Daughters Inherit Silence

by Rasana Atreya

  Ananta chewed on her thumb.

  “What?” Jaya said.

  Ananta wouldn’t meet Jaya’s eyes.

  Jaya pulled her down to the bed in her room, wrapping her arm around the girl. It was a rare day when Ananta and she were alone now. Since marrying Kovid, life had been one emotional rollercoaster after another, with barely any downtime. The girls were together all the time, excited to be in the same class at school, and sharing the same room at home. In fact, Ananta had been excited to go to Hyderabad with Kovid and Nina. Till she hadn’t. She’d made an excuse and backed out. Now, Jaya wondered. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Ananta buried her face in her mother’s chest. “I like Dad.” She began to sob.

  Jaya was confused. She cupped Ananta’s cheek, forcing her to look up. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  Ananta cried harder. Jaya rocked her, her stomach tightening. Was her new family falling apart even before it had the chance to be? God, don’t let it be anything my baby can’t handle.

  A long time later, when Ananta had no energy left to cry, she sat up.

  Jaya poured out a glass of water from the side table. Her stomach had twisted itself into knots by now. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  Ananta drained the glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Do I have to?”

  “You don’t have to,” Jaya said, apprehension almost choking off words. “But secrets have a way of weighing us down. I suspect you’ll feel lighter if you tell me.”

  Ananta took a noisy breath. Her shoulders sagged. “Nanna’s ashes were released into the Krishna river.”

  “They were.”

  “And Krishna is in Telangana.”

  “It is.” Jaya had no idea where her daughter was going with this.

  “If we go away from Telangana, won’t we be leaving him behind?”

  Pain hit her with physical force. Pain that her young daughter was dealing with emotions so big. Reaching for Ananta, she tightened her arms around the girl, rocking them both.

  Minga leka, kakka leka.

  Her throat felt raw, like the insides had been slashed with a blade. “No,” she said hoarsely. She had to force the words out. “How can we be leaving him behind, if he’s always in our hearts?”

  Jaya felt Ananta relax against her. She sagged against the wall, glad Ananta’s pain did not involve Kovid. “That’s what’s been bothering you?”

  “That, and Dad.”

  “What about Dad?”

  “I feel bad about how he makes me feel.”

  The physical pain was back, worse than before. With trembling hands, Jaya cupped her daughter’s cheeks. “Is that why you didn’t go to Hyderabad with him?”

  Ananta nodded.

  Jaya forced down deep breaths, trying to dislodge the pain in her chest. “Can you… can you tell me more?”

  “I’m beginning to like him. A lot.” Ananta looked up, her brown eyes anxious. “Isn’t that disloyal to Nanna?”

  Jaya sagged against the wall again, fighting an insane urge to laugh. “You like Kovid?”

  “He’s nice,” Ananta said shyly. “Even though he tells such silly stories. We’re eleven, not seven.” She looked indignant at the mere thought.

  “Kanna!” Jaya was almost giddy with relief. “Do you love me?”

  Ananta nodded.

  “What about Madhav mavayya?”

  She nodded, smiling now.

  “And Shreya?”

  “She can be a little bossy.”

  At Jaya’s mock glare, Ananta laughed.

  “When you love me, does it reduce your love for Madhav mavayya?”

  Ananta shook her head.

  “Liking Dad, even loving him, is exactly the same. Just because you care for him, doesn’t mean you’ll ever stop loving Nanna.”

  The relief on Ananta’s face brought tears to Jaya’s eyes.

  “Remember, two years ago what you asked for your birthday? A sister, or a puppy? Well, now, you have your sister.”

  “Can we get a puppy when we get to America?”

  “Good try.” Jaya swatted her.

  Ananta laughed in delight.

  “And remember how much you’ve wanted a father in your life? Well, now you have one.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Ananta’s laughter was full of joy.

