Nimita's Place

by Akshita Nanda

  Only then did Karan notice the blue salwar kameez moulded to a nicely curved form, the long plait clipped tidily, the light blue chiffon chunni tied across the girl’s body like a military sash, so it wouldn’t get in the way of the ball.

  “Not fair, Didi, not fair,” Roshna said.

  “You had plenty of warning,” said her opponent.

  “Another set, Didi, please.”

  “No, look, it’s getting late. Come, let’s meet Daddy and then we’ll drop you home.”

  Karan found his voice then, managed to say something, make his greetings and then a quick escape with his chattering little sister. Roshna thankfully didn’t realise that her quiet brother’s silence meant something else.

  Brought up all his life to obey and serve, to think of his brother like Lakshmana thought of Rama, to follow his mother’s orders like Rama followed Kaikei’s, how could Karan not be attracted to the strength he had seen on the tennis court? How could he not follow with fascination the power of the arm, the daredevil smile, the sweat-streaked hair which the girl pushed back from her forehead before turning to the dark sky and shouting in happiness?

  Karan had laughed like that, surely. Perhaps as a child? Rarely since his father’s death. Almost never since Dilip-Praji’s illness, which meant giving up his dream of taking the ship to England and studying in Oxford.

  He had never complained, never let himself feel a moment’s sadness. But this goddess of the tennis court who yelled her joy and threw herself into the game, uncaring of what the world thought, seemed to embody every unspoken desire Karan had strangled when it became clear that his life would not be taking the path he had hoped for.

  What Reheza heard from Urmila was more prosaic.

  What she relays to Sharada is circumspect. No mother wants to hear that her child’s behaviour has caught the eye of a man—even such a respectable, rich man—in public.

  No, all Sharada hears is that Reheza has come to her house with the most precious, disturbing news the mother of a girl can hope to receive: news of a rishtaa.

  “God willing and if it is acceptable to you, I dream of the day Nimita-Babyji’s hands are filled with henna,” Reheza says, a little slyly.

  “I’ll have to talk to Him,” Sharada says, using the pronoun to refer to her husband as any demure woman would in public. “And also, Nimmy is very young, you know, just seventeen.”

  “Mashallah, nobody is in any hurry! A proper wedding takes months to plan,” says Reheza. Secretly she’s thinking about her own self—married off and pregnant at 16. Sixteen is a very proper age for a girl to be settled and have a home of her own.

  3.

  Her parents tell her about it the week after her birthday. “A special surprise for you today,” Mummy says mysteriously and Nimita squeals, thinking, of course, that Mrs Dalhousie spoke to Mummy and Daddy first! Of course they must have already called Charan-Mamaji in Simla and asked about applications to Thomason College of Civil Engineering in Roorkee.

  “This is about your future, beta,” Daddy says.

  Nimita tries not to grin.

  “You know your friend Roshna?” Mummy asks.

  Roshna is also going to Roorkee? Nimita thought she wanted to be a singer.

  “A proposal has come from her house for you. For her brother.”

  It takes her a few seconds to realise they are not talking about engineering.

  “Roshna’s brother is married,” Nimita says. She attended Roshna’s birthday party in Temple Road last year. There was a bhabhi helping to serve the sherbet and cake.

  “Her other brother, the younger one.”

  Nimita does not remember a younger brother. They are all the same to her, the young men, except perhaps Virendra Tiwana.

  “I don’t want to marry. I want to go to Roorkee,” she says.

  “What does marriage have to do with Roorkee?”

  Nimita adjusts her dupatta so she can take out the piece of paper. Her parents unfold it.

  “Mrs Dalhousie says I should apply. Mrs Dalhousie thinks I should become an engineer.”

  A short silence, then Daddy laughs. “Mrs Dalhousie!” What has that no-caste Anglo-Indian woman got to do with his Khatri Punjabi high-caste household?

  Mummy clears her throat. “That’s very nice, beta,” she says, entertaining the mad thought for a second—what if?

  A compromise suggests itself. “You know, you can continue studying after you are married if you like. Even those famous doctors Anandi Bai Joshi and Rukhmabai, weren’t they married when they left India to study medicine?”

