Priya

by Namita Gokhale

  ‘Why are you here, in this donkey march?’ The girl who asked Lenin the question had a wide space between her two front teeth, and a visible squint. ‘What is the message of this march?’

  Then the sounds of birds chirping on the soundtrack. ‘I am here,’ Lenin replied, ‘because I believe in India—in our country, in our future, in our past.’ Then he switched to chaste Hindi. ‘Vyang mein yeh bhi kaha ja sakta hai ki bechara gadha hamari sabhyata ka prateek hai,’ he said. ‘The donkey has become a symbol of our culture. It is a patient, noble animal. The donkey serves mankind, it endures insults, it does not rebel. There are strengths in being a donkey, in gadhagiri.’

  Lenin smiled, an act of such beatific innocence and compassion that something moved in my heart, like a piece of ice melting. It was enough, in that moment, to know and remember that not everybody had sold out and bought into the current myth of India Shining. It was good to know that people and donkeys could be stubborn and carry on.

  It made me think.

  Luv came to my room looking unusually pleased with himself. He strolled over to the full-length mirror and preened before it. ‘Notice anything new about me, Maa?’ he enquired. ‘Kuchh adla badla?’

  ‘A new hairstyle?’ I hazarded, checking out his slickly-gelled locks. Then it struck me—the safety-pins had disappeared. Why? What was up in his life?

  ‘The safety pins have gone,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided to grow up. Finally. It’s clean-up time.’

  ‘Are you in love again?’ I asked, fear and hope tugging at my heart. My sons, my sons.

  ‘No, I simply decided on a mid-course correction,’ Luv replied. ‘I sold a painting yesterday, and the gallery is talking of a solo show. But I’ve been thinking—the arts stream is too subjective, too self-indulgent as a discipline. I felt maybe it’s time to go straight.’

  My heart stopped. A coming-out-of-the-closet confession? ‘Straight?’ I blundered. ‘You mean you were . . .?’ I stopped.

  ‘Gay?’ I couldn’t say the word, but my lips had spelled it out.

  His cheerful smile turned into a ferocious snarl. ‘Gay? Gay?’ he mimicked viciously. ‘It’s unbearable. Homophobic Indian mothers are impossible! You need to get a life and let me lead mine. Leave my sex life alone please. Maybe I should just return to the States!’ He stormed out from the room, banging the door behind him. I had done it again. Bungled it up.

  He was home again by lunchtime, my son Luv, complaining about the food. ‘I can’t eat these vegetables, Mater,’ he said, ‘they are all too oily and spicy.’

  ‘What’s with the Mater?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘Sorry, Mataji. You know that I can’t eat matar—I hate peas! Also baingan, kaddoo, karela, tori, tinda—all the inedible category vegetation. Could you please instruct your esteemed staff about this? I know you are much too busy and preoccupied to actually step into the kitchen, but I might die of protein deprivation unless I get some chicken-shiken into my diet.’

  ‘Why don’t you get married?’ I snapped. ‘Then your dear wife can make sure you get your fat-free chicken curry exactly the way you want it.’

  His eyes gleamed with sudden mischief. ‘That’s your call, Mataji,’ he said. ‘I’ll marry whoever you tell me to. Let’s list out the candidates . . .’

  ‘You could marry Paromita, our friend Lenin’s daughter!’ I exclaimed, jumping the gun in my excitement.

  Luv’s expression became guarded and inscrutable, but only for a minute. ‘Hey, give them all a chance, Mataji,’ he said. ‘Let’s begin the status check with my ex-fiancée Monalisa. She gets full marks for being incredibly brainy and sexy. Loses them all for being unbearably difficult and neurotic.’

  ‘Is that Monalisa Das Mann in Delhi now? Are you in touch with her?’ I asked with concern. ‘We have nothing against her . . . we’ll follow your wishes. But I thought we had explained to her that you were engaged to our friend’s daughter, to Paromita.’

  ‘Let’s not mix up Bollywood farce and real life all the time. That was just an exit line.’

  ‘But she is our friend’s daughter and you like her,’ I persisted. I wouldn’t let that Monalisa into my family, not ever.

  ‘And the loaded dowry-prospect suspect you and dad have been lining up for us? For me and Kush?’

  ‘Not me, I’m not selling you for dowry,’ I declared firmly.