  * * *

  The sweat chafed Jaya’s skin. Prickly heat, the ads for talcum powder called it. “Whoever came up with the term ‘Indian Summer’ was out of their minds.”

  “You sound as grumpy as Shreya.” Madhav laughed. “I think the summers they were referring to are the bright, beautiful summers of the native Americans, ones that follow their long, dreary winters.”

  She pulled her top away from her skin, but the relief was minimal. They were in the middle of an unscheduled power cut. The heat was so intense, even the inverter had given up. Now there was no power to even run the ceiling fan, no pretence of moving the sluggishly hot air around the room.

  Kovid had gone to drop Nina and Ananta off at Madhav’s. The air-conditioning in the car would keep the kids cool till Shyamala took them to the theatre. She was taking the girls for a movie so Kovid and Jaya could pack in peace. Madhav had been crazy enough to volunteer his help, even though the movie and ice cream would have been the common-sense option.

  “Every year, it feels like the summers in Telangana are getting hotter.” She waved a hand towel in her face.

  “Global warming.” Madhav’s face was red from the heat. He’d been chugging copious amounts of fluids all afternoon.

  Schools had ended mid-March. Sensible people used this opportunity to spend the hottest part of the summer with relatives living in coveted destinations. The relatives paid themselves back by spending their own winter holidays here.

  Jaya had kept the kids indoor most of March, especially between the hours of 12 pm and 3 pm. Now that the exams were over, the kids were antsy. Jaya didn’t blame them; she was antsy, too. Once the decision to shift to America had been made, she found herself detaching from the village, one emotional strand at a time. The world around her seemed to be doing much the same. It was as if they had severed her moorings from the village, casting her adrift in an ocean of uncertainty.

  Each time she stepped out now, the ladies in the locality talked of a future that no longer included her. Happy as she was that Kovid and Nina were now family, she felt sadness at this; leaving the village had never been her plan for life.

  Schools in Telangana reopened in early June, about the same time schools in California shut down for their summer. This would give the girls over five months off. How was she going to keep them busy? How was she going to keep herself busy?

  Add to that, leaving behind her brother—the one person she could call in the dead of the night. And her parents: now she’d never get the chance to make up with her mom. A debilitating wave of grief surged up. Jaya fell against the wall, willing her gut to uncoil.

  “Jaya? You okay?” Madhav set the photographs aside in concern.

  Jaya forced herself to straighten. “When I needed someone to lean on, you were there. Every single time.” The obstruction in her throat was painful to swallow past.

  Minga leka, kakka leka.

  “Hey,” Madhav said, putting his arm around her. “You’re getting a fresh start in life. How many of us get to do that?”

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m truly happy that Ananta will get to grow up with a man who is so incredibly kind and loving. But…” Her voice caught. “It’s so hard to leave you behind.”

  He leaned his head against hers. “I know.” He sighed heavily. “This isn’t easy for me, either. Or Shreya.” He cleared his throat. “It could be so much worse. Kovid could be not the man he is.”

  “That’s true.” She straightened, dabbing at her tears. Her happiness with Kovid came at a cost—she was having to leave behind her beloved brother. On the other hand, had she not faced the loss of Anant, would she feel the joy of Kovid�
�s presence in her life and her daughter’s?

  Joy and sorrow: the two sides of the Hindu philosophical coin.

  A long time ago, Jaya had been to see Jagannath, the resident god of the town of Puri. In the month of Ashadham, his massive chariot rolled through the streets of Puri, its ropes dragged forward by hundreds of his worshippers. The momentum generated was such that once it started to move, it could not be easily halted, not even if a devotee stumbled and fell, giving rise to the English word “juggernaut.”

  She felt trampled under her emotions much the same way. It wasn’t nearly as hard to leave her parents behind because she could count on her fingers the number of times her mother had seen Ananta over the last ten years. They might have reached out now, but the fact of the matter was that her mother hadn’t been there when Jaya needed her.

