An Extraordinary Destiny

by Shekhar Paleja

  Clutching Nasreen’s waist, he whispered in her ear, “Wanna get out of here? Just the two of us?”

  It was barely ten thirty; the party was in full swing. She looked at him, a little surprised, and held his firm gaze for a moment. “Sure.” They snuck out before anyone could spot them.

  Downstairs, a valet brought the Jurassic Fiat. Although Nasreen hadn’t said anything about it, Anush hoped she wasn’t embarrassed to be seen in the old car.

  Once they were both in, Nasreen said, “I’m famished. That food was so bland.”

  “Me too,” Anush said, relieved. “What was that squishy thing on the Japanese rice cake?” They both laughed.

  Anush drove around to the back of the Taj, to Bade Mia’s outdoor eatery where a couple of chefs made everything fresh to order on a large portable coal stove. A boy came running up to the Fiat to take their order.

  Nasreen ordered. “Four mutton kebabs with extra green chutney, two baida rotis, and a couple of ice cold Thums Up colas.” Bade Mia’s was Bombay street food at its best: inexpensive with bold flavour and spice. And they didn’t even have to get out of the car to eat. When the hot food came, they devoured it with relish.

  “Do you like paan?” she asked.

  Eaten as a traditional after-dinner digestive, paans were filled with fennel seeds and areca nut, wrapped in betel leaf. Anush hadn’t had one in ages and said, “Sure.”

  “I’ll take you to the best paanwalla in the city,” Nasreen said, ordering a few baida rotis to go before they left. She directed Anush to a paanwalla stand not far away on Marine Drive. There was hardly any traffic, and with the windows down the winter sea air felt deliciously cool.

  She asked Anush to stop the car by a few beggars and gave them the extra baida rotis. He rarely did charitable acts like that and hated himself for it now. Nasreen’s generous spirit was infectious and he promised himself to be more like her. Maybe give Reza a raise. But if the shop closed, what would happen to Reza? Maybe Anush could keep him on somehow as his assistant at Sharma Shipping. The thought of losing the shop and working at Sharma Shipping wasn’t something he wanted to think about right then.

  When they reached the paanwalla, Nasreen said, “How are you?”

  “I’m well, memsahib, and you?”

  “Well, thanks. Two special paans, please.”

  Most Indian women let the man speak to the working class as it was considered unbecoming, unladylike, but Nasreen was nothing like most women. If Anush had to construct an imaginary woman to be his soulmate, he wouldn’t have been able to dream up one better than Nasreen.

  Just as Anush was about to bite into his paan, Nasreen said, “Wait, let’s take them home.”

  Nasreen’s parents were still away vacationing in Alibag as they had been the past couple of weeks. At Nasreen’s place, the servants were asleep. Daisy, the senile Irish terrier, greeted them at the door. She had a habit of biting strangers if they got too close, but Anush had been over a few times now and Daisy had gotten to know his scent so she didn’t bite him when he scratched her behind the ear. Nasreen led him directly into her bedroom, where she shut the door and pushed Anush onto the bed. They began to undress each other in the dark while a chunk of moonlight lit the room. Anush unzipped Nasreen from her dress. When they were both naked, she fed Anush the paan and he did the same to her. The sweet coconut jaggery melted in the warmth of Anush’s mouth and slid down his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a paan. As Anush chewed he could smell and taste the cardamom, aniseed, fennel, coriander, rose, jasmine, lime, coconut, and then the pungent areca nut, which quickened the heart almost immediately, like nicotine. Exhilarating, satiating, divine.

  They made love on the bed, on the floor, and on Nasreen’s covered balcony, crowded with plants and creepers that ran thick up the iron grates—it was a little like a private forest. There was no air conditioning on the balcony and soon they were drenched in sweat from the humidity, their bodies writhing in ecstasy. Sex with the German woman had been pleasurable, but making love to Nasreen was an altogether enlightening experience. This was a deep connection. Every cell in his body reveled in bliss. As they lay in each other’s embrace, panting, looking into each other’s eyes, he knew the cocaine had worn off, and that it was Nasreen that was the most real thing in his life, the extraordinary thing in his destiny.

  - 16 -

  1998

  REZA AND ANUSH WERE BOTH at work in Anush’s office, creating a prototype of a dresser to show to a new five-star hotel manager. If it was constructed well, the hotel would purchase an order of over a hundred dressers from the shop. Although Anush had become reasonably adept with the tools, he still needed Reza’s help. Most of the complex joining, for example, was done by Reza. And even though a couple of articles had been written in the newspaper about Anush’s chairs, Reza wasn’t jealous. In fact, he was a bit curious as to why people seemed to like the strange chairs that Anush had made by taking his grandfather’s miniatures and putting his own, modern spin on them. Anush called it art, and on his new computer in the office, he showed Reza some examples of what he meant but most of the pictures of furniture seemed just as bizarre-looking, obviously for people who had too much money and time on their hands. There was one style Reza liked, called art deco, but Anush was always diluting it with other styles, making the end result peculiar. While the workers in the godowns below laboured ten hours a day or more making furniture for the hotels, Reza kept it to himself that some of the creations that Anush was toying around with in the office were just plain ugly. He was happy to not be working in the godowns. Working with Anush wasn’t even tiring, Reza rarely broke a sweat. They even had some fun—when Anush was in a bad mood, or uninspired to work, they’d play cards together in the office.

