by Vani Mahesh
‘What is your type lately? Into sad romances because Sanju is not in town?’
‘When Sanju is not in town, I am into naughty, Mister Old-Fashioned.’ Anu smacked Sameer’s hand on the gear. ‘Why do you think I have to mope and cry when my husband is enjoying his married bachelor days?’
‘Fair enough. But your naughty is movies rated 18+. They don’t qualify as naughty.’ Sameer squeezed his large car into an impossibly narrow space, which only he could do. As they climbed the steps to Drink and Dine, Anu felt a rush of familiarity wash over her. Anu and Sameer’s evenings out were always the same—the same restaurant, the same table, and the same sips (Smirnoff with Fanta for her, Old Monk with soda for him) and dines (Peanut Masala and Egg Pakoda). They used to do the same routine along with some weird club dancing with a gang of friends on Brigade Road a decade ago, but now there was no charm left in either the drive or the dance.
‘Hey, Sanju sounded very down and out when I spoke to him. Wonder why,’ said Anu as casually as she could. She did not want Sameer to pick up that she was worried. He would either tease her for years to come or get over-protective.
‘Because he has to come back home. Give up his married bachelorhood.’ Sameer remarked wickedly. ‘Why would he be happy?’
‘That would be you if you ever get married. Sanju is into home and hearth.’ Anu retorted before asking the next question. ‘But why do you think he is upset?’
‘Maybe he misses Kshama,’ Sameer said seriously making Anu almost jump.
‘Where is she now? In the US? He never told me!’ Anu almost sprung out of the chair. Kshama was Sanju’s old flame. Well, he had chosen Anu over her but who knew about them being together in New York!
Sameer began to laugh. ‘Got you, babe. Kshama is right here and almost about to pop a baby. I was only messing with you.’
Anu bent forward and hit him on the head with her empty glass. ‘That was a crass joke. I will get even, buster.’
Sameer stared at her intensely. ‘You already did—six years ago.’
Awe … Anu’s stomach gave a small lurch. He was referring to her marriage with Sanju. Sameer never was averse to voicing how he felt. Why did she pass him up for Sanju again? For a thousand reasons and the main one being that Sameer was a footloose and fancy-free Casanova, and Sanju, Mr Reliable. Sameer adored the entire clan of women while Sanju only her. Then she felt panicky. Did he still adore only her?
‘Do you think Sanju is having an affair?’ Anu asked hesitantly.
‘Sanju is Sri Rama, a sworn one-Anu-man. Why are you suddenly overthinking things? That is not you, babe.’
‘This is a question of my marriage. Tu kya jaane ek chutki sindhoor ki keemat.’ Anu quoted that famous Deepika Padukone dialogue.
Sameer laughed. ‘Your Hindi is hilariously wrong. It sounds like Kannada!’
Anu rolled her eyes. ‘If you insult my Hindi, you are insulting the holy land of Bollywood.’ She waved spoon at Sameer sternly. ‘Remember that every bit of my Hindi has come from the stars crooning about ishq and pyaar.’
‘Well, Sanju may be depressed about a lot of things but trust me, he is not capable of cheating. Too straightforward a guy.’
Sameer’s reassurance and the Vodka working its magic, Anu’s happy hormones began to rise. Biting into a crisp egg pakoda, Anu thought of her mom. She would throw a giant-sized fit if she knew that Anu was drinking, eating eggs, and all that with a man who was not her husband.
‘How is it going with Snigdha?’ Anu asked. ‘Shagged? Proposed?’
‘Broke up,’ Sameer shrugged, taking a large swig of his extra large whiskey. ‘She was not my type.’
‘Nobody is anybody’s type. Go with the flow.’ Anu smiled. The vodka was relaxing her muscle by muscle. Sanju insisted that the deep relaxation she felt with one small peg of alcohol was only her imagination. But she knew differently.
‘I will go with someone Mummy chooses. Someone who stays at home and does my bidding.’ Sameer smiled crookedly and beckoned the waiter for his next drink.
‘Very forward-thinking. I will marry that person too. Someone who does my bidding.’
‘We will make a fantastic threesome.’ Sameer winked, and Anu rolled her eyes.
