Nimita's Place

by Akshita Nanda

  “Nimmy beta?” Urmila-Mummyji calls from her room.

  “Haanji,” she answers, pitching the word in a tone guaranteed to carry but not so loud that it sounds like she is shouting. There are a thousand little rules like this for daughters-in-law and months before the wedding, Mummyji made her practise even her “haanji” so she would not shame her parents in her new home.

  “Beta, I was thinking, what should I wear on Thursday?” Urmila-Mummyji stands near her almirah, the doors of the gleaming wood-and-steel cupboard are wide open to show rows of saris and salwar kameezes on shoulder-shaped hangers. Urmila-Mummyji thinks only to distract her new daughter-in-law and playmate but a tiny spark of excitement is kindled in Nimita’s brain.

  Sharada Khosla, an orphan brought up by a doting brother, has always made it a point to be abreast of the latest fashions and more important, to know what looks good on her. Elegance is not the same as fashion. She learnt this at the age of ten, when Charan-Bhaiya bought his sister a polka-dotted frock that hung stiffly on her thin frame. The starched cotton was the height of fashion, but made her look like a triangle. Her best friend, Poonam Mehra, was dressed by her mother and never looked anything but pretty and presentable.

  Sharada watched Poonam and Poonam’s mother and read fashion magazines. By the time she was 13 she had trimmed her wardrobe so beautifully that no schoolmate or schoolmate’s mother whispered about “that poor motherless child’s clothes” ever again.

  Without thinking twice, Nimita steps forward to her mother-in-law’s cupboard and picks out three hangers based on the colours on display. “The peacock blue, the emerald green or the russet brown, Mummyji,” she says.

  “Haan? I thought these saris. They are cooler and this one is so new.”

  Nimita looks at a pale yellow that will leach the colour from Urmila-Mummyji’s face, a pink that is almost too young, even for Roshna, and a grey that will be fine but needs to be dressed up with pearls.

  “The yellow,” she begins, then rethinks her words. This is Urmila-Mummyji, not Mummy, and communications must be handled differently. “The yellow is very light for the bright sunshine, it will look washed out maybe?”

  “Haan,” says Urmila-Mummyji.

  “The pink is a very nice colour. I thought it will suit Roshna actually, it’s such a nice colour for young girls.”

  “Hmm,” says Urmila-Mummyji.

  “The grey is very nice,” says Nimita, quickly spreading it next to the intense colours she originally chose. “What do you think?”

  Urmila-Mummyji’s hand hovers over the four saris. “The green is very nice and I haven’t worn it in a long time,” she agrees.

  It becomes a ritual, Urmila-Mummyji calling Nimita in for a wardrobe consultation before they head out. On Saturday, Roshna realises what is happening and demands that Nimita-Didi help her with her wardrobe too.

  Slowly the clothes in the house get rearranged, colours that look best on Urmila-Mummyji taking centre stage in her almirah, the rest are distributed among her daughter and daughters-in-law or put away discreetly until a use can be found for them. Some of them are too nice to be given to the servants.

  Shanti-Bhabhi allows herself to be swept along in the fashion wave. She is as happy in faded blue salwar kameezes with turmeric stains on the front as in the royal purple Nimita insists she wear. She makes one small comment about getting “all dressed up” when she is in the house all day, but when she goes to give Dilip-Praji his tea, his eyes light up. After that she is completely in Nimita’s hands.

  When Nimita turns 18, a small dinner gathering is arranged to celebrate and the Sachdev women are resplendent in new saris chosen especially for the occasion. The guests murmur and compliment them honestly on their beauty and even Sharada Khosla presses her daughter’s hand and says: “You’re looking lovely, beta. Very nice.”

  Later, when Nimita is alone with her mother, they discuss every aspect of the party, from the cake ordered from Shaan Bakery to Karan’s gift to her, a gold elephant pendant with emerald eyes. The Sachdevs’ new wardrobe naturally comes up.

  Nimita basks in Mummy’s compliments and then tells her exactly who dresses the family. Deeply relieved by her daughter’s newfound energy and interest in life, Sharada nods. “Good, beta, very good. But you’re not troubling Urmila-Behenji, na?”

  “Mummy, no,” says Nimita. “I’m helping.”

