by Durjoy Datta
One of these days, I’m going to slap Richa Mittal. Who else would have placed that condom? But full marks to her for finding the courage to go and buy one.
1 October 1999
Maa and I went to the railway station today to pick up Dada and Zubeida. Baba told us he had to oversee work at the Durga Puja Committee and hence couldn’t come with us, which was a lie because Baba had bowed out of the committee a month ago. I had heard Maa–Baba talk. With a Musalman daughter-in-law at home he said it was embarrassing for him to be among his friends. Dada and Zubeida’s train was late by three hours. Every hour the railway announcer would regret to tell us about the unavoidable delay. Maa and I played cards and drank tea and ate oily pakodas to pass the time. By the time Dada’s train reached the platform my stomach was struggling to hold all that in.
Maa and I boarded the bogie and found Zubeida and Dada waiting with their suitcases. Zubeida Boudi smiled as she saw me. Her face had filled up and there was a visible bump beneath her burqa. I counted the weeks. About seven months to go. I searched for the pregnancy glow I had heard people talk about. Zubeida touched Maa’s feet; Maa half-heartedly and unsuccessfully tried to stop her from bending. We took a prepaid taxi to Saraswati Vihar. Dada ruffled my hair and asked me about Brahmi. Luckily, Maa wasn’t listening.
‘Baba was busy,’ said Maa in the taxi, looking at Zubeida with a rehearsed politeness, but looking at the bulge in her stomach with love. At the society gate, a man was waiting for us. Baba had instructed him to carry the luggage to their third-floor flat.
‘It is nice,’ said Zubeida to Maa as she looked around.
‘We were looking for a two-bedroom but rents in this neighbourhood have gone through the roof. Then we found this,’ said Maa.
‘This is perfect,’ said Dada.
‘The fridge is stocked for two days. If you need anything else I will get it. You two rest now,’ said Maa and turned to Dada and spoke in Bengali. ‘Baba must be reaching home any time. I should leave now.’
‘Isn’t Baba going to come?’ asked Zubeida.
There was a little silence, an infinitesimally small amount of time, as everyone absorbed Boudi calling Baba, Baba. I looked at Maa, and said a little prayer, beseeching god to make her see Mina in Boudi.
‘He will. He’s a little busy with work. You people rest. It’s been a long journey,’ said Maa hurriedly.
‘Raghu, you can stay here and tell me what’s happening in your life,’ Dada said to me.
‘I have homework,’ I answered.
‘Yes, he has,’ said Maa. ‘He has been roaming around quite a lot.’
Just as I was leaving, I saw Zubeida and Dada look at each other and smile.
‘Did you see the baby bump?’ asked Maa in the auto back home.
‘I did.’
‘It’s like a little fruit right now, like a pineapple, my grandchild,’ she said almost to herself. ‘It’s going to be a girl, I’m telling you.’
‘Are you going to name her Mina?’
‘No, of course not. I will name her Meenakshi.’
‘You’re so creative, Maa!’ I said and saw that the sarcasm was lost on her.
Baba was already home when we got back. He had made tea for himself and left the kitchen drain blocked. Maa tried to unblock it with a plunger. When her hands started to tire she called me to help. Over the gurgling sounds of water in the drain, I heard Maa tell Baba that Dada had settled down, Zubeida seemed well, and that they seemed to like the flat.
‘When will you go there?’ asked Maa.
‘I will when I feel like it,’ said Baba and that was the end of the discussion.
3 October 1999
The way she said it, it seemed like the most natural thing to do.
‘Of course we have to see them!’
So yesterday we went to meet Dada and Boudi at 1 a.m.
‘You think they will be awake?’ she asked.
As it turned out, they were awake and duly surprised to see us there. Brahmi and Boudi hugged each other as if they were friends from a lost time. They sat holding hands which felt weird because she was my Boudi, not hers. I felt strangely possessive about both Boudi and Brahmi, and oddly happy to see them mingle.
Dada expressed appreciation and anger at our behaviour. He gave me a token be-careful-the-nights-aren’t-safe-in-Delhi lecture, and then asked me about all the places I had been to.
‘What do you want?’ asked Brahmi.
