by Durjoy Datta
I’m sweating now, hardly sleeping for the past few nights, and I cry and shout at intervals. Is this what they call a panic attack? When you feel like the walls are closing in on you?
13 March 2000
My labour bore fruit today. I was lucky to find Brahmi. Lucky is probably the wrong word to use. I have felt like taking my own life a lot of times but not someone else’s. But now I do. If I’m going to die eventually why not murder someone and then go? It’s not something I haven’t done before. Sami’s blood is already on my hands, how would it matter if there’s one more to add to that list? Only this time it would be well-deserved. Ever since I have met Brahmi, my fingers are twitching to do it. I’m doing better though. No more sweating, just naked anger. Now I wondering if pure hatred is the cure to pure grief. Could be, right?
Brahmi was surprised to see me. She thought I was there to share my loss of Dada with her, so she asked, concerned, ‘Raghu? What are you doing here?’
‘I have been coming here for a week. Where have you been?’
‘I wasn’t well,’ she said, clearly lying.
‘Richa told me you have been coming to my house even after the break-up. I know it’s true so don’t refute it. Just tell me why?’
She looked at me for a minute. Her brain must have been processing a pretext, a lie she could come up with, and she failed for once.
‘Ran out of lies? Tell me why were you there? You broke up with me, you wouldn’t reach out to me and yet you would be there and watch me. Why?’
She had nothing to say.
‘Sit here,’ I said and she did. I took her hand into mine and asked her softly, ‘Tell me? You can tell me. For once, please just tell me.’
She held her demeanour for a bit and then showed me her wrist which had up till now been covered with her full-sleeved shirt. All our meetings post her joining work clicked into place, and I realized she had never not worn full-sleeved shirts. There were clotted bandages. She had cut again.
‘It’s Vedant,’ she said.
‘Why?’
While I held her hand, she told me how she had found Vedant’s hidden video camera in the bathroom after a couple of weeks.
‘Nothing got recorded. I made sure I put the towel on it before bathing. He must have thought he was out of luck.’
‘Why didn’t you do anything? Tell anyone?’
She didn’t choose to answer that. What could she have done? Where would she have gone?
‘He got tired eventually. One day I found the lock broken to the bathroom. He walked in and acted like it was an accident. I was . . . naked. From that day I stopped bathing when he was awake,’ said Brahmi. ‘His patience wore thin. He came home drunk one day with his friend. The minute I saw them at the door, I knew what they wanted from me. I ran and locked myself in. I cut myself while they banged at the door. He probably thought I was sleeping.’
She sighed. My hands had started to shake so she held them tight.
‘Then?’
‘The next day he saw the cuts and stayed away. He didn’t know why I had cut myself but he stayed off me. Probably got scared that I might kill myself in his apartment. It worked for a while. I would cut myself, behave normally the next day, and he would be freaked out, not wanting to push me in any way,’ she said.
‘It was dangerous.’
She looked at me as if to say the same thing. What else could she have done? Report to the police?
I wanted to ask her why she didn’t tell me. I had the answer. Every time she would have cut herself, she would have thought she would go through the entire way the next time. She wouldn’t have wanted to drag me along. The further I was away from her, the better. That’s why she welcomed my break-up, why she didn’t fight for our relationship. Because she knew it had to end at one point or the other.
‘Then it stopped deterring him,’ she said. ‘He brushed past me, hovered around me, and touched me. The more he did, the deeper my cuts got.’
‘Now?’ I asked, wanting to scout him out and gouge out his eyes.
Brahmi wiped her tears. ‘I must go back. It’s late.’
‘How do you sleep at night?’ I asked.
‘With my door locked and with a knife under my pillow.’
A helpless silence descended over us. We knew the eventuality of this, of how it would end. We both must have gone through everything she has gone through up till now, how unfair life had been to her, and how there’s only one way to mercifully put this unpitying existence to an end.
‘We will get past this,’ I said to her, my words hollow.
‘How?’
‘I will save you,’ I said, desperately.
