Priya

by Namita Gokhale

  The gate-crashers had swooped upon the snack trays. The fashionistas and opportunistas and Ms Moneybags were parading and circling the hall. The art critics were looking depressed.

  A tall young woman in a black khadi kurta and white khadi pyjamas was standing beside us. Her almond eyes, dabbed and streaked with kohl, were curtained by a long, deliberately straggly fringe. She turned to Luv and held the microphone before him. The camera-crew began fiddling with their cameras. ‘Could you explicate on why you liked the work, exactly?’ she asked.

  It was Paromita. The angelic news anchor who had come to my rescue, my imaginary daughter-in-law—my Monalisa antidote. I looked at her with respect. It is not every young woman who can use words like ‘explicate’ in conversation, especially with strangers.

  A coy look settled into my son’s eyes. ‘Well . . . I feel . . .’ he said, smirking more than was necessary ‘. . . you know . . .’ She

  smiled back encouragingly. Suddenly he took off.

  ‘It’s optic and tactile, although a bit sentimental . . . and the brushwork is uncertain, ill defined, if you get what I mean . . .’ he said. ‘I mean, I like it very much but . . .’

  I didn’t see what he meant, but the two young people were staring into each other’s eyes as though they were using their optical apparatus for the first time, as though they had never before had a chance to observe eyelashes or pupils or even eyebrows. Love was clearly in the air. Lavaria, we had called it, when I was young.

  ‘What do you mean, tactile?’ Paromita asked. Now she was coy.

  ‘I mean that, like a child, I want to reach across and touch it, stroke and explore it,’ Luv replied.

  Oh yes. The long fringe had parted to reveal her shining eyes now. I held my breath—any sensible mother-in-law would want her on the menu.

  ‘We must never forget that the purpose of Art is to create enthusiasm!’ Luv concluded, looking slightly embarrassed by his own vehemence.

  ‘I’m Paromita,’ she said. ‘In case you’ve forgotten. I came to your house the other day . . . to interview your dad?’ She had a way of concluding a sentence by modulating it into a question. We left the gallery together, Luv and I and the lovely Paromita, and found ourselves at the adjacent Alternative Art Ramp. The exhibition there was titled ‘Tribal Dreamz’ .

  ‘You must meet the artist,’ Paromita declared enthusiastically. ‘A poet and craftsman equally in connect with rural tradition and contemporaneous idiom!’ I winced. Her talent for long words and sentences was both charming and disconcerting.

  The AAR had just a few stragglers, in handloom weaves and indigo dyes, the fuzziness of their styles and silhouettes as much statement as conviction. My nostrils were sort of tickling and I couldn’t smell anything, but I’m sure BO was more in fashion with this crowd than cologne.

  Luv was still staring ecstatically at the momentarily silent Paromita, when an untidy man with shining eyes and a gray beard clutched me by the arm.

  ‘P-Priya Didi . . .!’ he stammered. ‘I’m Lenin—d-don’t you remember me? Aapka Lenin?’

  How could I not remember him? Paro’s boyfriend, my honorary rakhi brother, Lenin had been our first introduction to the heady heights of political power. Lenin’s father was a minister in the cabinet, all those years ago, when Paro first fell in love with him. When Paro died, it was Lenin who had accompanied me to her funeral pyre to say that last farewell. How could I forget him?

  ‘Are you Priya’s son?’ Lenin asked, scrutinizing Luv. ‘You look so like your mother. I’m your old uncle, I’ve kn-known your parents for a lifetime.’

  ‘And this is my daughter Paromita,’ Lenin continued, a look of paternal pride filling up his familiar-unfamiliar face.

  Paromita was Lenin’s daughter! ‘Luv, meet Avinendra uncle— whom you have heard so much about!’ I said, rushing into counter-introductions. ‘It turns out he is Paromita’s father.’

  ‘But your mother knows me as Lenin,’ he beamed, ‘an obsolescent politician, not the adolescent pop singer.’ And as I heard him speak again, I smiled—of course Paromita was his daughter, she had his easy way with big, odd words.

  ‘It’s like the six degrees of separation,’ Luv replied, switching suddenly to what I classify as his fake-firang voice. ‘It’s weird. In America, people have private lives. In this country, everybody seems to know everybody else, even though you have a billion plus people floating around.’

  Luv had said you, not us. Again.

