No Presents Please

by Jayant Kaikini

  With such a routine, how did it matter if one of them didn’t come home sometimes? Often when one of them returned and found the other missing, the person felt happy. Being alone was the great luxury. Sleep would be undisturbed, since the bed wasn’t really large enough for both of them. No need to cook either. Sometimes while making small talk, Antariksh would say, ‘My wife bought me a shirt’, ‘My wife has taken leave from work today’, ‘My wife’s phone call …’, etc. – but what image of the wife would appear in his mind? Meera had the same problem: ‘My husband has gone on tour’, ‘My husband does business’ – what husband was this and how was he related to her? Occasionally, when they phoned each other to say: ‘I’ve left the key in the dhobi shop downstairs’ or, ‘I forgot to switch off the bathroom light’, after uttering these words, the silence rang in their ears, and they rushed to put down the receiver, saying ‘Okay, I’m hanging up.’ Once they had passes to a film premiere given to them by a Sindhi friend. That day they met outside the theatre half an hour before the screening, drank a cup of coffee, sat together and watched the film, and then went home together, but neither remembered who the person sitting in the next seat was. However, Antariksh had no time for such frightening thoughts. He was haunted by dreams of money. Where and how would money grow, how many times would it multiply – he drowned in such thoughts. To such an extent that when one of his friends introduced a man to him as an intellectual, he asked him how much money he earned.

  Meera did not seem to be aware of how she had been slowly ripening. Now she ran the household like the headmistress of an old school. Her salary kept accumulating in the bank. When there was only one last hundred rupee note in the cupboard, she would take out some money from her account. When her female office friends or the women she knew as fellow commuters on the local train invited her to birthdays and weddings, she dressed up in a good sari, bought matching bangles and earrings, and attended the event with enthusiasm. She would even get a facial in the beauty parlour. Coming back late at night, she would fling her sandals about, throw her handbag to one side, and fall onto the bed in her party sari, with a face like thick cardboard. She would wake up in the night, pull off her sari, put on her nightgown and continue her slumber. It was many months since the TV had broken down. It was impossible to get the repairman to come. When in the office someone said: ‘Wasn’t that a fun programme yesterday?’ she would simply say, ‘Yes, yes’ and smile. When she went through the clothes in her cupboard, sometimes their wedding photos would fall out. In the Ooty honeymoon photograph, she is wearing bellbottoms and sitting on a pony. After taking this picture, Antariksh had gone to a shop to buy a Nirodh condom and come back with something else because he was too shy to ask properly. Now all these memories had the faint smell of naphthalene balls. No Mysore Brindavan fountains gushed now. The mind felt tight, and she couldn’t relax with anyone.

  It was after a trip Antariksh made to Gujarat that something happened which should have been a blow for Meera but was not. After returning from this trip, he used to go out dressed very carefully, and suddenly one day he brought a woman home, saying: ‘Parul, this is my wife Meera,’ and got them to shake hands. Parul was Meera’s age, and was as plump as her, with a pimply but smiling face. ‘Bhabhi, bhabhi,’ she cried, embracing Meera. Tomorrow was Antariksh’s birthday Parul had exclaimed, so why didn’t they celebrate it here together? When Antariksh came back after seeing her off, it was night. Meera was waiting on the double bed with dinner: rice, dal, some papad. She spent a sleepless night, wondering why she did not feel envy, jealousy or that she had been dealt a blow. Antariksh told her that Parul was a good woman, hadn’t married, had been on the train when he was returning from Gujarat, that she had a flat here in Borivali. For the first time in eight or nine years, they were celebrating Antariksh’s birthday. Meera went to the beauty parlour that morning and got her hair cut and her face cleaned up. She bathed for hours, shaved her armpits and wore a sleeveless dress. With her plump arms wobbling, she made gulab jamun. Parul came with a box full of patra, the steamed besan snack which they so liked, and danced around.

  It was not clear whether Antariskh’s expression indicated pride or embarrassment. Cautiously, he began, in front of Meera, to pinch Parul, encircle her waist, or stroke her bottom. Parul, unused to a man’s touch and no longer young, blossomed at every contact with Antariksh. Seeing this, and realizing that the reins were in his hands, he began to create an impact on her by doling out his touches. Meera was worried. She ought to burn. She ought to boil with envy. But how was it that she did not feel anything? Just then, Parul took a watch out of her bag and put it on Antariksh’s wrist. As though at the peak of happiness, he pulled her onto his lap and bit her ear.

