The Gurkha's Daughter

by Prajwal Parajuly

  “Please, please, Dada,” Tikam cried.

  Rajiv saw he was wearing his T-shirt inside out and took it off to put it back on again. When he opened the door, Tikam was gone. Rajiv was sure Tikam was defecating in some isolated corner of the backyard. When his cousin returned, relieved but with a smell emanating from him that gave away the act he had just committed, Rajiv summoned him.

  “Why did you knock when I was in the bathroom?” he asked.

  “Dada, it was almost out,” Tikam said. “In my pants. One more second, and it would have been on the floor.”

  “But you knew I was in there.”

  “And you didn’t open the door despite how many times I knocked. A hundred times I knocked.”

  “What makes you think I’ll give up whatever I am doing for you?”

  “But I could have dirtied the floor, Dada, and you didn’t open the door.”

  “This is my house, and I’ll spend however long it takes me in the bathroom, get it?” Rajiv’s voice rose. “From now on, if you ever knock when I am in the bathroom, I’ll stop sending you to school and increase the chores you do here.”

  He boxed Tikam’s ears and then slapped him hard on the face. He pulled his hair. Tikam’s sobs grew louder as the beating progressed to kicking. Tikam was now on all fours. The kicks were aimed at the shins, the stomach and the head. By the time Rajiv was done, the neighbors on Zakir Hussain Road were all out of their houses. Curious tourists from Andy’s Guest House peeped out to confirm their horror. Rajiv felt liberated by the animal inside him he had unleashed.

  “Just because we are related doesn’t mean you can take advantage of me, Tikam,” he spat. “You will never, never, never knock on the door again when I’m in the bathroom.”

  Finally at peace with himself for a reason he didn’t quite understand, he pushed Tikam away.

  The Scotts arrived right on time the next morning. In their hands, they each held a copy of the New Testament.

  “How was Sunday?” Christa said.

  Rajiv told them all. He started with his mama, his grandmother’s insults, the backbreaking cleaning, and the beating.

  “Do you regret it?” Michael asked.

  “Regret what?”

  “Beating Tikam for no fault of his.”

  “I don’t,” Rajiv said. “It felt good.”

  “Can you elaborate for us, Rajiv?” Michael asked. If he condemned Rajiv’s actions or justification, he let neither his tone nor expression reveal it.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Scott, it was a long day, and when I beat him, I felt less like a victim. The more he screamed in pain, the less my pain became, the less I felt like I was suffering.”

  “Do you think it was a contest thing?” Michael said.

  “Contest?” Rajiv was confused.

  “Yes, a competition, as in his sufferings should be more than yours.”

  “I didn’t look at it that way,” Rajiv confided.

  Tikam walked to them bearing three glasses of tea. His eyes were still swollen from crying. No physical hurt was evident, but he refused to look up when Michael cheerfully greeted him.

  “The sight of him—doesn’t it break your heart?” Michael asked as Tikam turned around.

  “I don’t know.” Rajiv took a sip of his tea and grimaced at its bitterness. “No, it doesn’t. It’s twisted, but I’ll say it—I think he deserved it.”

  “We aren’t here to preach, but violence isn’t the answer, Rajiv,” Christa said.

  “Is that what the New Testament says?”

  “No, it’s not only what the Bible says,” replied Christa. “It’s something every religion in the world teaches.”

  She spoke more slowly than she usually did and enunciated every word. Christa was definitely more transparent than Michael—she was letting her disapproval show.

  “You don’t know about all religions,” Rajiv testily declared. He was surprised he was talking to the Scotts that way. “Just today a court in the UAE declared that it wasn’t anti-Islamic for a man to use violence on his wife or children.”

  “It doesn’t make it right, Rajiv,” Christa said. She had stopped sipping her tea.

  “I didn’t say it’s right, Ms. Scott.” Rajiv let go of the handle of his cup and gripped it by the body. “I just find it weird that you claim to know all religions.”

  “This isn’t about religion at all, Rajiv,” Christa said. “I am afraid—”

  Before she could finish, Michael said, “Are you ashamed of your poverty, Rajiv?”

