The daze of mixed emotions has now left me. I don’t feel angry that she lied to me about her parents, I don’t feel left out and cheated that she loved me and told me all the stories behind her cutting herself but not the one that mattered. I don’t feel cowardly I couldn’t break her out of the house and run away with her. All I feel is overwhelming love. After all, I too had kept Sami alive in my head, in my behaviour, in the way I felt and interacted, in the way I lived and the way I loved, till I met Brahmi and everything changed.
Maa asked about the bruise and believed me when I told her that Sahil and I had gotten into a friendly scuffle.
17 November 1999
I have tried to rationalize my love for someone who might be a little—how do I put it politely—unhinged, by saying I have the capacity to love anyone, but it’s not that. I know I just love her and I love her no matter what.
Maa–Baba’s eyes were glued to the television. Thousands are dying as I’m writing this. Maa at one point lamented, ‘Why! Why would something like this happen to the poor Oriyas?’
‘Like the Punjabis?’ I asked.
Maa nodded. ‘Yes, like them.’
Baba chimed in, ‘All thieves, every single one of them. That property dealer? He told us the kitchen was waterproofed. It drips every night now. He has the gall to say that we should look for another flat! Imagine! All of them are the same!’
‘They don’t have a coastline,’ I argued.
I don’t share Maa–Baba’s sense of empathy. Who’s them? Who’s us? The definitions are fluid. For today, the Oriya people sinking in their watery graves are ours, Muslim or not. And that Punjabi property dealer who hadn’t got the kitchen roof waterproofed is them. And Zubeida Boudi, a Muslim, is ours, her child is ours.
And whose is Brahmi? Who’s going to cry for her if something happens to her? I have struggled to conjure up a future for Brahmi and me. But whatever it is, I will have my place in it. I have been checking on Brahmi every day. She still comes to the balcony every afternoon. She still looks like absolutely nothing’s wrong with her life which explains a lot now. Grief and she have been with each other for so long that suffering silently is second nature to her.
I have waved from beneath her window, written placards, thrown pebbles at her to catch her attention but nothing has worked. Yesterday, the watchman came running after me.
I got myself a buzz cut and returned today. And thank god, I did. I saw Vedant enter her house. I paced around outside, waiting for him to emerge with Brahmi. After a while, he emerged alone from the building.
Before I could reach Vedant, he drove off on his motorcycle.
Having had enough, I rang the bell to her house. Luckily, it was Brahmi who opened the door.
Before I could say anything, she said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid. I can help myself.’
Her name was called out.
Brahmi shouted back, ‘SALESMAN!’ and slammed the door on me.
‘I love you,’ I said but the she was long gone.
Now as I’m writing this I’m trying to recreate what had happened. Was she being hit? How sad was she? Did she have something on her mind? Does she still love me? Can I kill her Tauji–Taiji? How long will I have to wait to see her again?
19 November 1999
In the evening, we went to Boudi’s house. Her bump is considerably larger now. Only yesterday, Maa helped Zubeida Boudi redo a stitching of her burqa. Maa’s guessing it is going to be a boy from the size of her bump. It’s surprising to see how irrational she can get despite her education. For the most part of the evening, Maa sat right next to Boudi, one hand firmly on her stomach as if she didn’t trust her with the life growing inside of her.
‘I have had three children, so I know,’ said Maa. ‘You should rest at this time, Mamoni. Work can wait but at this time you should concentrate on yourself.’
‘She can’t miss office now. She was just made the team leader. A holiday will set her back,’ said Dada.
‘That is such good news!’ said Maa.
‘Maa? Do you even know what it means?’ Dada joked.
Maa frowned. ‘I know that it means more money and respect, doesn’t it, Mamoni?’
Zubeida Boudi nodded.
Maa–Baba had decided to call Zubeida, Mamoni, a common Bengali nickname which roughly translates to ‘little girl’. ‘Zubeida’ was too . . . Muslim.
Maa continued, ‘I won’t ask you to not go to office but it is a risk. That’s what I will say. Anything can happen. I have been working for so long now and everyone around me takes a holiday. If you don’t want to it’s okay but it’s for the good of the baby.’