  We did a round of the paintings. They had happy scenes of birds and animals and foliage, of hunters and lovers and gods—a nicer jungle than this dusty urban one. Lenin introduced us to the painter, Rangarh Shyam. ‘From the Gond school of tribal art,’ he explained. ‘Bringing innocent folk dreams to your corrupt capital.’ The painter was taut and watchful, like a crouching leopard or panther, ready to take on any unfamiliar urban confrontations.

  We stopped before a series of portraits where the painter had stepped out of his naive folk style. These were powerful line drawings of tribal women, standing, squatting, gossiping, holding their children. Lenin seemed extremely moved by one of them. It was of a young woman with a flower in her hair. He took the painter aside and whispered into his ear, and Rangarh Shyam immediately placed a red sticker on the side of the frame. Lenin had bought the sketch. There were tears in his eyes as he contemplated it.

  Lenin turned to me, a look of myopic joy suddenly suffusing his face. ‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘Just like you are. You know how much I’ve always cared for you, Priya, and how close we have been in the past. I want to tell you that I have always respected your simplicity and your honesty, and these are all shining through in your face even now. You still look beautiful, Priya.’

  At a certain age of wrinkles and hot flushes, a solitary compliment is sometimes enough to spark a complete turnaround in attitude. Suddenly, in that narrow gallery, surrounded by acrylic forests and trees and hunters, Lenin’s words made me feel beautiful. Strong and beautiful, at least for a while. After all, Lenin is always truthful—at least in what he thinks he’s thinking :)

  I searched for Luv, but he had made one of his elusive exits. Paromita had disappeared too. Had they left together? I certainly hoped so.

  Kush was returning soon. He called with a volley of instructions about getting his car serviced, his air conditioner repaired, his kurtas starched.

  ‘I’m not your PS or your PA,’ I protested. ‘But you are my mother!’ he replied.

  Luv helped me get on Facebook. ‘Time to get connected, Mata ji,’ he said, ‘to join the dots with the rest of the world.’ He posted a nice profile picture of me, sitting in the swing in our lawn. He put up photos of himself as well, and of Kush and Suresh. ‘Your happy family,’ he declared.

  He led me to his homepage to explain what it’s all about. There they were, his friends, all the young people to whom the world belongs. ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, my eyes riveted by the snapshot of an exceptionally pretty girl.

  ‘That’s Ranu,’ he replied. ‘She’s a huntress.’

  ‘A huntress!’ I echoed his words, smiling, containing my surprise. ‘Think Warrior Princess. Think the Queen of Sheba. I’m in love with Ranu, maybe. She’s from a royal family, and spends her time chasing Nilgai and wild boar. She’s fantastic. Why don’t you look pleased?’

  ‘Hunting is banned,’ I snapped. ‘And royals—ex-royals—are an endangered species as well.’ I didn’t like the sound of this hunter- wali.

  ‘It’s just the thrill of the chase,’ he replied. ‘Ranu’s planning to turn to wildlife photography instead.’

  A reformed huntress. Marriage and adjustment are part of the same process. My maternal instincts calibrated the matrimonial prospects. I could see myself draped in a fine French chiffon sari, with a gota border, looking aristocratically motherly, as the shehnai players belted out weepy ‘bidai’ music . . .

  Of course her parents might consider us commoners—but then, politicos are the new ro
yalty, aren’t they?

  But what of Monalisa? And Lenin’s daughter Paromita?

  ‘I thought you liked Paromita,’ I blurted out.

  Bad move. Luv’s eyes turned opaque, and he looked suddenly, startlingly, like Kush. ‘There’s enough love in my heart to go around, mother,’ he replied warily. ‘Enough and more.’

  Will I ever understand my sons?

  Luv was staring distractedly at his mobile phone. ‘I have to rush to meet Monalisa,’ he said. ‘There’s been a problem! And Ranu’s waiting for me too!’ And he dashed out of the room.

  Suresh entered, as if on cue. ‘Who is Monalisa? And Ranu?’ he demanded petulantly. ‘Nobody ever tells me anything.’

  ‘Ranu’s a huntress,’ I explained helpfully. ‘And Monalisa . . . you don’t want to know who she is!’

  ‘We need to spend quality time together,’ Suresh said. Mr Cliche. And with whom were you spending quality time in Chennai? I thought to myself. My husband was looking more flushed than usual. I examined him closely. There was a mark on his cheek; it looked like lipstick. And on his collar too.

  I couldn’t control myself. ‘Lipstick on your collar . . .’ I shrieked, in a high-pitched voice that sounded crazy even to my own ears. Suresh looked at me worriedly.

