The Selector of Souls

  Mem-saab looks at her from beneath her black-pencilled arches, expecting reproach. “Yes.”

  “Then, legally, he can occupy the premises.”

  This is not what she wishes to read, so Damini has to repeat it.

  The lady-lawyer continues, “We can charge that he gained his rights by putting you under duress. If you wish to stop him from building, we can ask the court to do that.”

  “Nothing more?” says Mem-saab.

  Damini wants to tell the lady-lawyer to make Aman and Kiran and Loveleen evaporate like the first monsoon rain on a hot tar road, but she is just a pair of ears for Mem-saab, and this is Mem-saab’s family matter. The triangular exchange soon falters, then stops.

  Nothing more.

  Mem-saab writes a cheque and signs a vakalatnama appointing the lady-lawyer to begin her court case.

  As Damini leads Mem-saab out into the white flood of sunshine, she leans heavily on her arm.

  A tall slender woman in a rose pink sari is sitting on a cane chair in the single car-length driveway, waiting for the lady-lawyer. In profile, her eye is as almond-shaped as an awakened goddess. Her loosely braided black hair is waist-length, thick and shiny as Rekha’s in the movies. Very dark sunglasses swing from one hand. As they approach, she turns and hurriedly puts them on, but not before Damini notices the other eye, swollen large, and another swelling above the ridge of one cheekbone. A leaf-shaped scar droops down across the woman’s cheek. In this searing heat, the woman wears a long-sleeved sari blouse. There’s a bruise at her clavicle.

  Hai, what bad bhagya she has.

  ANU

  SITTING BEFORE SLIGHT, INTELLIGENT-FACED MRS. Shruti Nadkarni in her garage office, Anu feels strangely light after hearing herself say “divorce.” She practised the word on the bus, and walking from the stop.

  All the way here, people averted their gazes from her bruised face, her swollen eye, her throbbing temples. Everyone but the two old women she had seen leaving the lawyer’s office, whose problems were probably worse than her own.

  Lord Jesus, help them.

  Anu keeps her gaze on the leather-bound books behind Mrs. Nadkarni’s head. She feels for her sunglasses, folds them, opens them. Mrs. Nadkarni extends a large printed handkerchief. She seems a couple of years older than Anu, perhaps in her early thirties.

  Anu dabs at her scar. Tears on that cheek still feel different from those on the other.

  “Did you call the police, Mrs. Kohli?” Unfamiliar with Anu’s comfort level in English, she repeats the question in Hindi, without a trace of impatience or condescension.

  “Vikas might have beaten me again if I had,” Anu replies in English. “And which police officer would believe me? He went to school with the local superintendent of police. The local officers know him. His usual tip is higher than a constable’s monthly salary.” Besides, Anu doesn’t say, her visit to the police after Vikas raped her led nowhere. And if she had gone to the police for slaps, kicks or beatings since, she would have shamed Chetna along with the Kohlis. Shaming the family, she has been brought up to believe, is well-nigh a crime. Even now, before Mrs. Nadkarni, she is compelled to mention that Vikas never wanted to marry her.

  “How do you know?”

  “My mother-in-law told me. He wanted to marry a girl from a Sikh chieftain family whose land grants date back to Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s empire.”

  “Early 1800s?”

  Anu nods. “And that girl’s parents said they wouldn’t even discuss a marriage proposal from a Hindu family. They had been forced into hiding in a gurdwara during the anti-Sikh riots in 1984.”

  “Yes, colonial logic—two or three thousand must die for the murder of one of ‘ours.’ ”

  “And when they lost their home, they blamed all Hindus.”

  “Collective responsibility—the same-same thinking that had just been used against them.”

  “I suppose so. When they heard Vikas’s roadster had been seen outside the girl’s college, they made her confess: yes, she had gone to a movie with him. She had walked among the monuments in Lodi Gardens with him. Yes, he had held her hand. The very next month, that girl was married off to a much older Sikh man. And Vikas’s parents found him a substitute—me.”

  Hearing this in the first few days of her marriage, Anu wondered what That-Girl was like and how can she try to be like her? But then she heard Vikas shout at his mother, “No one can replace her!”