Boudi stole a glance at Dada. Saying no would have been rude, and I guess, saying okay wasn’t what Dada and Boudi wanted.
To break the awkwardness Boudi said, ‘We should all go to Ansal Plaza. My treat?’
‘What’s that?’ asked Maa.
‘It’s a mall, Maa,’ said Boudi.
‘Ansal? Are they the same?’ asked Maa looking at Dada. Dada nodded. ‘No one is going there!’ shrieked Maa. ‘Not even you and Mamoni! Did you forget Uphaar?’
‘That was more than two years ago,’ said Dada.
‘How does it matter how many years ago? People don’t change. No one will go to Ansal Plaza.’
Two years ago, a fire had broken out at Uphaar, the cinema hall we were to go to that evening but changed plans at the last instant. Fifty-nine people choked to death. Dada had boycotted the place.
The next day, Maa–Baba went to Kali Baari and prayed for our good fortune. They donated a small gold set of Maa’s to the gods.
Later, when Maa told Baba about Boudi’s promotion, Baba said, ‘So she’s Anirban’s boss now?’
‘She still wants to go to office,’ said Maa.
‘You see, no matter what you do, she will never change. She has her claws in our son.’
‘People don’t change,’ said Maa.
The conversation ended there.
While Maa came home, I stayed back at Dada’s place from where I left for Brahmi’s place to see if she would turn up at the window. Boudi said, ‘Be careful, Raghu. If you need help, tell me.’
‘Brahmi doesn’t need help. She will take care of herself.’
‘Then why are you so worried?’ she asked.
‘Because I need her.’
I left and like every day I stared at her window. And then something snapped and I found myself climbing the scaffolding faster than she or I had ever climbed. Within a minute I was at her closed window. I knocked lightly and there was no response. I whispered her name and it was futile. Learning from what I had seen in a movie, I wrapped my T-shirt around my hand and punched the glass which gave in. I let myself in. The room was empty. The bed—gone. The cupboard—gone. The candles lay strewn around. Her clothes weren’t there. Neither were her books.
Brahmi didn’t need me.
She had helped herself.
23 November 1999
Today’s the fourth day with no news of Brahmi’s whereabouts. Yesterday her Tauji had chased me out their apartment complex when I had asked him about Vedant.
To distract myself, I spent today evening in Dada’s flat watching Hip Hip Hurray, a TV show set in DeNobili High School. It’s fiction because schools like these don’t exist. No one in the show knows how to tie a knot, or tuck in his or her shirt, and every skirt ends above the knee. The story is about eleventh and twelfth graders but none of us behave as audaciously as they do. The kids also look much older. And what kind of a name is DeNobili High School? Why couldn’t their stories be more real? Like of a girl who misses her parents so much she pretends that they are alive? Like of a boy who misses that girl so much he feels like a hole has been punched where his heart should be?
Just after the show ended and before I left, I heard Dada and Boudi fight.
Maa–Baba often ask me how Boudi and Dada live, if Boudi is regular with her namaz, and if Dada lights incense sticks every day in the little temple
Maa had tucked into one corner of their bedroom. Maa makes sure she’s never in their house when it’s time for Boudi’s namaz. One time, I caught Maa cradling Boudi’s prayer mat.
‘What are doing with that?’ I had asked her.
‘Nothing, I was just . . . cleaning the house,’ she had answered looking away.
To keep up with and to beat Boudi’s religious fervour, Maa–Baba have taken to praying more often. It’s not only on Tuesdays but Mondays and Fridays too that I have to go the temple. Arundhati doesn’t mind. ‘It’s so calming,’ she says. But it’s not, and it’s infuriating. My prayers for Brahmi have come to naught. Baba noticed my disinterest the day he came along. Tired and angry at Baba correcting my chants in front of the pundit and Arundhati, I had snapped, ‘I am sure our gods know English and Hindi and Bengali.’
‘And theirs don’t understand anything other than Arabic?’ Baba had retorted.
