by Durjoy Datta
‘Will you? How did your mathematics go? It wasn’t easy.’
‘Pretty good.’
‘Are you lying?’ she asked.
‘I am actually. I missed a two-mark question. You?’
‘I couldn’t do the last question. My steps were right, the answer’s not. So that’s four marks out of the window.’
‘My English went really well though,’ I said.
‘Mine was okay, too.’
‘I didn’t expect you in this class.’
‘Expect?’
‘I mean I am just surprised that you’re here,’ I said. ‘So engineering? That’s what you want to do?’
She laughed. ‘I hope so. Maybe. But my Taiji, aunt, will decide.’
‘Why not your Mumma?’
‘She doesn’t participate in these discussions.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘But she supports me all throughout and she tells me to listen to Taiji,’ she said and smiled goofily and truly for a change.
‘Are we going to sit together every day?’ I asked.
‘I think so,’ she said.
Then we both got back to reading our newspapers.
She said after a while, ‘If you don’t mind that is.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said almost too quickly.
‘I asked because you look away whenever I talk to you. So I thought maybe you’re not comfortable.’
‘I don’t look away. I can look right at you and talk. See?’
‘You’re looking away. Your eyes are flitting.’
‘You’re imagining things,’ I said.
‘Okay. Now you’re not looking away. So I can sit with you?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
While Brahmi Sharma struggled with the crossword I counted the little ridges on her wrists. Some were deep, straight and longish, others were lighter and half-hearted jabs. They looked like hieroglyphics, like tattoos of the brave.
‘Stop looking at my wrists. I fell down on knives,’ she said, mocking my interest, pulling her shirt sleeves over her wrists.
‘I know you did.’
‘None of the knives were sharp enough.’
‘Why weren’t they sharp?’
‘Mumma keeps them blunt. It’s because of her,’ she said and got back to her crossword.
She filled in three words. 17. Down—BLEED. 21. Across—GRIEF. 15. Across—I. She bleeds grief.
To keep myself from staring at her, I turned my attention towards the treaty between my country and Pakistan. For the rest of the day I tried to beat Brahmi unsuccessfully in all the classes. Unlike some stupid, cantankerous moron she had spent the days before the new session studying. During lunch I followed her as she left the class. Three turns in the basement and I lost her. It took me twenty minutes to find my way back to the class.
Later at home, Baba was in a sullen mood because of the nuclear treaty I was reading about in the morning.
‘We should have dropped a bomb while there was still time,’ said Baba, in his usual tone of toxic hatred.
Last year Baba had ordered a celebratory dinner from the Chinese restaurant when Atal Bihari Vajpayee had declared us a full-fledged nuclear state, with the capability of obliterating small countries with a mere press of a button. He called Atal Bihari a hero, a patriot, a guiding light for Hindutva in this country. The American chop suey was fabulous.
Baba had waved his fists in the air and said, ‘See! Did you see! Didn’t I tell you there is no one better than a staunch Hindu to lead the country? To finally make Pakistan pay for all their transgressions! What’s the use of an army if you don’t utilize them? Ha! It’s not a surprise they named the bombs Shakti to signify our goddesses. Raghu! Now see the fun! This country will change! No more of stupid appeasing politics! This is what we deserve! Our country! Jai Mata Di. Jai Shree Ram. Durga. Durga.’
Today, Baba sang a different tune. ‘How could a man, an orthodox Hindu, give in to a peace treaty?’ He went on to rave and rant about how he felt betrayed.
I listened till I lost interest.
I can’t write more today because I have to go prepare for tomorrow’s class. I can’t have her be better than me at everything.