  “Why should I marry first?” Nimita says. “Can’t I study first?”

  “It’s a very good proposal. Offers like this don’t come every day,” Daddy says, unable to keep silent. “It’s a very good family. They will keep you like their own daughter. Don’t you like Roshna and her mother?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know her brother.”

  “Listen to the child. So you’ll get to know him, na? After the roka, you can get to know each other. We’re not saying get married immediately. It takes almost a year to manage a wedding properly.”

  Nimita sulks and doesn’t sleep for an entire night. The topic is not brought up at breakfast so she thinks she is safe.

  Her parents spend the following Saturday with a visiting Brahmin and on Sunday, her mother, all smiles, says at breakfast: “The patris matched.”

  “Good, good,” says her father. “As Arya Samajis we don’t believe in these things, but it’s good that we observe the old formalities.”

  “What patri?” Nimita says.

  The Hindu reformation movement Arya Samaj means no pujas, no idol worship, no consultations with the astrologer before any major undertaking. The Khoslas strictly adhere to Arya Samaji rules except for pujas for Diwali and the two nine-day Navratri fasts in spring and winter. Then there is Lohri in between, the winter solstice when mustard and gur are burnt in the sacred fire to cleanse the family of evil. The Khoslas do only simple rituals like that.

  No idol worship, of course, though there are framed illustrations of Rama and Lakshmana and Sita, and Shiva and Parvati, and another of Hanuman in the most auspicious east-facing spot near the kitchen. There’s also a potted holy tulsi plant, which Sharada waters every morning to ward off evil from the home.

  But there are certainly no astrologers consulted in the Khosla household, except to chart Nimita’s patri, or horoscope, when she was born.

  “What patri?” Nimita asks again.

  Sharada says: “Roshna’s nephew is fifty days old. We should go and see him and also pay our respects to Urmilaji.”

  “Good idea,” says Prem. “Nimmy, wear nice clothes today.”

  She looks at them both. “Why?”

  “Don’t be silly, Nimmy. You know why.”

  She starts to complain but her father holds up a hand. “You say you don’t know the boy, na? Now we’re taking you to meet him. What’s the problem?”

  So she wears her pink-and-green salwar kameez with the sequins on the chunni. “Not like that,” her mother says, taking the hairbrush from Nimita’s hand, unplaiting her waist-length hair, brushing it thirty times and then carefully braiding it again. The crowning touch was the use of her own pearl-adorned bobby pins. “Now you’re ready.”

  The baby, Tony, is a tiny, fair oblong wrapped in a cotton blanket, booties on his little feet and mittens on his hands. Forgetting herself, Nimita oohs and aahs, vying with Roshna to hold Tony while Mummy says: “Careful, Nimmy. Support his neck.”

  Urmila-Auntyji smiles benignly.

  A cough. Nimita looks up to see a blushing face. He casts his eyes down rather than meet hers. “Give the chacha a chance too,” Mummy says.

  So this is Karan. Not much to look at, nothing eye-catching except perhaps his height. Standing up to hand over the baby, Nimita realises Karan is a head or so taller than she is.

  Conversation continues to flow around them. The adults speak of the weather, the high price of o
nions, the latest antics of the Muslim League versus the Punjab Unionist Party, everyone deliberately ignoring the bubble of silence between Nimita and Karan.

  They stand, then sit gingerly on the same diwan, a body of space between them. They watch the baby without any words.

  Say something, Nimita thinks, her mood sinking lower with every silent second.

  Say something, Karan thinks, his mood lifting with every quiet second. Silence means consent, doesn’t it?

  When the Khoslas get up to leave, Karan catches his mother’s eye and nods. Urmila looks at Sharada with a huge smile. Sharada turns at Nimita and says: “Touch Aunty’s feet.”

  “None of that, none of that,” says Urmila, letting Nimita’s hands almost reach the ground before pulling her up into an embrace. “Beautiful girl, gori-chitti.” She chucks her beneath the chin and tells Karan: “Touch their feet.” He receives the same treatment from the Khoslas.

  So it is settled, in spite of Nimita’s loud and consistent objections during the car ride home.

  “But he didn’t say anything to me.”