‘Will you? Like you’re saving yourself?’ she said, a tear streaking down her cheek. ‘Don’t you see it? We are doomed, the hopes we had clung to, gone, our own brothers deceived us. We can’t run away from it. Don’t I know what you’re waiting for?’
‘What?’
‘For Boudi’s child, are you not?’ she asked. She got up, not getting a response. ‘That’s why, you should go your own way, as I should mine. We will only want to drag out the inevitable, hope that one of us will save the other. It will all eventually come to naught, Raghu.’
I held her hand.
‘You still love me, don’t you?’ I asked.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Can I ask you for something? Can you wait for me?’
I told her of the visions I had had when I had just begun to know her—of the two of us with slashed wrists, fingers entwined, on the top of the building. I knew it was unfair for me to tell her to wait; Brahmi couldn’t have lived in that house any more. There’s only one other place she could have lived—in the flat where Dada died. The lease was for a year and Baba wasn’t ready to let go of the apartment yet. The police and the landlord had been sufficiently paid in money and in tears to hold on to Dada’s tomb. Grief is a powerful thing. We have all been there—Maa, Baba, Boudi and I. The kitchen and the living room is wrecked, blackened with soot, walls half-broken, the blood washed off, but the bedroom is surprisingly untouched. The flat has no running water or electricity but it’s a house. Brahmi said she would have her bag ready tomorrow.
17 March 2000
Maa is like an evil hamster in the wheel. She finds ways to hurt Boudi and then cries and apologizes to her. Boudi who has no one else to cry with always forgives her. Sometimes she finds succour in me. Only yesterday, Maa found the marriage certificate of Boudi and Dada in the almirah and set fire to it. Boudi cried when she found out but Maa cried harder.
Every time I step out of the house, leaving Boudi behind, I feel guilty. But I have to.
For the last four days, Brahmi has been living in Dada’s old flat. Vedant hasn’t and I believe won’t come looking for her because she had left him a threatening letter.
From a part of her savings she bought a little kerosene stove where she cooks all three meals, even snacks.
‘If these are going to be my last few days, I’d rather live like a queen,’ she said the first day when I pointed to the packets of chips and biscuits lying around.
‘Quite a palace you have,’ I had remarked.
And today she said, ‘It is not far from it. It feels like home. I feel safe here.’
‘Ironical,’ I said.
‘Because I have you here. I feel safe. I feel wanted. I feel loved. When you leave everything behind and come here and spend time with me, I feel nice. In love. Look at you blush,’ she said.
I felt the same about her despite the memories this flat held. Dada’s words came forth in my head, when he had suggested we go to the same places and create more memories to overwrite the old ones. That’s what Brahmi was doing. Not overwriting them but at least filling the blanks with happy memories.
‘Thank you,’ she said, holding my hand.
‘I am doing it as much for me as for you,’ I told her.
And why not? Only yesterday, I told Maa–Baba I would stay at Rishab’s place and went
to Dada’s house instead. We spent the entire night talking. It was light by the time we had wrested our old life back. The same little room, the darkness, the quietude and the candle between the two of us.
Unlike then, now we know time’s running out so we don’t hold back on words. We tell each other we love each other more freely, without feeling shy, we hold each other’s hand more tightly, we clutch each other with more authority, exercise more control over each other. In the afternoons, we sneak out of the building and walk around parks like an old couple. We laugh and we joke and we wonder what lies on the other side of death.
She still hasn’t told me how and why her parents died or why she hid it from me and I haven’t probed. If these were going to be the last few days of our lives, I would rather spend them smiling. What scares me now is the time I’m not with Brahmi, when she’s all alone in that blackened house, sitting in the darkness with just herself, waiting for me.
20 March 2000
Like every morning I woke up early to maintain the charade that I was still going to school. Only today, I woke up a little too early and overheard Maa–Baba talk. Usually there’s nothing more than silent sobs but today was different.
‘Don’t worry. She will have to do what we want her to do,’ said Baba.