  “Who said I am poor, Mr. Scott?”

  “No, no one said that, but I think you’re stressed about your relatives’ arrival. It’s festival time; you should try to enjoy yourself. Too much attention to their needs is making the holidays painful for you. You must remember you can still eat and have a roof above your head—that’s more than what many people in this country have.”

  “But you have to understand I have a lot of people visiting,” Rajiv said. “And they aren’t here to see Sandeep or me but to feel better about themselves, to use us to teach their children that they need to be grateful for their good fortune. I know they’ll gossip about our one-bedroom house all the way back to Shillong. If they came here with nobler intentions, maybe I’d look forward to their visit.”

  “Why do you let their pettiness bother you?” Michael asked. “You’re worrying endlessly about what they think. Aren’t you giving them the power to control you? Why is what they think so important to you?”

  “It’s easy for you to say all that, Mr. Scott, but these people bought me my engineering degree. My mother’s sisters and brothers—the four of them—each paid for a year of my college. They expect me to be obligated to them even though I have already paid them all in full after our Kurseong property was sold to those hotel developers last year. I wanted to pay them a little interest, so I wouldn’t have to feel indebted for life, but that’s not done with your close relatives.”

  “They helped you in times of need, Rajiv.” The aggressive tone in Christa’s voice disappeared. “Shouldn’t you be thankful to them?”

  “If thanks were all that was needed, it would be okay. I can’t stand their patronizing attitude. Even their children know I wouldn’t have gone to engineering college had it not been for their parents. It’s in the way they treat me, in the way they treat Sandeep.”

  “You just have to see them once a year, Rajiv,” Michael said.

  “My mama is the worst of all, Mr. Scott, and he lives in Darjeeling.”

  “But you rarely see him,” Christa reminded him. “You’re thinking of these people so much that you’re venting out your frustrations on others—it was Tikam yesterday, and it’s me today. If it’s just twice a year that you see him, that’s not a problem.”

  “And when I do see him, I have to make sure Tikam is far away so I don’t take out all my anger on him,” Rajiv said.

  Before they left, Christa gave Rajiv a copy of the New Testament and told him to read it. It was, she said, the best way to understand Christianity. They weren’t trying to convert him, she added. For someone who was losing faith in everything around him, reaffirming his faith in God—any god—might do a lot of good. They were, of course, available anytime he wanted to discuss the book. There was one for his brother, too, but Michael suggested it’d be a better idea to ask Sandeep first before assuming he was going to read a book—any book.

  Feeling partly guilty about having been rude to Christa, Rajiv set about cleaning again. Sandeep was still sleeping, and Rajiv didn’t wake him up. His grandmother was rotating the knob of her radio to pick up signals from All India Radio Kurseong. He hadn’t seen Tikam since he’d brought them tea that morning. Rajiv took a blouse—it probably belonged to his mother—from under his bed and wiped the windows and frames with it. When he removed the pictures from where they were positioned on the walls to wipe their backs, more displaced silverfish hurried about. He killed one or two and let the others live. The dust that had gathered on the p
ictures provoked his allergies, and he wrapped another of his mother’s blouses around his nose and mouth. When the coughing wouldn’t stop, he headed to the terrace, where his grandmother advised him to look up to the sky as soon as he felt the coughs coming. It miraculously worked.

  As his grandmother muttered details of a few old wives’ tales, Rajiv washed the khadas that adorned the picture frames. He’d have thrown them away and not replaced them with new ones, but the pictures by themselves looked incomplete. The people in them looked alive without the khadas around them. To Rajiv, that was wrong. He stared at his father’s photo and felt an eerie sense of bonding—he looked exactly like his father. He tried to stir up an emotion from his mother’s photo and failed. He stared the longest at his grandfather’s face, wiped the frame once again, and put the picture back where it belonged. He’d have to make sure the khadas looked brand new.