  ‘I was just feeling light-hearted and young,’ I continued lamely. This was not the time for confrontation. Maybe it wasn’t lipstick, but an ink stain. Or a paan stain. ‘Let’s go out for dinner, just the two of us? Quality time?’

  We decided on ‘Delhi Durbar’, on the topmost floor of the Intercontinental. It was quite romantic, a dark, velvety alcove with the city spread out far below us. Suresh talked to me about his work, his career, about political factions and manipulated misunderstandings. ‘There is a camp of party men who don’t appreciate me, who are working against me,’ he confided. ‘It’s the Rajya Sabha–Lok Sabha divide. Because I’m a professional, because I’m not a populist, they think I don’t understand core issues.’ Then he started off on the Finance Minister, and the Home Minister, and the HM’s coteries and the FM’s lobbyists, and although I didn’t understand quite who was for or against whom I squeezed my husband’s hand and looked sympathetic.

  ‘They are just jealous of you,’ I said. ‘Because you have a mind of your own . . .’

  Suresh looked pleased. He stared at me earnestly for a long time. ‘Whatever people may say, I want you to know, Priya, that I love you with all my heart,’ he declared solemnly. ‘And I always shall.’

  I was disarmed. I believed him—and besides, I had no choice. Forget about the lipstick. And the phone call. I hadn’t dared dwell on it anyway. We looked into each other’s eyes like teenagers, except, of course, that neither of us had looked much into anybody’s eyes when we were teenagers. We had gone to the cinema, sometimes, boys with boys, girls with girls. Suresh had probably lusted after Sharmila Tagore, possibly Jaya Bhaduri. And me, I had worked in a swank office in South Bombay and worshipped my boss.

  We looked out at the lights, at the city glittering and shimmering in the night. ‘Ae Roshniyon Ke Shahar . . .’ I murmured. This city of lights—everything had changed. Jaya Bhaduri was Jaya Bachchan now, Aishwarya Rai’s mother-in-law. Rekha was still beautiful and enigmatic, but a ghost, really. And Sharmila with the overlined eyes was Begum Pataudi, mother of the new stars Saif and Soha . . . And her husband was a hunter too, I thought, quite irrelevantly.

  Suresh reached out to hold my hand. ‘Life has treated us well, Priya,’ he said. ‘Look at where we are today’—and his hand spread over the expanse of distant city lights—‘quite literally, it’s at our feet. Hard work has brought us here, and dedication!’

  I wasn’t listening to him, my mind was wandering still. I had forgotten Suresh, so solid, so serious, sitting there before me. I was thinking of BR, of his hypnotic eyes the night when he had first undressed me. When I was young. There had been music playing in the background. ‘Stravinsky. The Rites of Spring.’ I had not forgotten.

  My husband was talking to me. I switched my attention back to the present. ‘It’s all karma, fate, destiny, kismet . . . Call it what you will,’ Suresh was expounding, with almost mystical intensity. ‘Que Sera Sera—whatever will be will be!’

  He was humming aloud now, with ringtone veracity. ‘Que Sera Sera . . .’ Mood swings? He was beginning to sound a little strange to me. ‘The future’s not our..rrss to see . . . ee . . . But it is! I visited this numerologist today. Or rather, she came to see me. She feels extremely disturbed by the vibrations emanating from the sound of my name. It appears the numbers of my Given Name, that is to say my Destiny Numbers, and the numeric strength of my Birth and Fate Numbers are completely out of sync. It’s all quite scientific, really, something to do with the DNA. I think that’s what she said.’

  I listened carefully, clouds of suspicion gathering in my head. The chicken lababdar was forgotten, the rumali roti turning to leather.

  ‘She is amazing—no other word for it—a-ma-azing! Her name is Nnutasha—with two enns. She suggested I change the spelling of my name to Cowshall. C for Canada, O for Owl, W for Winnipeg, S for Simla, H for Holiday, A for Africa, and Double L, both for London.’ He spelt it out very slowly, stressing each letter with a wave of his podgy fingers.

  As they would say in Hindi, my mercury was rising. Mera paara chadh raha tha.

  ‘NO.’ I said very firmly. ‘N for Nigeria, O for Orangutan. No cow in my name for me. I don’t believe in all this luck by chance nonsense.’

  My husband Suresh, Minister of State for this and that, was staring at me in genuine surprise.

