Ghachar Ghochar

by Vivek Shanbhag

  I held her tighter still, then relaxed. I raised her face and through her lips gained my first taste of her world.

  • • •

  Three days after the wedding, we left for Ooty for our honeymoon. A cliché, it is true, especially considering we were well-off and could have gone anywhere. But Anita said she didn’t particularly care where we went, and Ooty had been a prominent setting for my amorous imaginings since I was an adolescent. We might as well go there, I thought.

  We were to arrive early in the morning, but the bus broke down on the way and it was noon before we checked into the hotel we had booked, a place called Green Valley. With the door to our room closed, we were away from home and truly by ourselves for the first time in our marriage. Not knowing what to do, but aware this solitude was too significant to be wasted, I began caressing Anita haphazardly. She shied away, played coy, and we ended up laughing and chasing each other around the room like children.

  We washed, had lunch, and took a van to one of those sightseeing points on top of a hill. Afternoon was turning to evening. The air was crisp and our breaths had begun to fog. As we strolled about, Anita occasionally took my hand in hers or I would hold her lightly around the waist. Before long I was aroused and wanted to take her back to the hotel. But there were four other couples sharing the van with us, and we had to wait for them. It was dark when we returned. The wait had driven me half mad. I closed the door and pounced on her. I tore off her sweater, her sari, her blouse. I yanked at the drawstring of her underskirt but only managed to jam it up. My impatient hands couldn’t get anywhere with the stuck knot. She tried, too, but to no avail. “Tchah,” she said, “this string has become all ghachar ghochar. Wait.” I stood there as she sat up, bent over the knot, and carefully teased it apart.

  It came back to me later when we were lying there catching our breaths. “What was that you called the underskirt string?” I asked her.

  She giggled. “Ghachar ghochar,” she said.

  I’d never heard the expression. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Ghachar ghochar,” she repeated, her eyes shining.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means just that. You wouldn’t understand . . . ,” she said.

  I poked her bare side with a finger and began to tickle her, saying, “Tell me now, tell me.”

  She rolled about, helpless with laughter, and then went quiet with mock gravity. She said, “There are only four people in this world who know what it means. My parents, my brother, and I.”

  The expression had originated in their house, made up by Anita and her brother when they were children. They were on the terrace one evening, rolling kite string into a ball. Their parents were chatting nearby. The loose string strewn about became so entangled that her brother lost his patience, flung down the bit he’d been trying to separate, and shouted, “This has all become ghachar ghochar!” Anita said, “What language are you speaking?” From there it had entered the family’s vocabulary, first used by the siblings and then by the parents. Anita couldn’t stop laughing at the reminiscence; I joined her. She spoke of her family some more. She became grave when she came to her brother, who had lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. “He fell in with the wrong people and everything became ghachar ghochar,” she said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been roaring around on motorcycles.”

  The next morning, we woke up in a hopelessly rumpled bed. I entwined my legs in hers and said, “Look, we are ghachar ghochar now.” She did not laugh. She must have thought I was making fun of her. Of course, those words could never mean to me all that they meant to her; nor would I ever utter them as naturally as she did. But she had shared with me this secret phrase that didn’t exist in any language, and now I was one of only five people in the world who knew it.

  • • •

  The week we spent in Ooty was easily the best time of our life together. Still, there were occasions when we found ourselves at odds. One morning we had just woken up and were watching the sunrise from the window as we sipped tea. I noticed an ant on the window frame and casually jabbed at it with my forefinger. I turned when I noticed she was looking at me.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  I looked at her, uncomprehending.

  “What had that poor ant done to you? Why did you kill it?” she asked, her eyes filling up with tears.

  How was I to explain to her my history with ants? It would make no sense to someone who hadn’t lived through something similar. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to close the matter quickly, and in return received a lecture about the senseless violence human beings indulged in.

  Anita was also upset when she asked about Malati’s husband and I told her what had happened. I didn’t wish to hide anything from her. But her horrified expressions sometimes kept me from telling her everything. Those days in Ooty made me certain of one thing: Anita was not the meek, obedient sort. She would say what she felt without holding back. She could go to great lengths for her ideals. In this regard she may even have been more fierce than Chitra. And let’s face it: there’s a vast difference between the moral underpinnings of a business family and the household of a salaried teacher. I feared right then that her presence in our home would be the cause of much turmoil.

  The biggest disappointment for Anita after we returned home was the matter of my employment. She’d asked me in Ooty: “How much leave do you have?” The moment is as vivid to me as if it were happening in front of me right now. We were returning to our room after breakfast and she asked the question just as my hand was reaching out to unlock the door. We had woken up late that day and rushed down to make it to the hotel’s breakfast. She had told me as we were eating, “This waking up late is unheard of in my house. Everyone is done with breakfast by eight. And Appa’s lunch box is ready, too.” Having begun, she took me through the rest of the daily routine in their house. Her father, she explained, had a very sensitive stomach, which he protected by never eating or drinking anything outside home other than the occasional coffee. This meant that his lunch had to be ready before he left for the university. Her mother, she recounted with some pride, would be up before dawn so that breakfast for everyone and a lunch box for her father could be ready before eight. “Appa would leave for university before we left for school,” she said and laughed. “He’d spend an hour or so in the library before going to his department. When his classes for the day were done, he’d spend some more time in the library, then return home by seven in the evening.”

