Priya

by Namita Gokhale

  Poor Suresh had been at the receiving end of a media witchhunt. The Clarion had headlined shocking statistics from an ‘Internal Audit’ about food adulteration in the Public Distribution System. According to this (and I didn’t find it difficult to believe) cat droppings, horse shit, lead powder, arsenic and more were being doled out to India’s poor and needy through the PDS. Over 500,000 fair price shops which supplied more than 170 million families had set up a cosy mutual-interest supply and purchase group of poison passed off as food.

  I had taken care to stock an organic brand of dal and chana, and I told Suresh this as he glumly surveyed the lunch. ‘No lead or arsenic here,’ I said cheerfully. ‘It’s not from the PDS.’

  It was an untactful remark and I had to pay for it. Suresh went red in the face, and there were tears of anger and frustration in his eyes. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Priya,’ he said. ‘Nothing is what it seems. Of course there are rats jumping around the government godowns, and we haven’t created special toilet facilities for them. But that’s just the front scandal. The real facts stink even more! The response section of the Indian Times wanted the Press Officer to commit funds for a dedicated news delivery scheme. But we had already signed up with the News Today Group for a special supplement. So the buggers decided to give me hell. Free Press— Ha!’

  Suresh never uses words like bugger. This was serious.

  Even as Suresh was protesting the paid news syndrome, the Private Secretary scored a major victory as he pointed out that the actual culprit was the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, not Food Processing at all. His Private Secretary and Personal Assistant are at constant war with each other, so the P.A. was sternly reproved by the P.S. for not clarifying this to the P.O. in the first place. The Press Officer rode the battle by fixing a lead interview in the News Today Sunday Special.

  Once the blame had been laid at the door of the other Ministry, Suresh seemed actually quite upbeat about the whole affair. I found him admiring the cartoon by Ravi Menon in the Clarion magazine section. ‘A good likeness,’ he pondered. ‘It makes me look thoughtful.’

  ‘But it’s only as a joke!’ I replied sharply. He looked hurt.

  I really must learn to control my sense of humour, I told myself, it never seems to amuse him.

  There had been an honour killing in Haryana, and a sati episode as well. Both in the same family. Two sisters called Radha and Roop Kumari, from the Haryana village of Patrela, had hijacked the news channels with their connected tragedies. The younger one fell in love with a boy from the same gotra, and was shot dead, apparently by mistake, in a ‘family celebration’. Her sister’s husband, her jijaji, was also injured in the firing and died on the way to the hospital. Later, the surviving sister ‘committed’ sati. There was footage showing the girl being pushed into her husband’s funeral pyre by her mother-in-law. As the flames gathered around her, garlands of marigold flowers were flung into the the fire by her own family and assorted neighbours.

  Radha was dead, with two bullets in the stomach and one between her eyes—so neat, it could only have been at extreme close range. Her sister Roop Kumari was in the burns ward in Safdarjang hospital. The local MP condoled the ‘death by accident’ and condemned the sati as barbaric. But he added a calculated political conundrum: ‘India is a society in transition,’ he said to the cameras, fingering his tie as he spoke, ‘and honour is a subjective thing. We must respect the age-old practices that define a society.’

  The image of the teary-eyed young girl in her red sari stumbling into a heap of smoking wood to embrace her husband’s burning corpse had been broadcast across every network in India. It was eerie, but she even had the same first name as that other, more famous sati, Roop Kanwar from Deorala, who had followed her husband to the afterlife in another village nearly twenty years ago.

  We watched the news in silence, Suresh and I. It was clear both sisters had been done away with by their families, both in the name of honour and culture. Radha’s death was being projected as an accident, even as village headmen twirled their moustaches and spoke of tradition. As for the sati, the local police intervened reluctantly and only at the very last moment, to extract a charred Roop Kumari from the fire. Although her mother-in-law Jamuna Bai had been arrested—and no one else—garlands, coconuts and red-and-gold chunris that celebrated Roop Kumari’s martyrdom were selling at a premium along the Haryana Rajasthan highway.

  Feminists and social activists had plunged into passionate public debate about ‘Hindu fundamentalism’. The rightist loonies were equally excited about this miracle of faith. Papers and news channels hurled relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code knowledgeably at the public while the state governments of Rajasthan and Haryana each claimed that the border village of Patrela fell in the jurisdiction of the other.