‘Are you sure? Zubeida is not any other girl. She’s wily. She trapped my son. She’s smart. She can do anything,’ said Maa.
‘How long will she fight us? She will have to give up, won’t she?’ said Baba.
Then their voices fell silent.
I couldn’t take their depraved fantasies and their evil machinations against Boudi so I left to see Brahmi. I don’t know what happened in my absence but Boudi went into labour early. When I reached home, it was Arundhati who told me of it and Bhattacharya Uncle drove me to the hospital. It wasn’t as much a hospital but a ramshackle nursing home. Boudi was still under sedatives when I got to the hospital; the operation had been a long one. I saw Maa–Baba cradling a little boy to whom I was suddenly an uncle. It might be totally in my head but the boy looked like Dada from his baby pictures. When I held him I felt a rush of dopamine, a happiness I had only felt with Brahmi. I might have even cried a little. Then they took the baby and put him in a little crib. Maa–Baba stared at the crib and sobbed in happiness. They named the baby Anirban. I rushed to see Brahmi to give her the news. She hugged me, kissed me twice on my cheek, and told me how happy she was for me.
‘Is he cute?’
And for long, we talked about the baby. I didn’t know a minute with the baby could have given me an hour of material to talk about. I left Brahmi to see Anirban Jr again. Boudi was still under the effect of sedatives and the baby was in the crib next to her.
Maa–Baba spent the entire night in the hospital—I kept going to and fro, between Brahmi and Anirban Jr—after which Baba and I went home to get a change of clothes for Boudi. But once we were home, Baba packed not one change but almost all of Boudi’s clothes into a suitcase.
‘You don’t have to come to the hospital with me right now,’ he said. ‘We will come home with the baby.’
I nodded. When Baba left I went to see Brahmi, who expressed her desire to see the baby as well. ‘Soon,’ I told her. Sometime between all the baby talk, we would fall silent. We were both aware that the clock had started to tick. But neither of us mentioned it today. Today was a happy day. Till . . .
Baba had lied through his teeth. He came back home alone and without the suitcase. There was no Maa, there was no baby.
‘Where’s Boudi? Where’s Anirban?’
‘Maa’s taken Anirban away. Boudi is not going to be living here.’
Baba told me, as dispassionately as he could, that they couldn’t have allowed the boy to be raised by her, not after all that she had done. So they paid for her bills and left her there. Baba told me as if he was being benevolent, ‘We have also deposited enough money in her account to last years.’
‘For now, Maa has taken the child and gone to a relative’s and Zubeida won’t see the baby till she agrees to what we want.’
‘Which relative?’ I asked. ‘What do you want? How the hell could you—’
It was answered by a resounding slap.
‘You will go to jail for this,’ I shouted.
‘No, we won’t!’ Baba shouted back.
I tried to leave the house but I had forgotten how strong Baba is. He dragged me to my room and locked me inside.
‘WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?’ I shouted, my heart thumping out of my chest, disbelief and anger washing over me. How could Maa–Baba do this? What could they possibly want from Boudi? What kind of a monster rips a baby out of a new mother’s arms? And for what! FOR WHAT! What family am I born into? How damaged are they? I banged the door to no avail, screaming till I lost my voice. I heard the bell ring a few times so I knew my voice had reached out to the Bhattacharyas and the Mittals. But Baba drove them away. Brahmi must be waiting for me.
Boudi must be waiting for me.
Crushed, I slumped against the door. That’s when I heard a slight knocking from the other side of the door. It was Arundhati. I asked Arundhati to reach out to Brahmi, tell her about my house arrest. I skipped the details which would have made her uncomfortable. She, in turn, called Rishab who drove to Dada’s house and told Brahmi that I wouldn’t be coming any time soon. Rishab passed on the news to Arundhati, and questions of why I was locked up in my room, why was Brahmi was living in a squalid, wrecked apartment, and what the hell exactly was going on. I didn’t have the strength or the inclination to say anything so I crawled away from the wall, into a little ball, and felt like dying.
I’m waiting for Baba to open the door.
