by Diksha Basu
“With crystals,” Mr. Gupta said.
“It’s quite lovely,” Mr. Patnaik said.
“Are the crystals comfortable to sit on?” Mr. Gupta asked.
Before Mrs. Jha could encourage them to leave, the doorbell rang again and as she walked to answer it, both men settled down on the sofa. Shatrugan was at the door with three skinny men in white undershirts and dirty slacks standing behind him.
“Madam, the movers are here. The van is parked where sir told me to.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Patnaik,” Mr. Gupta said. “The van is blocking your car. Before they start loading it, you should see that it gets moved.”
“It’s no hassle at all. It’s the least one can do for the neighbors,” Mr. Patnaik said. “Mrs. Jha, this sofa is wonderful. Where did you buy it?”
“My husband ordered it from Japan. Shatrugan, thank you for bringing the movers up,” Mrs. Jha said.
Mr. Jha came into the living room, fresh from the shower, his damp hair neatly parted to the left, as usual. He was wearing a short-sleeved checkered blue shirt and jeans. When had he started wearing jeans?
“Ah, our good-bye party is assembling. Good morning, good morning. Shatrugan, the movers have parked where we said?”
“Yes, sir. Sir, it is an exciting day for you today. You must be wishing Rupak were also here,” Shatrugan said.
“This will always be home for Rupak,” Mr. Patnaik said. “You may be moving to another part of Delhi, but you will always belong here.”
“Rupak does not even live in Delhi anymore, let alone Mayur Palli, Mr. Patnaik,” Mr. Gupta said. “He has moved on. He probably has an American girlfriend by now.”
“I’m sure he won’t forget where he’s from,” Mr. Patnaik said. “Are you looking at girls for him yet?”
“Not yet. Let him finish his studies,” Mr. Jha said.
“Yes, even Urmila would like to finish studying first,” Mr. Patnaik said.
“Really?” Mr. Gupta said. “My wife heard your wife telling the ladies in the library that she wanted to find a match for your daughter as soon as possible.”
“Mr. Jha, this is a lovely sofa. Your wife tells me it was made in Japan,” Mr. Patnaik said.
“Yes. Those are Swarovski crystals,” Mr. Jha said. “They shine like diamonds.”
“But not quite diamonds,” Mr. Gupta said.
“No, certainly not. A sofa is no place for diamonds,” Mr. Jha said.
Shatrugan, still standing near the door, laughed.
“Shatrugan, please go downstairs and stay near the truck. Watch that they load everything carefully,” Mrs. Jha said.
She tried making eyes at her husband to get everyone out of the house. Instead he said, “Bindu, perhaps you should put the kettle on for tea? People will be dropping in all day, I’m sure.”
Downstairs, in the courtyard, others from the housing complex had gathered around the pieces of furniture, wrapped in old sheets and blankets and covered in tape, that lay around the big truck. Most people of their generation were retired and had nowhere else to be on a Monday morning. When Mr. and Mrs. Jha came down following the last of the boxes, Mrs. Kulkarni came forward to hand them a small box of laddoos, again, something sweet. Mr. and Mrs. Baggaria gave them a box with “basic daal, rice, and vegetables so you have some home-cooked food when you get there.” Mrs. Jain came to Mrs. Jha with a small bouquet of flowers. “I went for a walk this morning to see if I could pluck some from the lawn downstairs so you would have something from Mayur Palli to take with you, but there are just no flowers anywhere around here. I had never even noticed. Anyway, I bought these from the market.”
Mrs. Jha was about to turn to Mr. Jha and tell him it was too much, look at all this kindness, how could this possibly compare to pulling up in front of an empty huge bungalow with nobody but the neighbor’s guard to say hello to them, when Mrs. Ray came up to her with a small bar of Cadbury’s chocolate and a box full of chappatis that her maid had made for them.
“Quite a day,” Mrs. Ray said. “Do you need anything else? These chappatis Ganga made can be put in the fridge so you can eat them over the next few days. Do you want her to pack a full meal?”