  In the evening, he tackled the mess beneath the beds. To add color to the drab room, he rescued the books from under the beds and placed them on the windowsill. He had gone to St. Paul’s, a Christian school that, impressed with his academic brilliance, had taken him in for no fee. The beginning of each academic session, in late February, his father helped cover all his and Sandeep’s books with brown paper; sometimes Appa stapled a transparent plastic sheet over the covering.

  As a child, Rajiv loved writing his name on the book covers with an irregular mixture of upper- and lowercase letters. Sandeep, never academically inclined, begged his parents for leftover paper so he could construct little planes, which tore at an alarming frequency. Now, unable to resist leafing through the same moth-eaten books—big sections of Rajiv’s were meticulously underlined and full of side notes, while Sandeep’s were clean and barely used—he was transported to simpler, happier times. He didn’t remember his relatives treating him shoddily then. He didn’t remember a single responsibility. Except a few times, like when they beat him because he returned Niveeta’s bite with a kick, his parents had given him a happy, even spoiled, childhood. His thoughts diverted once again to the biting incident, and he smiled. It would be interesting to remind Niveeta.

  The Scotts surprisingly didn’t come the next day. Rajiv, although desperate to talk to them about the positive energy that going through the old books infused him with, was half hoping they wouldn’t show up because of the anxiety attack the presence of someone of their faith on a day as holy as the Tika might give his grandmother. It was the main event of the ten-day-long Dashain festival. On this day, Hindu Nepalis from the neighborhood came to his place to accept tika—rice blended with a yogurt-based pink paste—from his grandmother. Everyone, even Sandeep, wore new clothes. Rajiv, for his part, wore a rarely seen button-down shirt he was sure everyone thought was new. His grandmother wore a less sedate sari. Tikam had taken a few days off to visit his family in Teesta. He simply nodded sideways at Rajiv as a gesture of good-bye.

  When Rajiv said it was appropriate for her to wear a small red dot on her forehead, his grandmother looked astounded but happy.

  “What will people say?” She smiled.

  “Why do you care?” Rajiv asked. “Everyone is doing it these days.”

  “They aren’t widows like me.”

  “Even the widows are doing it.”

  “I am almost eighty and don’t even wear white fully. People might talk.”

  “I have seen widows as old as you wear pink saris. Your green is decent. I guarantee no one will say a word about your red dot.”

  “You don’t know how women talk.” She shushed him.

  He didn’t pressure her more. He wanted her to know that he understood her desires, and she seemed appreciative, which was all that mattered.

  His grandmother smeared the rice blend on her grandsons’ foreheads and, as the day progressed, on the neighbors’ with alacrity and happily dispensed blessings. She wasn’t familiar with the standard incantations that went along with the offering of the tika, but Rajiv had recorded two chants—one for males and the other for females—on his phone, which pleased the old woman. Most of her immediate family was dead, and Rajiv was thankful that all these neighbors made her feel elderly and respected on this day. Almost all of them came bearing plastic bags full of fruit or boxes of sweetmeat; many even made monetary offerings to her, which his grandmother shyly accepted. She procured five-rupee notes from under her bra strap as gifts for the little ones. She beamed when youngsters touched her feet with their heads.

  Dashain also meant feasting. It had become a yearly ritual with Tamang Uncle, their next-door neighbor, to buy a live goat, kill it, sacrifice its head at his home altar, and cook the rest of it in different ways—stewed, barbecued, and fried. His boys served in the Indian Army and weren’t home in October, so Rajiv, Sandeep, and their grandmother ate more meat at Tamang Uncle’s during Dashain than they did the entire year at their place. They didn’t cook anything different from their everyday meals at home during the festival, and Rajiv was glad the neighbors didn’t say anything disparaging because they knew no one in the house was qualified to prepare a feast. Besides, all the neighbors were already stuffed with meat by the time they arrived at Rajiv’s place. Some even came drunk.