I asked Boudi the same. ‘I was wondering why Arabic? Like he could have chosen a more popular language, no? Or is it the only language he knows?’
Boudi answered with the equanimity of a sage in her voice, ‘That would be limiting of Allah to know just one language. He used Arabic because he thought it was apt for the revelation.’
‘But why?’
‘You don’t question the word of Allah,’ said Boudi.
‘When you mean you, do you mean Muslims or do you mean me as well?’
‘Where is all this coming from? Did Maa–Baba say anything?’
I shook my head.
She sighed and came and sat next to me. Boudi said, ‘Hindus and Muslims have always found pretexts to cut each other to pieces. You see when the British left, we didn’t kill our British oppressors who persecuted us, partitioned us, but we killed each other. We forgave the British immediately, but we will never forgive our own people. Like when Kashmir is no longer an issue, we will find a new reason to be at each other’s throats and it might last another hundred years for all we know.’
‘Will it ever end?’
‘Not in our lifetimes, Raghu, not in our lifetimes. But things can change, right? Look at your Maa–Baba. They have accepted me in their little ways, have they not?’
‘They have, I guess.’
‘You still don’t know where Brahmi is?’ she asked. I shook my head. ‘She will reach out. Don’t worry.’
I am sure she will. But when?
30 November 1999
Dada’s birthday has always been a dull affair. One-armed hugs.Paesh. Maangsho. Pulao. And that’s it. No gifts. No big smiles. No hullabaloo. But today was different. A certain excitement had gripped the Ganguly household. The house was being wiped and dusted and swept clean. Two maids and Maa–Baba had turned the house upside down and were putting it back together.
‘There’s a puja in the evening. Pundits from Kali Baari are coming, it’s for Anirban’s birthday,’ said Maa.
With Brahmi’s abandonment of her school and me and our love, everything had been a little fuzzy. It’s been eleven days now. I have checked the newspapers every day for any suicides in the Gurgaon area.
Thankfully Maa–Baba or even Dada haven’t noticed the bereavement on my face for Maa’s new obsession with Zubeida Boudi’s pregnancy hardly gives her time, and during her spare time I’m usually outside Brahmi’s house, looking for signs of life.
I took no part in the day’s proceedings. Instead, I stared at the landline, willing it to ring, knowing full well she wouldn’t call.
As our apartment slowly transformed into a temple, I left the haze of the agarbatti smoke behind and went looking for Arundhati, who had been looking for me as well.
‘Boyfriend?’ I asked as we walked around in the apartment’s park.
‘Yes. He asked, me and I said yes. On the last day of the exams,’ she said.
‘Sahil knows?’
‘Not yet,’ said Arundhati. ‘But Rishab is going to tell him today.’
Arundhati told me she was thankful to me for making me meet him. Quite frankly, I couldn’t find it in my heart to be happy for them. How could they decide on pursuing a new relationship, fall in love, when a friend of theirs was going through what she was? I faked a smile and congratulated her and wished her the best of luck. They were not really my friends. They just filled the hours in my day.
It was still early evening when I was sent to Dada’s house in order to fetch him and Boudi.
I rang the bell and waited. Through the rusted iron mesh of the gate, I saw Boudi’s swollen red eyes staring back at me. Dada came and got the door while Boudi disappeared inside the bathroom to wash her face. She came out smiling. I was asked to watch television while Dada said he needed to talk to Boudi. Pumping the volume of the television to the maximum, I pinned my ears to the door to discern the nature of the assault that had reduced Boudi to tears.
‘I can’t wear this,’ said Boudi, crying again.
‘It’s just for one day, Zubeida. Maa will be happy if you wear this. Everyone will be old and married in today’s puja. No one’s going to look at you, trust me. Why don’t you look at it this way? Maa is finally accepting you! Her friends from the kitty and the colony will be there. It’s her way of showing you that you’re a part of our family.’
‘Anirban, I can’t!’
‘It’s just for an hour . . . Fine, do what you will do then,’ mumbled Dada and stormed out.
