Nimita's Place

  “Hey!”

  “What? I don’t have a moratorium on game-time.”

  “Speak English!” I mute the volume and shake the remote control at him. “That’s very rude, Irving. We were talking.”

  Irving looks at me and grins. “I’m being rude. Me.”

  “Yes!” I shake the remote at him.

  He is definitely smiling. “You just want to fight someone.”

  I shake the remote at him again.

  “In fact, you are a bomb just waiting to detonate.”

  I take my arm back to throw the remote at him and he throws a cushion at me.

  “Kaboom!”

  “Stop that!”

  He picks up another cushion. “For the sake of world peace, I challenge you to a duel.”

  “I said stop that!” I throw the cushion at him.

  Irving falls back against the sofa, closes his eyes and sticks out his tongue. “I’m dead.”

  “Irving.”

  “You have killed me with your weapons of mass destruction.”

  “Irving…”

  “It was a small price to pay for the safety of the world.”

  “Stop that.” I have to laugh. “That’s unfair. I’m being serious. You’re not being fair.”

  He opens his eyes. “You’re not being fair, picking a fight with the weaker sex. What was that about my genes?”

  “You’re such an idiot.”

  He takes the remote control from my hand. “Another twenty-five minutes?”

  I look at him. It would be so easy.

  Just 25 minutes more.

  But that’s how it starts. Half an hour becomes two hours and then six months down the line I could be suffering from sleep deprivation and mental disorders from too much gaming.

  “You are not serious.”

  “I’m very serious, Irving. I sent you the studies, did you read them?”

  “Then you need to be less serious.”

  “I am just the right amount of serious. You, however, are never serious.”

  I reach out and ruffle his buzz cut. It prickles my palm but in a nice way.

  Irving likes it too because he closes his eyes.

  I remove my hand and get up.

  “Nimita.” It’s rare for Irving to use my actual name. I turn around to look at him.

  “I want to be serious.”

  His eyes are big and very dark. I wait for him to say more but he only clears his throat.

  “Yes?” I finally say.

  “I need to tell you something.” Again that is all he says.

  I sit back down again. “Yes, Irving? Tell me.”

  “I have…a friend,” he says, slowly. “A friend who—who needs your understanding.” He stops and rubs his head. “This is difficult to say.”

  Oh. Is that it?

  My throat is tight but I manage to say: “Irving, I am your friend and I completely understand.”

  He puts his hand down. “You do? No, I don’t think you do. You see, my friend—”

  I pat his hand. “Yes, this ‘friend’.” Or does he mean a “friend”, like a special friend? Like in that movie Dostana where John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan pretend to be gay and then really-kind-of fall for each other. Or what is that one? Brokeback Mountain. As a six he will definitely have seen that one.

  I pat his hand again. “Don’t worry, Irving. Brokeback Mountain is one of my favourite movies. I cried at the ending.”

  He tilts his head. “Brokeback Mountain?”

  He hasn’t got it yet, what I’m saying.

  “We can watch Brokeback Mountain any time. Or Dostana, I’ll send you the trailer.”

  “Brokeback Mountain?”

  “Dostana is better. You’ll like it because the ending is happy. So will any of your friends you’d like to bring over. And you must feel absolutely free to bring your friends over. Chia Ying will agree with me.”

  “What will I agree with?” says our flatmate, closing the door.

  “I was just telling Irving that this is his home so he can always invite any friends over. Any special friends also.”

  “Yah, sure. Bring them over. Something smells cauliflower-licious!”

  2.

  “Hello? Helloo!” Hafeezah is at the grille door of my flat, smiling and holding up a red plastic bag. I look at her for a moment then unlock the door.

  “Sorry I disturb you.” She is not smiling any more.

  I make my cheeks go up. “No, sorry. Thinking about work.”

  She holds the bag out to me. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t realise you are busy. My husband went to Little India and saw these ladies’ fingers. You like ladies’ fingers right?”

  “Oh.” I look at the plastic bag. Ripe, tender dark-green bhindi peek out from the opening.

  “Come in.” Luckily, I say that before taking the bag. Luckily, I don’t just grab the bag. “Please, come in.”

  Hafeezah slips out of her slippers before entering. I see her looking around the living room as I go into the kitchen.

  “Very nice flat,” she calls as I put the bag of bhindi down. So soft and so fresh, so dark green.

  Masala bhindi? Or should I save some for that foreign gumbo dish Irving talked about once? Do we have tomatoes?

  “How long you live here already?”

  I close the fridge and go back out to the living room. “Almost four years now.”

  “Very nice.”

  I make the “sit” mudra, five fingers not fully spread out. My wrist can do that much. “Not as nice as yours. Rented flat can only do so much.”

  She laughs and sits as I turn on the super-expensive turbo-fan cooler Irving says must stay behind the TV for maximum cooling effect.