  This year, one fewer family accepted tika at their place. Subba Uncle, who lived two doors down, had converted to Christianity earlier that month. All the five members of the family were baptized, got rid of their old names, and adopted anglicized names: Jasraj Subba was now Joseph Subba, while Jamuna, his wife, was now Jemina. Jasraj had given up alcohol completely, and Jamuna, a compulsive gambler, stayed away from cards and the women who played them. Naturally, this invited the ridicule of the neighborhood. The new converts were active in their church and their grown-up daughters were already training to become Sunday School teachers.

  Rajiv had a strong suspicion the Scotts had something to do with this change of faith and made a mental note to ask them about it the next day. He then remembered his outburst at Christa and immediately felt ashamed of himself. The Scotts had been nice to him and had taught him to see the world from a different perspective than he was wont to do, and his behavior with Christa—who had been pretty civil despite everything—was uncalled for. He knew, though, that he would never get around to reading the New Testament. It wasn’t because he was a die-hard Hindu; he just didn’t attribute enough importance to religion to want to change from the one he was born into.

  As light gave way to dark, and the last of the revelers left, Rajiv’s apprehension returned. He’d have to wake up again in the morning and give the corners a thorough sweep. His grandmother was already snoring, and Sandeep was out with friends. Rajiv knew he should have gone to his mama’s place for tika, but he was certain his uncle, true to form, would ruin this nice day in some way or the other. He wondered if he’d invite his mama’s wrath the next day or if his wealthy uncle barely noticed the absence of his nephew.

  Mama’s call woke him up the next day.

  “Still asleep,” the other man said. “I thought so. Were you up all night drinking?”

  “I don’t drink, Mama,” Rajiv said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Do you know what time Manju chema will get here?”

  “I am not their attendant. Just don’t disappear to your adda during the day. Be sure you are home when they arrive. They could come anytime. Their cell is still out of range.”

  “Can you give the number to me?” Rajiv asked. He thought he could keep trying until he reached them to ask what time they’d be there.

  His uncle had disconnected the phone already, which Rajiv wasn’t surprised about. Abruptly hanging up without saying good-bye was a common trait among all his mother’s relatives. They had done it every time they called him regarding some fee-related issue in college.

  He called out to his grandma. She didn’t hear him. His brother’s bed was empty. He probably hadn’t come home last night.

  When the Scotts arrived and he made them tea, he wondered if he should offer them fruit
or sweetmeat from the day before. Christians he knew from Darjeeling usually didn’t eat anything that was first offered to Hindu gods.

  “Would you also like some guavas and burfee?” Rajiv asked.

  “Wow! Guavas would be very nice,” Christa exclaimed while Michael nodded in agreement.

  “They came as parshads. Is that okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Christa said.

  Rajiv thought they might not have understood what parshads were.

  “Parshads are offerings made to Hindu gods.”

  “Why shouldn’t we eat them?” Michael looked puzzled.

  Rajiv hastened to explain. “No, Christians in Darjeeling don’t eat them.”

  “Nothing comes between me and my guavas,” Christa said, as she bit a ripe one. “Delicious. And we are different Christians.”

  “So when do they arrive?” Michael asked, referring to the guests.

  “Sometime today.”

  “All cousins?” inquired Christa.

  “No, an aunt, a cousin, and the cousin’s cousin.”

  “Ooooh, the cousin’s cousin is not related to you, right?” It was Christa again.

  “No, she’s not,” Rajiv said uncomfortably.

  “Have you ever met her?” Christa asked.

  “Yes, once.”

  He told them about the biting episode. They all laughed.

  “Quite the enigmatic person this cousin’s cousin is,” Christa teased. “Childhood bites and all.”

  “What’s an enigma is the Subba family,” Rajiv said.

  “Why?” Christa and Michael said in unison.

  “Didn’t they convert?”

  “Oh, yes, they’ve accepted the Lord as their savior,” Christa said, her eyes lighting up.

  “Were you sort of responsible for it?” Rajiv asked.

  “We helped them accept Christ,” Christa said. “We wouldn’t call ourselves responsible for their conversion. We were merely agents along the way.”

  Rajiv looked at Michael, expecting him to say something. Michael kept quiet.

  “Why do you do it?” Rajiv asked.