But now Mrs Rupa Mehra paused—for surely the age of the recipient would be an ambivalent detail in the present case. Her stepmother, as she could never cease to remember, was fully ten years younger than she was, and the accusing ‘35’, even—or perhaps especially—in gold, could be seen—would be seen—as implying an unacceptable disparity, possibly even an unacceptable motivation. The golden numerals were put aside, and a fourth silver star joined its fellows in a pattern of innocuous symmetry.
Postponing the decision of illustration, Mrs Rupa Mehra now looked for assistance in building up a rhyming text for her card. The rose-and-pewter card contained the following lines:
May the gladness you have scattered
Along life’s shining way
And the little deeds of kindness
That are yours from day to day
And the happiness you’ve showered
On others all life through
Return to swell your blessings
In this birthday hour for you.
This would not do for Parvati, Mrs Rupa Mehra decided. She turned to the card illustrated with grapes and apples.
’Tis a day for hugs and kisses,
For cakes and candles too,
A day for all who love you
To renew their love anew,
A day for sweet reflection
Along life’s shining way,
And a day for all to tell you:
Have the wonderfullest day.
This showed promise but there was something wrong with the fourth line, Mrs Rupa Mehra instinctively felt. Also, she would have to alter ‘hugs and kisses’ to ‘special greetings’; Parvati might very well deserve hugs and kisses but Mrs Rupa Mehra was incapable of giving them to her.
Who had sent her this card? Queenie and Pussy Kapadia, two unmarried sisters in their forties whom she had not met for years. Unmarried! The very word was like a knell. Mrs Rupa Mehra paused in her thoughts for a moment, and moved resolutely on.
The puppy yapped an unrhymed and therefore unusable text—a mere ‘Happy Birthday and Many Happy Returns’—but the sheep bleated in rhymes identical to but sentiment marginally distinct from the others:
It’s not a standard greeting
For just one joyful day
But a wish that’s meant to cover
Life’s bright and shining way—
To wish you all the special things
That mean the most to you
So that this year and every year
Your fondest dreams come true.
Yes! Life’s shining way, a concept dear to Mrs Rupa Mehra, was here polished to an even finer lustre. Nor did the lines commit her to any deep protestation of affection for her father’s second wife. At the same time the greeting was not accusably distant. She got out her black-and-gold Mont Blanc fountain pen, Raghubir’s present to her when Arun was born—twenty-five years old and still going strong, she reflected with a sad smile—and began to write.
Mrs Rupa Mehra’s handwriting was very small and well formed, and this presented her in the present instance with a problem. She had chosen too large a size of card in proportion to her affection, but the silver stars had been stuck and it was too late to change that parameter. She now wished to fill as much space as possible with the rhymed message so that she would not have to inscribe more than a few words in her own right to supplement the verse. The first three couplets were therefore laid out—with as much white space in between as would not appear too obvious—on the left-hand side; an ellipsis of seven dots spoored across the page in a semblance of suspense; and the concluding couplet was allowed to crash down with thunderous blandness on the right.
‘To Dear Parvati—a very happy birthday, much love, Rupa,’ wrote Mrs Rupa Mehra with a dutiful expression. Then, repenting, she added ‘est’ to the ‘Dear’. It looked a little cramped now, but only a careful eye would perceive it as an afterthought.
Now came the heartbreaking part: not the mere transcription of a stanza but the actual sacrifice of an old card. Which of the roses would have to be transplanted? After some thought, Mrs Rupa Mehra decided that she could not bear to part with any of them. The dog, then? He looked mournful, even guilty—besides, the picture of a dog, however appealing his appearance, was open to misinterpretation. The sheep perhaps—yes, they would do. They were fluffy and unemotional. She did not mind parting with them. Mrs Rupa Mehra was a vegetarian, whereas both her father and Parvati were avid meat-eaters. The roses in the foreground of the old card were preserved for future use, and the three sheared sheep were driven carefully towards new pastures.
Before she sealed the envelope Mrs Rupa Mehra got out a small writing pad, and wrote a few lines to her father:
Dearest Baoji,
Words cannot express how much happiness it gave me to see you yesterday. Pran and Savita and Lata were very disappointed. They did not get the chance to be there, but such is life. About the radiologist, or any other prospect for Lata, please pursue enquiries. A good khatri boy would be best of course, but after Arun’s marriage I am capable of considering others. Fair or dark, as you know, one cannot be choosy. I have recovered from my journey and remain, with much affection,
Your everloving daughter,
Rupa
The house was quiet. She asked Mansoor for a cup of tea, and decided to write a letter to Arun. She unfolded a green inland letter form, dated it carefully in her minute and lucid script, and began.