  “You’ll have something?” I don’t want to offer anything. I want to go and make some bhindi so I’ll stop thinking about how I’m going to manage being the lead on the methylated-DNA-throat-tumour project. Dr Alagasamy has confirmed that my proposal has interested the committee administering the dead billionaire’s grant. We need some early proof that I’m on the right track. As lead, for the first time in almost four years in this lab, I get to design some experiments and get help from Siddiqui and Santha and Bala if needed.

  Time is very short because the proof must be submitted before Christmas. Santha is happy to help because it was her idea and I bought her more “bunbelievable” vegan coffee buns to celebrate. Siddiqui is fine because he is quite a nice guy and because our meetings give him a chance to show me photos of Meher. But Mr Bala…Mr Bala is not happy at all. And I do not know how to deal with someone who I swear denatured all my T4 enzyme aliquots by taking them out of the deep freeze and putting them in the 37 degree Centigrade water bath.

  T4 enzyme is very delicate and very expensive. It is kept frozen in tiny, tiny amounts in individual vials, each just enough for a single chemical reaction. I came in this morning intending to take out one vial to thaw for the day. Instead, I found all my little aliquots, twenty vials, already floating in the water bath. Absolutely useless now.

  I asked if anyone had taken my enzyme “by mistake”. I said “by mistake”, even though no one takes out twenty vials at a time. Siddiqui looked horrified. Santha shook her head. Everyone looked at Bala, who was putting on his sterile gloves.

  “Bala?” I called his name and he looked over at me.

  “You must have forgotten you put it to thaw,” he said and clucked his tongue. “Sometimes I do that. I forget I put something to thaw.”

  Two hundred dollars and at least a week wasted. Two weeks, because it will take time to order replacement enzyme. My head hurt so badly I came home. Looking at Hafeezah, my head begins to hurt again.

  Oh, yes. I have to invite her to have something.

  “Coffee, tea, ice lemon tea, some soft drink? I have nimbu paani—lime juice concentrate from India, the Indian version of calamansi.”

  “No, nothing.”

  Haan, these North Indian women. “No, please, have something.”

 
“No, no, I just came to give you the bhindi.” But she tucks her feet under her legs with no intention of going anywhere. “Are you having something?”

  I check my phone. It is 4pm. Chai time. “Usually this time I will have tea.”

  Her eyes go round. “Masala chai?”

  “I can make masala chai. You will have?”

  She follows me into the kitchen.

  The steps are simple. A soothing algorithm. Measure half-and-half of milk and water and put it on to boil. To the heating milk add a pod of elaichi. A stick of cinnamon. Some cloves. A pinch of Everest Chai masala.

  “Strong okay?”

  Now that the milk is on the boil, put the flame on low and add three teaspoons of Brooke Bond Red Label tea leaves from my special stash. Almost gone now, almost impossible to find in Mustafa. I’ll have to stock up in two weeks when I go to Mumbai for Diwali.

  “Sugar?”

  “I like it sweet,” Hafeezah says. Her voice is a little scratchy. I add three teaspoons of sugar.

  We watch the liquid simmer, turning from pink to deep brown.

  One final boil and then it’s through the strainer into two red cups, which came free when Chia Ying bought two jars of some instant coffee on promotion. I put the cups and some biscuits on a tray. We go back out to the living room.

  The fan blows a nice cool breeze on my face. Hafeezah sneezes.

  “Oh, here.” I hold out a box of tissues.

  She doesn’t see them. She’s crying.

  I put the box down. Why is it my fate to be present during her emotional breakdowns?

  After a while she takes a tissue and wipes her face. “Sorry. I always cry in front of you.”

  “It’s okay.” Sugar is good for shock. “Is the tea okay?” If she drinks the tea, it will replenish the glucose in her bloodstream and she won’t feel so much like crying.

  “It’s very good.” She starts crying again. “My father used to make tea like this every day at exactly this time. Every day. He would make for me and him and no one else.”

  I drink my tea.

  She mops her eyes. “You know, I haven’t seen my parents in three years. Coming on to four now.”

  I take a biscuit and push the plate towards her. After a while she takes one and eats it.

  She laughs. “You know, my father also did this. Two glucose biscuits, one cup of tea ready for me when I come home from school. Sindhi girls in our community don’t go on to study but my father wanted me to study. He wanted me to be a teacher. But I was too stubborn.”

  She starts crying again.

  My tea is halfway gone, her cup is still almost full. I want to get up off the sofa and make more tea but how will it look?

  Why should I care? I’m about to get up when she says: “I not like you. I don’t have good brains, good marks. From young I like to do make-up, hairstyle. I used to help my mother do henna on her hair. I always want to be beautician.

  “My father very upset. Scold and scold. He say: ‘What kind of job is this? What scope? You want to serve other people all day?’” She nods. “He works Mustafa. Shelving and closing shift. He want my brother and me to earn better.

  “But I got no brains. No head for studies. Only skill in hands, so I get job at Rupini’s.”

  I have to say something. “Rupini’s is very well-known.”