  As the day wrapped up, Reza squatted on his haunches to sweep the floor and Anush lit a cigarette.

  The phone on the desk rang. Anush picked up and after a while said, “Sorry to hear that. I’ll let him know.” Hanging up the phone, Anush said to Reza, “That was your brother. Sorry, but your uncle passed away.”

  Reza had just seen his Nabil chacha two months ago when he was home for his yearly vacation. Despite being ill for a few years, Nabil chacha wasn’t even fifty years old. “He hasn’t got a single grey hair,” villagers said. “He’ll live to a hundred and one.”

  Reza stopped sweeping for a moment to steady himself. After taking a breath he said, “He was sick,” and was about to add, He was like a father to me, but it seemed inappropriate, because despite the rapport they had built, Anush and Reza weren’t real friends. They didn’t share personal information like that. And yet they spent at least eight hours a day together, six, sometimes seven days a week—much more time than Reza spent with his wife, Shareen. Reza wasn’t obligated to work on Sundays but Anush would often show up on Sunday afternoons for a few hours, hungover, and Reza would help him with whatever he needed or just play cards.

  “You should go for the funeral,” Anush said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, Anush bhai,” Reza said.

  When it was time to go to the train station the next morning, Reza touched Anush’s feet as a sign of respect and for his blessing, as all the workers did before making the journey home. When Reza stood up, Anush pressed an envelope of bills into his hands.

  “I can’t accept this. It’s too generous,” Reza said.

  “It’s not nearly enough. Thank you for helping me,” Anush said, embracing Reza.

  It was entirely inappropriate for a sahib to embrace his employee. Reza didn’t know what to do with his arms so he didn’t return the embrace and left quickly.

  The cold air stung Reza’s lungs as he ran to his village, but running was the only way to keep warm on early winter mornings like this. The train from Surat had arrived at Rajkot in the dead of night. From there, he was lucky to find a night bus to Gondal, but it was standing room only. He’d been travelling for ov
er twenty four hours by the time he reached Gondal. From there, he jogged about twenty kilometres and got a ride on a farmer’s bullock cart for the last ten. Near his village, while he walked through the Persian lilacs, he could hear the roosters begin to crow. When he reached home, his brothers had just woken up and were outside the hut, washing their faces.

  Reza embraced them. Parvez said, “We thought you were coming yesterday. The funeral was supposed to be at sunset. You’re lucky Shareen didi asked us to wait for you. Come, we’ve got to prepare the body before it spoils.”

  Reza barely had time to greet his mother, sister, and Shareen, whom he held hands with briefly before having to undertake the duties of cleaning Nabil chacha’s body. With the help of a village elder, Reza and his brothers disrobed the body, wiped it clean from top to bottom and from left to right.

  “In the name of Allah,” the elder repeated quietly as he rocked back and forth.

  Reza choked back his tears. The small dark maroon oil stain on Nabil chacha’s right thumb, from a lifetime of smoking beedis, couldn’t be wiped clean. He was so much smaller now than the brawny man with powerful forearms who had first come to live with them years ago. Both his brothers were too young to remember how Nabil chacha had stepped in when their father disappeared for days on end and then stumbled home only to abuse their mother. She’d had no one to turn to. The other villagers could only sympathize. She needed a man at home to protect her and the children so she had turned to her brother, a bachelor, who agreed to live with them for a short while. That short while had turned into nearly twenty years. The reason Reza and his family were still alive and well was because of Nabil chacha. Without him, who knows what might have happened. Reza remembered one night when his father had tried to attack his mother with a knife. It was only because he was blind drunk that he stumbled, hit the floor, and passed out. The law provided little protection to villagers. Not all men in the village beat their wives, but it happened. One night after Nabil chacha moved in with them, Reza’s father returned and Nabil chacha beat him to the ground and made him promise never to return. After showing up at Reza’s wedding, word was that he took odd jobs in nearby villages or on farms. But it’d been many months now since anyone had even heard from him. Maybe he was dead and lying in a ditch, Reza sometimes thought, like the villager he’d once seen years ago, when he was a boy—the body stomped and trampled into the earth.

  When the boys were done cleaning the body, the elder instructed, “Place his hands on his chest. Right over left. And wrap him in three white sheets. Then tie one rope around his head, one around his feet, and two around his body.”

  The three brothers did as instructed and carried their shrouded uncle’s body on their shoulders out of their home and towards the cemetery, near the lemon trees. Reza’s stomach was rumbling, he hadn’t eaten and was beyond exhausted. After lowering the body into the ground, Reza, with his brothers and some of the other village men, stood in front, quietly reciting the Fatihah, while children and women did the same behind them.

  “Bismillah, Rahman, ar-Rahim . . .” In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate . . . guide us to the straight path . . .