‘We both want a girl,’ she said. ‘Do you want to eat something?’
‘No, Bhabhi. You rest.’
‘Hey, I’m not crippled, just pregnant,’ said Boudi laughing.
Brahmi laughed too.
Boudi offered to make tea and pakodas but Dada and Brahmi suggested we all go out and eat. Boudi joked that Dada was already sick of her cooking and insisted to cook himself every day. Which was strange, because Dada had not lifted a finger all these years in the Ganguly home.
Dada and Brahmi took a taxi, Brahmi and I drove alongside on Brahmi’s scooter, and we went to an all-night kadhi–chawal place in Connaught Place. Dada was impressed to see how well I knew the city.
Dada and I ate like hungry wolves while Brahmi and Boudi talked non-stop. Seeing them get along so well sprouted the possibility of an alternate reality in my imagination. Brahmi could shift to Dada–Boudi’s place, Dada could pay Brahmi’s school fees for the next two years, and she could go to a college which would waive off her tuition fee on account of her being such a brilliant student. It was a win-win. Of course, there was the issue of Maa thinking Brahmi and I were having sex—which was absolutely ridiculous—and Brahmi not wanting to depend on anyone. I kept the imaginary scenarios to myself.
When it was time for us to leave, Boudi exacted a promise out of Brahmi to meet them soon. Brahmi nodded. Neither of us told her or Dada that she would be moving to Gurgaon sooner than later.
‘You’re such a stud,’ Dada told me before leaving.
‘And I?’ asked Brahmi.
‘You’re responsible for making him one,’ said Dada and waved us goodbye.
On the way back to her house on her scooter, she shouted over the wind, ‘I love your Dada–Boudi.’
‘They seemed more your Dada–Boudi than mine.’
We both fell quiet, letting the possibility of that future slowly sink in. I smiled and saw her smile in the rear-view mirror.
7 October 1999
It was a good day today, sort of unbelievable. After the long cold war between Dada and Baba, where neither of them wanted to visit each other’s houses, Dada has softened his stand. He was home today. If I said it was all my doing, I might come across as pompous but there’s no other way to say it: It was all my doing. Like a tactful negotiator I used all the tricks in the book. Persistent cajoling, emotional blackmail, beady eyes, and anger—I used all my arsenal. ‘How different are you from Baba if you keep holed up here? He extended an olive branch, didn’t he? It was Baba who found this house, got everything fixed, got sick with worry wondering if everything is okay, and you can’t even come home? Boudi, why don’t you tell him to come home? How will things get better if neither of them soften a little?’
Fake tears and real tears were at the precipice of my eyes and Dada gave up.
He came home. They sat together in front of the TV where a cricket match was on and Baba and Dada didn’t even look at each other for the longest time. They weren’t father and son but two men. Their icy stares at the television left me cold. It was only after Ganguly did well that the two senior Gangulys melted and smiled and then clapped.
‘He should be the captain,’ said Dada.
‘Seeing a Bengali as captain, people will start respecting us again. He will restore our pride!’ exclaimed Baba.
On the dinner table, Baba mostly steered clear of any conversation related to Boudi, except the accidental advice. ‘Start spending less, save more; the little one has to have a good future.’
Maa and I went with Dada to his house
. We carried casseroles of capsicum paneer and doi machh. Boudi insisted that Maa drink tea before she left. Maa stayed back because I knew by now that she had come to love Boudi’s tea. Though she had dared not ask her about the recipe. Was it the tea leaves? Was it some masala? Maa kept her curiosity to herself, not wanting to give Boudi a lead on what was principally her domain—good chai. So imagine my surprise when Maa gave me a tight slap on my head when I called Boudi by the nickname I had thought for her—Sunni Boudi. Boudi had told me a few days back that she’s a Sunni Muslim. Sunni. Sunni. Sunni. It coils funnily around the tongue, doesn’t it? I have been calling her Sunni Boudi, Sunni Boudi for a week now. Boudi had no problem with me calling her that but apparently Maa did and I have to stop doing it. I had asked Boudi if she would rather be a Shia, another branch of Islam. She said she wouldn’t. Had I been given a choice, I would rather be Shia. It sounds richer, like the sound of a formula car whizzing by. Shia. I have always wanted to be a Roy or a Chatterjee, regal surnames which spring to mind rich Bengali gentlemen with round spectacles and pocket watches.