  The three of them sat on the bed and ate. Parul left after hugging both husband and wife. Having put her into a taxi, Antariksh bounded up the stairs. He and Meera spread the Times of India on the bed, cut some fruit and ate it. Parul is a good girl, she must have spent at least four or five hundred rupees on the watch, said Antariksh, slowly lowering his head onto Meera’s lap. As she was about to run her fingers through his hair like in a Hindi movie, she suddenly felt strange, and pushed his head aside. Then she turned onto her stomach and covered her face, lying down like a child with bottom facing upwards. Antariksh sat up. Perhaps she was crying. He felt foolish when he realized that she wasn’t. Feeling confused, he raised his hand to stroke her head, but it came into contact with every part of her except that. He began to enjoy this, but then she shook him off and turned heavily to one side. Antariksh went out of the bedroom and looked at his new watch again and again. Coming back inside, he crawled into the little space available on the bed and somehow went to sleep.

  Next day in the office, Meera began to think of all this as never having happened. But Parul’s perfume still lingered in her nostrils. Had Parul drawn Antariksh to her, or had Antariksh cast his net? So was Parul’s waist smaller than hers? Was her bosom smaller? Or was love about something else altogether?

  Now Parul appeared again and again in that double-bed house like a repetitive dream. When Antariksh waited for his token at a bank, when he ate a paan outside the share market, when he hung onto a strap in a local train, it seemed as though he was another man altogether, as though Parul and Meera had nothing to do with him. But if he stopped somewhere to urinate, Parul or Meera came to pull the flush.

  When he roamed in the bazaar with his leather case shielding him from the sun, Meera would go to a Parsi wedding and eat fish steamed in banana leaf. If her new colleague, the young Kashmiri with a budding moustache, stared at her chest, she would pay him no attention. If Parul phoned, she would listen with interest. If Parul said, ‘Let’s meet this evening and eat pav bhaji,’ she would agree to go. Then by evening, she wouldn’t feel like going out, and go straight home instead. When Parul phoned the next day and said in her cajoling voice, ‘Why, Bhabhi, you didn’t come. You’re a bad bhabhi!’, she would say, ‘Sorry, sorry!’ Antariksh was not related to her, she felt. If he were, she would be burning over the Parul business. Or was she deluding herself? Unlikely. How many friends she had in her office! Some said to her, ‘You’re so lucky. You’re free like a bird!’ When she heard this, Meera felt like a large owl sitting on the frilled bedsheet of the double bed.

  When things were like this, it was not as though Meera was angry about Antariksh not coming home for three days. Then why did she not open the door? She just didn’t feel like opening it. Disregard or unhappiness or something else … After three quarters of an hour she opened the door and Antariksh wasn’t there. She thought perhaps he had gone on a business trip again. Because there wasn’t that much difference between his coming inside the house and coming only up to the door. And besides, Parul had phoned that day.

  ‘Where is Antu? Tomorrow is my piles operation and he knows that it’s tomorrow,’ she had said. ‘Please, Bhabhi, do come,’ she had pleaded. When Meera was debating about going to the nursing home, Antariksh had come and pre
ssed the doorbell and gone away. Isn’t he concerned even about Parul’s operation? grumbled Meera to herself.

  Meanwhile, Antariksh Kothari had disappeared into the glimmer of Mumbai’s night lights. The past three days he had got caught in some lafda of a Sindhi fellow in Dombivli. They had even ended up in the police station. After all the trouble, he had come home seeking sanctuary and that dreadful woman had not even opened the door. If it had been Parul, she would have run to open the door. Sitting on a stone bench, he remembered that Parul was going to have her operation for piles. What piles had she developed between her big buttocks? Shee shee – at least heart operation had a certain ring to it, but piles? Parul would probably have to lie on her stomach. And the doctors would be peering into her, like into a TV screen? What sort of operation would they conduct? Antariksh burst out laughing. Meera should also have had an operation like this, he thought. Not wanting to waste his life in the streets of Mumbai, he decided to go and check on his business in Virar and not return for a week at least. Maybe then Parul and Meera would worry about him, he thought, striding towards the station. Once on the train, he fell into a deep sleep.