My darling Arun,
I hope you are feeling much better and the pain in your back as well as the toothache is much less. I was very sad and upset in Calcutta as we did not have much time to spend at the station together due to the traffic on Strand and Howrah Bridge and you having to leave before the train left because Meenakshi wanted you home early. You don’t know how very much you are in my thoughts—much more than words can say. I thought maybe the preparations for the party could have been postponed by ten minutes but it was not to be. Meenakshi knows best. Anyway whatever it all was the net result was that we didn’t have long at the station and tears rolled down my cheeks due to disappointment. My dear Varun also had to go back because he came in your car to see me off. Such is life one doesn’t often get the things one wants. Now I only pray for you to get well soon and keep good health wherever you are and have no more trouble with your back so that you can play golf again which you are so fond of. If it be God’s will we will meet again very soon. I love you lots and wish you all the happiness and success you well deserve. Your Daddy would have been so proud to see you in Bentsen and Pryce, and now with wife and child. Love and kisses to darling Aparna.
The journey passed peacefully and as planned, but I must admit I could not resist having some mihidana at Burdwan. If you had been there you would have scolded me, but I could not resist my sweet tooth. The ladies in my Ladies’ Reserve compartment were very friendly and we played rummy and three-two-five and had a good chat. One of the ladies knew the Miss Pal we used to visit in Darjeeling, the one who was engaged to the army captain but he died in the War. I had the set of cards that Varun gave me for my last birthday in my bag, and they helped to while away the journey. Whenever I travel I remember our saloon days with your Daddy. Please give him my love and tell him to study hard in the good traditions of his father.
Savita is looking very well, and Pran is a first-class husband except for his asthma and most caring. I think that he is having some difficulty with his department but he does not like to talk about it. Your grandfather visited yesterday and could have given him some medical advice but unfortunately only I was at home. By the way it is the birthday of your step-grandmother next week, and maybe you should send her a card. Better late than sorry.
I am suffering some pain in my foot but that is expected. Monsoons will be here in two three months and then my joints will play up. Unfortunately Pran cannot afford a car on his lecturer’s salary and the transport situation is not good. I take a bus or tonga to go here and there and sometimes I walk. As
you know, the Ganges is not far from the house and Lata also goes walking quite a lot, she seems to enjoy it. It is quite safe as far as the dhobi-ghat near the university, though there is a bit of a monkey menace.
Has Meenakshi had Daddy’s gold medals set yet? I like the idea of a neck-pendant for one and the lid of a little cardamom-container for the other. That way you can read what is written on both sides of the medal.
Now Arun mine, do not be cross with me for what I am saying, but I have been thinking a lot about Lata lately, and I think you should build up her confidence which she is lacking despite her brilliant record of studies. She is quite afraid of your comments, sometimes even I am afraid of them. I know you do not mean to be harsh, but she is a sensitive girl and now that she is of marriageable age she is super-sensitive. I am going to write to Mr. Gaur’s daughter Kalpana in Delhi—she knows everyone, and may help us find a suitable match for Lata. Also I think it is time for you to help in the matter. I could see how busy you were with work, so I mentioned it very rarely when I was in Calcutta but it was always on my mind. Another covenanted boy from a good family, does not have to be khatri, would be a dream come true. Now that the college year is almost over Lata will have time. I may have many faults but I think I am a loving mother, and I long to see all my children well settled.
Soon it will be April and I am afraid I will again be very depressed and lonely at heart because that month will bring back memories of your father’s illness and death as if they happened only the other day and it is eight long years that have gone by and so much has happened under the bridge in this period. I know there are thousands who have had and are having much more to suffer but to every human being one’s own sufferings seem the most and I am still very much human and have not risen very much above the usual feelings of sorrow and disappointments. I am trying very hard though believe me to rise above all this, and (D.V.) I will.
Here the inland letter form ended, and Mrs Rupa Mehra began to fill in—transversely—the space left blank near the head of the letter:
Anyway space is short so my darling Arun I will end now. Do not worry at all about me, my blood sugar level is OK I am sure, Pran is making me go for a test at the university clinic tomorrow morning, and I have been careful about my diet except for one glass of very sweet nimbu pani when I arrived tired after my journey.
Here she went on to write on the non-adhesive flap:
After I have written to Kalpana I will play a game of patience with Varun’s cards. Lots and lots of love to you and to Varun and a big hug and lots of kisses to my little sweetheart Aparna, and of course to Meenakshi also.
Yours everloving,
Ma
Fearing that her pen might run out during the course of her next letter, Mrs Rupa Mehra opened her handbag and took out an already opened bottle of ink—Parker’s Quink Royal Washable Blue—effectively separated from the other contents of the handbag by several layers of rags and cellophane. A bottle of glue she habitually carried had once leaked from its slit rubber cap with disastrous consequences, and glue had thenceforth been banished from her handbag, but ink had so far caused her only minor problems.
Mrs Rupa Mehra took out another inland letter form, then decided that this would be a false economy in the present case, and began writing on a well-husbanded pad of cream-coloured cambric bond:
Dearest Kalpana,
You have always been like a daughter to me so I will speak from the heart. You know how worried I have been about Lata this last year or so. As you know, since your Uncle Raghubir died I have had a hard time in many ways, and your father—who was so close to Uncle during his lifetime—has been as good to me after his sad demise. Whenever I come to Delhi which is sadly not often of late I feel happy when I am with you, despite the jackals that bark all night behind your house, and since your dear mother passed away I have felt like a mother to you.
