Nimita's Place

by Akshita Nanda

  “Later I can demo how we make our matcha latte if you want a video for your Instagram?”

  Irving looks at her and smiles. “Thanks but I’d like to try that other idea first.”

  She smiles so widely I can see the braces on her teeth. “Oh wow. I mean, sure, of course, Mr Wan. I’ll, I’ll just go get it ready, yah?”

  “Call me Irving.” He turns back to the tray. She walks backward to her counter.

  “Ohhh, Mr Wan,” Chia Ying coos. “I’m your number waan fan.”

  I gulp the cold tea. Disgusting. “You better be careful.”

  Irving looks at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know. Don’t give her ideas.” Just because you’re a six doesn’t mean it’s obvious to everyone else.

  Irving takes the last plate off the tray.

  There is a pie with lemon slices on it, a small tart with berries and cream, two ice creams in waffle cones—one brown and the other green, the same colour as the two drinks. One is a green milk latte—must be that Japanese matcha green tea which tastes so funny—and the other is a cappuccino. There are designs on the drinks. The matcha latte has a mermaid on it and the cappuccino has a dragon.

  “Isn’t that amazingly ironic?” Irving says. He takes a picture of the drinks first, then the desserts. Then the drinks and cakes together.

  “What’s so ironic about a cappuccino?”

  “He means the mermaid on the matcha latte,” Chia Ying says. “Green? Mermaid? Starbucks?”

  “Where’s my drink?”

  The counter girl comes back with two cups. “Here you go, Mr Wan. Irving.”

  Irving smiles at her and pushes one cup to me, one to Chia Ying. “Have a sip of this. Only a sip.”

  I take a sip.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Irving grabs the cup as I’m tilting it towards my mouth. “Stop!”

  “What?” It is the most delicious Indian-style tea I have ever had in an up-market Singapore café. A bit milky, a bit too sweet but otherwise, perfect. There’s even elaichi in the drink.

  “So it’s good?”

  “It’s almost perfect.” I reach for the cup. He moves his hand away. “Irving, if I don’t drink it now, it will get cold.”

  “Just a minute.” He looks at Chia Ying. Her drink is green.

  She makes a face. “No. Yucks.”

  “All righty then.” Irving poses my cup next to the brown ice cream and takes a picture. “Okay, now.” He gives me a spoon. “Have some of the ice cream.”

  The ice cream is a frozen version of the same tea. I drop the spoon. “Yuck.” I take the cup back and have a nice hot sip. “Why would anyone do that to tea?”

  “Royal Himalayan Milk Tea,” Irving is typing into his tablet. “The coolest item on the menu is just as good hot. Hashtag yolo, hashtag you do you.”

  “What’s yolo?”

  “Y-O-L-O. Y you liddat one?” Irving says in Singlish.

  “Why am I like what? Wait, Y-Y-L-O. That’s wrong.”

  Chia Ying laughs. “You only live once. Y-O-L-O. But Nimita, Irving is right. Why you so liddat one? Drinking hot gelato.”

  I take another sip of the tea. “It’s really good, Chia Ying, you want to try?”

  “Yucks no. I had the matcha ice cream hot and it was un-matcha-bly disgusting. Geddit? Un-matcha-bly.”

  “Posted!” Irving sits back on his stool. “And the hits come in, bada-boom-ba-boom-boom.”

  “Irving, are you singing?”

  “No.” His ears go pink.

  “He was doing rap,” I tell Chia Ying. “You should hear him in the kitchen sometimes.”

  Irving’s ears go fully red.

  “Thanks for the treat,” I say after finishing my tea. “How many followers now?”

  “Million-and-fifth today. One million and five unique followers on all social media sites.”

  Chia Ying and I clap. “Well done.”

  “And—” he sweeps his hand forward, almost knocking over his cup, “The Straits Times is going to interview me.”

  Chia Ying’s mouth is open.

  “That’s big,” she says.

  I say congratulations but I don’t understand. Irving has already been interviewed by so many bloggers and websites.

  “Newspaper is different,” Chia Ying says. “Newspaper got weight. You can cut it out and show your parents, right?”

  Irving’s ears are pink again. He doesn’t talk much about his family. I know they disapprove of his career choices—a bit like my family.