  But the tone of the conversation leaves a troubling sting. Though she is married and a grown woman, all of 18 years old now, it seems that to the elders she is still a child. And when she thinks about it, really thinks about it, it is as a pampered child that she is being absorbed into her new household.

  When Karan comes home with her favourite mithai, when Urmila-Mummyji asks her to sing, when Roshna hangs on her neck and demands she tell the story of King Arthur and his knights, Nimita finds the sweet flavourless, the song passionless. The story reminds her of the Agatha Christie heroines who fight murderers in Egypt and England and other faraway places she will never see.

  This is what it means to be treasured, she thinks. It is to be protected and sheltered, to see everything and do nothing.

  She runs her hand along the rows and rows of salwar kameezes and saris in her almirah, touching them without feeling them. Mrs Kaul’s daughter Archana commented at the last informal bridge meeting how she envied Nimita’s clothes and how she would love for Nimita to give advice to her tailor on the design and stitching of Archana’s new clothes. Maybe if more of these women start coming to her, it will begin to fill the days.

  “Anyone there?” Dilip-Praji calls from downstairs. “Anyone there?”

  It is after lunch. Roshna is still at school, Urmila-Mummyji is napping in her room. Nimita hears Shanti-Bhabhi reply and goes down to see what is happening.

  There is a smell of something burning in the living room. Dilip-Praji is seated on the diwan near the radio, hand on the tuning knob, which moves uselessly. “It just stopped working,” he tells Shanti-Bhabhi. “Send Radheshyam for the electrician.”

  “Don’t touch that, Praji!” Shocked by Nimita’s raised voice, Dilip-Praji drops his hand from the radio.

  Nimita goes to the wall, wraps her chunni around her hand and pulls the plug.

  “It can be dangerous,” she says.

  “The cabinet is Bakelite, electricity doesn’t pass through that,” Dilip-Praji says, beginning to laugh. His little sister teaching him about radios!

  “This model has the antenna built into the cabinet, Praji,” Nimita says, placing the plug carefully on the table. “You never know. If enough voltage passes through the coil, it can make even Bakelite burn.”

  Shanti-Bhabhiji gasps and turns to her husband, who sits a little farther away from the model.

  “Call the electrician,” Dilip-Praji says.

  “Let me look first,” says Nimita. “Bhabhiji, we have a screwdriver somewhere?”

  Bibi is called, then Radheshyam and two screwdrivers arrive along with newspaper, rags and a battery-operated torch. By then Nimita has changed into the oldest of her salwar kameezes, still new and less than a year old, specially stitched for her life in the Sachdev household.

  The table is covered with a newspaper, the radio placed on it with its speakers facing the wall. Nimita begins to undo the screws before her rapt audience of two. She removes the chassis and places it against the wall, then turns the torch on and looks inside the radio.

  “What are you doing?” Dilip-Praji asks.

  “I’m checking the tubes, Praji,” Nimita says, carefully examining the half-dozen tube parts within. Thankfully they are glass and she doesn’t have to remove them to check that the wires within are still whole. Not the tubes, good. But also bad because tubes can be replaced, the supply is coming back to the market. Other parts are not that easy.

  She takes the tubes out very, very carefully, noting mentally where they are supposed to go and placing them in order on another sheet of newspaper near her feet. “Please don’t move t
hose,” she says when Dilip-Praji bends to touch them. “I need to remember how they go back in.”

  “Shall I make a note of them?” Shanti-Bhabhi asks and when Nimita nods, gets up to get a pen.

  Nimita looks through the inner casing, eyes roving over the connected capacitors and other components. She is looking for obvious damage, anything that looks black or discoloured or maybe a wire soldering that has come loose. If it’s a soldering job then they need an electrician.

  Nothing she can immediately identify and that means they probably need an electrician.

  Wait, one last possibility. She adjusts the position of the radio skeleton and yes, there it is. The dial string of the tuning knob has snapped.

  She reaches for the front of the cabinet and checks it too. Yes, as she thought. The antenna in the cabinet has also frayed. Who knows which part gave way first, but luckily both are easily replaced. It’s just a long, annoying job.

  “What is it?” Dilip-Praji asks, having examined the radio tubes to his satisfaction.

  “Two small things. Actually, one small thing, one big thing. The antenna snapped, Praji, but I’m going to twist the wire like this and it should work.” Nimita works as she speaks.

