by Shobhaa De
That was just the chance she was waiting for. “Aren’t you going to ask me how Sudha is? After all, she’s also family.” There was an infinitesimal pause before he said, “Sure, so how is your sister?” Aasha Rani tried to restrain her words but they tripped out involuntarily. “I thought you might know.”
“How might I know? Or are you trying to tell me something?” Jay said.
“I think you need to explain a few things to me first, Jay, darling.” Aasha Rani was sarcastic. “Or am I going to be the last to know?”
“Know what?” Jay hollered.
“Look, darling, let’s not play games. I want to hear it from you, and I want a straight answer. Is it true that you had an affair with my sister?”
“Are you completely crazy?” Jay all but exploded. “Me and Sudha? What’s the matter with you? Have you been drinking or something? Whatever gave you such a mad idea?”
“She told me,” Aasha Rani said, beginning to crumble, “that you and she had arranged to meet in Bombay while I was in Madras, and that Amar’s presence spoiled it all.”
“The bitch is lying! Sudha is lying. I don’t know why she is doing this; perhaps she wants to hurt you. But you mustn’t believe her. Do you have such little faith in me? Do you really think I’m such a lowdown heel that I would cheat on you with your own sister? Come off it, darling—it’s you. There’s nobody else. You must believe me. Don’t let Sudha ruin your peace of mind. Ignore her. And if you like, I can join you next month. Sasha would like that very much,” Jay said sincerely.
“Where is she? Is she asleep? I want to speak to her,” Aasha Rani said, beginning to cry.
“Mommy, I need you. Come back. I don’t like my nanny. She isn’t like you. I don’t like her cooking. I don’t like anything!”
Aasha Rani’s heart went out to her little girl. “Oh, my baby, I’m so sorry; we’ll be together soon, but if you don’t like your nanny why don’t you ask Daddy to change her? I’m sure he could find another one.” Sasha cried, “No, he can’t. He won’t. He likes the nanny. He told me so. They are together all the time and I’m alone. Mommy, please come…” The sentence remained unfinished as Jay suddenly came back on the line.
“Poor Sasha. She’s really upset. You know your calls always do that to her. She starts imagining things, making up stories. She’s doing fine. Don’t believe a word of what she just said. Her grades in school have gone up. And she’s looking better than ever. I’ll send you some pictures. Don’t worry your head over us. You need to concentrate on your life right now. Tell me, have you signed that new film? The one you told me about last week?”
“Yes, I have. I signed it last week,” Aasha Rani said slowly.
Aasha Rani was perturbed by Sasha’s childish candor. Her daughter was a smart kid. Perhaps she was much too young to catch the real implications of what was happening between her daddy and the nanny. But soon, she’d cotton on. Aasha Rani wanted to protect her from that. She had no peace of mind these days. Jojo was a bedmate of sorts, but she didn’t really like him. He treated sex like a casual sport. His bed manners were awful. And he did nothing for her ego as a woman. He made it clear he was there to use her as and when he felt like it. “Everything on my terms, baby,” he said, making her feel like a hard-up, frustrated discard. The shooting hadn’t started. She had all the time in the world. And Appa had once again withdrawn into his secret, silent world.
THE STREETS OF BANDRA were unusually crowded. Oh yes, she remembered, it was that time of the year—the Mount Mary Fair must be on. She checked with one of her Goan servants and he confirmed it. On an impulse she decided to brave the crowds and go. It was going to be a long, hot, arduous walk up a steep hill, jostling thousands of devotees on their way up to the magnificent church for a split-second glimpse of the Madonna. Like the Mahim Novena, this annual event too attracted people from all faiths. The Mother was supposed to be extraordinarily generous in granting boons to true believers. Aasha Rani didn’t really know what she wanted from Mother Mary—besides peace of mind.
What would she offer her in return? The others lit candles, took flowers and the usual wax images. It didn’t matter. Aasha Rani wanted to forget herself, even if only temporarily. She wanted to smell the flowers, get scalded by the molten wax, and feel the thrust of sweaty bodies pressed against her own as the mass moved up, carried along by its own momentum, with stick-wielding havaldars to nudge the slower ones along.
She dressed in casual pants with a tucked-in shirt and put on a pair of sunglasses. She was just about to step out of the house when the phone rang. She sensed somehow that it was bad news. Who was it? Jay? Sasha? She heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the voice. It was neither. The caller, who refused to identify himself, spoke urgently: “Akshay is critical. He needs your prayers. He has been asking for you. Pray for him.” Click. Whoever it was disconnected.