Ganguly is too . . . clerk-like.
When we came back home, Baba asked me to call Brahmi back. Maa looked at me sharply.
‘It’s about some assignment,’ I offered as an explanation.
When Maa–Baba retired for the night, I called Brahmi. She told me she would leave home the coming week.
11 October 1999
My head’s bursting, my heart’s bleeding and my fingers are failing me as I try to write this down. Let me tell you what happened today in a chronological order so as to make sense of it all.
Maa–Baba and I were quite surprised when Arundhati, Sahil and Rishab landed at my place, unannounced. Dressed in white kurta–pyjamas, the boys looked like little princes, and between them stood Arundhati, stately and resplendent in her blue-and-gold saree.
‘Quick! Get ready. We are going out,’ they echoed.
‘Where?’
‘A party, at my place,’ said Rishab.
‘For what?’
‘That’s a secret,’ Arundhati answered.
I looked at Maa–Baba, who nodded. Maa helped me find my kurta and Baba ironed it. When I was all dressed up, Baba clicked a picture with his camera, and then one from Rishab’s new digital camera.
‘You can delete pictures and take new ones if you don’t like them,’ said Rishab.
‘We know how digital cameras work,’ said Arundhati.
‘I was just—’
‘Next you’re going to tell us how cars work, is it?’
We all supported Arundhati’s bullying of Rishab.
In the car to Rishab’s house, they told me Brahmi was throwing herself a farewell party since she wasn’t going to be a part of one in school. I felt slighted that Brahmi hadn’t told me about her wish to have one. I would have organized one for her. Neither did I know when Brahmi told them about her decision to leave school; she had categorically asked me to not tell anyone, not even Dada–Boudi.
Brahmi was waiting at Rishab’s house, looking wonderful in a red-and-black saree. ‘You look gorgeous,’ she said and stepped closer to me.
‘So do you,’ I said.
‘When did you tell them?’
‘They just know I’m shifting and doing my studies through open school,’ she whispered.
‘What are you guys whispering? Let’s click pictures!’ said Arundhati. ‘Come here!’
Arundhati made me stand in between and linked her arm around me. She exhorted Brahmi to do the same. My heart fluttered and it shows in the picture that was clicked. Rishab’s parents met us and told us that the upper floor of the house was ours and we were free to do anything except break the showpieces. We all laughed and politely took their leave.
We huddled inside Rishab’s room.
We sat and talked and smoked and coughed and laughed. We made Arundhati sing for us and, by god, did she sing beautifully. Later, Rishab played his mixtapes, and Sahil and Arundhati—both fabulous dancers—showed off their moves. Brahmi smiled all through. She looked happy. Then we took turns to tell her how much we would miss her. The three hours we spent at Rishab’s passed in a flash. When it was time to leave I volunteered to drop Brahmi home. She changed into her regular home clothes and gave the saree she had borrowed from Arundhati back to her. In the auto, she thanked me for coming, told me she would miss this time and slept on my shoulder.
‘We are here,’ I said, tapping on her shoulder.
She woke up with a start.
‘Can I walk you home?’
She nodded.
She froze ten yards from her house.
‘No.’
This single ominous word escaped her lips.
Two adults, who I knew were her Tauji–Taiji, came charging at her. In a swift sequence of events which included a lot of cursing, shouting, slapping, her more than me, we were at her place. Their entire colony was watching—from their stairs, their windows, their balconies. She had been dragged by her hair, while I was given a more merciful treatment—they only pulled me by my hand. They pushed Brahmi into her room and locked it. Her Taiji was crying and her Tauji looked at me in angry silence.
‘WHEN WILL THIS GIRL STOP TROUBLING US?’ shouted her Taiji, pacing outside Brahmi’s room.
I scouted the area for pointy objects, things I could jam into the carotid arteries of her Tauji–Taiji and break her out of there.
Her Taiji disappeared inside a room for a few minutes and then dragged out a big bag.
‘She was planning to run away!’ shouted her Taiji and pointed at me. ‘Was she running away with you? Tell me or I will inform the police!’