  “The big thing is the tuning wire. We need a new coil and I need to restring it on these pulleys, see?”

  Radheshyam is sent to buy tuning wire and copper wire. While they wait, Shanti-Bhabhiji calls for chai.

  “How did you learn all this, little sister?” Dilip-Praji asks.

  “Here and there. There is a magazine also, Radio & Telegraph. I used to read it at Kinnaird. My Mamaji from Simla also sent me some copies.”

  “That sounds quite interesting. I’d like to read it.”

  “I’ll ask Mummy to send over my magazines from home. They stopped printing it in the last few years but maybe now they’ll start it again.”

  As they finish their chai, Radheshyam comes panting back with the wires. He hands them over to Choti-Bibiji and then retires to squat in a corner of the living room. Even Shukla-Bibi has come from the kitchen, ostensibly to take the tea things but actually to watch the show.

  The antenna is easily repaired but restringing the tuning wire is a job for nimble fingers. “Shall I help?” Shanti-Bhabhiji says, and between the two of them, the wire finally sits neatly on the right grooves. Nimita carefully closes the chassis and then looks up to see four pairs of eyes on her.

  “It will work now?” Dilip-Praji asks.

  Nimita swallows. “It should.”

  She hasn’t checked the plug wiring, or considered the capacitors. There could also be problems there. If she fails now in front of all these people…she squares her shoulders, grabs the plug and fits it into the wall.

  A high-pitched whine sends four pairs of hands over four pairs of ears. Nimita moves the tuning knob carefully, praying for resistance against her hand, almost crying in relief when the knob turns slowly, not spinning as it would if the repair were badly done.

  The whine softens into a crackle and buzz and then into the clear tones of a BBC announcer. “… As the final stragglers of the so-called Indian National Army surrendered in Rangoon. Among those who surrendered was Captain Dr Lakshmi Sehgal of the all-female Rani of Jhansi regiment. Captain Dr Lakshmi Sehgal led an all-women’s platoon and was also chief of medical services. So after shooting at British forces, she was honour-bound to care for the fallen in her own field hospital, she told our correspondent. In her own words—”

  Nimita surfaces from the news to applause from Dilip-Praji and a hug from Shanti-Bhabhiji.

  “Amazing. What a clever little sister,” Bhabhiji says.

  “You must get me those magazines,” Dilip-Praji says, lying back on the diwan, all the excitement too much for him. “I also want to learn.”

  Later that night Karan combs the hair back from her face in bed. “Who knew my wife was an electrician as well,” he teases. “Next time we have a problem at the factory, I’ll send the car for you.”

  “Why not?” says Nimita and Karan laughs. But she is not joking.

  “I’d like to see the factory sometime. Understand your machines,” she says.

  “Why not?” Karan says, settling down on the pillow, arm on his forehead. It is hot and Nimita moves a little away from his body.

  “When will you take me?” she asks.

  “To the factory? Haan, we’ll make a programme, all of us, and go and see,” he says, eyes beginning to close.

  “No, I mean,” she starts speaking and then stops, frustrated.

  “We’ll go,” Karan says, already falling into sleep.

  Prowling around the house the next morning, Nimita spots the day’s edition of the Tribune. Among the front-page articles is news of the establishment of an All India Council for Technical Education. “The aim is to set up colleges to train the engineers and draftsmen India sorely needs,” the article says. India is not alone in needing such personnel. Around the British Empire, the engines of war have consumed technicians, mechanics, architects and doctors and spat out shell-shocked soldiers. To Nimita, however, the headline is a taunt, a challenge, made worse when Radheshyam comes in to tell her: “Someone has come for you,” and she enters the small drawing room to see her old principal, Mrs Dalhousie.

  “You look very well,” says Mrs Dalhousie over a glass of nimbu paani. The muted strains of the All India Radio Service float in. Dilip-Praji is resting in the living room.

  Nimita bows her head and notes the crisp folds of Mrs Dalhousie’s grey-and-silver cotton sari, perfect pleats fanning out from her seat, undaunted by the summer heat. Mrs Dalhousie is always perfectly attired for any occasion. Her self-possession and self-confidence are part of the reason why so many upper-class Punjabi families send their daughters to Kinnaird. “Watch what Mrs Dalhousie wears, see how she carries herself,” is the order given by many mothers to their daughters.