  ‘When I married you, Suresh, I was Priya Sharma. I then became Priya Kaushal. Your surname belongs to me, half and half. I am not a cow, and I shall not change my surname, even if some nutty numerologist or sexy arms-dealer’s girlfriend with too many Os in her name can persuade you to change yours!’

  With that, I rushed to the toilet and burst into tears. I feel safe in ladies washrooms, they are a sanctuary from social disasters, a place to retreat to and to mend and contemplate. I refastened my bra-strap, readjusted the pleats of my sari. A gaggle of happy, laughing girls burst in, like birds flying in formation. They had incredibly slim figures, and were moving restlessly from leg to leg as they revelled in what was clearly the scandal of the moment. There was much ‘he said’ and ‘then she said’ exchanged between them, punctuated by floods of helpless giggles. I felt a sharp, bitter stab of envy. I envied their youth, their certainty, their belief in themselves and the world.

  This sounds stupid, but suddenly I saw my face looking back at me from the mirror, reassuring me. ‘You are Priya Kaushal, not Cowshall,’ I told the face in the mirror ‘and you must remain her.’

  I hovered by the lift for a while, wondering whether to stage a walkout and go home, or turn back to the restaurant and Suresh. Finally, I decided not to, and retraced my way to the Delhi Durbar. He was talking on two phones at the same time. ‘She said,’ he said, then abruptly cut the conversation short when he saw me. Who was he talking to?

  The bill arrived, Suresh searched through his pockets but couldn’t find any cash or cards. Finally I had to dig out my credit card and pay for dinner. We made our way home, our brief love-amnesty turned to a watchful truce.

  When I returned to the bungalow there was an envelope waiting for me. It was from Paromita, Lenin’s daughter. The envelope said just that: ‘From Paromita—Lenin’s daughter.’

  There was a CD inside, labelled ‘Hon’ble Shri Suresh Kaushal, TV Interview’. It had her visiting card taped to it. The card had a funky pink-and-blue design with a smiling tree with stretching branches drawn in a tribal sort of style. ‘LET IT GROW’ it said, in a speech bubble spouting from the friendly mouth drawn on the tree bark. It puzzled me, but not to the point of interrogation. The world is full of puzzling young people and Paromita was no different, I decided.

  Luv was not at home, which was not unusual. His mobile had been left behind in his room, to charg
e. I justified the temptation to snoop as a mother’s prerogative. Six missed calls from Paromita, and two messages: ‘Call me back please.’

  No mystery to it now. Lenin’s daughter had succumbed to Luv’s charms. She was appealing to his mother for help. And help I would. A mother’s instincts are never wrong, and I knew that Paromita and Luv were meant for each other. For an Indian mother, her daughters-in-law-to-be hold the key to the future. Her sons, the chief capital, purpose and gratification of her life, will remain or retract according to the nature of her bahus-to-be. Luv was hovering on the brink of that precipice. It was my duty as his mother to oversee a smooth transfer of power.

  In just one day, I received four offers of marriage for the twins. The first proposal arrived via my sister-in-law Dolly. ‘Dearest Bhabhi,’ she wrote, ‘hereby forwarding an offer for dearest cutest Luv and Kush’s hands in marriage. Netanjali and Getanjali, very suitable girls, are my neighbour’s daughters in Mumbai. Mrs Chaturvedi is a homely lady with excellent disposition. They are well-off upper middle-class Brahmin UP peoples with middle- class values. It was striking to me about the pretty sisters that both have milk-white complexion. They are ideal life partner for some lucky guy, and so thought came to mind of your esteemed twin sons . . .’ and so on. Although I am a snob, her presumption, more than her bad English, staggered me. Surely she must understand the middle-class dictum of ‘arranged match in equal-status bracket only’?

  I slipped into a rage, as I sometimes do when confronted by Dolly’s tactlessness. I tore up her letter and hurled it into the artistic bamboo dustbin which had been gifted to Suresh during a recent visit to the North East. (‘A dustbin?’ I had wondered then. ‘What sort of a gift is a dustbin?’)

  On second thoughts, I retrieved the shreds of Dolly’s proposal and gathered them into a brown envelope, which I sealed and neatly labelled ‘Dolly’s Proposal’.

  Then I set off to the ladies tailor in Khan Market. About time I changed my style. The old-fashioned katori-cut sari blouses are just too frumpy and day-before-yesterday. Backless, strapless blouses are in, very different from the drab, predictable half-sleeved poplin ones that I’d loyally stuck to, ever since my Bombay days.