Aasha Rani felt her heart thudding against her rib cage. Oh God! So, this was it! She’d postponed thinking about Akshay ever since she had left London. She hadn’t wanted to imagine what he was going through. She refused to acknowledge that he was never going to be well again. And now this call. It was uncanny. She shivered under her shirt and felt the hairs on her arm standing on end. If the caller had phoned even half a minute later, he would’ve missed her. Without waiting another minute, Aasha Rani rushed out of her house, knowing what she’d be asking the Mother for.
BANDRA HAD CHANGED so much in the time that she’d been away that she could no longer find her way around its tiny, labyrinthine lanes. She veered the car desperately in and out of unfamiliar bylanes as the news of Akshay began to sink in. Every familiar corner had been converted into either a clothing store or a restaurant. As if the locals lived only to shop and hog. Perhaps they did.
The car crawled along on its way to the Mother. The tiny fishing community had managed to hang on to its property, resisting all the attempts of real estate sharks to gobble it up as they’d gobbled up the rest of Bandra. Very few of the original little bungalows now remained. Aasha Rani remembered telling Akshay that they should buy one of those charming cottages with rosebushes in the front garden and a vegetable patch in the back, as their secret hideout. Akshay had laughed and said, “Consider it bought. You can have it as your next birthday present.” Now, “Mon Repos” the tiled bungalow they’d jokingly picked out, had been replaced by an ugly high-rise. She was hypnotized by the clothes hanging from every possible display point, including the trees outside. At night, before all the neon was switched off, the garments waving and flapping in the sea breeze from hangers strung up on low branches looked like skeletons performing the dance of death. Or like shadows in a discotheque—depending on your mood.
Today, she could barely concentrate on the trendy boutiques with names like Anjusan, Bada Saab, Rich Bitch and First Lady. Beauty parlors, cake shops, croissant counters, video libraries, high-rise luxury apartments called San Remo, Hawaii, Sea Gull, Sea Wind and other equally evocative names. She looked toward Sea Rock hotel—where the action had shifted recently. Gone were the glory days of the old Juhu places. Nobody went to Sun ’n’ Sand anymore except the loyalists. Sea Rock got all the big parties and all the big names. Srilalitha, the new star from the South, who was giving Sudha some hot competition, lived there permanently. So did Krishnakanth, the South’s answer to Akshay. The rocky beach with the necking couples was still there, and Aasha Rani felt her heart lift as she saw stray couples necking between the crannies.
Once near the church she inched along in her car, with devout pedestrians banging on the rear windscreen. Although she knew what she was going to ask the Virgin for that evening, she knew her wish wouldn’t be granted. It was too late.
Later she learned that Akshay had died at around the same time (she liked to believe it was the precise moment) that she stood in front of the main altar, praying fervently for his life.
AKSHAY’S DEATH WAS given the usual treatment. Fulsome front-page obits in the dailies, a sixty-second mention on Do
ordarshan’s news bulletin with an additional sixty seconds devoted to industry reactions. Colleagues mouthed platitudes, costars cried prettily into their pallavs. The standard condolence messages from the chief minister (“Akshay Arora’s death is a great loss to the film industry”). A message from the PM (“In this hour of grief we send our heartfelt sympathies to Mrs. Malini Arora, his grieving widow, and the other members of his family”).
Watching Akshay’s funeral proceedings on the TV set in her bedroom, Aasha Rani smiled bitterly. Nobody ever thinks of condoling the other woman. Nobody sympathizes with her. Not even in death.
She had known Akshay as nobody else had. And she had loved him more than anyone else ever did. But today not a single person phoned to ask her how she had taken the sad news. She remained in Akshay’s death what she had been in his life—a woman without status. A shadowy nobody. How silly she was being, she thought to herself. Why should anyone call on her? And then she began to laugh.
What was she grieving about? Someone should tell Yama, the God of Death, that he should have spared her the heartache, this overwhelming sense of loss. After all, what was Akshay to her? For in the eyes of the world, if he wasn’t her husband he was nothing. Their closeness, their sense of belonging to each other, their unique chemistry, was of no interest to anybody. That part of her that reacted to Akshay was a part of her that only he culled out. That it had died with him concerned nobody. Because it was a facet of her that nobody even knew existed.