11 March 1999
Alcohol, drugs and cigarettes are the refuge of the weak, that’s what Maa has taught me. Baba toes a different line. They are forbidden in the shastras, he tells me, which I know is a blatant lie. Indra, Varuna and the like drank and ate and got high with impunity. And who can miss Adolf? The eternally, perennially dangerously high one, the god of ganja smokers who renounce everything but their chillums. If we were really bhakts, we too would be living in a happy daze of smoke and soma, still be hunters and gatherers with no EMIs to pay or pollution to worry about. Our only concerns would be if the spear’s sharp enough to breach the rhino’s thick skin, or whether the mammoth would trample us before it bleeds dry, or if we would live to see another day. Who’s to say that’s not a better life to have? When death’s close and hovering around you, the quality of life improves, doesn’t it? That’s when we make our bucket lists, try to cram a life full of desires into a few months, live a little in the face of death.
Coming to the point, Dada made a bad day even worse.
Earlier today, our physics teacher took a surprise test. Brahmi caught my furtive glances at her paper and promptly hid her answers. Furious at her assumption that I was cheating, I hid my answers too. We were still playing the game where we wanted to sit with each other but we weren’t friends. Maybe polite acquaintances.
When the exam ended, I grumbled, ‘I don’t need to cheat.’
‘Did you prepare for your exam? I saw you struggle in the beginning.’
‘That’s presumptuous. Skulduggery. That’s the word you missed in your crossword today morning.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked.
‘I can fill the crossword you do every morning and I can do my own physics tests. And from what I saw, I will score more than you.’
‘I didn’t get anything wrong,’ she said.
‘Want to take a bet on it?’
‘What is at stake?’
‘Are you scared you will lose?’ I asked.
She spat on her hand and thrust it out. ‘I am not scared. Deal.’
‘Deal. Do I have to spit on my hand?’
‘That’s the only way to do it. It’s tradition.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said.
We shook hands and rubbed them clean on our uniforms. Our spit-written bond was struck and the time started to tick. Imagine my consternation when we both tied at 23/25. I waited for the lunch-break bell to ask her what our course of action should be but even before I could close my copy I saw her leaving the class. I wasn’t going to let up this time so I rushed after her. Her calm strides took her faster and farther away from me even as I trotted and panted, through the basement, into the abandoned part of the school building, to the exit that was supposed to be sealed. With ease she climbed over the wall and disappeared. I’m no stranger to climbing walls but bunking, yes. I knew if I thought too much I won’t do it so I too climbed the wall and jumped. She was waiting on the other side. My voice failed for a bit, struggling for an explanation, and then I said, ‘So what do we do? We cancel the bet? You left, so I followed after.’
‘Come,’ she said. We took a bus to Connaught Place, neither of us bought tickets, and all the way, I tried not to freak out, to ask what happens to our attendance, and would the teachers ask about us, would they suspend us, call our parents and embarrass us, and what happens if the conductor catches us. She, on the other hand, stared outside the window, not a care in the world. When we got down, she said, ‘You look like you have lost a litre of blood. When we get back I will tell ma’am we were arranging library books. It’s my responsibility.’
‘They just let you do that?’ I asked.
‘I have never come second in this school. They don’t doubt m
y integrity,’ she said.
‘So this is where you come every day?’
‘Not every day. Sometimes when I have saved enough,’ she said and pointed to the shop—Keventer’s. ‘Best milkshake in the city. So you came for the bet, what do you want?’
‘Okay. I wanted something but—’
‘But?’
‘You can choose to refuse but I want to hold your hand. That’s what I want,’ I said, rather bravely.
Without a thought, she took her hand in mine. I would be lying if I say it didn’t feel like I had lost. Her fingers in my palm felt like a calming balm.
‘Is that it?’ she asked.
I stared at her wrist and gathering courage I ran my index finger on the lightest of the ridges on it. It was haphazard and had healed years ago. ‘Explain this.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing—’
‘Don’t tell me you fell on a knife.’
‘My father’s used razor actually. Would you believe that I was scared it would be infected? It should have told me that I wasn’t serious about it. I panicked when the blood spouted from my wrists like little beetles.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘My first heartbreak. I was thirteen, same age as Juliet. I was drowning and my Romeo was a stray log who came floating to my world. I latched on to him and he stole my stamp collection.’
