An Extraordinary Destiny

by Shekhar Paleja

  The following morning, for the first time in years, Anush had sat down for breakfast with his old man. He agreed to marry Jyoti but insisted on keeping the furniture shop. The old man conceded. It was the first time Anush had stood up to him and won. Anush got to keep the shop and in return, he had to marry Jyoti, for which he received a hefty monthly stipend from Sharma Shipping. It kept Reza employed as his assistant and Reza’s family continued to live above the shop.

  Even though that night now seemed as unreal as a strange dream, Anush kept wondering what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been able to knee his father in the groin to get the upper hand. Would the old man have thrown him over? Like he did his own father? Is that what had really happened? Isn’t that what he’d suggested?

  Anush smiled and shook hands now with guests while keeping an eye on the old man across the room, who was happier than he’d been in years. More guests gave their felicitations to the new bride and groom, telling them they made a perfect couple. Anush wondered what sex with Jyoti would be like. As good as it was with Nasreen? He wondered when the comparisons would stop. Even though he’d done his best to forget about Nasreen she still hijacked his thoughts now and then.

  Clusters of people in the ballroom broke out cheering, leaving Anush and Jyoti perplexed. The old man stood up on a chair, clinked his glass with a fork until the crowd shushed itself silent. It was entirely inappropriate behaviour for someone to be standing on a chair in the Taj ballroom, and some of the older guests gasped at the old man’s audacity. Anush’s heart skipped a beat. He had no idea what the old man would say or do.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, my son’s kundali says that he will have an extraordinary destiny and I think it’s being realized today as he begins his life with the equally exceptional Jyoti Patik! Let’s all raise a glass to their future. And to our country!”

  As the entire room raised their glasses, Anush was puzzled by the remark about the country. Jyoti smiled at him in a way that suggested a wedding reception wasn’t complete without a proud, drunken groom’s father.

  Everyone in the room soon resumed chatting while Anush drained his drink.

  Paresh returned, all of a sudden nervous, and said to Anush, “Glad I’m leaving the country soon. Did you hear?”

  “What?”

  “Everyone’s talking about it—India just tested its first nuke!”

  - 45 -

  JYOTI

  1998

  IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR Jyoti to learn that the Sharmas were a taciturn family who rarely ate meals together. Varoon Sharma, or Papa, as Jyoti called him now, was an early riser long gone to his office by the time Jyoti or Anush were even awake. Varoon took his breakfast at the dining table at six thirty, then Jyoti would eat at seven thirty, followed by Anush, who would sleep until eight or nine o’clock. Dinner was similarly conducted. Jyoti tried to dine with Varoon a few times but he ate dinner much too early and Anush came home so late. It was as though there were a covert agreement between father and son not to get in each other’s way, which Jyoti found strange at first but quickly grew accustomed to and became a part of. The three of them only dined together when company was over, which was rare.

  She was relieved her father-in-law wasn’t old-fashioned. Many Gujarati wives were still expected to cook and serve meals along with the servants of the household. Jyoti had little time for that anyhow as she worked full-time, but it wasn’t always easy working from home—Chottu was always asking her about the following day’s menu, what vegetables to buy from the vegetable walla who showed up at the door every morning at different times, how much milk to order from the milk walla every Monday and Friday, how much ghee and yogurt to prepare, weather to use glass bottles for grain and lentil storage or stainless steel containers—the disruptions were endless. Being the lady of the house was tedious and Jyoti sought solace in her job. She enjoyed getting lost in the minutiae of the numbers on her laptop while keeping tuned to CNBC on satellite TV for the latest news and info on markets and business. The hours and days slipped by. Once a month she got together with Kiran and Chaya, both of whom were full-time housewives without careers, and were starting to become as gossipy as their mothers, eager to show off the new trinkets their husbands had bought them. At their last meeting, Jyoti had caught herself showing off a new diamond bracelet Anush had bought her. She hated herself for becoming so bourgeois and couldn’t help but wonder what Gavin would have thought of her life—comfortably married to a man whom she neither loved nor hated.

