Babyji

by Abha Dawesar

  “Where’s your sense of humor?”

  “Aren’t you ashamed of thinking that about someone your son likes?” I asked.

  “I’m joking. I can’t joke with him about this, so I thought I’d joke with you,” he said.

  I didn’t respond. The idea of Adit staring at Sheela’s pouty pink lips or smelling her hair or touching her breasts made me want to heave. I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone within two feet of Sheela’s body.

  “Don’t speak to me about her like that again,” I said.

  “Why are you being so touchy?” he asked.

  “I have to go, Adit,” I said, hanging up.

  Adit’s words rankled me. I remained in a serious mood the rest of the evening. I thought about the dream from the night before.

  I understood Chakra Dev and why he wanked seven times a day. Why he had set off the bomb in the watercooler, why I had withdrawn my bloodied finger from Sheela, feeling not horror but pride, why the Hindus and Muslims had killed with so much bloodthirst at Partition and left sacks of penises to be discovered: circumcised or not. The binary world with its simple classification system had so easily bisected every male genital into Hindu and Muslim. The world, into love and hate. India, into upper caste and lower.

  In the world of zero and one, self-immolation was a simple act. Fire, a purifier. Violence, an unrefined response to the complex machinery inside the head that manufactured a thousand kinds of sordid poison—each corrupting and vilifying, dislocating, blaspheming, decapitating, and corroding the universe of feelings that arose in the human breast.

  On the other hand, I had seen the range of my own desire, mutating from disgust to longing, love turning into viciousness, the warmth of Rani’s skin kindling passion one night, vulnerability another, and ugliness, the third. I too wanted to embrace the simplicity of binaries, one large sun and another small, circling each other, smug in their combined sufficiency. A grand, utterly destructive gesture made more sense than repetitive small episodes of pain. I decided to call Chakra Dev.

  I went through the papers on my desk till I found the cyclostyled sheet with the class phone numbers. I wanted to convince Chakra Dev to apologize before schools reopened. I thought I could approach him differently this time.

  The phone rang a dozen times before a woman answered. I froze on the spot and replaced the handset. After a few seconds I dialed the number again. This time Chakra Dev answered.

  “It’s Anamika, the Head Prefect,” I said.

  “What do you want?” he said. He had not been expecting my call.

  “Listen, I want to talk to you.”

  “Are you calling about the bomb again?”

  “No,” I said, deciding that he would just hang up on me if I said yes.

  “Then?” he asked. I tried to think of what to say. There was no question of telling him what Sheela had told me about his dinner invitation, though I wished he knew that had he invited me, I would have accepted.

  “I visited one of our classmates. Are you giving her blank calls?” I asked.

  “It’s none of your bloody business,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t disturb other people,” I said. My heart sank. It was the wrong thing to have said. He would think I was calling him to moralize.

  “I decide what I should and shouldn’t do,” he barked.

  “What have you decided you should do?” I asked, changing my strategy with him, my voice as soft as I could make it.

  “Why? Will you help me do it?” he asked derisively.

  “I’ll try,” I said, wondering if he would say something filthy about Sheela. How would I come up with a nonchalant reply?

  “Get Sheela to talk to me,” he said. He sighed, as if saying it had been too much of an effort. It seemed as if the thought of Sheela made him weak. It was time to strike, I thought to myself, remembering Deepak’s advice from Kasauli.

  “And what will I get in return?” I asked calmly.

  “Huh! What do you want?” he asked, taken aback.

  I knew I was supposed to ask him for an apology letter addressed to the principal, but what came out took me by surprise.

  “A conversation with you,” I blurted.

  “Ha! Ha! You have a crush on me,” he said, laughing. It was not a smart thing to lay oneself bare with a lout.

  “I do not,” I said sharply, mustering the full authority of my Head Prefectship.

  “Then?” he said. He was still listening, open.

  “I just want to improve you,” I said, my strategy falling to pieces.