  The words washed over Reza. He wished Shareen was next to him. He felt like collapsing and wanted to fall asleep next to his wife, nuzzle with her. But as the patriarch of the family now he had to stand up straight. If his father returned, Reza wondered if he’d be as effective a threat as Nabil chacha had once been to Reza’s father, keeping him away for years. After the prayers, Reza and his brothers lowered Nabil chacha into the ground so that his body would face west, towards Mecca. Reza noticed both his brothers wept as they did this, and Reza felt ashamed that he had no tears. The long journey home had drained him.

  As Reza and his brothers filled the grave with dry earth, Reza was reminded of how Nabil chacha, years ago, had taught him to slaughter a goat, in the humane halal way. While Reza tied the goat by its hind legs and hung it upside down from a thick tamarind tree branch, Nabil chacha invoked the Prophet, “Bismillah Allah hu Akbhar,” then with a knife that he’d sharpened with a whetstone, Nabil chacha pierced the goat’s neck, from the front, and in one quick stroke sliced through the animal’s windpipe, food tract, and jugular vein. The blood spilled quickly down onto the dry earth while Nabil chacha explained, “The neck of the animal should not be disjoined, nor should the bone marrow be cut as it’s cruel and causes unnecessary suffering.” Soon the blood was drained from the animal and with it, its life.

  Reza and his brothers now patted down the last remaining bits of earth onto Nabil chacha’s grave and Reza remained on the ground, wanting to shed tears onto the earth for Nabil chacha, but he had none. His mother handed him a handful of wild purple jacarandas and creamy yellow tamarind flowers that he lay instead.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, as he lay in bed next to Shareen, he could see in her eyes that she was fretful.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m with child now for the last two months.”

  Joy bloomed in his heart. They’d been trying for three years.

  He knew Shareen was apprehensive in telling him as this was a time of mourning, but the news was too important to conceal. He couldn’t help but smile.

  Shareen nuzzled closer to Reza and said, “I’m scared. My mother had four miscarriages, and my grandmother died giving birth to my mother.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he whispered as they lay in the dark hut together. “The sahib gave me five thousand rupees. Look,” he said, fishing the envelope out of his pocket. “Our baby will be born in a hospital.” As he opened the envelope to show Shareen, he noticed a small folded note he had somehow missed before. He read it and tears flooded his eyes.

  “What? What is it?” Shareen asked. “Did he fire you?”

  He showed her the note.

  Reza,

  The flat above the shop is yours. Bring your family to live with you as soon as you like.

  Anush

  Reza understood Anush’s embrace. It was an apology that had been padlocked away for fifteen years. Shareen held Reza while he cried silently. Then she took his face in her hands and for the first time removed his eye patch. As she touched her forehead to his, she whispered

  Farmers search the skies for rains that are late,

  But, my lover, you have yet not returned,

  Without you, I’ll not touch a fig from a Queen’s plate,

  Your name from my soul shall never be burned.

  Their limbs entwined and he could feel the heat between her legs.

  He kissed her neck as he spoke, cupped one of her breasts in his hand, and pressed himself against her.

  Peacocks in the dry fields do dance and sway,

  But, my lover, you have yet not returned,

  I will drip streams of blood if my skin they flay,

  Your scent from my soul shall never be burned.

  She let him inside her as they whispered verses back and forth.

  Heaven and its stars finally entreat us with monsoon,

  But, my lover, you have yet not returned,

  Street urchins laugh, but from their mockery I am immune,

  Your eyes from my soul shall never be burned.

  Being inside Shareen while holding her warm body next to his felt intoxicating, and yet there was an equal measure of agony in Reza’s heart, for he felt the void of Nabil chacha now. But the knowledge of a new life in a flat in the city with his family filled him with euphoria. He was unaccustomed to such generosity.

  Orange blossoms in the orchard are flowering,

  But, my lover, you have yet not returned,

  My entire body yearns for you, can you hear it sing?

  Your lips from my soul shall never be burned.

  - 17 -

  1998

  SOON AFTER NASREEN HAD INTRODUCED Anush to a manager of a five-star hotel, Anush approached him about replacing some of the furniture in their suites with pieces from his shop. The manager came for a tour of the sh
op. The workers had made a few sample tables and dressers. Reza was in charge of the workers, coordinating everything with Anush. The manager was impressed with the quality of the work and a large contract was signed. Anush couldn’t believe his luck. Another contract with a different hotel was signed not long after and to celebrate, Anush bought himself his very own black Mercedes-Benz, just like his father’s, which he drove straight to Sharma Shipping to show the old man.

  “Is it your friend’s car?”

  “It’s mine,” Anush said, handing his father the furniture contracts. Anush feared another dressing down in front of the whole office, but the old man finally shook his son’s hand and said, “Congrats.” Anush had to hold back the tears as he heard his mother’s voice, something she’d said just before he was sent to Bharat Academy: He loves you more than you know.

  Feeling better than he had in years, later that evening Anush drove Nasreen, Ameena, and Taran out to Juhu Beach. There were no parties that night so they were happy just to hang out in the car, chatting and drinking and listening to music.

  “The world’s going to the dogs,” Taran said.

  “You’re always so cheery,” said Ameena, sitting next to him in the back seat.

  Nasreen was in the front with Anush. The black leather seats felt plush.