IT WAS ABOUT A FORTNIGHT after Akshay’s death that the doorbell rang in the early hours of the morning, about three a.m. Aasha Rani didn’t hear it for a long time. Finally, the insistent pounding on her pink door woke her up. It was Appa’s night nurse. She looked terror-stricken. “Madam, some men are outside. I didn’t want to open the door but, but…” Before she could finish her sentence, three burly men pushed past her, demanding, “Kahan hai woh kutta?” She grabbed a bedsheet to cover herself and said, “Kaunsa kutta? Idhar koi nahi hai.”
The men walked in and started searching the room, looking under the bed, opening her cupboard, looking into the bathroom. One of the men ordered the others to check the entire house. Aasha Rani was paralyzed with fear. But she knew she had to do something. As surreptitiously as she could, she tried to open her side drawer, where her revolver was hidden. The man watching her lunged. She saw the glistening blade of his knife just in time and ducked. It gashed her arm, but not deeply. He caught her by the hair and dragged her off the bed. The other two had joined him by then, alerted by the scuffle. The man holding her said: “Jojo Saab’s wife sends her salaams with this message: Stay miles away from Jojo—or the next time I’ll spread open your legs and slash your vagina.” Then he reached into the pocket of his denim jacket and produced a small bottle. “Acid,” he told her, “thobdé ke liye.”
Just then Appa appeared at her door in his wheelchair. Aasha Rani screamed, “Appa, what are you doing here? Go back into your room.” The men jostled the wheelchair roughly and jeered, “Saala buddha—do you want to watch while we rip your daughter to pieces? She is a chudail, a bhootni, after other people’s husbands! Already killed one man and widowed our bhabiji! Now she wants to murder another victim!
“Don’t be foolish enough to go to the police,” they told the terrified man. “If you try any tricks, we’ll get your daughter. We’ll find out where she is and we’ll find her even if we have to go to the ends of the earth. Neelum memsaab is a millionairess. Money is no problem.” Then, very dramatically, the leader pulled out some papers from inside his jacket and showed them to Aasha Rani. “Your contract, khatam,” he said, as he flicked a lighter and, lighting it, tossed it at her. Aasha Rani jumped back and the flaming papers fell on her synthetic carpet, which burst into flame. The nurse had fled. Amma was in Madras, and the servant’s room was much too far. There was no one to stop the ruffians who sauntered out casually.
It was only after they had left that Aasha Rani got her wits about her and rushed Appa out in his wheelchair. “Fire!” she screamed. “Please, someone, help!”
The two of them ran out on the deserted street. Aasha Rani felt numb with shock. Appa—oh my God! Would he be able to stand the shock? He looked terrified and bewildered. He was staring at her, his eyes wide with fear. God, a car, yes. That was what they needed immediately. Just then she heard the wail of police sirens. She didn’t want to be there to explain anything, to fill out forms, to answer a million humiliating questions. She grabbed Appa’s wheelchair and pushed it faster and faster into the night.
When she was too tired to take another step she parked the wheelchair by the curb and, sitting on the pavement, put her face into her hands and wept uncontrollably. Appa’s fingers were in her tangled hair. “Don’t cry, Viji,” he whispered. “We’ll find a way; have faith. Have faith in God.” Aasha Rani turned to look at him. “God! What has he done for me, huh? Or you? Or Amma? Or any of us? We are finished, Appa; there is a curse on our family. Finished!” They were still sitting on the same pavement, with dawn breaking gently over a sleeping Bombay, when a car rolled up. It was full of teenage Bandra boys returning from a late-night party. They were pleasantly high. One of them stared at Aasha Rani and gulped. “Jesus! This looks like Aasha Rani.” The others gazed at her drunkenly. “Can’t be,” one of them muttered. “Let’s go before the cops arrive.” They were about to drive off when Aasha Rani stopped them. “Please get us to Sea Rock,” she pleaded. “It’s just there—see? Two minutes away.” Reluctantly they folded Appa’s wheelchair and squeezed them both inside the already packed car.
AASHA RANI CHECKED in with Appa and phoned Kishenbhai. She didn’t feel like talking to Sudha or explaining anything to anyone. There were practical problems to be tackled first. She didn’t even know where the property papers were or whether the house had insurance coverage. As it turned out, Kishenbhai didn’t have a clue either. He told her vaguely that since Amirchand had been involved in the transaction, the papers were likely to be with him. When she phoned the Shethji, he didn’t come on the line, but asked one of his goons to tell her to come over. Immediately.
This was their first meeting after five years. The first thing Aasha Rani noticed was how rapidly he had aged. He seemed bent and weak, as if he had shrunk physically. He thumped his chest and croaked, “Asthma. It’s killing me.” She touched his feet respectfully, as she had always done. “Problem kya hai?” he asked. She told him.