  ‘Luv weds Paromita. Now that sounds nice!’ he continued slyly. ‘Kush can take the cushy option. Luv will go for love, for the girl next door who has won his mother’s heart. A two-generational romance, scripted by Karan Johar. Boy returns home from phoren lands, dumps westernized desi, and embraces True Indian Values. Ma embraces Bahu. Box office hit. A happy ending with a great soundtrack!’

  ‘There are other proposals too,’ I said righteously. ‘Atul Bhaiya and Dolly have suggested . . .’

  The message tone on my mobile bleated an alert. ‘Watch DD news interview,’ it said. ‘On air now. Suresh.’

  ‘We have to watch your dad on TV,’ I said, fumbling with the remote. Suresh filled up the screen, sounding impressively articulate on the issue of base procurement prices and well-rehearsed with quotable quotes on the subject of Foreign Direct Investment in food retailing. ‘The Food Sector is the soul of our economy,’ he said, wearing a suitably soulful expression to match this noble sentiment. He used the word ‘paradigm’ more than once, and ‘framework’ in every sentence.

  The interviewer, a sad bald man, announced an ‘after the break’ halt. Advertisements for underwear, skin whiteners and toilet- bowl cleaners followed. Bucky and Junior Bhandpur were endorsing the toilet bowl cleaner. What the world will do for money. My husband reappeared to continue with his solemn pronouncements on matters of Vital National Interest. He talked of the ‘structural framework’, and ‘the new nutrition paradigm’, whatever that was. I listened dutifully, but Luv was getting impatient.

  ‘How can a government television channel subsidize government propaganda, Maa?’ he demanded. ‘It’s we taxpayers who subsidize Doordarshan.’

  I reminded Luv he didn’t pay taxes. At last, mercifully, the programme was over. I sent Suresh a prompt and dutiful sms: ‘Simply brilliant, darling.’

  ‘Tks’ Suresh texted back.

  Luv took the mobile phone from me and switched it off. Then he took my hands in his. ‘I meant what I said, Maa,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’ll marry whoever you tell me to. Honest. I trust your instincts.’

  I was flabbergasted. What exactly was he trying to say? Hope and caution jostled in my heart. In this state of nervous excitement, I turned to the television for reassurance, for a sign or an omen.

  Ranjit Verma, the oiliest anchor in India, leered at me from the screen. ‘Shocking Startling Breaking News!’ he declared. ‘Human Race Under Attack. Scientific Tests have Proved that Aliens have been sending Radio Messages announcing they will Attack India Next Year!’ All this with backdrop pictures of cute aliens atop UFOs readying to attack.

  That decided me. ‘I shall get him married before the year is over,’ I resolved. ‘Before the aliens destroy us.’

  Young people should settle down early. Luv will marry Paromita, he must. It was a considered decision, a time-bound plan. I would go about it scientifically. First I should check if the stars were ripe—astrologers do somehow manage to put things in comforting cosmic perspective.

  I searched for Luv’s horoscope among the transparent green plastic folders in my steel cupboard. All sorts of forgotten milestones popped up to distract me. My mother’s death certificate, Kush’s birth certificate, the twins’ class reports from Grades I to XII and a folio of sketches by Luv while he was still in school.

  The two natal charts lay nestled together in a swathe of red mulmul cloth. Luv and Kush, born just six minutes apart, but destined for such different lives. An artist and a determined political heir. My boys.

  There’s an astrologer I know. He has a consulting room the size of an open suitcase, sandwiched between a butcher’s sho
p and a jalebi stall. It’s in the DDA market in Zamroodpur, a boutique slum in the heart of poshest Delhi. I had been to him twice when we still lived in upmarket, overrated GK, and I went to him again. He’s no celebrity astrologer, but I trust him.

  The sign outside read: ‘G.D. Goria. Astro-Lodger’. Goria ji was listening wearily to a YouTube presentation of a jaded Bollywood number.

  ‘Kanya Rashi,’ he said to me, looking up from the screen. ‘Moon in Virgo. You want to ask about the marriage of your sons?’

  Right as usual. ‘TOB and DOB please?’ I gave him the horoscopes I had brought along, and filled in the Time of Birth and Date of Birth for the twins in a photocopied form he handed me. His hands were trembling, and he had grown very much older since I had seen him last.

  He studied the natal charts, with the planets playing hopscotch across the different houses.