  Anush was a decent husband, when he was home, which was not often. He worked six days a week, and days would go by where the two of them would only see each other for a few minutes a day. Usually Anush was at the shop during the day, then out for dinner with business associates and didn’t get home till Jyoti was nearly asleep. She’d gotten used to his side of the bed smelling faintly of whisky and a scent that she could only surmise was of animal flesh. She knew Anush wasn’t a vegetarian even though he’d claimed to be one when they dated. She didn’t entirely blame him as there was plenty of pressure on both of them to be nothing other than perfect during those first few weeks of courtship. In the big scheme of things she told herself not to be bothered by his meat-eating. After all, her secret was much worse. She was thankful that at least he respected her enough not to eat meat in front of her. They’d gone out for dinner a few times at some fine restaurants, but had little to talk about. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along. They were both agreeable and considerate with each other, but their conversations were almost always about practical matters: what sort of air conditioner they should replace the old one with, what sort of leave they should give the servants to see their families in the village. They made love once a month, always around the time she was ovulating. The sex was mediocre at best and had a detached quality to it—neither of them ever did it with their eyes open like she and Gavin had. Even the first time they made love on their wedding night it’d been uninspiring. Jyoti had noticed her mother inconspicuously plying Anush with whisky and Cokes at the reception, which puzzled Jyoti at first, but after the party, when they were in the honeymoon suite, she realized her mother’s intentions of getting Anush drunk enough so he wouldn’t notice her lack of virginity. And he didn’t. After being inside her for a few moments that first night, he apologized for losing his erection and soon passed out.

  Jyoti’s parents and Varoon Sharma had recently begun to ask under the guise of cheerful teasing when they’d be expecting a grandchild. Chaya had a baby and Kiran was trying for one. The two of them were coming over to Sea Face Terraces for chai later that day.

  Jyoti worked through the morning on her laptop, unable to focus. Something had been nagging at her lately. Perhaps it was the letter she’d received a couple of months ago from Carmen, her Spanish friend from the LSE. After graduating, Carmen had found a job in London working with the Children’s Education Ministry as an economist and policy analyst. Carmen enthusiastically explained how the data she gathered and formulated eventually had an impact on public policy, how her recommendations went up the ladder and were implemented to make a real difference in children’s lives. By comparison, Jyoti felt like a cog in a gigantic faceless machine. She wondered how many hundreds of hours she’d spent tracking price fluctuations on derivatives and crunching numbers through algorithms to provide her investment bank with. The bank had hundreds of employees like her crunching numbers, pricing commodities, stocks, and options, but apart from making rich people richer, what good did it do in the world? What difference was she making? Besides, wasn’t it the kind of job that would one day be taken over by a computer? What would become of her then?

  This morning, she caught herself playing out a daydream she often indulged in where she’d stayed in London with Gavin and the two of them had their baby in a one-bedroom council estate flat without central heating, living among working-class Londoners. It was a tough go at first, but they were happy. She eventually got a job with an investment firm (the one she wo
rked for currently paid her a quarter of what people earned in London), or even a better job—something like what Carmen did that helped make a difference in people’s lives, something she could feel proud of. After the baby was a few years old, Gavin went back to art college, and then they bought a nice little place in the not-too-far suburbs of London with a small yard for their child to run around in . . .

  She’d been to London once since being married. A quick business trip, just three days. When she wasn’t in meetings, she stayed mostly in her hotel room, afraid to go to museums or even walk down the street for fear of bumping into him. Anush had called and told her to stay for a few days longer. “Catch up with some of your friends,” he’d suggested. But she’d lied. “It’s cold and miserable. I don’t like London.”

  Now, Jyoti stared at her laptop screen blinking with numbers in different colours. She heard her mother’s voice: There’s no sense in agonizing over the past. Best to move on and make the best of what you have. It was the last thing her mother had whispered to her in private before her marriage. And when it’d come time at the end of the ceremony, when the daughter bids goodbye to her parents before officially becoming part of her husband’s family, her mother had nodded and kissed Jyoti on the forehead, reminding Jyoti of those words.