Sameer patted her hand. ‘Look, I wouldn’t worry about Sanju. When we chatted yesterday, he was his normal boring self. Not suicidal.’ Sameer finished his drink. ‘But I don’t understand why you hide from Sanju that we meet. I knew you before he did.’
‘Because he gets upset even at the mention of your name! Why invite trouble?’ Anu smiled. ‘I prefer a non-belligerent living.’
Sanju liked Sameer, but he did not like Anu having anything to do with Sameer. Complex equations. But Anu met Sameer whenever she stayed at her parents, which was once a week. Sameer was a part of her DNA. She had to tell him everything that made her happy, sad or worried.
Sipping and dining in silence for some time, Anu watched the giant TV playing Big Boss while Sameer answered messages on Whatsapp. They were like family. They could just comfortably eat and watch TV if they didn’t have anything to say.
The next morning, as Anu got dressed leisurely, life seemed pleasantly unhurried; as it used to be before motherhood. Vicky was getting pampered by his grandparents and Anu had only to take care of herself. Usually, the mornings at home were always a blur. Wake Vicky up, get Vicky ready, feed Vicky, hurry Vicky in the toilet. After that Anu had to get dressed in the one-and-a-half minutes left. So today felt like an ultimate luxury. Brushing her hair till it shined, Anu admired herself, and then considered staying back at her parents for a few days. There were only two more days of school and then it was the Dasara/ Dussehra holidays for ten days. Sanju was coming back only by the end of the holidays.
Anu thought of her life back home. Except for the rushed morning, the rest of the day was nice and easy. If she had to be out in the evenings, Radha babysat but only till eight. Radha cooked too, but she was as bad as Anu.
If she stayed here, her life would be one jolly good ride but she would have to report to her mother on a half-hourly basis if she went out after seven. She would get fantastic food but she would also put on at least two kgs. More than anything, Vicky would be taken care of round the clock and that was nowhere but here. Until you become a mother, you don’t realise the value of freedom; especially the freedom to do forbidden things like watch trashy movies and talk on the phone non-stop.
Anu weighed the two options and the staying back won hands-down. The major motivator being both Radha and the maid being absent.
Anu shouted from the room, ‘Amma, I will stay here for a week. I will stop at home and pick up a few things.’
Her mom shouted back, ‘Good you came to your senses. Come eat breakfast.’ The joy behind her mother’s semi-rude words was unmistakable. Her parents acted as though Anu was doing them a favour when she hoisted Vicky on them!
Anu’s mother decided that Vicky was skipping school that day to accompany her to some social event she was attending. Anu’s parents had a function to attend to almost every day—wedding, death ceremony, naming ceremony. If, God forbid there was nothing scheduled, they would host a lunch with Satyanarayan Pooja themselves. Attending religious events was their main profession lately. Her father was a well-known chartered accountant who was as enthusiastic about social gatherings as he was about taxes.
Vicky was now clearly torn between school and the function. He loved going to school, which was more like a play zone than a school, but he also loved the attention he got at these gatherings. He finally decided that going out in Ajji’s Innova was a better deal for the day. Anu had no problem with Vicky’s decision to skip school that day. She was not one of those who believed that kindergarten was a stepping stone to IIT. But Sanju did think so. He thoroughly disapproved of how Anu let Vicky sleep in a few mornings and skip school. In her defence, some days Vicky looked too cosy under the quilt to be woken up.
Anu turned on the TV holding a plate of hot Uppittu a
nd chutney. Her mother took food very seriously and couldn’t till date understand why Anu hadn’t inherited her love for cooking. Anu had inherited her mother’s love for food but not for cooking.
Anu reached the school ten minutes early. EARLY! That was what she needed. Small goals that were met. Feeling a tad too happy, Anu parked her Santro on the street and waved at the security guard, handing him a fifty. ‘Wipe the windshield, Dasappa.’ That was not in Dasappa’s job description, but all the teachers got their vehicles cleaned from him. Anu had started the trend and the principal had turned a blind eye to it. That was how friendly her school was. Anu loved working there.
‘Hey Anu, looking like a movie-star, ya!’ That was her colleague Smitha. ‘Your hair looks fab!’ Anu had great colleagues who weren’t petty at all. According to Shwetha, none of them made any real money so there was no scope for fights or for being petty.