  After speaking about her family’s routine through most of breakfast, she went quiet as we returned to the room. Perhaps she was thinking of how her day would change after we returned home, how it would have to reshape itself to accommodate my workday. Then, as I unlocked the door, she asked me how much leave I had taken from work.

  We entered the room. I closed the door and encircled her waist with my arm.

  “I’d take permanent leave to be with you,” I said, trying to brush the question off.

  “No, I’m serious. I really want to know. Tell me how much leave you have,” she said.

  “I just told you,” I said. “It’s the truth. I’m on endless leave now that you’re here.”

  She asked again, but I managed to make light of the matter and leave it at that.

  I don’t know all that Sripati had said while the marriage talks were on, but I believe she was told I was the director of Sona Masala. Which was, of course, true. The fact that I didn’t have anything to do with the running of the business is another matter altogether.

  • • •

  We returned from Ooty on a Saturday afternoon. The rest of the day was spent recovering from the bus journey and unpacking our bags. We had shopped with such abandon in the Ooty market that we couldn’t even remember all that we had bought. One by one, the objects emerged from our bags to surprise us. Handcrafted trinkets, a coffee mug, an assortm
ent of hair clips, a packet containing the seeds of some flowering plant, a picture frame—all sorts of things. Anita had bought a serving spoon with a carved handle for Amma, a stand on which to rest his spectacles for Appa, an ornamental box of dried fruit and three kinds of chocolate for Malati, and a small water jug for Chikkappa.

  The practice of giving gifts to people who live in the same house was new to us. In the pre–Sona Masala days, before we moved to the new house, all purchases were discussed among the whole family. Whether it was clothes for Malati, a sari for Amma, trousers for me, or new spectacles for Appa, everyone knew what was being bought. Nothing new entered the house as a surprise. We even planned and plotted what new clothes were to be bought for Deepavali. We’d list our requirements and buy what was possible with the money available. The rest could wait until the next opportunity arose to shop. How were any of us to know the sense of anticipation associated with opening a gift-wrapped package? Even if we could have afforded it, there’s something absurd about exchanging gifts when it’s all paid for from a single pocket.

  It became an occasion of sorts when Appa would tell us how much we could spend. A few weeks before the festival, when all of us were present, Appa might say to me, “Look here, didn’t you say you needed trousers? Let’s buy you a pair for Deepavali. See what you can get for three hundred . . .” Or, he would say something to the same effect to Malati. That meant a decision had been reached and three hundred rupees each had been sanctioned for me, Malati, and Amma. He had no objection if I bought a shirt and a pair of pants or three shirts as long as it was within the budget. We’d go to make the purchases sometime in the following week or two. If Malati or I bought something that slightly overshot our allotted budget, Amma would make up for it from her share. After he started working, Chikkappa always bought his own clothes and essentials. But my hunch is that he still kept Appa informed. Back then, none of us had the courage to buy anything without involving the others.

  Anita had made sure that everything we had bought for the family was gift-wrapped. She kept the presents together on one side of the room as she emptied our bags. Clothes to be washed began to pile up in the corner. She checked the pockets of my trousers and shirts before adding them to the heap, and every time she found coins in my pocket she pretended to be angry at my carelessness. My pockets contained all sorts of scraps of paper—bus tickets, hotel bills, receipts for the things we’d bought, business cards pressed into my hand by shop owners. “You can throw it all away,” I told her. “It’s rubbish.” But those scraps of paper were connected to the time we had spent together in Ooty. She unfolded each one and examined it. She smoothed and stacked some of them on the table. The rest she threw away. We both bathed and waited with some eagerness for dinnertime to arrive. She with genuine excitement, and I hoping that the farce about the gifts would be done with as quickly as possible.

  When the call for dinner came, we started to shuffle downstairs carrying the packages. “We must give these out right now, when everyone is together. You hand them over,” Anita said.

  I didn’t know how to get through the situation, but what choice did I have? “No, no. You give it to them,” I mumbled.

  She arranged it so that I was carrying the ones meant for Appa and Chikkappa. She took the other two. The rest of the family had already gathered by the time we reached the dining table.

  “Anita has bought some things for you all in Ooty,” I announced cheerfully to Amma, but loud enough for everyone to hear. My words sounded hollow even to me. My only aim was to put an end to this as soon as possible. I briskly handed Appa his package. I placed Chikkappa’s in front of him and said, “This is for you.” Meanwhile, Anita had given Amma and Malati their presents.

  Anita was as enthusiastic as I was awkward. She took Appa’s gift, said, “Do you know what this is?,” and unwrapped it herself to produce the stand. “You can keep your glasses on this when you sleep or go for your bath. That way, the lenses will not get scratches on them.” Appa took off his spectacles twice and put them on the stand with the air of someone rehearsing. Meanwhile Chikkappa had unwrapped his water jug and placed it on the table.