  Strange how much influence she has, a no-caste Anglo-Indian, a widow with no children. These two factors have forced thousands of weaker women to their knees and left them content to be overlooked by society and grateful to be fed on scraps.

  Mrs Dalhousie has never been weak. “How have you been keeping yourself busy?” she says.

  Nimita smiles. “Yesterday I fixed the radio,” she says.

  Mrs Dalhousie nods. “The teachers miss you. You should come and visit us.”

  Nimita looks at her hands.

  “I’m not saying come back to college. It’s the summer holidays. Come and visit.” Mrs Dalhousie sets her glass down. “Though if you like, I could use your help with a little summer project.”

  A no-caste, Anglo-Indian, childless widow has a lot of free time on her hands, time that can either be spent mourning her lot or observing, moving, acting in the world. In the past few months, Mrs Dalhousie has noticed something that Nimita has not, separated as she is from the kitchen and sequestered in Temple Road, in the heart of Lahore.

  Sharada Khosla and Kanta-Bibi in Model Town have seen more ragged groups on the road, more women coming to the door looking for work and being turned away after a glass of lassi.

  “Khosla-Bibiji will feed every beggar who comes to her door but what of us?” mutter Kanta-Bibi and Ghanshyam.

  The Khosla servants are also from villages where wartime rationing of cloth and grains has resulted in sunken cheeks and people leaving land untilled in favour of seeking work in the cities. Some of the dispossessed farmers are men. Fewer and more vulnerable are the women, often with children, not all brought of their own will to Lahore.

  Mrs Dalhousie has no work for the men. She has some hope she can help some of the women. All she wants is a few bolts of cloth, easily liberated from the mill of Sachdev Textiles and passed on to her special charges, currently camping around the servants’ quarters of Kinnaird.

  “They need clothes, for themselves and their children. If you can give the cloth, that will be a big help,” she tells Nimita.

  It is like a fantasy, her former princi
pal asking her for help and help that seems so easy to give. Bolts of cloth? Urmila-Mummyji has only to snap her fingers and Karan will send whatever she asks for. So Nimita wants very badly to say “Yes, of course” but the last two days have shown her that no matter how loved and petted she is, she is yet to be taken seriously by her new family.

  “I’ll ask…Him,” she says, hating herself even as the words come out of her mouth.

  Mrs Dalhousie knows her girls.

  “How old are you, Nimita?” she asks. “Just turned eighteen? Very good. Do you know, girl, that in the servants’ quarters at Kinnaird is a woman just your age with two children? Her husband died almost two years ago so she went to people in Ambala. They treated her like a servant so she somehow got on a train to Lahore and is now begging for work. She told me: ‘If I’m going to be treated as a servant, let me at least be paid for it.’”

  “What about her parents?” asks Nimita.

  Mrs Dalhousie looks at her. “Not everyone is lucky.”

  Nimita looks at her hands, then to the wall. Neither offer any answers.

  “I’ll…talk to Him,” she says again, hating the inadequacy of the words.

  2.

  The best time to talk to Karan is after dinner. After the men and Urmila-Mummyji are stuffed with hot parathas and dal and sabji. After Shanti-Bhabhi and Nimita have eaten and directed the clearing up and the serving of sweet, gold mangoes, some from the Sachdev tree, some from the five planted in the Khosla compound in Model Town. The mangoes from home—from the Khosla household—are of two kinds, one soft and juicy enough to suck dry without peeling, the other ripe, sun-swollen and releasing a warm, heady fragrance when cut into three pieces. The Sachdev mangoes are nice to eat but best for pickling.

  After mangoes, after the men have finished their nightly conversation in Dilip-Praji’s room, Karan massaging Praji’s swollen feet like an ideal younger brother should, just as Lakshmana tended to Rama in the forest; after Nimita has kissed Tony-Baba good night and gossiped with Shanti-Bhabhi and then gone to Urmila-Mummyji’s room to see that she has everything she needs, a sheet instead of a blanket, water on the nightstand, the book she was reading. After Nimita has checked on Roshna and heard the schoolday’s events retold with giggling details. After, she sits by her teakwood dressing table, and Karan has come in and closed the door, dimmed the kerosene lamp and moved behind her, hands gently kneading her shoulders.