  The right-wing rabble-rouser Naveen Jogara had rushed to the immolation site to pay homage to the Sati Rani, to the delight of all the competing news channels and their devout crews. The only problem was that Roop Kumari was still alive—barely—in the burns ward. She was not yet a martyr, only a potential one. And a potential criminal too: under the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, she was still liable to be tried for self-immolation and ‘abetting culpable homicide’. Her own!

  Luv has been sitting at home watching television. I suspect he’s trying to avoid Monalisa. ‘What kind of absurd religion is this, Maa?’ (in an accusatory voice). ‘How do you give social sanction to murder? What sort of politics endorses it? Face it—civilization has simply passed you by.’

  ‘At least we are a free country with a free press,’ I replied weakly, trying to come up with something positive.

  ‘Everyone free to trample everyone else’s freedom—Jesus Christ! You all live in the middle ages still!’

  ‘It’s “us”, not “you”. You can’t become and un-become Indians as convenient. And what does Jesus Christ have to do with this?’ I was quite proud of standing up to my son.

  ‘I want to secede from your India. Many in my generation do. Maybe I should just return to the States,’ Luv declared, the safety pin under his lip trembling in agitation.

  ‘It’s not my India!’ I protested, back in my usual defensive role. ‘Are you accusing me of endorsing sati?’

  ‘That’s what you did in Mumbai,’ Luv retorted. ‘The India your generation is leaving behind can’t be our India!’

  All this was happening at the dining table over a wholesome family dinner of dal, gobhi ki sabzi and bhindi fry. Fortunately Suresh hadn’t picked up the sati reference. The television screen flickered on the wall, repeating the same breaking news headlines over and over again. And suddenly the lovely girl with the liquid eyes appeared, mike in hand. ‘The people of Patrela are praying for a miracle . . .’ she said, ‘even as Roop Kumari battles for her life in the burns ward of Safdarjang Hospital!’

  ‘That’s Paromita!’ I exclaimed, but the camera had moved on.

  Luv sat up to catch a glimpse of the ‘utterly gorgeous’ TV reporter, and irritated at seeing not her but yet another shot of the burning pyre in Patrela, said: ‘Barbarians!’ And this finally provoked Suresh to speak.

  Suresh’s father was from Rajasthan. My husband carries a residual loyalty to the Idea of the Indian Woman, the Sacred Sati Savitri. ‘What you must understand, son,’ he said sagely, ‘what you must understand is that India is like a serpent with its hood in the next century and its tail still in medieval times. Indian Womanhood is always associated with self-sacrifice. In no other nation, no culture, no continent, no religion—’ he was getting carried away now—‘do women live—exist—only for their families. Your Mother—’ here he turned tenderly to me—‘your mother is a True Indian Woman, the personification of a Bhartiya Nari. If I died, I very much doubt if she would want to continue living! Would you, Priya?’

  My jaw dropped. What could I possibly say? Tell him it would be like reincarnation without dying? But no, I am an Indian woman. I stared at him speechlessly as
he continued, a dreamy look playing upon his plump, superficially distinguished face.

  ‘We must respect the feelings of Mother India, and her noble sentiments,’ Suresh concluded, holding on to my hand as he spoke.

  Luv had been feverishly scanning the channels, trying to locate Paromita again, but now there was a fresh headline riding the news. ‘I’m going out with some friends,’ our son announced, casting aside the remote. ‘I’ll be returning home late. If at all.’

  And we were left alone together, man and woman, husband and wife, mother and father. Suresh reached out for my hand. ‘These young people,’ he said, in a voice that was almost tender, ‘how can they understand the deep depths of an Indian Woman’s heart?’

  I gave him the best un-reincarnated Indian Womanhood smile I could muster. It seemed to do the trick, for it pushed my husband to relocate his romantic impulses. I found myself in bed with him, wearing only my petticoat. Suresh had taken off his clothes too, except for his socks. It disconcerted me, somehow, all that pale flesh, and the white paws.