  Romy-Bhaiya was interviewed by the Mumbai Mirror when he got his full scholarship to MIT. Mummy framed the cutting and it’s in Dadi’s room, with all the other family pictures. Maybe if I get this grant at SGH, the newspaper will also interview me and I can send my family the cutting. The buas will not text about eligible sons then.

  “Actually, I also have some news,” I tell them. “I got my appointment to submit my application for PR.”

  Chia Ying claps. “Congratulations! Double celebration!”

  “It’s just an appointment with a government office, isn’t it?” Irving says.

  “You don’t get those easily,” Chia Ying says. “My colleague wants to apply for PR but her appointment is in January next year.”

  “Wow.” I feel a lot better suddenly.

  “But then she’s Filipina so it’s harder for her,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “You need to read beyond the property section of The Straits Times sometimes. She really does only read the property section,” he says when Chia Ying raises her eyebrows. “You know she only buys the paper for it.”

  “By right it’s a triple celebration,” Chia Ying says. “Raymond has left Economics Weekly.”

  I look at her. “That’s good news?” He’s coming back so soon? What does that mean for Irving and me?

  Chia Ying nods. “Yah, good news. Because that Indian TV channel, NDTV, is hiring him as a consultant. Two-year contract, more money.”

  “Congratulations!” Chia Ying will need roommates for two more years! That is good news.

  We clink empty cups. I want more hot gelato but don’t want to sound greedy.

  Irving waves and the counter girl comes running. “May we have another round?”

  “Of course, Mr Wan!” The drinks come in no time. My Royal Himalayan Milk Tea is even hotter this time. Awesome.

  “So are you also moving to India?” Irving says.

  I massage my wrist.

  “My salary won’t be as good in India.” Chia Ying moves her shoulders. “But it’s cheaper there. Can afford domestic helpers. I don’t know. Maybe. Nimmy, what do you think?”

  The hot cup feels good against my wrist. “I think you will find life very different in Delhi. More restricted.” For women, anyway. Mumbai is better but it’s only in Singapore that I find you can walk on the street without men looking at you as if they own you.

  Chia Ying laughs. “Like Singapore is so free? You siao ah.”

  “Or Hong Kong,” Irving says. He is looking at his phone and typing.

  Our phones ping. He has shared an article on the Flatmates WhatsApp chat group about some protest march in Hong Kong. There are photos of students waving flags that read “Occupy Central With Love and Peace”. They are demanding the democracy that they were promised in 1997. “Some of my friends are there too,” Irving says.

  “Where?”

  “Not in the picture.” He puts the phone down.

  I ask about his book to cheer him up. He moves his shoulders. Full Steam Ahead, formerly In Hot Water, is in some hot water it seems.

  “Nimita?”

  I look at Irving and Chia Ying but it wasn’t them who said my name. They are looking behind their shoulders at Gautam Bhatia.

  “Hi. I thought it was you.”

  “Hi. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m meeting some people.”

  “Oh.” Good, he won’t stay long. I n
od at him. “Nice to see you.”

  He looks down at Irving and Chia Ying.

  “This is my flatmate Chia Ying and this is Irving. This is Gautam. My aunt knows his parents.”

  They say hi. Gautam keeps standing there.

  Chia Ying says: “Hey, Irving, you want to take a video of the matcha latte art?”

  Irving looks at her. “No.”

  Chia Ying presses her lips together. “Irving, the matcha latte art will make a good video.”

  Irving looks at Gautam. “No.”

  See? He is totally a six because no ordinary guy would have understood what I am trying to convey through telepathy, which is: Help! Don’t leave me.

  Chia Ying hasn’t picked up on it at all. She gets up and says: “Irving, can I talk to you for a second?”

  He goes with her but he leaves his camera behind.

  Gautam sits down. Then asks: “Okay if I sit?”

  You’re already sitting. “Yah, sure.”

  “So how have you been?”

  “Good. Good.”

  “Busy at work?”

  “Yes. You also, busy? I thought you were going to Australia?”