  “Bitch,” he said and hung up.

  I sighed and went back to my room, Chakra Dev’s parting words pumping in my blood. Despite the rejection I could not help thinking that somewhere deep down the bubblings of his soul were no different from mine.

  As soon as I woke up the next morning I called Sheela and made plans to go to her house. Vidur had left another message for me the previous afternoon. I had no intention of talking to him as long as I could help it and left standing instructions with my mother and Rani to say I was not in or I was ill. They both asked me why, and I said we had had a fight. No one made further inquiries.

  I did not discuss Chakra Dev or Vidur with Sheela. I knew that I could only keep her by seeing her constantly and capturing as much of her imagination as I could, before Vidur or Chakra Dev or even Adit got to it. School remained closed the next week, and I saw her almost every day. We would lie down on her bed and stay like that for hours. Whenever she moved I would be intensely aware of the voluptuousness of her body and would wait patiently for her to make contact with me, the long, seemingly interminable wait heightening my senses. If she rubbed my forearm I would take it as a sign that I was allowed the same. I was careful not to go too far. Sometimes we would draw circles on each other’s skin. If the phone rang she would ignore it, but hearing its sound tear through Sheela’s room I would think of Chakra Dev, my heart and head both a little heavy at the thought that he was suffering. Sheela would pull the phone out from its socket, and I could not help but wonder if she had a soft corner for him as well. But I knew she would never admit it, even to herself.

  “Will you be my mistress when we grow up?” I asked Sheela.

  “Maybe,” she replied. She had not taken me seriously.

  “We’ll have very little furniture and large windows,” I said.

  “I’ve always wanted thin red curtains,” she said.

  “Red, with a gold border. Like a sari,” I said.

  “We’ll have gadela-type seating on the floor. We’ll cover the living room mattresses with block-printed bedspreads and cushions with beads,” she said dreamily.

  I could visualize the room exactly, its panoply of riches. I wished we had it now.

  “Our dining table will be quite low. And the chairs, too,” I said.

  “Can I have flowers?” she asked.

  Roses were girlie. They didn’t match what I had in mind for the interior of my house.

  “You can have birds of paradise.”

  “I haven’t seen them,” she said. I had seen only a photograph in Span magazine.

  “They are flat and orange with long green stalks. We’ll have to import them,” I said.

  Money would be the key to my life with Sheela. If you had money you could be in control. Otherwise you’d have to compromise and do what everyone else was doing: conform.

  After such conversations with her I would ride my bike home to spend a few hours reading before making a supplication of all my highest and lowest sentiments of the day at Rani’s feet, mouth, belly, head, or ass depending on the sentiments, the day, the peace I had made or not made with my own self. For now she was my partner, the person with whom I let down my arms after battling with the world.

  xxii

  Hello, World!

  One such night as I lay in bed, having made Rani the receptacle of all my passions and counterpassions, the phone pierced through the calm. It was late, past midnight. My first thought was of C
hakra Dev. But as soon as I was fully awake I knew it had to be someone else; maybe India was finally missing me. I took the big risk of running out naked into the hallway, the bedsheet Rani and I used to cover ourselves wrapped around me.

  “Listen, I need to talk to you,” Vidur said. He sounded miserable.

  “Talk,” I said, awake and tense on hearing him.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” he grumbled. I didn’t respond.

  “I need to meet you. Can I come tomorrow? My father will drop me. He’s taking the morning off to see the dentist.”

  “Okay,” I said, pushed to the corner and anxious to get back to my room before I was discovered.

  When I was back in bed I said, “I can’t sleep.”

  “Shhhhh,” Rani whispered and pulled me close. She stroked my eyebrows till I drifted off.

  The next morning the father and son showed up an hour after my parents had left for work. Rani came out to the living room.

  “You’re being a stranger,” Adit said.

  I kept quiet. Rani greeted Vidur and practically ignored Adit.

  “It’s unforgivable, you know. Ditching both your best friend and his old man,” Adit said.

