The Private Life of Mrs Sharma

by Ratika Kapur

  So, when I saw Mrs Khanna, when I saw her ageing face ageing very much before it was time for it to age, I wondered what had made her so old. If she had no children, who had drawn those lines on her face?

  But why speak of such things any more? Why not let the lovely wet wind blow away such thoughts? You have to see the peepul tree outside. Its leaves are silver now in the rainy wet light. It seems that this pre-monsoon rain has come from God. It has come to bless me before I start my work on fixing Bobby. Now that my in-laws are gone, I have to start my work immediately.

  My in-laws left the day before yesterday. Our neighbour’s son Kamal works in a travel agency that has contacts at the RPO, so we had no problems in making their passports. Kamal is a good person to know. One day I will also have to get a passport to go abroad. I will travel in a plane. Maybe I will go to Dubai to meet my husband. But then he says that it hardly feels like a foreign place. He says that even though there are some white people here and there, it actually just feels like some fancier type of India, an India that has been cleaned up nicely. And, obviously, it also does not snow there. So, what is the use in spending such a lot of money to go to such a place? Instead of Dubai, maybe we should go to Switzerland. Or maybe we should wait a little bit more, until Bobby is happily settled in America or England, and go to meet our son. Yes, we will go to meet our son in America or England, we will go to meet our son and his family, and Bobby will bring our grandchildren to the airport to pick us up, and then he will drive us back to his beautiful house in his big SUV, and our daughter-in-law will have a hot and tasty meal prepared for us after our long plane journey, and after we have eaten, after we have sat down and eaten and exchanged all the news, after that I will go out into Bobby’s garden and play with my grandchildren in the snow.

  Yes, that is where we will go. But before Bobby’s parents can make that journey, Bobby has to make another type of journey first. Maybe it will be a little bit long and a little bit difficult, but with his mother by his side he will, by God’s grace, surely make it.

  12

  Saturday, 2 July 2011

  Last evening Vineet smsed me to call him up. Actually, he sent me six smses to call him up before I finally picked up the phone. The reason that I took such a long time to call him up is because I thought that I was confused. Ever since that day when we met each other at the electronics showroom, which was two weeks ago, I had been feeling a little bit odd, and I had thought that this feeling was confusion, and I don’t like to feel confused because confusion is actually a sickness, a sickness suffered by the weak-minded, and I don’t like to boast, but I am not a weak-minded person normally, I am actually a person who has quite a lot of strength, which, I think, was a gift from my father, an inheritance, an inheritance that I want to pass down to my son. So, I did not want to keep feeling confused and that is why I did not want to talk to Vineet. But then after thinking about this for some time I realised that I have not actually been confused. What I have suffered is not actually the disease of confusion, but just the headache of two or three unanswered questions. And so I called him back.

  See, all of us live with questions that cannot be answered. As long as we can answer our own questions with honesty, we should not worry about those questions that only others have answers for but sometimes refuse to share with us. That is how it is, and so not only did I call him up, but I also agreed to meet him when he asked me if I was free this morning.

  And what did Vineet want? He just wanted me to go with him today to see some new properties in Greater Noida. The MCD, he said, had issued his mother a show cause notice for the illegal construction of a second room in their flat, and they were always harassing them and asking them for money, and his mother’s blood pressure was always so high because of this, and so she told Vineet that he had to get them out of that place immediately, before the MCD killed her, and because an order from his mother is like an order from God, this is what Vineet himself said, he needed my help, he needed a woman’s ideas, to buy a new house.

  It was a very interesting experience, and more importantly, it was very educational. We went to six different properties in Greater Noida and Noida Extension, and what can I say? Each one was better than the other. One had Italian marble in the drawing and dining rooms, and we thought that it was so beautiful, but then the next one had one of those new modular kitchens with all the latest appliances. One had false ceilings with fancy lights, but then the other had imported cupboards and what they called Velvet Touch Paints and Textures. It was so difficult to choose. And even though all the buildings were still under construction, the developers had made these beautiful show flats so that prospective buyers could see what they would finally look like. This was my favourite part. It was so nice to walk through the flats, to walk around all the different, different rooms, to sit on a beautiful sofa, to stand in front of a shining gas stove. Maybe it looked like a film studio, because there was not even one stain or scratch on the walls, and the floors were shining, and there was all this beautiful Italian furniture that was so nicely arranged. Maybe it looked a little bit artificial, but still, it all seemed very real to me. I imagined myself in these flats. In each show flat that we saw, I imagined my husband and I living there retired and happy, our Bobby well settled in a foreign country, and the two of us here, with respectable neighbours all around us, neighbours who had beautiful dogs that they took for morning walks, neighbours whose children were also working abroad. It was so easy to imagine all this and my husband and I growing old together in a nice, new, modern flat.

  But obviously the purpose of this outing was to find a suitable flat for Vineet and his mother, not for me to build dreams from dream houses, and so at each property I would think about all its advantages and disadvantages, always keeping in mind the needs of these two people. At each property, Vineet and I would not only spend time at the show flat, but we would walk around the whole complex with the agent and ask him questions about power back-up and water supply, facilities offered, malls and hospitals nearby, and what not. Then after we would finish, Vineet would turn to me and ask me for my comments, which I would think about carefully before saying. And I think that he thought that my comments were quite useful.