  The next day, Meera went to the nursing home in Santacruz with a couple of kilograms of fruits of different kinds. Parul was sitting up, looking pale and plump. The operation was to be that night.

  ‘They’ve told me not to eat anything. For a whole week I can’t eat anything. You eat the fruits, Bhabhi,’ Parul commanded.

  Seeing that there was no one around, Meera said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m here.’ She then stayed with Parul the whole time. She went home at night and put the fruits into the fridge. The fact that Antariksh didn’t make an appearance even at the time of the operation filled her with surprise and even enthusiasm. One by one, she began to eat the fruits.

  In the hospital, Parul swelled with love as she said to all the nurses, ‘That’s my sister, that’s my bhabhi.’ And there in Virar, Antariksh remembered Parul and Meera only when he got up to pee. Meera applied for one week’s leave from her job. The following day she spent in the nursing home with Parul. Then she cleaned her flat, and put a new flowered bedspread on the double bed. The stale smell when she opened the fridge door reminded her of Antariksh’s mouth, and that was the only time she remembered him. When Parul was released from hospital, Meera brought her to the flat in a taxi.

  Now they both forgot Anatariksh with a vengeance and roamed around lovingly with each other. Meera made patra because Parul liked it. Every now and then Parul would embrace Meera. Meera felt a new spirit come into the house. Until now no other woman had ever lived in the apartment. So when she saw another nightie and other saris hanging in the balcony to dry, she felt a strange happiness. If Meera made tea one day, Parul would make it the next. As one of them took a bath, the other listened to the sound of the splashing water as she seasoned a dish in the kitchen. One of them held the fan to dry the other’s wet hair. Meera began to bring Parul film magazines from her office library. Then they would discuss with great concern until late into the night whether Pooja Bedi wore a bra or not, why Dimple shouldn’t marry Sunny, and whether Rekha was having a breakdown. When Meera was away at work, Parul ironed Meera’s blouses, sewed on missing buttons. Some evenings the two would wear each other’s clothes and step out. They would stop by the main gate and each would dust the extra talcum powder from the other’s face. Check each other’s sari pleats. Go to the beauty parlour together. Shave their armpits together. Laugh as though they felt tickled. Meera would pull out her old clothes and the sweaters knitted long ago. They sat on the double bed and kept on talking until late, and then yawned together. They would stand in the balcony together. Once Parul started sobbing uncontrollably.

  Meera stroked her head and asked, ‘What happened? Did I do anything to upset you? Are you thinking of your family?’

  ‘No,’ said Parul. ‘It hurts where I had the operation.’ Hearing that, the round and soft Meera stroked the round and soft Parul’s back and comforted her.

  Meanwhile, Antariksh had become tired of roaming like a gladiator through Virar, and decided to come home. He had found an old key for the flat in his Girgaum office. Catlike, he turned the key in the lock. The door opened. He switched on the light in the outer room. There was the smell of jasmine. He switched on the kitchen light. Everything was sparkling. There was a covered vessel on the stove. He raised the lid and found some oil left over after frying. Arre, it looks like there’s some cooking happening in this house. Slowly, he came and stood at the bedroom door. A purple nightlight was glowing. He was taken aback to see two people lying on the magic bed. He moved closer. Two sets of buttocks of identical shape, like enormous channa pods. Both sound asleep. Throughout the room were scattered combs, petticoats and magazines. He looked at the two of them. Something came up from within deep inside him and he began to make a sound like a whistle. At once, the two people sat up. Seeing Antariksh standing there like a ghost, they began to scream in their half-awake state: ‘Chor, chor, thief!’

  Antariksh began to babble helplessly. Seeing the arm of one woman about to throw the alarm clock at him, he retreated to the outer room. He ran as though a huge creature with four hands, four legs, and four breasts was chasing him. Still hearing the high-pitched ‘Chor, chor, chor, chor!’ he rushed out of the flat and descended the steps three and four at a time all the way down to the street and then began to run. Inside the flat, the women still shrieked, and rushed around putting on all the lights. No human creature seemed to have stirred at their cry. All the other flats remained silent. When they peered from the balcony, even the leaves on the roadside plants were motionless.