  But was he talking of That-Girl? She wasn’t sure, because he’s never mentioned That-Girl’s name to her. No one has. His mother told her he’d carved their names into a palm tree in Lodi Gardens, but Anu never found it. Maybe That-Girl doesn’t exist, never existed. That’s why she’s nameless. She’s too perfect to exist.

  “But even so, Mrs. Kohli,” says Mrs. Nadkarni, “most men marry the girls chosen for them, even if they liked other girls. Marriage is by caste. All those men don’t beat their wives.”

  “I think running the family business is too much for Vikas. Things might have been different if he had been a civil servant, or started his own company, rather than carrying out his father’s ideas. He wanted to be a physicist,” Anu says. “But he ended up in advertising.”

  “Many men his age have gone into a family business.” Mrs. Nadkarni is gently insistent. “Many men don’t do the work they wanted to. How come they don’t all beat their wives?”

  “Maybe he believes it is all right to take it out on me.”

  “He could use a pillow or a punching bag, instead,” says Mrs. Nadkarni. “Still, since you never filed a police report, there is no evidence of violence. What kind of wedding ceremony did you have?”

  “A very large one,” Anu replies. What relationship can that day have to this?

  “I mean, did you take the saptapadi around the fire?”

  “Yes. Seven steps, the usual ceremony.”

  “So Hindu Law applies.”

  “But I’m also a Christian,” Anu says. “Lord Jesus has given me the courage to come to you today, while my child is safe in Canada with my cousin-sister.”

  Mrs. Nadkarni shakes her head and closes her eyes, smiling at Anu’s naiveté. “Law,” she says, opening her eyes, “only allows one religion: Hindu or Christian. You cannot be two-in-one like—like a radio and tape recorder.”

  “Women can be two in one,” says Anu. “Sometimes even more.”

  “Personal law is not about persons—it’s really … well, it’s actually about families. Tell me—did you convert before or after marriage?”

  “My baptism was after marriage, and I never told Vikas.”

  Mrs. Nadkarni scribbles on a pad before her. She looks up.

  “We will proceed as if you are still a Hindu—i.e. under Hindu Personal Law.” It takes Anu a moment to understand what Mrs. Nadkarni means by “eye-ee.”

  “Where was your marriage registered?”

  “It wasn’t. Vikas became impatient after hours in line at the registration office.”

  “How many hours?”

  “Seven.”

  “Only seven?”

  “Maybe more—I don’t remember. He just stomped off.”

  Mrs. Nadkarni’s hand covers her pinked lips for a moment. “This is not good, not good. Only photos of the ceremony will show you’re married if it was not registered.”

  Anu takes an envelope from her handbag, opens it, and lays six black-and-white photos on the lawyer’s desk. “Five hundred guests saw Vikas and me circle the fire seven times at the Ashoka Hotel.”

  “This is good—if you want to remain married. But you don’t. Maintenance and custody are the issue. Without registration, even if you have photos, a man can say he was never married.”

  If the court grants Anu maintenance, she explains, it will only be Rs. 500 per month, but legal costs might be anywhere from Rs. 5,000 to 500,000, and the cost of Chetna’s wedding and dowry could be far greater. Maintenance is an anti-joke.

  Anu has grimly hung onto her travel agent job to ge
t out of the Kohli household every day, attend mass, and maintain the illusion of independence. But as Pammy Kohli often reminds her, “It’s almost a volunteer job.”

  “How long would I spend in jail if … if I kill him?”

  “I hope you are joking, Mrs. Kohli, but seven to ten years. And not in some jail like they show on TV and Bollywood movies, cells with beds and desks and chairs. Women’s jails in real life are stinking holes. A woman of your background would go mad in a matter of months. Activists and the new inspector general of prisons are working to change this, but …”

  “I see. And my child?”

  The child, Mrs. Nadkarni explains, is the property of her father. “Women’s organizations are working very hard to change this law,” she says, “but it will surely take them till the next century. So even with grounds of mental and physical cruelty, you must expect that Vikas will be granted custody of a child over the age of five. If and only if he wants it.”