Anu beamed. All that effort she had put into dressing up that morning was already paying off. She had to meet somebody or go somewhere that evening. When you are having a good-face day, you have to flaunt it. A dozen names came to her head, but she picked Shwetha.
When she was about to enter her class, a helper asked her to meet the principal after the class. Anu wondered what it could be. She anyway met her at the end of the day every day. She was not just her principal but she was Sumitra aunty. Someone she had known all her life.
When Anu entered the principal’s chamber, Sumitra aunty looked a little hassled, which was very unlike her.
‘Anu, sit down. I have asked a few other teachers to join in.’ Sumitra aunty rubbed her temples.
‘What is wrong, aunty?’ Anu felt alarmed. Something was not right.
Four other teachers walked in before the principal answered.
‘A few parents are objecting that we aren’t affiliated with any board.’ Sumitra aunty spoke wearily. ‘They are demanding a meeting after the holidays.’
Anu did not understand the fuss. Most kids were only four or five in their school. Why bother with big things like the boards with little kids?
‘Some of the kids are entering fourth grade this year. I had never promised the parents that I am going to align with any standard board. But they insist that I had. I might have said that it was a consideration.’
How could anyone blame Sumitra aunty of foul play? Anu had an urge to shake sense into the parents.
‘If they don’t want the open school system, then they can change schools,’ Anu declared.
‘Not so easy, Anu. If there are protests or if someone goes to court on some frivolous account, I don’t have the strength to fight it out. We have to resolve it peacefully.’
‘We will be with you, ma’am,’ Anu said and immediately all the teachers joined in. ‘We will make sure you don’t fight this alone.’
‘Thank you. Tomorrow morning bring in your thoughts on why our system works. We will go over it once before talking to the parents.’ Sumitra aunty looked slightly relieved seeing their show of support.
4
Dasara holidays. Now in the social media age, everyone spelt it Dussehra but Anu still liked to call it Dasara, like she had done all her life. She loved the holidays. Not that her job was stressful or anything, she mostly played with three-year-olds and taught them rhymes but still, holidays meant lounging, eating, and being sloppy. Sameer claimed that she worked as a teacher just so that she could get holidays.
Out of the ten days, four days had passed like quicksand. Anu’s stay at her parents’ house was as though her childhood was back. She could sleep however long she wanted and could step out anytime for shopping, coffee or dinner. Dinner! The most coveted event when you are the mom of a young child.
That was the fifth day of holidays and Anu woke up with a start, suddenly remembering her house and its chaotic state. It was on her to-do list and she did stare at it for a couple of days initially but had forgotten all about it eventually. Making a to-do list is fun. But the fun quickly turns to angst when all the incomplete tasks start to glare at you angrily. Sanju was coming back in three days. She had to clean it.
Anu rushed back home, leaving Vicky behind with her mother. Now, standing in the middle of the living room, Anu looked around in despair. The house looked like a pig-sty, a chicken coop, or whatever metaphor one could use for a place that had things strewn around and had a mysterious odour emanating from some corner.
Her books and newspapers covered most of the sofa and all of the centre table and the dining table. Vicky’s toys took care of the floor. Anu walked to the bedroom with a foreboding that it was not going to be much better than the living room. She was not wrong—the bedroom had at least ten pieces of her unfolded clothes lying around, plus the new arrivals from her recent online shopping spree. There were more piles of Vicky’s clothes, some washed and some not that she could no longer tell apart without smelling.
Anu took a deep breath and wandered to the kitchen. As if her clutter wasn’t enough, some old brass vessels stared at Anu from a corner. In passing, Anu had mentioned to her mother that she wanted to buy some brassware to make her house look like Supriyaji’s. Her mother had acted on that immediately. ‘Anu, I have sent some brass things I had in the attic to your apartment. Shivanna has dropped them off.’ Anu now vaguely recollected her mother’s words. Her mother had palmed off the old things she had inherited from her mother-in-law. Now those dim, old, squarish vessels sat in a corner looking gloomier than Anu felt. What would Shivanna, her father’s lifelong office assistant who always wore ironed pearly-white shirts, have thought of this house? Anu wanted to crawl into a hole.