  ‘Parul, were you afraid? Don’t worry, I’m here,’ said Meera. With shaking hands, she made hot tea for both of them. After ten minutes of quivering silence, Meera said, ‘If Antariksh had been here, he would at least have called the police. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll go to my own home. You can die here for all I care.’ She began to cry so loudly that the double bed began to shake.

  ‘But this is your own house, Bhabhi. Why should you go anywhere?’ Parul wanted to say something like this but could not gather the courage. She kept wondering whether she should cry too.

  ‘Antahpuradolage’, 1992

  DAGADU PARAB’S WEDDING

  HORSE

  The marriage procession turned from Mulund’s Lal Bahadur Shastri Road towards the railway station, wending its way through the main bazaar. Leading the procession were the men of the brass band in their glittering outfits, followed by the boys with their shiny, teenage moustaches. In the middle were the middle-aged men in their tight T-shirts, bestowing proud glances on their wives and on the bazaar shops. Next to them were a bunch of dancing drunks, their faces smeared with coloured powder. Right at the end came the women’s group, like the brake van at the end of a train. Amidst all this, sitting on a starved-looking, dark brown horse as though he was welded to its spine was the bridegroom. The strings of jasmine flowers descending from his gold-edged turban covered his face almost completely. The feather on the turban looked like it was about to fall. No one in the procession could remember the face of Dagadu Parab, the bridegroom.

  Walking a little ahead of the horse, like a master of ceremonies, was Balchandra Parab, the bridegroom’s older brother, who had arranged for the horse to make the procession more attractive. He had gone to much trouble to hire the horse, and had supervised all the arrangements for the procession from their home to the bride’s chawl. Now he walked ahead, looking now and then at the people thronging the bazaar and also at his younger brother on the horse. The look on his face seemed to communicate that this was the first time in their family’s history that a wedding procession on a horse was taking place.

  The procession was approaching the Shivaji statue. Just as they came near, an old motorbike in a garage nearby sputtered into life with a screech. This sky-shattering sound pierced through the bazaar, drawing everyone’s attention. In a blink, the horse had run away, carrying the b
ridegroom with it.

  One moment the horse had raised its front hooves and neighed. The bridegroom called out in a strange voice. It seemed as if he was trying to decide on which side of the horse to fall. As the horse vanished with the bridegroom, a cry went up. The people in the procession started diving into the nearby gallis in search of the bridegroom. Balchandra Parab tried to address the procession but his lips moved helplessly. He then rushed to the vegetable market. People were immersed in buying vegetables, in holding out their bags, handing over money. It seemed to make no difference to them that this horse had bolted. As though something had suddenly occurred to him, Balchandra rushed back to the street and returned to the Shivaji statue. He told the women and the remaining band members to stay where they were. The women moved to the side, since it was a busy street. But they ended up crowding the approach to a fruit seller’s shop, and he chased them back into the street.

  When this event was taking place, Balchandra’s wife laughed out loud. She knew that her husband had deliberately got a horse for the procession to show up her family for not having done the same during their own wedding. Balchandra Parab was in a dilemma. ‘Dagadu … Dagadu…’ he kept stammering as he went through the vegetable market and reached Goshala Road. The terrible question that confronted him was where he should search for the horse. And if he found it, would Dagadu still be on it? Or should he search for Dagadu instead? All the men from the procession who went in different directions kept looking at the side of the road to see if Dagadu had fallen down somewhere. School students who had just been let off for the day swarmed into the street. Balchandra stopped some of them and asked if they had seen a horse going that way. He asked this question again when he saw people at a bus stop a little further ahead, and was frustrated that he got no answer. And then he wondered: where was the fellow who was minding the horse? Perhaps he too had gone looking for the animal. After all, he would be the one most bothered about the loss. At that moment, Balchandra decided to look only for his brother, and jumping into an autorickshaw, he began to wander through the streets. ‘Stop here!’, ‘Stop there!’ he said from time to time. A pile of baskets in the distance looked like a horse. Someone on the roadside seemed like Dagadu. Finally, when the meter had climbed to sixteen rupees, he stopped the autorickshaw. He was by then quite far from Mulund.