  “Oh.” He spreads his hands. “That didn’t work out. Economic slowdown so the investors are taking a backseat.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I think there are some great chances in Singapore so we came back. Prem still has some connections at DBS Bank and Merrill Lynch. All high-level people. He thinks they’ll be interested in investing.”

  There’s no tea in my cup to sip. “Good luck.”

  We sit silently for a while.

  Gautam clears his throat. “Your parents didn’t send mine the patri.”

  I do a little pranayama breathing. “Gautam, I’m not looking for an arranged marriage.”

  “Me too,” he says very quickly. “All these old-fashioned things are very out of date. What is the need for all this? I told Mom, I said, look, we are both thirty years old, we are modern, career-minded people. We’ll just hang out and take it from there.”

  I have to swallow something but the only thing to drink on the table is Irving’s half-finished matcha latte.

  “Gautam, I’m really not interested in marriage.”

  “Yes, of course, right now even I am only focused on Haanji. But we can be friends, right? Good friends.”

  He puts both his elbows on the table and leans forward. Suddenly he is very large, occupying all the space in the room and sucking the air from it too.

  I can’t even lean back because of the stupid wall.

  “Gautam…”

  His elbows knock Irving’s matcha latte.

  “Hey,” Irving says. Somehow he has appeared and is standing behind Gautam.

  “Sorry, man. Sorry, sorry.” Gautam moves to the side. Suddenly he looks smaller and I can breathe again.

  “Done?” Irving looks at me.

  I nod.

  “Nice to meet you, but we have dinner plans.” Irving folds his arms.

  After a while, Gautam gets up. I don’t watch him go because I need to do pranayama breathing.

  “You’re doing that thing again,” Irving says.

  My left hand stops on my right wrist just as Chia Ying reaches the table.

  Part Four

  1945–1946

  1.

  Four months after her wedding, Nimita puts her hand to a radio. In the Sachdev household, All India Radio news service plays in the morning, BBC News Service in the afternoon and evening, and in between there is classical hour and the soap opera dramas that Roshna and Urmila-Mummyji are keen on. The radio is on almost all the time, a three-year-old RCA Victor tabletop model kept to the left wall of the living room where Dilip-Praji spends many hours resting. It gives him great pleasure to hear Urmila-Mummyji say: “Beta, find my drama for me, na?” or “Beta, what was that programme we heard last week?”

  With little to do but “rest” while his younger brother runs the factory and his mother and wife run the household, Dilip-Praji has memorised the daily list of radio programmes. It is his job to call: “Mummyji, your drama is on” or “Roshna, the film-song hour has started”. Roshna closes her eyes and sings along to the music, secretly dreaming of how wonderful it would be if a director like Syed Shaukat Hussain Rizvi heard her singing and made her a star, as he did for his wife, the singer Noor Jehan.

  Her new family’s fondness for the radio is one of the many nuggets of knowledge Nimita acquires in the first three months after marriage. The days explode with revelations, some private, some public, some humdrum, some exquisitely delightful. The soul-deep joy found in contrasting textures of skin, hirsute against smooth, for example, the entangling of limbs at night, in the morning, even twice daringly in the afternoon when Karan comes home for lunch while Urmila-Mummyji and Roshna are out and Dilip-Praji is asleep.

  The brushing out of hair, always such a pleasure when Mummyji and Bibi—that is, Kanta-Bibi—did it in the Khosla household, now takes on new gravity and excitement when it is Karan unwinding the plait and plucking bobby pins out and gently massaging Nimmy’s scalp.

  Tennis too is a new pleasure in the smaller Sachdev lawn. Urmila-Mummyji and Dilip-Praji sit on the verandah, holding Tony-Baba up to see as Roshna and Nimita play. Shanti-Bhabhiji calls to them to come have nimbu paani, all that running around in summer is not good.

  Dilip-Praji’s winter-pinched cheeks grow pink and slightly rounder. The arrival of a new “little sister” is a welcome change to his exhausting existence. One afternoon he even gets into the Ford with Urmila-Mummyji and Roshna and Shanti-Bhabhiji while Nimita manoeuvres the blue car out of the compound and towards the Punjab Club. Sipping lime soda and sitting in the main lounge are enough to tire him, though, and there is no question of his bending to touch the feet of the ladies who come to greet him, to congratulate Urmila-Mummyji on the perfect health and appearance of her family.