  ‘Saturn,’ Goria ji grimaced. ‘Saturn is the ruling planet of Kalyug. This is the last of the Four Cycles of Mankind: this age of evil and confusion that we live in. The sages had predicted that in the time of Kalyug, women and low castes shall rule. That is modern democracy for you.’

  I hadn’t asked him about Saturn and Kalyug and all that. He examined the horoscopes again, in a distracted way. ‘Your son Luv—and this kanya named Paromita. Their signs and chinhas match like Shiva and Parvati! Like Rama and Sita! Like Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan!’

  Rama and Sita? Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan!

  ‘They will be married within one year. Two babies in four years. Boys only. Jai ho.’

  That seemed to settle it. But Goria ji hadn’t finished with Kush’s horoscope yet. ‘Your older son—there is suspense like in Hindi film. And surprise ending. Jai Ho.’

  I stepped out of the kiosk, worrying about Kalyug and what surprises Kush might have in store for us. In the shop next door, a batch of freshly fried jalebis was resting on the slotted steel karchi, waiting to be dunked into the treacly chashni. I gave in to temptation and bought half a kilo, delivered in a sticky plastic bag leaking syrup.

  The jalebis were deliciously, sinfully sweet and Suresh and I had them at teatime, with pakoras and hot masala chai. I told Suresh about what the astrologer had said, but not the bit about Kush. No point jumping into the future before it arrived.

  Later, I cornered Luv in his room ‘Let’s talk it through,’ I said. ‘Let’s list out the candidates. Are you still seeing that Monalisa?’

  ‘She’s over, Mom ji,’ he said. ‘Miss Das Mann was a phase, a comma. We’ve both moved on. And her father is a real toenail. Monalisa stands disqualified, you knew that already.’

  ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ he admitted, ‘but that doesn’t mean anything. There are things we appreciate about each other. Besides, she’s writing a book, about our relationship.’

  ‘I want her Date of Birth,’ I persisted. ‘Just in case . . .’ On-its- head logic somehow seems to work better than surface reason with my children.

  ‘But I don’t require your help in marrying Monalisa, Mom ji,’ Luv said, his good humour mysteriously resurfacing. ‘I thought you had a line-up of candidates. That’s why I’ve left it to you.’

  I decided to call his bluff. ‘Have you fallen in love with Paromita, Luv?’ I asked. Unblinking. Looking him directly in the eye. ‘Tell me if you have, son, let’s not waste time beating around the bush.’

  He blushed. Maybe he wasn’t so different from his father, after all. ‘I like her a lot,’ he said, ‘a lot, and I respect her too. I’d like to get to know her better.’

  ‘Do you want to marry Paromita?’ I asked.

  Luv squirmed a bit. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Perhaps. She’s different. Kuchh hat ke . . .’

  ‘Have you proposed to her?’ I persisted. ‘Have you asked her about marriage?’

  ‘No,’ he replied awkwardly. ‘That’s why I came to you. I’ve left it for you to set up.’ He bent down and touched my feet, with mock humility. ‘My life is your hands, Mataji,’ And he left the room. Dramey-baaz.

  Does art imitate life? Does life imitate art? Are Indian marriages made in Bollywood? I tried to work it out. If Paromita and Luv were in love, as they clearly were, why didn’t they settle it between themselves? Why follow the ‘arranged love’ formula? How very odd. In my time the rebellious young—the impractical artists, anyway—they ran away, they broke the rules, they wanted to change the world. I was a little in awe of them. What had happened to the young of new India? What, for all the safety pins on the face and carrying condoms where a mother would find them?

  Would I have it any other way? Of course not. It is good to have sensible sons.

  A phone call from Kush, from Dubai. ‘I need a dozen starched kurta pyjamas on standby, Mom,’ he instructed. ‘And make sure you check the drawstrings too. Last time the nadas had slipped in and it was a real nuisance.’

  ‘Yes, son,’ I replied dutifully.

  ‘And see that my white Nike shoes are cleaned and the small bag is empty. There is a SEZ tour lined up and I can’t carry a large bag in the copter.’ No hello, no goodbye. Just those instructions. He needed a wife too—though somehow I didn’t see Suki laying out his starched kurtas and checking the drawstrings.

  Suresh strode in, looking self-important and a little bad- tempered. ‘What’s wrong with you these days?’ he said accusingly. ‘You are beginning to neglect me!’