  That night my husband made love, not just to me, but to Indian Womanhood. His movements were solemn and jerky when he began, like in a slow-motion film, and I was impatient rather than overjoyed. Suresh was eager to please, but that has never been his forte. He is a fumbler, lacking the velvet touch of my former boss. Yet, under the sheets, under the petticoat, I was suddenly hungry and full of desire. But my husband was paying homage to a Bhartiya Nari, and he was respectfully brief about it. Later, as his face loomed before me like an inflated balloon, his eyes met mine, and I saw love in them.

  ‘I want to ask you something, Priya,’ he said hesitantly. ‘And I want you to reply with complete honesty.’ Beneath the sheets, below the petticoat, something had stirred. I looked at him, at his large round eyes, his mouth, his lips as they mouthed those words.

  ‘We have had an arranged marriage, Priya,’ my husband continued. ‘We have lived together in wedlock for three decades now. Not only have you shared my success, you have been responsible for it.’

  I stared at him, a part of me distant, yet needy for his touch.

  ‘If we were to meet, today, now, for the first time, would you say that you loved me? Would you love me? Could you love me?’

  I am an Indian Woman. I cannot lie, but even more than that, I cannot tell the truth.

  ‘Of course I love you, Suresh,’ I said, as tenderly as I could, reaching out to stroke the distinguished streak of grey by his temples. But there were bits of me that had awakened, that were throbbing, screaming to be heard.

  Suresh had tears in his eyes. ‘It means a lot to me, Priya, what you just said,’ he whispered. ‘I love you too.’

  I was shamed by his words. He turned over to switch the bedside lamp on, then he switched it off again. ‘I want to tell you something,’ he said, his voice laden with tenderness. ‘If something should happen to me, if I were to suddenly die, I would want you to continue living, to be happy.’

  I have thought over what he said, what he meant, what it means. It’s puzzling to be a True Indian Woman, a Bhartiya Nari.

  Got an sms from Pooonam, whom I’d met at the Bhandpur wedding. ‘Gal palz get together sooon? Love smooch hugga bugga! Pooonam’

  ‘Very sooon!’ I replied. I really needed to make more friends.

  The bad news came soon after. I came down with a massive full- blown cold. Also, I hit the headlines. Not the front pages, exactly, but a gossip item in the Deep Throat column of the Indian Times. ‘Minister of State for Food Processing and Animal Husbandry Suresh Kaushal has been in the news recently, for all the wrong reasons. First his ministry was exposed for corruption under PDS. And now his wife Priya Kaushal has been sighted with their artist son endorsing sati in Amchi Modern Mumbai! Fundamentalists under the skin, perhaps?’

  Suresh would be furious. It was an assault on his secular credentials.

  I tiptoed into Luv’s room to check if he was awake; he might know how to react. His bed had not been slept in. Had his resolve faltered? Was he trysting with Monalisa? I kept it all from Suresh, Luv’s absence and the provocative item in the newspaper. Experience has taught me that things blow over if only one allows them to.

  Roop Kumari died that afternoon. There had been rioting outside the Safdarjang Hospital. Teargas and marigold garlands, coconuts and incense and burning buses. Jogara was thundering on about the Bhartiya Nari and ‘the Noble Indian Womanhood’. Strips of cotton from the bleached curtains of the burns ward were being sold as sacred relics at prices ranging from ten rupees to a lakh. I saw a gallery owner and her London-based installation artist lover at the auction, too—live on national television.

  Luv was watching the riots on TV over a paratha brunch when he encountered the news item in the Indian Times.

  ‘Oh no!’ he screeched, very real panic reflecting in his young eyes. ‘The tish will hit the ceiling now. The Rani Sati Samiti Memorial Society! Ha ha ha! I vote we don’t tell Papa about this. Or Kush!’

  We didn’t tell his Papa about it. Instead we watched the media hysteria, while Hindu faith flexed and questioned itself. The Rani Sati Memorial Society surfaced again. A popular talk show had a public intellectual wearing thick glasses refer contemptuously to how a minister’s wife, and members of the so-called political elite, defended sati, celebrated it, even. Fortunately I wasn’t yet important enough for him to remember my name.

  ‘I can’t understand the Indian media . . . what’s wrong with them?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘It’s their job to mediate, that’s why they are called the media,’ Luv replied matter-of-factly. ‘It’s a free press, as you were pointing out the other day.’