“Oh, Reema,” Mrs. Jha said. “I’m so happy to see you. You are too kind. Mrs. Baggaria already gave us food, but I’m so happy you are here. I’m so happy everyone is here. And I feel terrible about all the times the neighbors have annoyed me. I can’t believe it’s actually happening. Time just goes so fast, doesn’t it?”
Mrs. Ray nodded. “It does. But don’t talk as if you are leaving the country. You are still going to be in Delhi. And I will come to visit. It will be good to get out of Mayur Palli every so often.”
“Our lives are here. What an age to start again. New starts are for youngsters, not for us,” Mrs. Jha said. “I shouldn’t say that. Maybe you might find a reason to visit Gurgaon more often? It isn’t just us who will be there.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Mrs. Ray said with a laugh. “But I did get an interesting call from someone in Gurgaon last week. I assume I have you to thank for that?”
Mrs. Jha smiled and used the corner of her pallu to wipe the sweat off her forehead. “It might be nice for you to have some new friends. Outside Mayur Palli. What did he say?”
“It took a while for either of us to say anything because I thought it was the dry cleaner who has not yet finished cleaning two saris I gave him almost two weeks back. Upen introduced himself as Mr. Chopra, not Upen, and that’s what that dry cleaner in the market calls himself. So I immediately started scolding him for having taken so long. I said, ‘I’ve been calling and calling and you haven’t answered or called back.’ Poor Upen seemed quite shocked and said he didn’t know I had been calling, what number had I been calling on? And it went on like this for a while until I realized what had happened. It was embarrassing, Bindu.”
“But you’re smiling,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Perhaps. But enough about that—today is about you. Who says only young people should have fun? They don’t even appreciate their own youth. I think your move is quite exciting. And it will be good.”
“You come and spend full weekends with us, okay? We have too many bedrooms,” Mrs. Jha said, glancing up at the Des’ balcony to see if they were watching.
“Small, idle minds here. But it provides entertainment, doesn’t it? Some days it’s fun, some days it’s silly, but that’s life,” Mrs. Ray said. She had noticed Mrs. Jha looking up toward the Des’ balcony and she did not want to discuss her stolen yoga pants today.
“Mrs. Ray,” Mr. Gupta said. “Did you find your yoga pants yet?”
“They were stolen,” Mrs. Jha said. “You don’t find stolen items.”
“Well, we have no proof that they were stolen,” Mrs. Kulkarni said.
“Nobody has ever had anything stolen here,” Mrs. Baggaria added. “But hopefully you have discovered that yoga works best in salwar kameez.”
“Idle minds,” Mrs. Jha whispered to her friend. “Ignore them.”
Mrs. Jha put her purse into the front seat of the car and turned to Mrs. Ray.
“You really will visit?” she asked. “For me, even if not for anyone else in our neighborhood.”
“Of course. As soon as you’re settled in, you will invite me over for dinner. Or as soon as you return from New York. And you will keep coming back to Mayur Palli. You can move elsewhere, but you will always belong here. It took a whole housing complex to raise that fine son of yours. We aren’t going to let you all disappear,” Mrs. Ray said. “You must be wishing he were here today.”
“We are finalizing our dates to visit him. You know my husband—he always books tickets at the last minute. But I worry about how Rupak manages in America all by himself. Our Indian boys always need women to take care of them, don’t they? Mothers or sisters or wives or daughters,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Or maids,” Mrs. Ray added.
“Careful, careful. I told you to wrap the sofa with extra s
heets. I don’t want a single diamond to fall off.” Mr. Jha was following behind the movers as three of them carried the sofa.
“There are diamonds on the sofa?” Mrs. Ray asked.
“Oh no, no. Not at all. Just a few small crystals. He doesn’t even know the difference. It’s nothing,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Put the sofa in absolutely last,” Mr. Jha said.
Mr. Gupta and Mr. Patnaik came downstairs and joined the group, and Mr. Patnaik noticed a big brown box on his Honda. Not only was his car blocked in, but they were actually storing things on his car. After all this, Rupak had better not return to India with an American wife. If he did, Mr. Patnaik would make Mr. Jha pay for his car to get repolished. Mr. Gupta also noticed the brown box and thought it served Mr. Patnaik right for trying to brown-nose his way into Mr. Jha’s new money. He hoped one of the crystals would scratch Mr. Patnaik’s car while they were at it.