  Anu folds, smooths and unfolds the handkerchief upon her sari-pleats, reminds herself that Chetna is safe in Toronto. “I don’t think Vikas will ask for custody. How long will it take me to get a divorce?”

  “Not you. Your family—if your family persuades your husband to come to a mutual agreement and negotiate a financial settlement, then only a few weeks from the date we draft a divorce petition. If he contests it, minimum seven years.

  “Seven years!”

  “That’s if I fight your case. If you go to other lawyers who don’t fight as hard, then ten or twelve. The Guinness Book of Records says that one case took seven hundred and sixty-one years—oh, not here in the capital. In another town.”

  “So if he contests, I’m expected to live on five hundred rupees a month and support my child for ten or twelve years? That’s impossible.”

  “The way you’re talking!” says Mrs. Nadkarni. “Maybe the father will support her. Some men do, na? And this is not New York or London—we can rely on family. Actually, who else can we rely on? Your father is alive—that is lucky. Do you have brothers?”

  “No—I mean, yes—I had one. Younger. But he is no more.”

  “Oh. Very very sad.”

  “Yes, and I don’t want my parents to have to look after me—they have been through enough.”

  “Of course. Extended family, i.e. brothers-in-law, uncles, cousin-brothers?”

  Anu shakes her head. Dadu lost his immediate family in the violence of Partition, and was raised by a cousin-uncle. Mumma’s older brother is estranged, thanks to his disapproval of Mumma’s marrying down-caste. He and his wife have never called, sent sweets for a birthday or festival, or dropped in. Mumma didn’t invite them to Anu’s wedding.

  Her extended family members are her Purnima-aunty and Sharad Uncle. She and her little brother, Bobby, lived with them so they could attend English-medium schools in Delhi while Dadu was transferred across India on government postings.

  “Can you rely on them?” says Mrs. Nadkarni.

  “How do you mean, ‘rely’?”

  “I mean financially.”

  “Well—only on my father and my Sharad Uncle. And I don’t know how long I can impose on them. Especially if Chetna could be fifteen or older by the time my divorce is final.”

  “Could your father or uncle persuade your husband to sign an amicable agreement of separation, guaranteeing payment for his daughter’s education and wedding?”

  Anu’s bruised clavicle throbs. “I’ll ask them, but …”

  “No? Okay,” says Mrs. Nadkarni. “Then we should hope that by the time your divorce comes through, your daughter will be grown up and your husband will have paid for her wedding.”

  So the molasses-flow of divorce cases through the courts can benefit Chetna, so long as Anu remains technically married. And keeps herself from killing Vikas.

  “What if Chetna doesn’t get married?”

  Mrs. Nadkarni laughs. “No, no!” she says, as if the very possibility is just a mother’s silly nightmare.

  She asks more questions about Anu’s salary, Vikas’s wealth and income, company names, organizations to which he donates. “Has he applied for one of those new cards the banks are offering? Credit cards, yes?”

  “No. He only uses cash.”

  “Black money, yes? Difficult to trace.”

  Cars—makes, models? Several, but the one that comes to Anu’s mind is the cream and maroon Cord Roadster, gone for two years. Her hand rises involuntarily to her scar.

  And she’s back in the tobacco-brown passenger seat of that ’37 convertible, holding her dupatta across her mouth to filter dust. The car he had in college, refurbished with the money his parents gave him to spend on a puja ceremony for the birth of his son, after he learned Anu had produced a daughter.

  Wheels squealed as the Cord careened around the pedestal where Queen Victoria’s statue once gazed down its stoney nose upon New Delhi. The parade lawns flashed past as Vikas shot off toward the massive archway of India Gate racing a biker on a motorcycle—black as the lampless night. Up Raisina Hill, the floodlit pillared domes and ramparts of the Presidential Palace silhouetted themselves against the night sky. Up the sand-bordered pathway of kings and viceroys they zoomed, as if all of Delhi was still and only the car flew in the breath of a lion.

  Vikas drew closer and closer to the motorbike as if he were riding a horse off on a polo field, trying to scare him. One swerve too close and the motorcyclist peeled away to the sandy shoulder. The wheels of the motorbike jumped the low chain secured between cement posts to cordon off the lawns and sped on, but the Cord rammed straight into the post.