In the car, on our way home, the tension was palpable. While Dada felt choked at the grief Maa would feel parading Boudi in front of her friends in all her glory, the little crinkle on Boudi’s forehead told me about her consternation at her new family worshipping a statue with eight extra arms and another with an elephant head sitting quite unbelievably on a mouse.
Maa welcomed Boudi with open arms. Not a frown, not a wayward grimace.
The Ganguly house wasn’t quiet in the two hours Boudi spent there smiling at everyone, bending down and touching people’s feet, talking about their kids, her parents, her job and the little kid who was about to come. She talked with poise and grace, shifting from Hindi to broken Bengali to English with unmatched ease, a spitting image of Maa. She’s beautiful, everyone said, some with love-laced malice. In a room full of jealous Hindu women who worshipped Surya, it was a Musalman woman who glowed like the sun itself. In hushed tones, they discussed the merits of the burqa. ‘It blocks out the sun and gives these Musalman women a nice complexion and skin,’ one said. ‘They all come from Afghanistan, that’s why,’ another argued. ‘But dark skin is more beautiful,’ a third had her final say.
Baba scowled the entire evening. Maa steadfastly kept herself busy, laughing too loud, frowning too much, as if she were made of nerve endings, capable of feeling everything.
When the puja started, Maa chanted the mantras louder to compensate for Boudi’s Muslim-ness. She chanted over the pundit’s muted, indecipherable Sanskrit words. The blood red of her sindur, of her bindi, of the alta smeared on her ankles glowed through the loud chanting. It seeped out of her and into the women who too glowed with Hindu pride, with the fury and unpredictability of their gods, as if to overshadow the blackness of Boudi’s burqa. Maa’s half-closed eyes brimmed with anger and compassion and hate and love.
Arundhati and I sat together. She wore a red suit, in tune with the theme today, and looked to rush out the entire time she was here, waiting for Rishab.
After the pooja ended, women kissed their bunched-up fingers and then transferred their love to Boudi by touching her on the chin or her hands—osmosis?
Later we went to the temple and fed the hundred-odd beggars with watered-down potato curry and deep-fried puris. Maa must have kissed Dada at least a thousand times in the evening, trying to wheedle out of him compliments on how such a celebration was apt and also humanitarian. After Dada and Boudi left, I asked if my birthday would be celebrated like this.
‘No. Dada had to be reminded this time. We don’t want the child under her influence. He will grow up a Hindu,’ said Maa and went back to cl
eaning the house.
A little later, she handed the garbage bag for me to put out.
3 December 1999
Fourteen days. That’s how long it had been.
When I saw her today, I thought I was imagining her. But it was no mistake. She was blaring the screechy horn of her Tauji’s Bajaj scooter. It was then that it struck me that I hadn’t seen it parked below her house. She had taken it with her.
‘Hi,’ I said when she stopped near me.
We forgot how we used to greet each other so we shook hands like we were in business together.
‘I don’t have a phone,’ she said, looking at me.
‘I didn’t ask if you had one.’
‘Do you want to go somewhere?’ she asked.
I climbed up, and sat as far back as possible. She drove us to Wimpy’s.
‘Will you not talk at all?’ she asked.
‘I have nothing to say. You’re the one with a new life.’
‘Fine, I will speak.’
She told me her employers were teaching her to talk in an American accent, and that once she finishes that, she would no longer be Brahmi but Becky. She talked in her accent which sounded like a parody of how they talk in English movies.
‘I’m getting better,’ she explained. ‘You should see how good my colleagues are at this. The company knows we are lying about our certificates but no one cares,’ she added in the same breath.
It was disconcerting as to how she had bunched herself up in ‘we’, how she had decided on the course of who she would be like. For the next hour or so, she said how lucky she was to have Vedant as a brother who was showing her the world and how we, Arundhati and I, were depriving ourselves of the wonders that the life beyond Pitampura, beyond Rohini, beyond Dhaula Kuan and South Extension held. Her eyes glinted, as did mine, hers with hope and mine with mad envy.