  After looking at properties, Vineet suggested that we go to eat Chinese food at a restaurant in the Sector 18 market in Noida. I agreed, and the food was very tasty. But then suddenly, in the middle of eating, he again asked me about my so-called brother. Obviously I was a little bit shocked. I was even a little bit angry that he had brought up this topic again. But then I realised that it was understandable that he did. Bobby was just a walking skeleton when Vineet saw us at the station, he was just a set of bones holding on to its mother. So, I decided to answer him properly this time. And when I started talking, I just could not stop. I blabbered on and on about the sad little story of my sick little brother, I told him about all the little, little things that had happened, I told him about how difficult everything was, and I don’t know for how long I talked. I just could not stop. It was very odd behaviour. I never ever talk about my son like that to anybody. Actually, is there any parent who would? So why did I talk like this today? And with Vineet? I have spent some time this evening thinking about this and I think that I finally have an answer. I talked freely about Bobby’s problems because I was talking about my so-called brother, not my son. I talked freely because it is much easier to talk about a troubled brother than to talk about a troubled child. I talked freely because my troubled brother’s troubles are not my fault.

  So, at this Chinese restaurant I talked and talked about Bobby, and Vineet listened with those same small, serious eyes fixed steadily on my eyes, and then just when we were going to finish our food, he gave me this odd type of look, this look where his eyes suddenly became bright and scared at the same time, and then, just like that, he reached over the table and put his hand on my arm.

  I allowed it to rest there, Vineet’s hand. It was a warm, heavy hand, it was the hand of a man
. It was not even two centimetres bigger than my hand, but it had much more weight. I know that this sounds almost funny, but as it rested there, this hand on my arm, I suddenly remembered the first time that my husband had laid his body down on me. I remembered how I had thought, during those moments, that even though my husband was slim and hardly one inch taller than me, he was much, much heavier than me, and I remembered how I had then said to myself, while my husband’s body was still on top of me, I had said to myself, Renu, this is what it is. All this love and romance and everything that happens between a man and a woman? This is what it is. It is the greater density of a man’s bones, the greater weight of him that will give to his woman both peace and pain.

  The truth is that for that one minute I wanted to take Vineet’s hand, that hand that lay on my arm, and I wanted to put it on another part of my body. But I got up. I got up so suddenly that my chair fell back. Vineet also jumped up. Then I told him that it was getting late and I had to go back home now. He muttered something that I could not understand and we left.

  When I reached home it was two o’clock and I could not believe it but my Bobby had prepared lunch, a poori-aloo lunch, for both of us. What was a bigger surprise was how clean the kitchen was. I had to pretend that I had not eaten already so I quickly sat down at the dining table, and as I took my first bite, Bobby stood in front of me patiently, waiting for my reaction.

  This is so tasty, I said, and I actually was not lying.

  You are just saying that to make me happy, he said.

  Not at all, I said. It is the best poori-aloo I have ever eaten.

  Better than Dadima’s? he said.

  Better than Dadima’s, I said.

  Then I am going to cook for you daily, he said.

  I did not say anything. He looked so happy that I actually did not want to spoil his mood. And so he brought me one hot poori after another and refused to eat himself until I was finished.

  I spent the rest of today as I normally spend every Saturday, changing bed sheets, grinding masalas, going to the market, and what not, but I did not feel as I normally do. Even Bobby, being such a sensitive boy, felt that something was wrong with his mother and kept asking me if I was fine. I told him that I had eaten too many pooris and so my stomach was feeling a little bit bloated. Obviously I was lying. But what could I have said to my son? Could I have told him that it was not overeating that troubled me but actually the opposite of that, some type of hunger?

  As soon as Bobby went to sleep I sent an sms to my husband to call me up. I needed to hear the sound of my husband, my ears needed to hear the sound of those soft, low tones that, depending on my mood, can soothe me like songs of love or God, or excite me.

  When he called me up we talked about various things. We talked about his boss and my boss, we talked about Bobby, and I also told him about how I have been trying to call up the mechanic to come to fix the washing machine. And then I said, Do you miss my body?

  For two or three seconds he was quiet, then he said, You have become a very bold woman since I left, no?

  Never mind all that, I said. Tell me now, do you still want my body?

  Obviously I do, you fool, he said.

  And I knew that he was not lying. His voice could not hide his hunger for me. My husband has always wanted my body. Then I asked him how he lived without sex and he said that it was very difficult and that the other men he lives with, all four of them, go to this one nurse, an Anglo-Indian Christian, who works at the hospital in the radiology department.

  I don’t care about those men, I said. What about you?

  You have become a very bold woman, no? he said again. And then he finally told me how he masturbates while thinking about me, and that sometimes it is so bad, sometimes he misses my body such a lot, that he has to masturbate in the hospital bathroom during working hours.