  “I heard from someone that he has a new best friend,” I said, laughing. I didn’t want Adit to leave us. It was easier for me to be myself with him in the room.

  “Have something to drink,” I offered.

  Rani went to the kitchen and came back with four nimbu panis. It was the first time she had brought a drink for herself without being asked. She sat herself down by my feet at the sofa, glaring at Adit.

  “What have I done to you?” Adit asked in Hindi, looking at her.

  Vidur’s eyes bulged out in shock at his father’s tone.

  “Leave her alone,” I said. I didn’t care if Vidur was taken aback.

  Rani maintained her silence and glared some more. Then she turned to Vidur and smiled. I laid my hand on her shoulder and let it stay there.

  “The Mandal situation has calmed. I think you kids will soon have to go back to school,” Adit said, finishing off his nimbu pani .

  “I’ve forgotten what school is like,” I said.

  “You’ve forgotten me in my time of need,” Vidur accused.

  “I’ll leave you two to talk,” Adit said, getting up. I walked him to the door, but only after pressing my hand on Rani’s shoulder to make it clear to her to stay put. I heard Rani start up a conversation with Vidur about having learned the alphabet. Her notebook was lying on the coffee table; she had picked it up to show him. Before leaving, Adit bent down and kissed me on the mouth without any warning.

  After a few seconds I pulled myself away and whispered, “Leave.” I lingered in the hallway after he had gone to wait for my heartbeat to slow down. Somehow the kiss had not come as a surprise. I had expected it since the day I had met Adit.

  Back in the living room Rani and Vidur were laughing. When they saw me come in, Rani got up and said she would be on the veranda in the back washing clothes. As soon as she left Vidur got up from where he was sitting and chanted dramatically, “Sheela Sheela Sheela.” With one hand he was pulling his thick hair. With the other he was nervously fiddling with the top button of his shirt. He paced like a maniac.

  “So, you like her,” I declared, getting ready for the discussion we could no longer put off.

  “I’ve never loved anyone before,” he said. I got angry. He was too immature to know love. He was naïve and inexperienced. He would have understood nothing about my dream.

  “It’s a crush,” I said.

  “I have had crushes before. She is different. This is different,” he said, enunciating each word, almost shouting down the house. He’d never told me before that he had a crush on anyone.

  “Please help me,” he said, suddenly coming close to me and grabbing my hand between both of his.

  “Help you?”

  “Yes, only you can help me.”

  “How?”

  “Tell her that I love her. Tell her that I am a good guy,” he said avidly.

  “Why don’t you tell her?” I said.

  “Every time I see her I try. I just can’t do it.”

  I was quiet.

  “So will you?” he asked.

  “Shh!” I said to him, putting my finger on my lip. I couldn’t think straight with his jumpy energy, his oscillating and noisy photons. I didn’t know whether I should tell him about myself. Explaining why I wouldn’t help would be difficult if I couldn’t tell him the facts.

  “So, are you going to help or what?” he asked again, irritated at my silence.

  “Vidur,” I said slowly.

  “Yes?”

  “Love is not that sort of thing. It happens between two people, and no power on earth can hinder or help it.”

  He shook his head violently. “I simply want you to act as a catalyst,” he said.

  “Only Hydrogen Sulfide can help you with catalysts,” I said.

  “Very funny,” he said, sticking his tongue out at me.

  His irritation helped me stay firm. “Vidur, it’s complicated. My relationship with her is complicated. I can’t act as a catalyst.”

  “Why is it complicated? She loves you, doesn’t she? She told me she loves you.”

  “Precisely,” I said.

  “You don’t think I’m good enough for her? Is that it?” he said, looking very upset.

  “It’s not that. Obviously it’s not that. You’re my best friend,” I said.

  “Then?”