“Well, everything is fully packed,” Mr. Jha said. “Bindu, you’re ready?”
Mrs. Jha nodded but did not move. Behind her, Shatrugan had joined the group. He wished he could reach over and touch Mrs. Jha’s shoulder and tell her he would miss having her here, but he knew he could never touch any of them. Instead he had to walk to the gate and open it so the Mercedes could pull out with the big truck clattering behind it. At the gate, Mrs. Jha put the window down and handed Shatrugan a bag.
“You take care, Shatrugan,” she said. “Here are some things that may be useful for you. Rupak’s old CD player is in there also—he specifically said to give that to you. We’ll see you soon.”
Shatrugan wouldn’t throw that away, he decided. Because Rupak wasn’t dead; he was in America. But Shatrugan knew that one CD would cost him at least a full day’s income, so it wouldn’t be of much real use.
“To Gurgaon, Bindu,” Mr. Jha said while closing the windows. “Our new lives await. And for the ride, six CDs in our CD player await. Put some Kenny G on.”
The next weekend, after life had resumed its usual rhythm in Mayur Palli, Mrs. Ray was trying to muster up some curiosity about Chandigarh before going to meet Upen. She called for a four-hour taxi from the local taxi stand. It was worth splurging tonight. And in Delhi, it was much safer than relying on public transport anyway. She had not been out late for a dinner (“and drinks,” Upen had added on the phone) outside East Delhi in ages, and she was no longer sure how the city functioned at night, especially for a single woman. The only problem was, like with everything else in Mayur Palli, the taxi stand was part of the world and the gossip. The same old sardarji man and his son had been running this taxi stand for the past two decades, and it serviced everyone in Mayur Palli and the neighboring housing societies. Over the years, the sardarji had upgraded the cars from Fiats to Ambassadors to Maruti vans, and he now even had two Innovas in his fleet, but everything else remained the same. The stand was located right outside the main gates of Mayur Palli, near the fishseller, and everyone knew when anyone else hired a taxi. They all knew when someone went to the airport, they all heard if one of the young boys in the neighborhood had been carted home drunk, and they all knew if someone had been shopping and stopped at Chittaranjan Park to buy better fish than the one their local fishseller brought. So naturally Mrs. Ray was not too keen on taking a taxi from here, but the safety was worth it. And the neighbors talked about her anyway. That wasn’t going to change.
“Ganga,” she called. “Bring out my red sandals from the front cupboard and dust them off.”
Ganga came into Mrs. Ray’s bedroom in her white widow’s sari and stood in the doorway watching Mrs. Ray powder her face. Mrs. Ray noticed her and put her compact down on her dresser. She pulled out her small black purse from the top shelf of her closet.
“You haven’t used that purse in a while,” Ganga said.
Mrs. Ray turned the purse over in her hands as if searching for the date it was last used.
“Really? God knows. Anyway, the red sandals, please. And bring me a glass of water as well.”
Ganga didn’t move.
“The ones with the heels that you haven’t used in years?” Ganga said.
“I don’t keep track of exactly when I’ve used what, Ganga,” Mrs. Ray said, and then turned her face into her cupboard to hide her smile. It was true. Everything Ganga was noticing was true. She had not used the red sandals or the small black purse in ages. Where would she use those items? The weekly meetings in Mayur Palli? Give the neighbors even more to gossip about? She had bought both the sandals and the purse on a trip to Hong Kong with her husband ten years ago, and they were understated and elegant and obviously meant for a night out. Mrs. Ray had considered giving them away after Mr. Ray’s death, but a small part of her hoped she would find another reason to wear them someday and tonight was reason enough.
Last week on the phone, once Mrs. Ray had figured out that Upen was not the dry cleaner, the conversation had still been a little odd, but pleasantly so.
“Mrs. Jha mentioned that you may be planning a trip to Chandigarh?” Upen said.
Mrs. Ray was not yet too old to assume a man she had only met once was calling to discuss Chandigarh, so she decided to be a little confident and accept Mrs. Jha’s attempted setup.
“Yes, perhaps,” she said. “My husband—my late husband—was an environmental engineer and he always talked about how impressive the city planning was in Chandigarh.”