Anu sat on the sofa and thought. The only way to finish work is to start right away. She looked around to see where to begin newspapers—that was easy. The thing was, Anu loved newspapers, not so much for the main news but for the supplements that carried interesting stories of celebrities. She picked up an armful of papers and walked to the utility area where they stored them. Once she was at the spot, Anu knew why she hadn’t been putting the papers away. That area was already overflowing with papers. The glossy magazines had made a large chunk of papers slide off the pile. Anu sighed and marched back to the living room with the pile.
Dumping the papers on an already crowded table, she looked around again. Plates and cups. A dozen of them. Picking up the caked plates and cups, Anu walked to the kitchen sink. Why didn’t she put them away as soon as she ate? Well, because she watched TV while eating and how could she take a break in the middle of a show? Usually, the maid collected them from around the house and washed them. Once Anu reached the kitchen, she remembered there was a reason why she was leaving her plates about. With the case of the absent maid, the sink had more than its share of the burden.
Dumping the plates on the countertop, Anu bit her nails. It was a holiday and Vicky was with her parents, so she had the day to herself. Should she waste that time cleaning the house? Sanju was coming back in three days and that was more than enough time to clean her tiny apartment. Now, shouldn’t she enjoy the day eating, sleeping and being sloppy?
The hot October sun was blaring down. Even that small effort to clean up the house had made sweat trickle down Anu’s back. A cold beer with Shwetha would clear up the head. Though Anu came across as an extrovert, she only had two good friends. Sameer and Shwetha. Somehow they were not fond of each other at all.
‘SOS’ Anu messaged Shwetha. That was their code for a quick drink.
‘2 O’clock, Jake’s Club.’ Shwetha pinged back after an hour. With Sameer, Anu’s go-to place was Drink and Dine, and with Shwetha it was Jake’s club. Shwetha was now a fund manager, but she still managed to meet Anu the way they did a decade back.
Shwetha lived alone but had a fiancé tucked away in London. Your engagement is longer than Pam and Roy’s in The Office—Anu often teased Shwetha. Not many would get that reference, but Shwetha did. She watched everything Anu suggested and complained that Anu never returned the gesture. But Shwetha suggested financial th
rillers which put Anu to sleep just like her math classes from high school.
When Anu contemplated what to do for the next couple of hours before lunch, her phone rang. Yashoda aunty. Maybe she was calling for a tutorial on online grocery shopping. Anu picked up the phone only to hear a panic-stricken voice.
‘Anu, can you come to the gate?’ Anu could hear Yashoda aunty gasping. ‘I tried to book a cab and—’ The phone got cut off. Anu rushed, locking the door behind her. What could possibly go wrong while booking a cab?
When she neared the gate, Anu saw a haggard-looking Yashoda aunty with a mobile in hand and two cabs and an auto in front of her.
‘Anu, see, I booked a cab but they have sent three of these!’
‘What! Let me see.’ Anu’s suspicion was right. Aunty had booked three vehicles. Two of the drivers glared at them angrily, while the third started his cab. ‘These old people just ruin our rides.’ He muttered.
‘Hey! She is learning to book, okay? Be patient.’ Anu glared harder at the insolent driver.
‘Where are you going, aunty? You have booked one cab to Mahalakshmi Layout, the second one to Lakshmi temple, and the third to some place named Lakshmi’s Villa. These places are in three different corners of Bangalore!’
The drivers began to laugh and luckily Yashoda aunty had a sense of humour. She joined in the laughter and mumbled that she was going to her sister Lakshmi’s house.
Anu cancelled all the three rides and requested the auto driver to drop Yashoda aunty to her destination. Yashoda squeezed Anu’s hand. ‘Thanks, Anu. You help me like a daughter.’
Anu smiled back. ‘Make sure to include me in the will, aunty. Now get going!’
‘You are a princess. What can a pauper like me give you?’ Yashoda aunty was a retired English teacher, so she quoted from the classics. And, she loved it that Anu got her.
Smiling, Anu headed back to her flat, stopping at the children’s play area. Vicky loved playing there even though it was such a basic one. Two yellow ducks, a swing and a slide. But all in working condition. Not just the playground, but their apartment complex was a basic one—elevators with manual doors, corridors without CCTV and a security guard who sat on a plastic stool and snoozed. No tennis court, swimming pool or gym. It even had a very basic name; not lake-view, valley-view, air-view, or any such. It was called the Ramesh Apartments, named after the owner who had razed a coconut grove to build it.
