence of motion would knock sense into the driver before the oncoming traffic knocked it out of them all.

  A tense four minutes later, they crossed over to the other side.

  They sat wordlessly for the three-kilometre detour to the police station, Jaya’s heart struggling to slow down after their frequent brushes with death.

  The constable jumped off and sauntered away, secure in the knowledge that no payment would be expected of him.

  The auto driver shot back into the stream of traffic.

  Kovid leaned closer to Jaya. “That’s abuse of power.”

  “And who’s going to tell him that?”

  Kovid shook his head in disbelief.

  Jaya said, “The police Sub-Inspector in Lingampally once called me to the police station. If you must know one thing about India, it is that any contact with the police is not conducive to good health, mental or physical. So, I call my brother. He immediately leaves office so he can escort me.” She twisted her lips wryly. “We head to the police station wondering what law I’ve broken now. A father once filed a complaint against me when his teenager used email from the computer centre and got cheated on the Internet.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “The case was dropped, but it was a hassle. Anyway. I’m sweating as we wait for the SI. Madhav is stressed out.”

  “SI?”

  “Sub-Inspector. He finally shows up an hour and a half late. He does not apologise.”

  “And?” Kovid said.

  “And asks casually if I could teach his son the basics of programming.”

  The auto driver turned over his shoulder. “What was that place again?”

  * * *

  For a place that “everyone” knew, Anand Bhavan had been surprisingly hard to find. As they got to the vicinity, Radha had finally answered the phone. Two youngsters were dispatched from the house of festivities. After lots of calls, back and forth, with descriptions of streets and shops and houses, and the fruit trees attached to them, they finally arrived at Anand Bhavan. Which turned out to be a home for the aged.

  Jaya sighted the two young men leaning, as described, against a blue Yamaha, right across from Anand Bhavan. The young men took off, and the auto turned its ignition on. The motorbike took a sharp turn and disappeared. The auto followed. It pulled up sharply. A Toyota Innova was parked close to the wall of a house, leaving only room for a two-wheeler to zoom through. The three-wheeled auto moved forward.

  “Watch out!” Jaya said, sharply. She pointed to the two-foot-wide open drain that ran the length of the road.

  The auto driver turned back in irritation. “Amma, why don’t you leave the driving to us men?” He accelerated hard. And immediately tipped into the drain.

  Jaya screamed, sliding hard against Kovid.

  Kovid’s head came to rest against the compound wall.

  The silence was explosive.

  Jaya blinked hard. Once. Twice. Thrice.

  Sound rushed back into her ears. The Yamaha, with the two young men, screeched to a halt. Evidently, they had come back in search.

  Jaya took a deep breath. The auto was wedged between the compound wall of someone’s house on one side, and the Toyota on the other.

  The young men parked the bike and sprinted toward them. One of the young men braced his arm against the auto, pinning it down. The other one held out a hand
for Jaya. Slowly, constrained by the heavy silk of her saree, she clambered out of the vehicle.

  Kovid followed.

  The auto driver stood with his hands on his waist, staring at the auto.

  Drawn by the loud crash, the owner of the Innova had come out. He started abusing the auto driver.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Kovid said in English, the situation beyond the scope of his limited Telugu.

  Ears perked at his foreign accent.

  As Kovid directed, the owner of the van and one young man clambered past the auto, to the back. The auto driver and another young man moved to the front. With a lot of grunting and shoving, pulling and pushing, they freed the auto from the wedge. They pushed the auto through, leaving behind an ugly dent in the van.

  “Govinda! Venkataramana! Lakshmi Narasimha!” The van owner joined his palms together and raised them over his head, invoking favoured gods in his outrage. He glared at the van, his face tomato red. He swung around and slapped the driver on the cheek.

  “You bloody fool,” he shouted, spittle flying in all directions. “How did you think the auto would go through?”

  Not to be outdone, the auto driver lunged forward, only to be restrained by the young man on his side. “What kind of idiot blocks up a road like that?”