  “He’s shy. That’s very good. A good boy,” her father says.

  “He’s boring.”

  “Rubbish. He manages the family’s entire business. He’s just shy. I like him.”

  “But—”

  “Nimmy.” Only that one word from Sharada and Nimita falls silent.

  Later that night, as Nimita brushes her hair before bedtime, tears of rage running down her cheeks, Sharada comes to her room and takes the brush from her again.

  “My raja beta. Good girl.”

  “Why?” Nimita wails.

  “Ssh. Ssh. Are you a child or an adult?” Sharada lifts her daughter’s chin and looks into her eyes until Nimita turns away, ashamed. “Now.” She begins brushing Nimita’s hair. “You know your Daddy and I love you very much. Can’t you trust us? That we know what’s best for you?”

  How does one reply to that? Nimita has learnt no argument in her dozen years of schooling that could sway the minds of her parents once made up.

  In the last week of final exams for the first-year BA cohort, Nimita comes down to the breakfast table still dressed in her home salwar kameez.

  Prem looks over his newspaper. “I thought you had an exam today?”

  “I’m not going,” she says. “What’s the point? Are you sending me to engineering college?”

  After a shocked silence, Sharada looks at her husband. “Did you hear that?”

  Prem puts his cup of tea down very deliberately.

  Smarting, feeling very childish and small, Nimita says: “Why should I go?”

  “So you didn’t study?” her father says.

  “I studied!”

  “Then why won’t you go?”

  Because you’re marrying me off! You don’t care that Mrs Dalhousie thinks I can be an engineer. You want me to marry some cow-eyed stranger and sit at home and take care of his house all day.

  Nimita is too full of hurt and anger to say all this. Also, it has just occurred to her that her argument might seem disrespectful of Mummy.

  “On one hand you want to study. On the other hand you’re not going to sit your exams. You are acting illogically,” Prem says.

  So Nimita goes and takes her exam. But what’s the point? By the end of this year, when the second-year term is only halfway through, she will be married. She will leave this house in Model Town, with her bedroom and its view of the garden, with Kanta-Bibi giving her hot milk at night in the winter and cold lassi in the afternoon in summer. Instead of having parents and a household dance attendance on her, she will have to touch the feet of complete strangers and dance to their tune.

  A few days after the Khoslas visited, the Sachdevs came to Model Town in turn, carrying the roka. Baskets of gur and cashew-flavoured mithai were exchanged, along with silver coins to show that neither family would be looking at other prospective partners for their child.

  Karan said little throughout it all, only smiling widely. Nimita said nothing at all, her eyes downcast as her mother had ordered. Charan-Mamaji, her mother’s brother, down from Simla, kissed her on the forehead and said: “Be happy.”

  Be happy? Charan-Mamaji’s voice rings cruelly in her mind.

  How is she to be happy? The walls are closing in on her, the clock in the dining room ticking away the seconds of her freedom. Soon she must marry some tongue-tied second son who can barely speak—does he even know English?—and didn’t once look her in the eye even on the day their families sealed the deal.

  Her lavish trousseau has been ordered: saris of the purest georgette, French chiffon and crepe, silks from Bengal and Mysore, salwar kameezes of soft cotton and silk, phoolkari dupattas from Rukhsana, the best seamstress in Lahore. As is tradition, Nimita will embroider at least one veil herself. Her needle moves in and out of the cotton as if stabbing the future.

  Her tennis calluses are disappearing, her hands yielding to the nightly application of Pond’s Cold Cream. Twice a week Mummy also makes a face mask of yellow besan powder and fresh cream from Gullu’s Dairy, so Nimita’s skin glows despite the summer heat.

  Perhaps the glow is internal, anger at her parents for doing this, anger also at herself for being unable to change their minds. She is no Fearless Nadia from the movies, nor a heroine from Agatha Christie’s novels. Fearless Nadia travels on her own to foreign lands, as do Agatha Christie’s women. They travel to South Africa, to Mesopotamia; they solve mysteries, outwit murderers and only then fall in love. They are not married off before their adventures have even begun.

  “Laugh, Nimmy,” her mother tells her often. “You have such a beautiful laugh. Where is my princess’ smile?”