  The doorbell rang and Jyoti shut down her computer. Kiran and Chaya were let in by Chottu, who served them chai and nasta.

  The two of them were both beaming. Kiran said, “Guess what?”

  It was obvious from her ecstatic smile that Kiran was finally pregnant but Jyoti pretended not to catch on. Ignoring the pang in her own womb, she asked, “What?”

  “I’m pregnant!” Kiran yelped, and the three of them embraced each other, jumping up and down.

  While Kiran and Chaya talked of breastfeeding, of diapers, of baby wipes, of teething, of the best places to buy cute baby outfits, of all the jewelry to be designed for the baby, Jyoti did her best to appear enthusiastic. A part of her was genuinely happy for both of them, but she also couldn’t help but think how frivolous they were being, how juvenile, how conventional. Perhaps she was just jealous. Or perhaps it was Gavin who’d burrowed deep inside her mind and was making her think these things. Perhaps he was the one to blame. She was angry all of a sudden that he was able to infiltrate her thoughts this way. She wished she could delete him from her life as she did to the numbers on her laptop screen.

  The doorbell rang again and Chottu answered. It was the postman with a tube-like package that required Jyoti’s signature. Jyoti was happy to excuse herself. After signing for it she noticed the familiar handwriting on the package. It was his.

  Kiran and Chaya went on about babies and didn’t notice Jyoti slinking into her bedroom, where she closed the door and opened the package. She wondered how he’d gotten her address. Probably Carmen. Inside the tube was a carefully wrapped three-foot-by-four-foot canvas rolled up. Jyoti delicately unfurled it and lay it out on her bed.

  It was an acrylic painting of the duck pond at St James’s Park where they’d picnicked. The sunset sky was a brilliant shade of tangerine and coral with flecks of magenta and amethyst as vibrant as the spring crocuses, daffodils, and rhododendrons underneath. The overall look of the painting wasn’t entirely realistic, but rather a meditation on light. The balance of light and dark was subtle, leading the eye from one thing to the next: the luminous sunset to the wispy clouds in the sky to the tree tops to the lush plants and flowers to the few little ducks in the corner. It was the most perfect thing she’d ever seen. She couldn’t help but smile because it was the happiest she’d felt in months. Perhaps ever.

  On the tube package, he’d written his return London address.

  - 46 -

  ANUSH

  1999

  THE RESTAURANTS AND CLUBS THESE days were full of entrepreneurs, investors, hotel owners, industrialists. It was a social network that Anush enjoyed being a part of. They drank the best whisky, ate the most succulent fish pompfret masala fry, and exchanged business cards over steak tartar, and stock tips over sushi.

  Tonight, Anush was at a club, having drinks with business associates in a private room. On the TV, a cute American reporter on CN International was doing a story on India: “The Asian financial crisis of 1997 is long gone, tech stocks are making spectacular gains, the writing is on the wall. China and India will soon be calling the shots. And India has just emerged from the Kargil War with Pakistan as a clear victor. Two weeks after India tested their nuclear weapons last year, Pakistan tested their own, eventually leading to an armed conflict in Kashmir. After two months of fighting, the Indian army eventually regained control of the lost ground, the Pakistanis were defeated, and India was reborn in its victory. Patriotism is at an all-time high. The stock markets in Mumbai are soaring. Indians are buoyant, self-aware, and for the first time they feel as though the world is beginning to recognize them as a major player . . .”

  A year ago Anush had never imagined owning stocks, but now he checked the numbers several times a week. Part of the wedding present money from the old man and all the guests was invested in the stock market and doing very well. It was one of the few things he and Jyoti talked about with genuine enthusiasm.

  The old man was happier than he’d been in years and was frequently out of town on business as he’d become an investor in real estate developments in Bangalore, Chennai, and elsewhere. The two of them even shared a drink and laughs once in a while over stock tips. The old man had bought him a Rolex like his. Now that Anush had won his father’s approval, something he’d craved his whole life, he expected to be happy, and yet he felt unfulfilled. There was something missing.