  “What could I do, you bloody uneducated fellow? The government builds roads. They should have covered up the drain.”

  Jaya’s head was splitting. She held a hand up to her forehead and whimpered.

  “You okay?” Kovid asked, attention diverted from the spectacle.

  “Headache.”

  Kovid stepped in the middle of the warring men. “This isn’t going anywhere. I need to go.”

  “You have to pay me for the damage,” the auto driver shouted.

  “And who will compensate me, you bloody uneducated lout!” the owner shouted.

  Kovid pulled out a five-hundred rupee note.

  The auto driver eyed it speculatively. The amount was more than generous, but he was now armed with additional knowledge: Saar was from foreign. “I’m a poor man.”

  “But you agreed to forty-five,” Jaya said. “This is already much more than that.”

  Kovid held out another five hundred. The auto driver snatched it from Kovid’s hand and jumped into the auto. Before anyone could react, he had sped away.

  The furious vehicle owner raised a fist at the receding auto. “You low-class fellow! You vagabond!” Shoulders slumped, he inspected the car-tyre sized damage to his vehicle. “I am still paying the monthly EMI for this.”

  Jaya was nervous that the owner would try to extort money from Kovid.

  But he turned out to be surprisingly decent. “You go ahead, Sir. Not your problem. Already that auto-fellow cheated you.”

  “Aunty,” one of the young men said to Jaya. “I’ll walk with Uncle. Why don’t you proceed on the motorbike?”

  All married ladies were aunties, age/religion no bar. But Jaya had had enough of other people driving her. She conferred with the young men on the directions, then elected to walk.

  “Had enough adventure for the day?” Jaya said sourly.

  Kovid put an affectionate arm around her, gave her a quick squeeze, then withdrew his hand. “I’m deeply confused,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Why don’t Indian men ever punch? Why is it that they prefer to slap? Even in movies, even macho heroes?”

  Jaya punched him in the arm.

  49

  Jaya

  Kovid and Jaya sat in the enclosed courtyard of the food court, the bus-and-auto-trip to the wedding a distant memory. Amma was sure to have heard of that trip, but there had been no reaction from her. Jaya decided that being ignored suited her just fine.

  The girls were checking out the different stalls. Fancy bottus and bangles, iconic dashaavataram figurines from Kondapalli, Kalamkari bedsheets, Bandhani print scarfs, anything that might grab the attention of the casual shopper. The girls walked from shop to shop, carefully inspecting the merchandise before they would consider parting with their money. Jaya was amused to note that, in that regard, Nina and Ananta were quite similar.

  The girls spotted Shreya and squealed. Kovid stood up and shook hands with Madhav, smiled at Shyamala. Jaya waved them to the chairs.

  “How are things?” Madhav asked.

  “Lessons learned from the last outing with my wife are still fresh,” Kovid said.

  Jaya swatted at him.

  “Oh, this is okay in restaurants?” Kovid teased. “Violence against husbands?”

  “Tell me more.” Shyamala grinned.

  “I’m glad you asked.” Kovid ticked off on his fingers. “I learned that I cannot look into my wife’s eyes and smile at her. I cannot hold her hand in public. I cannot wink at her. And I cannot be observed to be enjoying her company. Otherwise, I shall be shamed by my waiter.”

  Madhav laughed. “Welcome to India.”

  Jaya watched in pleasure as the two men in her life kidded around. Madhav was tall, but the softness of contentment had settled in his middle. After his years of struggle with their mother, after their combined grief at their grandparents’ death, he seemed to have made his peace with life. Shyamala was good for him—sweet and kind and gentle—and yet she did not let him get away with anything. They would never be close friends, Shyamala and she, because they were too dissimilar as people. But they liked each other enough that they were happy to be family. What more could one ask for?

  Kovid was almost as tall as Madhav. Fitter, but not in the bodybuilder, muscle-bursting kind of way. Just thinking about her husband warmed her heart.