  … A web of stellar streams above … a blade of white pain in her skull … Hot hot hot screaming hot screaming … blood-red veil before her eyes, as on the day of her wedding …

  She can’t remember scrambling out, just staggering away, and looking back at the shattered windshield. Blood on each palm. Hot hot hot. The screaming in her ears was her own.

  The Cord ignited in a halo of saffron. Vikas was a black silhouette against the crackling flames and petrol smell. Feinting like a fencer, getting as close to the car as he dared. Then he doubled over, weeping.

  For his car.

  The lawyer is still talking. She’s telling Anu that since Vikas would be assumed to be the primary member at the Gymkhana Club, the Delhi Golf Club, the Habitat Centre and the India International Centre, it could take from fifteen to forty years on each waiting list for Anu to become a lady-member.

  “Vikas’s father is the full member, not Vikas,” says Anu. “Vikas is a full member only of the golf club. He’s so proud of that. I always felt out of place there.”

  “I will draft the divorce petition and file it in the court. Notice will be served by registered letter, then by dasti. By hand.” She translates the Mughal-era term. “And if that is not possible, a copy will be affixed to the door of his home. My assistant will let you know the date of your first hearing. You should pack a bag with your clothes and all your papers and valuables.” Mrs. Nadkarni nods at Anu’s bruised face.

  Most of her pants and shirts are still in her old home at Purnima-aunty’s, along with several saris and salwar-kameezes, her books, and piano—Vikas’s Ralph Laurens, Burberrys and Calvin Kleins occupy the closet space in her marital home. If Anu had produced a son she might have earned a little closet space.

  “Find a safe place to stay. Friends?”

  Names pour through a sieve in Anu’s mind. Who will value her when she has lost so much worth in her own eyes? Close friends from college have changed last names, moved away to their husband’s hometowns. Several are in Bangalore, married to software engineers who are coding away to save the legacy systems of North America from the meltdown expected on January 1, 2000. Some, like Rano, married into families that moved overseas during the brain drain era.

  You go to school with other girls, share meals, ideas, books, games, jokes, struggles, and then you get married off, and your name is changed. They change their names too, and
you never see most of them again.

  The few attempts she’d made to keep up with classmates or make new friends failed—“She’s too dark,” Vikas would say of each one. Or, “She has such a screechy voice.”

  “Why doesn’t your friend Shalini wear a sari like a decent married woman?” he once said. “She secretly wants to live in London. She’d move tomorrow, if she could take her servants.”

  But even if she had kept up with Shalini and other friends from school, their husbands wouldn’t want a divorced woman staying with them, and for who-knows-how-long.

  She may not be able to heal herself, but the world needs healing. She may not be able to heal her family, but her existence should do some good for India, for the world. All ambitions too grandiose to mention—especially with her aching ribs and shoulder.

  “I’ll find a place,” Anu says to Mrs. Nadkarni. “I’ll phone and tell you where I am.” She writes a cheque and signs a vakalatnama appointing the lawyer to begin her divorce.

  Anu takes a taxi back to Kohli House. She downs two Naprosyn and a Crocin—her second round of painkillers today. Then she fills her largest suitcase, humming a hymn she used to play in church when she was … oh, fourteen.

  If you’ve courage to give, give it now,

  If you’ve kindness to share, share it now.

  If there’s hope you can raise or someone you can praise,

  Do it now, do it now, do it now.

  Now, before it is too late.

  Now’s the time for every good deed.

  Do not wait until tomorrow.

  For it may be just a little too late.

  She takes only the jewellery she received from Dadu and Mumma, a few everyday salwar-kameezes and dupattas, socks, underwear. Five pairs of thin-strapped high heels, her Bible, her copy of the Bhagvad Gita, the rosary Sister Imaculata gave her at graduation. All the money she can find, including some change from Vikas’s change-bowl.

  Hurry, hurry.

  School records, her science degree, driver’s license. Photos and videos of Chetna, her baby girl—this is NOT the time to linger over them! Chetna’s birth certificate, school certificates, Punjabi bride doll.