The Shethji shook his head. “You will never learn. Always getting into lafdas with the wrong men. First Amar, or was it Akshay? Phir woh Amrishbhai ka bachcha. I thought after your marriage you’d settle down. Get some sense. What are you doing with your life? I’m old now. Even my goondas have aged. The underworld is no longer what it used to be. There is no honor left. The old code is gone. All the rules are broken. Nobody cares anymore. Nobody even knows who is in charge. In the past, we had five main gangs and all the dhanda was divided fairly between them. Now, it’s a free-for-all. New gangs come in, kill the old ones and take over the business. Politicians have lost their power. We need the goondas more than they need us. Do you understand? We can’t fight elections without them. They are the ones who tell us what to do. Anyway, my advice to you is, get out. Go back to your husband and child. There is nothing for you here. Your zamana is over. Nobody will give you roles. The market has changed. People want young chidiyas, not married women with children. If you ask me, you wait till your daughter is slightly older. Wait ten years and then make her a star. A shandar star.”
Aasha Rani heard him out. His words were brutal. But accurate. She decided then and there that she would first fly to Madras and deposit Appa in Amma’s care. Then she would plan her trip home.
WHEN AASHA RANI REACHED MADRAS, there was more bad news. Amma was not just depressed. She required medical attention. Aasha Rani felt exceedingly low. The doctors insisted Amma had had a nervous breakdown and needed hospitalization. “Forget it,” said Aasha Rani. “My money’s running out. Plus, I won’t be
able to shuttle between the two—a wheelchair patient at home and a hysterical woman in hospital.” Laxmi was the only person who behaved in a supportive, helpful fashion, assuring Aasha Rani that she’d manage the house on her own, leaving her free to handle outside affairs. Finally, she phoned the Shethji and asked him to arrange for her Bombay house to be rented or sold. She told him she needed the money; the Shethji told her not to be hasty and that he would advance her however much money she needed. She should give the matter of selling her house some thought, and if she finally decided to do so he would help her. She was touched by and grateful for his magnanimity.
Sudha astonished everybody by not even bothering to phone. It was as if her family did not exist at all. Aasha Rani was far too preoccupied to bother about her, but she was bitter. Sudha had achieved her goals and didn’t need her family any longer.
She wished Jay were around. If not Jay, then any other man. She loathed acknowledging her dependence on men, but at times like this they had their uses. She wasn’t even sure she really wanted to go back to Jay. To Sasha, yes. But Jay? Had she ever loved him? Jay had been an out for her, an escape route. Perhaps he’d known that all along too. Perhaps she had been an out for him as well.
Aasha Rani had had ample time to think about and analyze her marriage. She was honest enough to admit that the years she had shared with Jay had been far better than any she might have shared with a film man. Or an Indian man, for that matter. Film men were the world’s worst husbands. But their wives dared not squeak. How often had she ended up listening to sob stories of sadism, mental cruelty, physical battering and plain humiliation? She remembered a small-time actor’s wife telling her, “Bas all these macho men are the same. One hit and they think they are supermen. My husband was a decent fellow till that film of his clicked. After that you should have seen the airs he put on, the bhav he lagaoed. One day he came home after shooting and I teasingly asked him, ‘So how many heroines did you screw today?’ Without a second’s pause he struck me across the face and yelled, ‘Bloody bitch! How dare you talk to me like that? Do you know who I am? The industry is at my feet. I have a fan club in Aurangabad. And you, what are you? Nothing. Keep your mouth shut in the future, understand? Or pack your bags and get out.’ He said that with such hatred, I couldn’t believe it. I was so stunned, I kept quiet. Then I said, ‘Am I a maidservant in this house that you can dismiss me at will?’ He looked at me and spat, ‘Naukrani nahi to aur kya hai tu?’ My two young children heard all this and they started screaming with fright. ‘Am I not the mother of your children?’ I asked him. ‘From this day that is all you are in this house. A glorified ayah. And remember, this is my house. I pay all the bills with my hard-earned money. If the arrangements don’t suit you—get out. Look for someone else to shelter you.’ Fortunately, I had my parents. And they didn’t turn me out of their home. I went there with my children the same night. He didn’t bother to find out where we’d gone or how we would survive. I’ve taken up a job in a boutique and manage somehow. He has become a drunk with not a single film in hand. Serves the bastard right.”