He had, once, Mrs. Ray reasoned. She wasn’t lying about her dead husband in order to meet a new man.
“You must come visit,” Upen said. “I would suggest around November for the best temperatures. And I can help you draw up your whole itinerary. There’s the Rock Garden, of course.”
He paused. There was only the Rock Garden and he knew it and she probably knew it too, he worried.
“There’s so much more,” he continued. “I don’t want to list all the places on the phone. Why don’t we meet some evening? Maybe next weekend? That would be easier. I’m in Delhi for a while longer—I have no real reason to rush back to Chandigarh so I make these trips nice and long.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Ray said. “Yes, that would be easier. I’ll bring a notebook and we can have a cup of coffee.”
“How about dinner?” Upen said.
Mrs. Ray had lain down on her bed holding the phone when he said that. She closed her eyes, smiled, and shook her head. She was like a scene from an American movie about high school cheerleaders who get asked on dates. For hardly a second, though, because then Ganga had come into the room asking what kind of fish she should buy for dinner that night. Mrs. Ray waved her away, sat up, and said to Upen, “Dinner. Yes, dinner.”
“And drinks,” Upen had said.
And when Mrs. Ray hung up, Ganga was standing there looking at her with curiosity, and Mrs. Ray had looked away to hide her smile. And Ganga was standing there again now, holding her red heels and looking at her with the same look and once again, Mrs. Ray looked away, still smiling, and said, “Ganga, please go to the dry cleaner tomorrow morning and check on my saris. It’s been almost three weeks.”
Mrs. Ray arrived early to the Lodhi Restaurant, beautifully nestled into the greenery and surroundings of Lodhi Gardens. They had said they would meet at eight for dinner, but the evening temperature was starting to drop so she was worried that her nose would run or her eyes would water, so it was best to get there first, settle in, and check her compact before Upen arrived. What trivial, wonderful concerns, she thought.
Mrs. Ray loved autumn in Delhi. At this time every year she forgot just how brutal the cold would get by the beginning of January, especially with no central heating. But every October and November felt so lovely when the cool air descended across the city after a hot and humid summer. The smell of wood burning filled the air, and scarves and sweaters and closed-toed shoes came out. People would leave their doors and windows open instead of sitting closed up in air-conditioned rooms. Winter in Delhi had the same effect that spring did in books and movies set in the Western wo
rld. The start of winter here brought with it the hope for newness.
As she sat down at the corner table, she looked around nervously. A young couple—an Indian woman and a white man—sat at the table next to her. Mrs. Ray felt happy for the woman, not envious. She looked like she was about thirty and was wearing black pants and a black shirt, with rust-colored high-heeled boots. On the table between them sat an open bottle of white wine in a metal box filled with ice. They looked so at ease—with each other, with the dim lighting, with the white tablecloths and the wineglasses.
Mrs. Ray quickly scanned the rest of the room. You never knew who you would run into in Delhi, but there was nobody here who looked familiar. Still, as a precaution, she had taken the seat that left her back facing the restaurant. This meant, of course, that she would not see Upen arriving, but it also meant that the harsh overhead light was not above her head. She was too old for overhead lighting. In any case, if she focused, she would probably be able to see Upen’s reflection as he approached the table. She knew she was being silly. She knew nothing about this man. They were meeting only to discuss her alleged interest in Chandigarh. Yes, it was strange that he had suggested doing that over dinner and drinks at one of Delhi’s most romantic restaurants, but maybe that was standard for him. He had dropped enough hints that Mrs. Ray was confident that he did not have a wife, but for all she knew, he had a girlfriend in Chandigarh. And even if he didn’t, it did not mean that he was interested in her. She was too old for games like these. It was just that she had never had the luxury of games like these.
She had loved Mr. Ray—she still did—and she enjoyed glimpses of longing and desire and a crush early in their marriage, but there were no games, there were no unanswered questions. The moment she remembered most fondly from their early years was one morning in the first month, when they still lived in Mr. Ray’s family house in Mumbai, and he had woken up next to her, leaned over, put his mouth against the small black mole she had behind her right ear and said, “This is mine.”