21 March 2000
Boudi was at the door today. She bawled and cried. I am still locked inside but I could hear every word that was being said outside. Like I had imagined, Boudi threatened Baba and Bhattacharya Uncle, who had been enlisted to Maa–Baba’s cause, with legal action. She couldn’t form complete sentences. She would break down after every word. I now know what Maa–Baba had wanted from Boudi.
Baba gave Boudi a simple choice: rethink her faith, and they would be happy to let her back into their lives, to be a mother, to be their daughter-in-law, live with them as their own. Baba promised—in what was his grandest speech of all time—that she would be loved and cared for, everything that has happened will be relegated to a forgotten drawer, and they would start a new life together.
Baba wasn’t just words. He had papers drawn up that said Boudi and Boudi alone, if and when she changes her religion, would be the sole heir to all that the Gangulys owned. Maa–Baba had put their money where their mouth was, they had committed their madness to paper, and they were convinced about going through with it. Baba broke down twice, like men do, while saying all that he had to say. In his endless impassioned speech he told Boudi that they never blamed her, only her religion and that unholy alliance, which has brought destruction to the Gangulys, and they can’t let that affect their grandson, there was too much at stake. He invoked his love and despair for his dead son, swore on Dada’s memories, and told Boudi that they would love her more than they love themselves. Boudi had cried profusely all through . . . muttering Anirban’s name again and again and again. The voices died down after a while. Boudi had gone.
In the afternoon, Baba unlatched the door to my room. When I walked out, Baba was surprised to see the bat in one hand, and a bag in the other. He came close and I swung. When the bat was in the air, in those few seconds, I realized I felt nothing for Maa–Baba. I hadn’t pulled back on my swing, all my familial love had drained out, nothing pulled me back. I was hitting a stranger, or an enemy. Pure, distilled hatred. The tie had snapped. There was no metaphorical umbilical cord between me and them.
I caught his arm. He staggered out of the way.
‘What will Maa think?’ he shouted.
‘I don’t care what you think!’ I shouted back. ‘Give Boudi her baby back. He is her son!’
‘We don’t care! He is our grandchild, he is Anirban’s son and she’s getting no one! NOT UNLESS SHE AGREES TO WHAT WE SAY!’ shouted Baba. ‘If you want to leave, you can leave! Go, do it! You haven’t made us proud. Don’t think we don’t know that you were there in his marriage to this . . . girl! GO! GO, wherever you want to go.’
I stood there, my feet bolted to the ground. I thought I would cry but the tears didn’t come. Emptiness. I left with Baba shouting his curses behind me. His words crashed against my eardrums and didn’t reach my brain. I didn’t leave. I couldn’t do it. The face of that little child Anirban hovered in front of me. I couldn’t see Boudi being left alone. What would Dada think of me? Would he not haunt me if life after death exists? Baba called me a coward when I went back to my room, still smarting from the assault. In the evening, I cried into Brahmi’s arms, who told me I was the exact opposite—brave.
‘You need to stand by your Boudi,’ she said.
We spent the night together, mostly silent.
23 March 2000
Baba and I haven’t talked in two days. He walks about in the house like an evil warlord. Maybe he’s sad, maybe he’s unhinged now but I don’t care. All I know is I’m ashamed that it was him who brought me to this world. My hope that Boudi would come back was dwindling. The phone was unhooked so I didn’t know where Maa had taken Anirban. The more time went by, the more I got fidgety, wondering if he was even in the city any more. I couldn’t go and see Brahmi, scared that Boudi might come when I’m not at home. It was in the evening, and Baba was watching the TV like nothing was wrong in the world while everything was, when there was a knock on the door. My ears were pricked and I ran to the door. Baba followed after.
I opened the door and there she was. Just as Didimaa had foreseen.
Boudi without her burqa. I gasped. She looked straight through me at Baba. Her eyes empty, like the soul had been sucked out of her. Baba opened the door wider, and welcomed her inside. Baba and Boudi looked at each other for the briefest second. Boudi walked inside.