  Unlike her brother.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

  Jaya recalled a friend who grew up with a stepmother whose cruelty had been legendary. And yet, when it came time to move away to college, the friend was strangely reluctant. It was only now that Jaya understood: Her friend might not have wanted the abuse, but her fear of the unknown was a lot worse.

  * * *

  “When life gives you lemons, you thank Madhav.”

  Kovid pretended to stagger under the load of the ten lemons he’d got from Madhav’s tree.

  “I can live my life out in peace, knowing my sister will never starve.” Madhav rested a hip against the kitchen counter, rolling a glass of chilled water against his forehead.

  “What?” Kovid looked confused as he put the bag on the counter.

  “If your medical career ever stalls, Dr Murty,” Madhav said drily, “you’ll have your comedic skills to fall back on.”

  “Ha ha.”

  Despite herself, Jaya laughed.

  “That’s right,” Kovid grumbled. “Take another man’s side over your husband’s.” He dug into his pocket for a handkerchief and mopped up the sweat. “Man, it’s hot.”

  Hot or not, Kovid’s face was aglow. For him, this past year of indecision had been hard. His life had essentially been on hold.

  As now, hers would be. Till she got Ananta and Nina settled in. Till she started working again. What would she do with herself until then? And the money. For many years now, she’d been taking care of herself. How would it be, having to ask Kovid? Not just for herself, but for Ananta, as well. She felt unsettled.

  * * *

  Death and shifting had a lot in common. Both involved the anguish of lives interrupted, the loss of words unsaid, the list of things left undone.

  Jaya looked at her little house. It was where she’d sought sanctuary after a hard day at work. It was where she’d built memories with her daughter.

  Now her life was packed away in boxes, revealing unsightly walls behind the beds, unknown floors beneath the almirahs.

  Unknowns that were unsettling.

  Ananta clung to her, for once declining to play with Nina and Shreya. She watched as the labourers loaded the truck.

  Their entire life in twenty boxes. Jaya hugged Ananta, knowing she felt that same sense of loss.

  “Now someone else will call it home,” Ananta said. “It feels so wrong.”

  It felt like a violation. But that wasn’t something Jaya would say to her vulnerable child. She said, instead, “Think about it this way. We already have a place waiting for us in San Francisco. A new family, a new life. Maybe it is time for someone else to make memories here.”

  Ananta nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced.

  When Anant died, even as his body lay on the ground in the front of their house, awaiting transportation for cremation, even as Jaya’s heart was breaking both for the unborn child she carried and her young husband who would never get to see the miracle they had together created, her aunt reminded her that Jaya needed to be strong for her baby.

  By holding everything in, by never being able to talk about Anant and life because “why talk about the past, it is time to move on,” she hadn’t been allowed to process her grief. It was like his existence had been wiped clean. It was another matter that his absence also meant that she would be relegated to society’s forgotten spaces, in order that the rest be able to move on.

  Back then, Jaya wished someone had told her it was okay to be vulnerable, okay to fall apart so later, when the sharp bite of grief had settled to the dull jabs, she’d be able to pull herself together.

  Now, when she had Kovid to lean on, she was still struggling. Now, she had two daughters who were depending on her to not fall apart.

  51

  Jaya

  Jaya stood at the window in Kovid’s condo, marvelling at the culture shock that was America. She’d never seen such windows before: if you sawed off a hexagon through its middle, one half of it—with its three sides—formed what San Franciscans called the bay window. Was it because it allowed the inhabitants unobstructed views of their beautiful bay?

  Colourful yachts bobbed in the ocean. Back in India, when Kovid had talked about gorgeous summer days, Jaya had no idea what he was talking about. In southern India, where it didn’t snow unless you headed to the hill stations, all days were sunny. Here, many days started out cold and foggy, which meant that when the sun did make its presence known, it was hugely appreciated.