  The senior Khoslas smile often these days. Prem and Sharada are deeply relieved at the future God has ordained for their only child, their headstrong, darling, only daughter whom they named Nimita for a fortuitous destiny, but who had for a time refused to bow her head to fate. Roorkee! Edinburgh! After marriage, God and Karan willing, there is plenty of money for her to do as she wishes and nobody in society can say anything, not even the most eagle-eyed matron of the Punjabi Hindu Women’s Association.

  Sharada knows how many eyes are on her when she drives about in her car. That is why Nimmy has never been on the road alone. All it takes is one hot rumour for a reputation to go up in flames.

  4.

  The Sachdev mango tree flowers early and a basket of unripe fruit goes to the Khosla household for pickling. “So thoughtful Urmilaji is,” Sharada says, making sure to serve either the pickles or a salad of unripe mangoes to visitors.

  The Khoslas have received plenty of visitors since the roka. It was a private affair but news gets around and Lahorias make the dutiful trip to express joy in the wedding-to-be.

  Many are truly joyful, like the Bakshis, the Malhotras, the Damanias, the Khans. Others smile at the Khoslas and in private express surprise that the college-going, car-driving, tennis-and-hockey-playing Nimita has managed to snag such an eligible family.

  “Urmilaji even boasted of it,” Mrs Kaul tells her particular friend, Mrs Sinha, after the regular bridge-and-tea session of the Punjabi Hindu Women’s Association. “She said: ‘How nice to have a daughter-in-law who can drive you around.’ As if the Sachdevs can’t afford two chauffeurs and two footmen to stand on the running board of their cars.”

  With her younger son taking over the business, Urmila is re-entering the social whirl with a vengeance. Her older daughter-in-law runs the household smoothly, the new daughter-in-law will partner her at bridge, keep her up to date on the newest English novels and be a credit to her at any public function.

  Her daughter Roshna is ecstatic. She appears at the Khosla household regularly now with all the confidence of a soon-to-be sister, saying: “Didi, no, Bhabhi, let’s play tennis, na?”

  Nimita puts her off the first three times, discussing novels at home instead or letting her giggle over the embroidery. The fourth time Roshna bursts in crying: “Te
nnis, Didi! Tennis!” even Mummy says: “Yes, go and have a game at the Club. It’s not too hot also.”

  “But Daddy has taken the car.”

  “Chandu can call for a tonga.”

  “No, Auntyji,” Roshna says. “I have a car and driver.” She giggles guiltily. “If you don’t mind?”

  “Mind?” Sharada looks at her and then smacks her hand to her forehead. “Oh god, beta! You left your brother outside? What is this?” She moves to the verandah.

  Karan is standing in the driveway, dressed in tennis whites. They contrast nicely against the family’s blue Ford.

  “Auntyji, you also come,” Roshna says.

  Sharada looks at brother and sister and back at her statue-still daughter. “I’ll just take five minutes to change, haan?”

  The Punjab Club is a twenty-minute drive away. The Ladies Club is only walking distance from the Khosla bungalow, but Nimita’s father prefers that she use the tennis courts in the Punjab Club.

  For years, British traders and officers capitalised on the all-white membership policy of the Punjab Club to woo Indian businessmen with invitations to drinks or games of tennis followed by lunch in the dining room. Then in August 1942, the Quit India Movement gave several club members a severe case of indigestion. Amid the civil unrest and general anti-British sentiment, respected Indians like Feroze Damania had a quiet word with such eminent members of the Punjab Club as Mr Harrison of Harrison’s Department Store on the Mall and Lieutenant Talbot of the British Army Central Command (Lahore Division). Current contracts would be honoured, of course, no question about it, but with the confusion in the country, it would be difficult to confirm future supplies and orders.

  Of course, Indians were very keen to maintain good relations with particular British and European friends…

  After a few months of deliberation, Feroze Damania and friends were informed that the Punjab Club was considering expanding its current roster of membership. Perhaps Mr Damania and some particular friends could be persuaded to join? Hadn’t Mr Damania’s son expressed a keen interest in tennis the last time he was a guest at the club? How wonderful if he could continue to use the club facilities as a member’s child.