‘That’s a frivolous reason to slash one’s wrist, is it not? A stamp collection?’
I realized my mistake as soon as I said it.
She laughed, then shook her head dismissively and retracted her hand. ‘Is it frivolous to get your heart broken? My reaction might have been stupid, exaggerated but not frivolous.’
‘What happened when you let go of him, the log?’
‘I learnt to breathe under water,’ she said.
‘Your turn. Is there something you want to ask? Or want me to do?’
‘I know everything about you. Your friend died, you think it’s your fault, and you have been sad ever since.’
‘That’s not all of it,’ I said, angry at her oversimplification. How dare she think her grief over a heartbreak is justified and mine isn’t? Who died and made her the incharge of grief management? What does she know of the nightmares, of the cold nights, of the searing guilt, of the incapability to feel happiness? What does Brahmi know of the imaginings of alternate realities where I could have saved my best friend? What does she know of the days I stand outside Sami’s house hoping I would see his mother smile for a change? What right do I have to return to being normal when Sami’s father hasn’t gone to work in two years? What does she know of my anger towards Sami’s brother who has failed to take care of his parents even after what happened? But even as I was thinking all these things, all I could say to her was, ‘So can I buy you a milkshake?’
She nodded and smiled like the sun. I only had money for one so we shared it. By the time we got back to the school we had missed mathematics. Her being the monitor helped, and she manipulated our attendance. Back home I wasn’t sure what to feel about the experience which was a little Sami-esque but wholly enjoyable. All the time my heart thumped and throbbed with fear and whatever I felt towards Brahmi. For whom, I couldn’t help think, I was like an accessory, like a handbag, or a bracelet, there but not necessary.
I was still ruminating, reminiscing when Dada walked into my room a little while back, hiding miniature alcohol bottles in his pocket.
‘What is that?’
‘Free alcohol from the hotel minibar. That’s what it is!’ he squealed.
‘You’re not going to drink. Do you hear me, Dada?’
‘Damn. You sound just like Baba! And why are you walking away from me?’
‘Is this your secret, Dada? That you want to slowly poison yourself? Do you have any idea how many deaths are closely connected to substance abuse?’
‘God, Raghu. Stop being so dramatic.’
‘You’re not doing this to Maa–Baba,’ I snapped.
‘This is not my secret—’
Dada was interrupted by Maa’s knock on the door. Dada scrambled to his feet, hid the bottles behind the headboard of the bed and got the door.
‘Why was the door locked?’ asked Maa.
‘I was helping Raghu with his physics homework.’
‘Dada was offering me a drink, Maa. He has hid miniature alcohol bottles behind the bed,’ I said.
Dada looked at me in horror as Maa searched and fished out the bottles. She left the room, crying, to tell Baba.
‘Why the hell would you do this?’
‘Because I want you to live! Is that so hard to understand? Do you even know what it will do to Maa if something happens to you!’
Dada left fuming. He would have understood had I told him about New Crescent Public School.
P.S. The security at the school is terrible as I found out today. It’s only four storeys but it looks higher. All five roofs are easily accessible. Of course, two of them have bushes and trees in the drop area so that’s out. Another one faces a bunch of houses so that’s awkward. But there are two roof tops that are totally jump-friendly. I should some day tell Dada about my scouting.
13 March 1999
I met my least favourite person today, my Didimaa, Maa’s mother. She’s eighty-three and her brain is mush. She took to the bed two decades ago following a massive heart attack. Though she got better, she got used to people fussing over her. She now spends her days lying around on a musty sofa watching television, soiling her diapers—even though she’s fully capable of walking around—and rebuking all her five children, especially Maa. Only Mama could afford to be around her. He was the only one of Didimaa’s children who was rich enough to hire a full-time nurse and busy enough to not see her often. Didimaa might have been a good woman when she was young but twenty years is a long time to undo all the goodness. Twenty years is enough to overhaul a personality, to shed your old skin, and wear a new one.