  Anush had become a supplier of furniture to new hotels. To his own surprise, he found he had a knack for business. The shop was busier than ever, Sharma Shipping and the old man’s real estate holdings continued to do well, from which Anush recieved a healthy monthly stipend. Between the two incomes, Anush lacked little. He spent most of the day at the shop, in the newly refurbished office where he kept promising himself he’d get back to designing and making furniture. But a year had passed and he’d not made a single thing. Meanwhile, Reza had been promoted to shop manager and was busier than ever, in charge of three dozen new employees in the godowns who made furniture for the new hotels. He seemed much happier now that he had a baby daughter and was living with his family in the flat above the shop.

  Occasionally the men Anush drank with would go to discreet clubs like this in the suburbs where beautiful girls danced. The men would start the night in a private room, away from the dancing girls, where they could dine, talk business for a while, and then go into the main dance hall to enjoy the women. There was no nudity, but the men could pay for a dance with the girls on stage, showering them with small bills in front of the crowd. At first Anush didn’t like these clubs. There was something off-putting about married men lusting after young girls who’d come to the city from villages in search for work. These desperate girls were the lucky few who hadn’t been sold by their families at a younger age into prostitution, and no matter how gentlemanly the men were it seemed lecherous. But in order to satisfy his growing number of business associates, Anush went along and drank whisky and laughed at their shenanigans until a girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to Nasreen danced one night, and Anush couldn’t help but stare. Luckily it was the sort of place where he could do exactly that without shame. She looked younger than Nasreen, but she had Nasreen’s deep brown eyes and full lips, even her neck was thin and elegant and her hips and breasts held the same full, taut curves. Anush tried to catch her eye but had no luck as he was sitting in a booth near the back. The next time he saw her he considered paying for a dance. The men had all wanted Anush to do this for months but he’d refused.

  Tonight, after some play-act deliberating, he finally danced with her. Anush swore she livened up more with him than any of the others. After all he was closer to her age than many of the men in the club. She pirouetted around him and halfway
through the song they made eyes at each other while dancing and flirting like a lustful Bollywood couple. As she twirled for him, he caught wafts of her perfume mixed with her perspiration. The scent was alluring. She even gyrated her hips into his crotch—a move usually reserved for men who’d paid for two or three dances. The crowd cheered. Surprisingly, Anush didn’t feel dirty afterwards. In fact, he was exhilarated and felt more alive than he could remember. She smiled at him before collecting her bills off the floor. He wondered if it was just a courtesy smile, thanking him from not having to dance with a paunchy older man for once, but when they left the stage and were out of the lights, she smiled at him again. Of course it did occur to Anush that she might be stringing him along—some of these girls had admirers who bought them gifts, made them their concubines—but there was something private in her smile that seemed to say she wanted nothing more from him except to thank him for the dance. He smiled back, letting her know it was he who was grateful.

  At the end of the night, Anush bid the men he came with good night and they all drove home, slightly sloshed. Jyoti was in London for a full week on business so Anush didn’t have to be home. She’d been going more frequently, and Anush didn’t mind—it meant he could stay out later. They still made love, about every other month or so, but it was never exciting. Tonight, halfway home, Anush turned the car around and headed back to Santa Cruz.

  As he pulled up to the club, the dancing girl was about to hop into a rickshaw. He beeped his horn, rolled down the window of his Benz, and said, “Let me give you a ride home.”

  “OK,” she said.

  Her name was Priya. She was nineteen, new to the city, and was dancing to save enough money to go to college next year. Priya was shy, respectful, guileless. Nothing like Nasreen and yet the physical resemblance was remarkable. He couldn’t stop wondering what she looked like naked, but then felt guilty. He was a married man. Although he didn’t yearn for Jyoti, he wasn’t about to betray her. He’d just have a drink or two, flirt for a bit. No harm in that. He worked hard and deserved to have a little fun.