  And the Bay Bridge! The Golden Gate Bridge got a lot of attention for its history, but when it came down to it, the Bay Bridge beat it hands down for sheer beauty. Jaya often found herself making the quick five-minute walk to the Embarcadero where she captured the various moods of the bridge, often WhatsApping them back to Madhav. She laughed to herself. In the last few days, she’d possibly photographed every single angle of it. The beauty of this town was like that of supermodels. You could definitely appreciate them. But could you fall in love with a beauty that was unattainable?

  * * *

  The gated-community-residing upper middle class in India, newly minted from foreign tech jobs, carefully insulated itself against the ambient poverty. With its broad tree-lined streets, carefully manicured lawns and artfully decorated interiors, it demanded instant service—from its milkmen, its maids, its drivers, its cooking-gas suppliers—all of whom were carefully confined to shanties outside of these hallowed gates. The gates came down after each vehicle, ensuring that the poverty remained firmly contained on the other side.

  San Francisco, Jaya was finding, was sanitised in much the same way. Beautiful Victorians, fancy glass towers rising high into the sky, along with the homeless huddling under the underpasses of the San Francisco Bay Area's freeway system. Minimum wage workers—sometimes legal, often not—the ones who made San Francisco the international tourist destination it was, commuted in, the rents barricading them outside the bridges that allowed them into the city for work.

  Regardless, the country was seductive. Jaya could see why someone would want to give up their life of unimaginable privilege in India—drivers and cars and maids and bungalows—to come here, even if it meant driving their own cars and doing their own laundry. Especially if you were female. The lack of judging eyes, the anonymity—it was heady.

  Jaya smiled in pleasure as she walked alongside her husband. It was early yet, but the four of them were still jet-lagged from their journey halfway across the globe. Up ahead, lights on the gorgeous Bay Bridge shimmered in the fog of the morning. Around them, as Kovid had promised, suit-clad men and ladies whizzed past on skateboards and portable scooters, on their way to work.

  “Do you think you could learn to live here?” Kovid asked.

  The beauty of the place was captivating—of that there was no doubt. The view of the bay, with the town of Oakland right across, was no match for her small gurgling brook in the midst of Telangana’s arid countryside. In an ironic twist to that iconic song, she was in San Francisco, but her heart was firmly back in Telangana. “It’s been four days,” Jaya said finally.

  “Fair enough.”

  Nina pointed out the sigh
ts of her hometown, proud and happy.

  Ananta was overwhelmed, Jaya could tell. But her daughter was young, and children were resilient. Jaya wasn’t so sure about herself.

  A man in a superman costume blew soap bubbles as he breezed past. “With that kind of costume, what kind of job is he headed to?” Jaya asked.

  Kovid laughed. “This is San Francisco. He could be the CFO of a big company, for all you know.”

  Jaya had seen the big-name companies on their walks around SOMA, which was short for South of Market. Market street, the artery of San Francisco, was walking distance from branded powerhouses like Salesforce, LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub and Google.

  Kovid said, “You should see the Bring Your Own Big Wheel race. Big people on little-people tricycles careening down a steep street in crazy costumes. This town can get crazy, I’ll tell you. And Halloween. No one celebrates Halloween like us San Franciscans.”

  Jaya heard the love in his voice, and her heart—the one left behind in Telangana—sank. How were they going to make this work?

  * * *

  Jaya stood at the small circular dining table nestled against the bench seating of the bay window, staring out at the beautiful bay. Pedestrians walked, jogged, skateboarded, and used means of travel that she couldn’t even begin to describe.

  Kovid came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her. Nuzzling her neck, he said, “The food smells great. And so do you.”

  “What are you doing?” Nina squealed.

  Kovid dropped his arms and stepped back. He made faces at the girls, causing a fit of giggles.

  Perhaps isolation from all that she knew was the price Jaya had to pay for Ananta’s happiness. The girl had blossomed. She and Nina had bonded, both happy to share parents, and a room on the second floor of the condo. She was laughing a lot more now, even daring to tease Kovid.