Even my earliest memories of Didimaa’s are of an emotionally abusive woman, calling Dada and me filthy cockroaches, wishing us to be struck down by polio and smallpox.
‘You’ve come?’ Didimaa said as I entered Mama’s house. ‘Go now, go in the kitchen and eat what your Mama has earned. Go, eat it all and leave us to starve. Petni works all day and sends her children here to eat. What does your Baba do? Oh, yes, prays all day to wash away your family’s sins. Your Maa’s a whore, a shakchunni. She goes and sleeps with her colleagues while her mother dies here. Is this why I kept her in my womb for nine months? Gave her my share of the food? I should have never let her go to college, that ungrateful petni. She will only rest when I die.’
The insults she hurled today were blunt when compared to the things I have heard from her before. Didimaa’s the reason why I know how to curse in my mother tongue and why I don’t like old people.
Her full-time nurse smiled awkwardly at me.
‘If you want to take a break, you can go. I am here,’ I said.
The nurse nodded and left us alone.
‘She steals,’ whispered Didimaa.
‘Didimaa, you have nothing left to steal. What can she possibly steal from you?’
Didimaa started to cry. She said, ‘My son, your Mama, hits me when no one’s there. You know what he does? You know? He wraps little stones in a handkerchief and swings them at me. He sleeps with the nurse when I’m sleeping. People think I don’t see things but I see everything, I know everything.’
To her credit, she’s a masterful storyteller. But the best stories come pouring out of her when she is asked about the long misshapen scar on her right hand. The story, the context, the characters change every few months.
‘But Didimaa, how did you get that scar?’
‘Oh, this? You wouldn’t believe me even if I tell you.’
‘Tell me, Didimaa.’
‘World War 2, before your wretched Maa was born. Your brave Dadu had just came back injured from his posting in Egypt. Three bullets, three bullets had hit him! Th
ey wanted to amputate his hand at the hospital but he refused! He ran from the hospital with his hand dangling by just a few tendons. It was I who took out the bullets and wrapped his hand with bandages made out of my wedding sarees. And then like Gandhari, you know Gandhari, from the Mahabharata, yes yes, like her, I took a hot knife and cut through my hand and left my wound to fester and fasted till your Dadu was all better!’
She fell silent for dramatic effect, and waited for me to show any sign of having believed this bullshit story. Dadu, sixteen years Didimaa’s senior, died in 1962, having fought in both the World Wars and the Kashmir skirmish of 1948. Some say he died of a broken heart after finding out that the Indian Army was decimated by the Chinese in the ’62 war.
Didimaa’s the only one who knows how I am wholly responsible for Sami’s death. Only mad people can keep secrets. No one believes them.
‘Are you here to cry again? Tell me how you watched your friend die?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Do you think I don’t remember?! I remember everything! You let him die! You and your mother—both murderers!’
‘Whatever, Didimaa. I just came to tell you that I think I like a girl,’ I said.
‘Ish!’ exclaimed Didimaa, suddenly soft. ‘You’re so young! Why? Who’s the prostitute who’s trying to snatch my sweet grandson away from me? Who’s she? Ish. Who’s it? Tell me? I will slap her with my chappal, drag her to the streets and parade her naked.’
‘Didimaa, she’s a nice girl, very smart and very beautiful,’ I said.
‘Nice girl, my foot. I will thrash her and then shave her head. I am going to tell your Maa–Baba. I am going to tell them to change your school. Ish! All this because your Maa–Baba are too busy working—’
‘Didimaa, who’s going to believe you? They will think it’s one of your stories,’ I said, more calm than I felt.
Then I turned to the TV and put on The Jetsons. A little later, without warning, Didimaa relieved herself in her diapers.
‘My sweet grandson. Change me?’ said she and looked at me, her eyes flickering with hope and tears. I looked away, turned up the volume of the television and waited for the nurse. It was thirty minutes before she came and cleaned Didimaa who levelled the choicest abuses against me, Maa and Baba. ‘You will all die poor and unhappy. Worms will eat out your eyes,’ she said while I was leaving.