  My husband did not ask me if I also miss his body, if I miss two warm, heavy hands moving over my body. Did he feel too shy to ask? Or does he think that women don’t suffer those types of hunger? Whatever it is, my husband will come to know the answers soon. In two months’ time, exactly fifty-nine days from today on 31 August 2011, he will be here in Delhi, and when his son is in a deep sleep at night-time and the washing machine has started, my husband will come to know the answers.

  13

  Sunday, 3 July 2011

  There are days when the smallest, simplest things that you normally do every day without even knowing that you are doing them suddenly seem so difficult, days when a small, little thing like boiling milk seems more difficult than climbing a mountain. This morning my bones felt heavy like stone. And also my mind. And what was the crime for such a punishment? I asked Bobby to try on a suit. That is all. A suit. Bobby, see, I bought you such a smart suit! I said. And what did he do?

  Ma! he said, almost shouting. What are you doing to me?

  What am I doing to you? I said. I am asking you to try on a suit. A suit, that is all.

  I don’t want to wear a suit! he said.

  I told him how it was not just any suit, that it was bought from the mall. Still, did he listen?

  What are you trying to make me into? he said. I don’t want to wear a suit! I don’t want to do an MBA! I don’t want to work in an office!

  I am not trying to make you anything, you foolish boy, I said. I am only asking you to try on a suit that I bought especially for you with such a lot of love.

  Still, did he listen? I don’t want this, I don’t want that, he went on and on, and then suddenly he said, I don’t want to go to school any more.

  I could not believe what I was hearing. He does not want to go to school? Children can be so foolish and difficult sometimes.

  So, first I tried my level best to talk to him with love. I tried to tell him how important education is, how as Bobby’s grandfather used to say, Knowledge is a treasure that no thief can touch. And do you know what he said? He said that he agreed that education is important but that he wanted to get his education at his friend Ankit’s father’s restaurant, and not at school, which he said was timewaste.

  You want to be a cook? I said.

  Not a cook, Ma, he said. I want to be a chef.

  And do what? I said. Chop onions in some small dirty restaurant-kitchen in Saket?

  But then I did some deep breathing and tried to explain to him nicely that people like us don’t do such things, that maybe cooking is fine as timepass, but that it is not a suitable career for our type of people. I reminded him that he hails from a family that believes that education, a proper education, is more important than anything else in the world. I told him how even when my mother was dying my father made me attend school each and every day. I told him how my grandmother, his great grandmother, was dressed up as a boy, how her hair was cut short and her chest was pressed flat with a dupatta, just so that she could go to the only school in the village, which was a boys’ school.

  Bobby kept quiet. I could see that he was a little bit agitated and angry, so I decided to let it be. I also realised that I was getting angry for no reason, because Bobby is just a child, and this is just a phase, and he will quickly forget about all this leaving school and cooking business, and come back to normal.

  It is a quarter to twelve at night. After surfing the Net and looking at some more computer models to see which one Doctor Sahib should buy for me, I am now lying in my bed. Bobby is sleeping on the folding cot. From the way his body is lying heavy and still, from the way his arm is hanging off his cot, it seems that by God’s grace he is peaceful now, even if his mother is not.

  I am tired. I wish I could go away. Sometimes I think that Bobby also wishes his mother would go away. Sometimes, like this morning, it seems that his eyes are saying to me, Ma, I wish that you had gone to Dubai instead of Papa. The truth is that from time to time I also wish that.

  And so what if I did go away? Would something so horrible actually happen? Maybe we are all like those lizards in my husband’s favourite little story, and m
aybe like those lizards we all give ourselves more importance than we actually deserve. So what if I am my son’s mother? Does that mean that if I step away the world will come crashing down on him? He will still live, he will still grow. And I have to know this better than anybody else. My own mother died when I was fourteen years of age. And I think that I am fine. I am fine because whenever I have needed a mother, God has always brought me some very kind woman as a replacement. At school there was Sister Monica who told me about periods and bras and what not. When I was getting married, it was Nirmal Bua, my father’s cousin-sister, accompanied by her two daughters, who did all the wedding preparations, all the cooking, getting me ready, everything. And when Bobby was born, it was my dear mother-in-law. How lovingly my mother-in-law treated me. Obviously she took great care of Bobby, he was her first and only grandson, but I cannot forget how she also took care of me. Day in and day out she cooked the types of food a new mother needs to have, and she massaged my back, massaged my legs, and took Bobby from me so that I could get sleep. All these women, at different times of my life, were mothers to me.

  But why am I saying all this? I am not going anywhere and by God’s grace I have good health and I will live long and there will be no need for God or anybody else to find a replacement for me in my son’s life. But I think that what I want to say is that just because I am a mother, it does not mean that I can perform miracles. I can try my best to keep Bobby on the straight road because, as my father used to say, Nobody ever gets lost on the straight road, and I will say that I have always tried my best to do that from the first second that my son was born and I will keep trying until the day I die. But I am not God. I will never ever stop trying to do everything that I can do to make sure that my Bobby grows up to be a happy, healthy, successful man, but finally it is all in God’s hands. Finally, He will decide my son’s fate. And surely God would not want Bobby to be a cook. So, why should I actually worry such a lot?