  Kush called from the US and he wasn’t so tolerant. ‘What’s wrong with you, Ma?’ he demanded. ‘You and your idiot artist son seem bent on destroying my father’s political legacy. The Google alerts are making me weep. The Overseas Indian News Agency has picked it up too—“Politician’s wife endorses Sati.” We—your husband, my father, and I—belong to a secular party. S.E.C.U.L.A.R. Get it?’

  Of course Kush had spoken to his Papa as well. As had the Press Officer, and the PS and the PA, both busy demonstrating how each was busier than the other. Shriela Shetty carried an item in her dreaded column. ‘Pssst . . . Is Ms Priya Suresh Kaushal asking us to be good women and commit sati?’ she wrote. ‘The wife of lawyer turned politico . . .’ and so on.

  I decided to blame it all on my brother. ‘Atul Bhaiyya didn’t tell me anything, just that there was an 8GR8 Women award. He tries to show off about being related to you, to gain points with his boss. I’ll never speak to him again, or to that Dolly . . . never ever,’ (and here I coaxed a tear from under my eyeliner) ‘you mustn’t blame me or Luv for this.’ It worked, at least on a holding basis. Suresh shut his eyes and breathed very slowly as his lawyer’s mind went into constructing a defence.

  I was glad Kush wasn’t around and could only be difficult long distance. Luv was being unexpectedly supportive and even offered to escort me to an art show to ‘divert’ me, so that I could ‘chill’ and let the ‘tish’ settle.

  Pooonam UmaChand, Manoviraj Sethia’s friend, mistress, business partner or whatever, was telephoning me. ‘I’ve been hearing naughty things about you,’ she said. ‘You need to meet my astrologer soonest.’

  One is cautious about astrologers. They can be fraudulent and manipulative, insinuating themselves into Delhi lives, trading the influence and gossip they collect. I’m not gullible, at least not as gullible as some of the people around.

  ‘You must have a session with her,’ Pooonam insisted. ‘Nnutasha is a new-age numerologist. She is a healer, a mystic, a saint. Reiki, chakra, chanting, gemology . . . she knows everything. Nnutasha is ama-a-zing!’ Here Pooonam launched into an incomprehensible story about her cousin or her best friend who was dying and penniless and was then retrieved from this unfortunate situation by the addition of an extra alphabet into her name at Nnutasha’s suggestion. ‘You absolutely have to mee
t Nnutasha, Priya!’ Pooonam said with conviction. ‘It will change the course of your life.’

  I didn’t want to change the course of my life. Okay, so there’d been some problems. Ground reality could always be improved upon. But Suresh and I had both worked long and hard to get where we were. I remembered the dreary train journey to BR’s posh office in South Bombay, I could recall every stop and station along the way. Andheri, Dadar, Churchgate, V.T . . . It had been a long journey to 18 Dara Shikoh Marg.

  I didn’t say these things to Pooonam, only hemmed and hawed and promised to meet up soon.

  That exhibition. It sounds like a cliché, but any child could have scrawled those pictures. The prices got me to re-examine the zeroes. Luv had made the right move—artists seemed to be raking in more moolah than even lawyers! (But not politicians.)

  Llilly Vaish, Elvie to her friends, had curated the show. She was a lawyer before she discovered Art. I had suspected Suresh of having a crush on her, then. Elvie arrived, swinging her trademark Viutton bag. She introduced the glamorous society-lady artist who appeared to have painted her face with more skill and care than her canvases.

  ‘So, Mrs Kaushal, did you like the works?’ Elvie asked ingratiatingly, as the cameras crowded around us. ‘You have such a true instinct for art . . .’

  ‘These are lovely,’ I replied insincerely. ‘So colourful.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sooo glad to have heard your views!’ Elvie gushed, giving me an ecstatic hug. ‘And we must show lovely Luv’s talents soon.’ She landed me a squelchy kiss on my cheek. That was when I realized something was very wrong. My cold had subsided but I still couldn’t smell anything—nothing at all. The bouquet of expensive perfume and body odour and Delhi diesel that should have enveloped me with her embrace was absent. To use Luv’s very favourite word, it felt weird. Like an absent sense or a misplaced instinct.