  ‘Not at all, darling!’ I smiled. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘That careless dhobi has over-starched my kurtas,’ he complained. ‘Kush and I are going for a site inspection for a new food processing park, and I need wearable clothes. Fire the dhobi if you have to—he has begun to think too much of himself. Or use a proper dry-cleaner, the one in Khan Market!’

  ‘Don’t worry, my darling,’ I soothed.

  ‘Not too much—’ Suresh continued—‘and not too little. I need a light crisp starch on the kurtas. Of course we will be in airconditioning most of the time . . .’

  ‘I’ll see that the dhobi gets the starch off your kurtas straight away,’ I said, and gave him my most patient private-valet-service smirk.

  It’s practical. These projects spell big bucks. A single sensible deal could keep us in clover. After all, money doesn’t grow on trees. Kush will need cash if he has to contest an election—politics is an expensive business. It needs capital. Even a Rajya Sabha seat costs money. A lot of money.

  The clothes are important. White kurtas are to politicians what six-pack abs are to film stars. The Indian political establishment survives on the strength of its dhobis, hereditary starchers and bleachers of the crisp, dazzling robes that are our swadeshi uniform and badge of office. The dry-cleaners can never get it right.

  I sent for the dhobi but his daughter Dayavati came instead. She came in looking as chirpy and glamorous as ever. She assessed the starch on Suresh’s kurtas with her long pink-frosted nails, and agreed with expert judgement that it was slightly overdone. Ramdhan brought out Kush’s khadi kurtas as well, and I explained to Dayavati that she wasn’t to get the two piles mixed up, but keep Suresh’s and Kush’s kurtas in separate sets.

  ‘Dont worry, aunty ji!’ she replied. ‘We are three generations of dhobi family living in this banglow ka quarter only. My grandpa was dhobi to first Law Minister—then many more ministers, they come and go from this banglow, but our family, we are permanent. So we are knowing very well how to starch khadi for big people and neta-log!’

  A dhobi dynasty! We would have our own mini-dynasty too, and soon, if Kush had his way. I would have to be vigilant in searching out the right sort of wife for him.

  Suddenly, I had one of those illuminated moments when everything seems full of lucid clarity. I remembered the day when mother first showed me the photograph of Suresh, plump and intensely serious, leaning against a Standard Herald car. A black- and-white photograph, now grown grainy in memory.

  It was his car that had decided me. I married Suresh, and we h
eld together through the struggles of middle-class life. We were making our way up when Paro came into our lives, opening up a new world whose margins moved with every unsure success. Fear and insecurity had dogged me along the dizzy ascent up the political ladder. And this was why it had all happened—why we were fated to have met Lenin, to have known Paro, to have shared those youthful times together. That farishta Lenin, with his angelic and infuriating innocence, was meant in the scheme of things to marry a control-freak like Geeta: the dance of their DNA to produce Paromita, whose auspicious signs matched those on my son’s natal chart and horoscope. They would marry within a year and have two babies. Sons only. Tathastu!

  Paromita rushed into the room. She was looking breathtakingly pretty. Her soft skin was glowing, and her smile had a knowing, mischievous edge to it.

  ‘Well, Paromita,’ I said. ‘Well, well, well.’

  She threw me a naughty look.

  ‘Will you be my daughter-in-law, Paromita?’ I asked. ‘And should I speak to your father about it—or to your mother?’

  She rushed to give me a hug, then bent down to touch my feet. ‘I want your aashirwad, Ma,’ she said.

  My eyes misted over. ‘Beti . . .’ I said, stroking her cheek. Then I decided to stop. It was all getting too sentimental, a Bollywood tear-jerker. Before one knew it, I would be starring in my very own fantasy Hum Aapke Hain Kaun home video production.

  Luv was nowhere in sight. He had no lines; the script seemed reserved for the saas–bahu duo.

  ‘Give me your mother’s number, Paromita,’ I commanded. The ringtone belted out ‘Hum Honge Kamyab’ for the longest possible time. ‘Ek din! Ek din!! Ek din!!!’ it rang. But Paromita’s mother Geeta didn’t take the call.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma, I’ll tell mummy,’ Paromita said, ‘and then you can tell papa.’ She had called me Ma. My mother died a long time ago, I never had a sister. It would feel good to have another woman in the family.

  At this point, Luv materialized out of nowhere. Had he been hiding behind the curtains? He was smiling from ear to ear, looking sheepish but ecstatically happy.