Now the time has come to get Lata well settled, and I must look all out for a suitable boy. Arun should shoulder some responsibility in the matter but you know how it is, he is so occupied with work and family. Varun is too young to help and is quite unsteady also. You my dear Kalpana are a few years older to Lata and I hope you can suggest some suitable names among your old college friends or others in Delhi. Maybe in October in the Divali holidays—or in December in the Christmas-New Year holidays—Lata and I can come to Delhi to look into things? I only mention this to mention it. Do please say what you think?
How is your dear father? I am writing from Brahmpur where I am staying with Savita and Pran. All is well but the heat is already very delapidating and I am dreading April-May-June. I wish you could have come to their wedding but what with Pimmy’s appendix operation I can understand. I was worried to know she had not been well. I hope it is all resolved now. I am in good health and my blood sugar is fine. I have taken your advice and had new glasses made and can read and write without strain.
Please write soonest to this address. I will be here throughout March and April, maybe even in May till Lata’s results for this year are out.
With fondest love,
Yours ever,
Ma (Mrs. Rupa Mehra)
P.S. Lata sometimes comes up with the idea that she will not get married. I hope you will cure her of such theories. I know how you feel about early marriage after what happened with your engagement, but in a different way I also feel that ’tis better to have loved and lost etc. Not that love is always an unmixed blessing. P.S. Divali would be better than New Year for us to come to Delhi, because it fits in better with my annual travel plans, but whichever time you say is fine.
Lovingly, Ma
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked over her letter (and her signature—she insisted on all young people calling her Ma), folded it neatly in four, and sealed it in a matching envelope. She fished out a stamp from her bag, licked it thoughtfully, stuck it on the envelope, and wrote Kalpana’s address (from memory) as well as Pran’s address on the back. Then she closed her eyes and sat perfectly still for a few minutes. It was a warm afternoon. After a while she took out the pack of playing cards from her bag. When Mansoor came in to take away the tea and to do the accounts, he found she had dozed off over a game of patience.
1.15
The Imperial Book Depot was one of the two best bookshops in town, and was located on Nabiganj, the fashionable street that was the last bulwark of modernity before the labyrinthine alleys and ancient, cluttered neighbourhoods of Old Brahmpur. Though it was a couple of miles away from the university proper it had a greater following among students and teachers than the University and Allied Bookshop, which was just a few minutes away from campus. The Imperial Book Depot was run by two brothers, Yashwant and Balwant, both almost illiterate in English, but both (despite their prosperous roundness) so energetic and entrepreneurial that it apparently made no difference. They had the best stock in town, and were extremely helpful to their customers. If a book was not available in the shop, they asked the customer himself to write down its name on the appropriate order form.
Twice a week an impoverished university student was paid to sort new arrivals on to the designated shelves. And since the bookshop prided itself on its academic as well as general stock, the proprietors unashamedly collared university teachers who wandered in to browse, sat them down with a cup of tea and a couple of publishers’ lists, and made them tick off titles that they thought the bookshop should consider ordering. These teachers were happy to ensure that books they needed for their courses would be readily available to their students. Many of them resented the University and Allied Bookshop for its entrenched, lethargic, unresponsive and high-handed ways.
After classes, Lata and Malati, both dressed casually in their usual salwaar-kameez, went to Nabiganj to wander around and have a cup of coffee at the Blue Danube coffee house. This activity, known to university students as ‘ganjing’, they could afford to indulge in about once a week. As they passed the Imperial Book Depot, they were drawn magnetically in. Each wandered off to her
favourite shelves and subjects. Malati headed straight for the novels, Lata went for poetry. On the way, however, she paused by the science shelves, not because she understood much science, but, rather, because she did not. Whenever she opened a scientific book and saw whole paragraphs of incomprehensible words and symbols, she felt a sense of wonder at the great territories of learning that lay beyond her—the sum of so many noble and purposive attempts to make objective sense of the world. She enjoyed the feeling; it suited her serious moods; and this afternoon she was feeling serious. She picked up a random book and read a random paragraph:
It follows from De Moivre’s formula that zn = rn (cos n + i sin n). Thus, if we allow complex number z to describe a circle of radius r about the origin, zn will describe n complete times a circle of radius rn as z describes its circle once. We also recall that r, the modulus of z, written |z|, gives the distance of z from O, and that if z′=x′+iy′, then |z–z′| is the distance between z and z′. With these preliminaries we may proceed to the proof of the theorem.
What exactly it was that pleased her in these sentences she did not know, but they conveyed weight, comfort, inevitability. Her mind strayed to Varun and his mathematical studies. She hoped that her brief words to him the day after the wedding had done him some good. She should have written to him more often to bolster his courage, but with exams coming up she had very little time for anything. It was at the insistence of Malati—who was even busier than she was—that she had gone ganjing at all.