  “Well, if she fell for you because of me you wouldn’t be able to stand it. You’d always wonder if she fell for you because of me or because of who you are.” I was making things up. I didn’t know if I really thought this way. I was just going to jump from one argument to another, simply countering his. That way I didn’t have to think through a plan. I had always been good at arguing and could usually argue on any topic from both sides, irrespective of what I thought. The school counselor, Mrs. Shah, had given us all aptitude tests and told me that I should be a lawyer.

  “I thought about that already. I won’t wonder,” he said.

  Then his face took on an expression I had seen on Adit’s face, an expression that spoke of elaborate explanations. He said, “You see, I don’t think you can make something happen that isn’t meant to happen. But your help could melt her inhibitions.”

  I was sure he had thought of that phrase “melt her inhibitions” many times before saying it to me. It distracted me; I saw Sheela’s inhibitions melting away under my touch, the way Rani’s had.

  “Well, if it’s meant to be it will be, even without my assistance,” I said.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t help me if you agree that we are best friends,” he said.

  “I can’t, Vidur, it doesn’t feel right. I’d feel I were manipulating her.”

  “It didn’t even occur to me that you would say no, Anamika,” Vidur said, shaking his head. He looked glum for a few seconds. He had sat back down, his crazy excited energy having discharged itself about the room. He idly picked up Rani’s notebook and flipped through the pages.

  “Okay, I have another idea,” he said, brightening up.

  “What?” I asked wearily. I felt exhausted by him.

  “You can help me write a poem for her,” he said.

  “It’s the same thing, Vidur.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he said, his face once again expressing an entire landscape of reasons. I sighed and sat back. This time I’d let him talk for as long as he wanted and only argue after he had finished.

  “First of all, you’ll just write it, you won’t be speaking to her in person. Second, she’ll never know you wrote it. Third, it would be my thoughts she would fall for because I would tell you what to write.”

  “You want to dictate a poem to me?”

  “No, I want you to write it. The prime minister has speeches written for him. Come on, Anamika, you do that for everyone. You wrote that poem that I gav
e to my mother on Mother’s Day. You don’t have a problem with that. You even helped Ashima write that thing for that boy, and she’s not even a good friend of yours. You know Sheela personally. It will be the best poem.”

  The boy, the boy Jay. I had fallen in love with him writing that poem. But it was different. I had willed myself into imagining him, young, strong, energetic, as Ashima had described him.

  “Precisely because I know Sheela I can’t write it,” I said.

  There was no way I was going to spend two days finding rhyming words in the dictionary only to have Vidur benefit from it. She really would fall for it, and I’d have to compete against my own poem. I could put up an honest fight against anyone else, but against myself I could only lose.

  “You could try for my sake. That’s all I’m asking,” he said, begging me.

  “I just know I can’t do it.”

  Vidur picked up his nimbu pani. There was only a drop left in the glass. He tilted his head back at a hundred eighty degrees, waiting for the drop to trickle into his throat.

  “I will write the poem,” he said after he’d had the last drop.

  “Good,” I said. It was better to fight Vidur for first position than to fight myself.

  “Do you have a piece of paper?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, you can help me. I’ll write it, and you’ll just help me polish it,” he said.

  I was at a total loss. There was no excuse left. I resented Vidur for forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do.

  He flipped open Rani’s notebook.

  “Not that. I’ll get you another,” I said and went to my room. I wasn’t going to help him. I could go the other way and make suggestions to ruin the poem, but then I would feel guilty. So I decided I would just nod and let it be exactly as he wrote it. He couldn’t force me to suggest things. In my room I dawdled for an extra few minutes to put off facing him again.

  When I returned to the living room, Vidur was pacing back and forth, looking distractedly at the cut-glass pieces in our cabinet. He grabbed the notebook from my hands and tore out two pages from the middle. I handed him a pen. He sat at my dining table with his head tilted to one side, supported by his hand. I couldn’t think of what else to do, so I sat down next to him. He wrote something I couldn’t see and scratched it out. He bit his lips. I wished he would get on with it. I wanted to see what he would write.