  Within a month, Nimita has exhausted her new wardrobe because she is Urmila-Mummyji’s pride and joy. Resplendent in her wedding trousseau, she is showed off at the Punjab Club, at gatherings of the Punjabi Hindu Women’s Association and at the informal bridge group, which meets twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, without fail. Learning the names of all the auntyjis and how they take their tea and snacks takes two meetings. Learning the names of the daughters-in-law who accompany them takes another two meetings.

  Within a month, Nimita wakes on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a dreary sense of dread. Is this to be her life now? Accompanying Urmila-Mummyji to these gatherings with other wives of second- and third-sons, women who are surplus to the running of a house but who are pretty, living mannequins for the clothes their in-laws can afford to have them wear?

  Her only job is to pour tea, greet elders and partner her mother-in-law in winning bridge contracts. Even that is no sustained challenge unless Mummy plays—and Mummy would never let herself win against her daughter’s mother-in-law.

  It is no better at home. Nimita is Choti-Bibiji to the servants, who are smartly trained under Urmila-Mummyji. They have adjusted to the reign of Shanti-Bhabhiji and will make no further accommodations now, thank you very much.

  Sometimes Nimita is given little jobs to do: stirring the mango pickle, deciding what Bibi—that is, Shukla-Bibi—should make for lunch. There is even less to do in this house on Temple Road than there was in Model Town because everything is available for buying. Even paapad is not dried on the roofs when you can buy it freshly made from a shop just down the street.

  The one thing she can do is show Shanti-Bhabhiji and Shukla-Bibi how to use a National Presto pressure saucepan. There are rumours that more models will be on the market by the end of the year as soon as the war is over. For now there are only a few pressure saucepans in Lahoria households, and none in the Sachdev home.

  Mummyji had ordered Khushboo to get another one in time for Nimita’s wedding so it could be presented to Urmila-Mummyji, but the storekeeper pulled at his beard and said: “Bibiji, I’ve tri
ed and tried but they are just not supplying these any more. If I hear anything, of course.”

  One Tuesday, when it is Urmila-Mummyji’s turn to host the informal bridge club, Nimita gets Mummyji to send over the pressure saucepan with Radheshyam, the Sachdev gate guard. “It will cook anything, just like normal, but in half the time,” she explains to a wondering Shukla-Bibi and a curious Shanti-Bhabhiji.

  “How does it do that?” Bhabhiji asks.

  “Bhabhiji, it has to do with pressure and boiling point,” Nimita says. “You know how chai in Simla tastes different?”

  Shanti-Bhabhiji has never been to Simla. She is from a family in Delhi.

  “Oh. Anyway, water boils at a lower temperature when there is less pressure, and at a higher temperature when there is more pressure around it. As the water in the pan heats and becomes steam, it tries to force off the lid like when we make chai? Yes, like that. The lid of the saucepan is too heavy to be forced open though, so the pressure builds up, the water boils at a higher temperature and because of all the heat, the food cooks faster.”

  “How clever my little sister is,” Bhabhiji says, meaning it. “Did you hear, Shukla-Bibi?”

  “Yes, Bibiji,” says Shukla-Bibi. “But won’t the pan explode?”

  “No, no,” says Nimita. “See how thick it is? How the lid closes tight over the saucepan?”

  They cook paneer and late peas in the saucepan and after that, some gobi. The mattar paneer is a success; the gobi lacks the rich, roasted flavour of the kadai, Bhabhiji and Shukla-Bibi say.

  “But it’s very useful, very useful,” says Bhabhiji. “We must place an order for such a saucepan.”

  Perhaps she even means it but the partial success of the saucepan has left Nimita feeling fully hollow. Such are the revelations that lead her to despair: that her marital home is still waiting for a telephone and messages must be sent to Mummy in Model Town through Radheshyam. That though this house in Temple Road is supposedly her home, she must leave the choice of radio station entirely to Dilip-Praji.

  The day after the bridge club, she wanders around the house to the sound of All India Radio advertising washing powder. There are books in her room from Punjab Public Library, even an Agatha Christie novel she has not yet read, but she is sick of sitting down quietly.