  “You can keep this in your office,” Amma suggested.

  “Yes,” he said. “Good idea. I’ll take it in with me tomorrow.” He walked over to the small table where he kept his keys and made room for the jug. He believed that if you didn’t want to leave home without something, you kept it near your keys.

  Malati looked at her dried fruits and chocolates and joked, in the voice of a child, “This is all for me. I’m not going to share it with anyone.” She placed them on the steps leading upstairs.

  Amma looked at her carved serving spoon, said, “We can use this when there are guests,” and went into the kitchen to leave it there.

  I was happy that it had all gone quickly and uneventfully, but it seemed to me there was a strain in the air. I could sense that there was something left unsaid. One of them must have been struggling not to point out that it’s all very well to blow money when it isn’t yours. Had the money I spent been unquestionably mine, I would have had no hesitation in joining the festivities. I could have been as giddy as Anita. But in this house there were such intricacies to the flow of money that it meant something entirely different for me to spend my money than for Anita to spend it. In any regular household, family members glare when a wife begins to freely spend her husband’s hard-earned money. What to say of our house, then, where it was all far more peculiar and convoluted?

  When I was in high school, Amma would say that she expected a sari from my first paycheck. “May the job be such that it’s a silk sari,” she’d say, half joking. There was a dramatic quality to that gesture that made it enter my daydreams: buying Amma a grand sari with my first earnings became part of the shining future I imagined for myself. It was one of the things that kept me going through the strain of preparing for exams. Then Sona Masala became successful, and somewhere along the way that sari evaporated from Amma’s words and my dreams. No one realized when I began to earn money. I didn’t even realize it myself. When I started working at Sona Masala, a bank account was opened in my name and I received a set of business cards. Some months later, I looked at the passbook and saw that an identical amount was accruing in my account every month. That’s when it struck me that I was getting a salary. It would have been meaningless, of course, to go through with the ritual of buying Amma a sari then.

  That evening, as I ate, I began to fear that those unsaid words among us would soon fester and spread their stench. I gobbled up what was on my plate.

  Amma noticed and tried to keep me there longer. She said, “Don’t be in such a hurry. I’m going to serve some fruit after everyone’s finished. We have some excellent apples.”

  “I’ve had enough. I’m exhausted from the journey and can barely eat what you’ve already served me. Sleep is all I want now,” I told her, and with that I fled.

  The next day was a Sunday. We lazed about in the morning, took a nap in the afternoon. And then, as we sat drinking tea, Anita again brought up the matter of my going to work. With the wedding and honeymoon done with, she must have assumed I’d be going back to work on Monday. I was sitting on the bed in our room, sipping from a teacup. She was in a chair opposite me.

  “Are you unhappy you have to go to work tomorrow?” she asked, trying to mollify me.

  I drank the last of my tea in a gulp and placed the cup on the table: “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “The job can go to hell.”

  She thought I was joking, an indulgent husband telling his new wife that his work was insignificant compared to her. She looked pleased. “Shall I pack you a lunch box for tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Ayyo, there’s no need. Let it be,” I said. “I’ve never been fussy about food. You shouldn’t worry about it, either. In any case, my work hours are quite flexible.” I didn’t want the conversation to proceed any further. I l
eft the room.

  From the next day on, Anita began to acquaint herself with our domestic routine. Chikkappa got ready and left at half past eight in the morning. If breakfast wasn’t ready in time, he would leave without eating, but he would never be late. By the time he left his phone had already started ringing with urgent matters. You only had to see him in the morning—rushing about, coming down the stairs even as he buttoned his shirt, distractedly gulping down whatever breakfast was placed in front of him, grabbing his keys with a flourish—to know that here was a man deeply involved with his work. If he answered a call, everyone went absolutely quiet. The household’s rhythm slackened once Chikkappa left for work. Nothing else that happened in the house was really time-bound.

  Anita witnessed this flurry of activity on Monday morning and grew worried that I was going to be late. She came up and woke me.

  “Don’t rush me. There’s still time for me to leave,” I said, in a listless tone. I soon got up as usual, without any hurry. Then I had tea while glancing through the paper, took a bath, and came down for breakfast.

  Amma announced, “He likes dosas only when they are hot,” and proceeded to pour them out one by one as I ate. In the interval between dosas I looked at Anita and winked. My lack of urgency must have confused her as she tried to understand how best to help me prepare for my day. Finally, she folded a handkerchief and gave it to me before I stepped out. It was ten o’clock when I left.

  I was back by half past three. If Anita was surprised she didn’t bring it up. The next day I returned at one, had lunch, and slept through the afternoon. The day after I didn’t step out all day and stayed in bed on the pretext of a headache.

  On the fourth day, I had finished my bath, put on my clothes, and was combing my hair in front of the mirror when Anita entered the room and closed the door behind her. She sat on the bed and in a firm voice began to ask me some difficult questions. By then she must have perceived Chikkappa’s status in the house and guessed what was going on.