Her Taiji passed a washing bat to him. Tauji kept it next to him.
I wanted to say, ‘So what, and yes, she was planning to run away with me because I love her and who else would be more deserving of her’, but the words died an early death in my throat.
‘Is she running with you? What are you? Twelve? ANSWER MY QUESTION, YOU BASTARD.’
‘Sixteen. I’m sixteen. Which twelve-year-old has a moustache,’ I said and her Taiji charged at me and slapped me across my face.
Indignant, I told her, ‘You slap me once more and you see what I do.’
At which point Tauji clenched the washing bat in his hand and pointed it at my face.
He said, ‘Beta, you don’t know who I am. It would be advisable if you tell us where you were taking her. Either you tell me or you tell the police.’
Who was he? Judging by the state of his house, he couldn’t be a powerful businessman or politician who could legitimately use that phrase.
‘Are you the police?’ I asked him.
‘I am an advocate at the Tis Hazari court. My friends in the police will make you disappear tomorrow and you won’t even see it coming,’ he said. ‘If I want it, you won’t see the light of day tomorrow, ladke. So open your mouth.’ He patted my face with the bat. He said, ‘Tell us where you were going with her?’
‘Uncle, with all due respect, I am not talking to you. If you can please call her parents I will tell them everything.’
‘Brahmi’s parents?’ asked her Taiji.
‘Yes? Who else?’
‘They are long dead,’ said her Tauji.
‘That’s not funny, Uncle.’
‘Oh, bechara, poor thing,’ said her Taiji. ‘He doesn’t know. See? This girl is crazy!’
‘What don’t I know?’ I asked, walking to the room they had locked Brahmi in, but her Tauji was swifter than what I’d expected and rammed me against the wall. He jammed the bat against my neck and pressed home.
‘Look ladke, Brahmi’s parents are long dead, it’s been ten years,’ he said and pointed to the picture on the wall, draped with a garland of dried flowers.
‘But—’
‘Our niece is crazy, that saali. For ten years she has gone around saying her parents are alive, her parents are alive, making up stories about them. She’s made our lives hell. How much patience does she e
xpect from us? Huh?’ said her Taiji.
‘But—’
The words died in my throat.
‘WAS SHE RUNNING AWAY WITH YOU?’ asked her Tauji and released the bat from my neck.
‘No,’ I spluttered.
‘Don’t know how many times we have taken her to the hospital for her bleeding wrists,’ screamed her Taiji.
‘But that can’t be—’
‘That’s exactly how it is,’ said her Tauji.
‘But her parents are—’
Her Taiji continued, ‘She just does it to trouble us! She of course knows they are dead! When she cries all night calling out to her Mumma–Papa, doesn’t she know they are not alive? Then why in the morning she pretends that they are? Going around telling everyone that they are alive!’
‘But—’
‘She’s an embarrassment,’ said her Taiji. ‘She should have died the same day her parents did. But no! She’s still here, making everyone believe we are the villains in her life.’
‘You hit her,’ I muttered.
His Tauji let me go. ‘Of course we hit her and we would do it again. What’s she if not a burden to us? If she dies, we will be in trouble, if she doesn’t then also people blame us for making the girl crazy.’
Her Taiji said, ‘You want to run away with her? Do so! Rid us of her! She steals, she lies, and she doesn’t let us sleep! We will do what is required of us. We will write a report that she’s missing and then what happens will happen.’
‘I was not running away with her,’ I said.
‘Then why this bag? Who the hell is she running away from?’ grumbled her Tauji.
Vedant’s name was at the tip of my tongue but I shrugged and told them I didn’t know.
‘Then who are you?’
‘I’m like a brother to her,’ I said, in more of a reflex.
They shoved me out despite my begging them to let me meet her. They told me she’d never be meeting anyone. She was going to live in that room, die in that room, and that’s what was going to happen. I had tried to argue but Tauji had swung the bat and got me square on my face. My mouth filled with blood and a molar came loose. I waited beneath her window, strained my ears and my eyes for a sign and got nothing. As I walked the entirety of the way home, the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. Her parents were dead, that was irrefutable. They weren’t alive with shifting geographical locations. I had not once suspected her of lying.