  “Jaya?” Madhav looked at her quizzically. “You okay?”

  “Just lost in my thoughts.” She shook her head to clear it. “What’s up?”

  Madhav and Shyamala exchanged quick looks.

  Jaya’s gut tightened. Nothing good ever came from looks like that.

  Madhav must have sensed Jaya’s disquiet because he said, “It’s not that bad. I promise.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Nanna called me after that visit to your house.”

  “He did, hanh?”

  “He seemed quite shocked that you would stand up to Amma.”

  “About time, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yeah!”

  “Was he upset?”

  “No,” Madhav said slowly. “He sounded proud of you, actually. Like he appreciated the fact that you were able to stand up for yourself. He says Amma would like to come by and talk with you. Adult to adult.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No. Two reasons for this, I think. One, you’ve never put your foot down like this before. Two, I told her about the possibility of you shifting to America.”

  “Anna!”

  “It had to be done.” Madhav was unrepentant.

  “Why do I think this is yet another way for her to manipulate me?”

  “Think about it. In all these years, have you known her to take that first step?”

  Jaya thought of a particular line in the patriotic Hindi song that school kids were routinely taught: sar kata sakte hain lekin sar jhuka sakte nahin. Jaya had always thought that the words, to the effect that a soldier would have his head cut off rather than bend to the enemy, could have been written for their mother.

  She looked at Kovid, torn. “I know I should do it for Ananta’s sake…”

  “New beginnings, right?” Kovid said.

  Jaya knew his words weren’t empty. He was making that same effort on his daughter’s behalf, and this was with the Estonian parents of his late first wife. The grandparents were planning on a trip to see Nina. Which was another point in favour of San Francisco, as far as Kovid was concerned.

  Sometimes, the most obvious thing wasn’t always the right thing. There had been too many years of emotional manipulation, and too many scars to show for it. “No,” she said.

  Shifting to America was going to be hard enough. She would not
allow her mother to create more turmoil in her life.

  50

  Jaya

  Minga leka, kakka leka. A favourite saying of Jaya’s grandmother, that translated to “can’t swallow, can’t spit out.”

  The visa for America had come through. The die was cast. There would be no going back. Not now.

  Emigrating, when it wasn’t something you initiated, was like filing for divorce when you were still deeply in love.

  She thought of all those she’d be leaving behind: Her brother. Her little niece. Telangana. Ramu, the vegetable-seller. Her parents, even though she didn’t like them as much as she could. The little brook. Ramani aunty. Paavani aunty and Prakash uncle. The arid countryside. She could survive without their presence in her life, but did she want to?

  Jaya looked around at her little house, boxes piled in every corner. Sorrow grabbed at her throat, choking her.

  It wasn’t easy, this sifting through memories, trying to decide which ones to discard, which ones to carry through to their new life.

  Amma had reached out—something she had never done before—and Jaya had refused to meet her halfway. Was she too cynical in thinking Amma would try emotional manipulation again? Was Jaya making a mistake? She wished she knew.

  The pile of discards was waist high. Little projects that Ananta had glued together, the few letters her daughter’s father had written to Jaya, ones that she couldn’t share with her daughter. Some keepsakes she would take. Others, she would leave for safekeeping with her brother.

  She reached for a photograph of her and Anant. She ran a finger over his face, wondering how it was possible to be falling in love with her new husband, while also feeling affection for her old one. Sighing, she set it aside in the “keep” pile for her daughter.

  “We’re taking this photo?” Ananta looked both delighted and uncertain.

  “Of course we are. Nanna’s part of our life, isn’t he?” Jaya was struck at how matter-of-factly she’d uttered those words. Remarriage, for a widow, was unthinkable enough. Then, to hang on confidently to photographs of her first husband, when she belonged to the family of another… She closed her eyes, sending up a prayer of gratitude to Venkateshwara for Kovid.