  Hafeezah nods. “Yes. I get experience, plan to open my own shop. Then—” she moves her shoulders.

  I don’t ask her: “Then what?” It is obvious then what. She met Abu somehow. She fell in love with him. And it was the kind of love that made her give up her family and everything she knew, even her religion, for the sake of this husband, their son and the flat she is living in.

  In India, you grow up hearing stories like this. High-class princess Parvati gives up palace life to roam the mountains with Shiva. New bride Sita follows her husband Rama into the jungle for 14 years instead of smacking some sense into him. Bollywood has lots of stories about inter-religious marriages. There is usually a sad song and passionate dance and then an emotional family reunion like in Mani Ratnam’s film Bombay.

  Movies are one thing. Reality is another.

  “I never thought he would be this angry, you know,” Hafeezah says. “Growing up we have Malay friends. Indian Muslim. My father very open. He believes in a lot of things Sindhi men don’t believe in.”

  I have to ask. “And your mother?”

  “My mother?” Hafeezah shakes her head. “Very stubborn woman, just like me. On my father’s salary can raise two children, send to school, pay off housing loan and do my brother’s marriage. Mine also, she bought everything, gold, saris, even a diamond set.”

  I look at Hafeezah. Her ears are covered by the tudung so I can’t see any earrings. No bracelet bumps under her long sleeves, no long, thick gold chains around her neck. Only her face, that sharp nose and fair skin and curvy eyebrows which mark her as a Sindhi. Even I put on earrings and a gold chain and two thick bracelets every morning before I go to the lab. I take the bracelets off during work and put them on before coming home. Bracelets and rings are bad lab accessories since they can carry pollutants or water and drip these into your reactions, changing experimental conditions. Dr Savarkar used to say: reduce the variables by reducing your wearables.

  “Indian mothers always want their daughters to wear gold, you know?” Hafeezah says.

  I nod. Dadi always wears as much gold as possible, even when she is at home. Every morning for as long as I can remember, even during her morning bath, she has kept her bangles and a medium gold chain on.

  “Malay mothers also the same,” Hafeezah says. She shakes her sleeve back to show me a thin bangle of gold-and-silver links. “My mother-in-law scold me a lot because I can’t speak Malay, I can’t read Arabic, I can’t cook Malay food, but she bought me this jewellery.” She looks around. “Can close the door?”

  I think she wants the air-con so I close the door and windows and turn the air-conditioning on.

  “Your flatmate not come home soon, right?”

  “No, not for a while.” I turn off Irving’s turbo cooler.

  When I look back, Hafeezah has taken off her tudung. There are diamond-and-gold studs in her ears and a matching necklace around her neck. The earrings are not very big but they are more expensive than the gold ones I wear on a daily basis.

  “She give me also,” Hafeezah says.

  “It’s very nice.” I sit down. I don’t know what else to say.

  “Flat also, when I want to buy, she say: ‘Why you go anywhere else? This Abu’s home, this your room.’ But—” she spreads her hands, the two-palm mudra that I understand.

  I needed my own place, the hands say. I needed to make my own space.

  “So you are happy,” I say. It is not a question.

  Hafeezah does not nod. She does not reply.

  We finish our tea and then she leaves.

  3.

  Dad has been crying all the way through Lakshmi Puja. “Happy tears,” he says even without me asking. “These are happy tears, beta, for the first time since 2011.”

  This is the first happy Diwali since that year I left for Singapore and the stroke took Dadi from us. It is a happy Diwali even though Romy-Bhaiya and Divanka-Bhabhi called to say they are not coming to India for Christmas as was their original plan. When we heard the reason, we could not be sad.

  “Four months and counting,” Romy-Bhaiya said on the Haanji Internet call, which had better video quality than Skype and was much clearer than WhatsApp. “It’s better for us not to travel right now.”

  “That means the baby is due when?” Dad asked.

  “March,” said Mummy, and Romy-Bhaiya stopped looking at Divanka-Bhabhi. “Wonderful news, darling, so wonderful.” She was not crying but she did look up at the ceiling for a while.

  So Dad cries all the way through Lakshmi Puja, which we do in Dadi’s room. Even if she’s not present in body, we all feel more comfortable being there.

  In the a
fternoon I made a garland of the mogra flowers from our garden and took out the special white-orange-green artificial garlands we use for Diwali. The gods were in the usual puja place so I carried them into Dadi’s room, all the pictures of Rama and Sita and Lakshmana and Shiva and Parvati and Hanuman and Durga and our little elephant-headed statue of Ganesha.

  It is Lakshmi Puja so the real flower garland and the biggest artificial garland are for the picture of Durga riding the lion. I also keep some loose mogra flowers around Ganesh. Mummy nods on seeing this and puts an extra red sindoor tikka on him too. Just in case. Ganesh is the god who removes obstacles and this is the first pregnancy Romy-Bhaiya and Divanka-Bhabhi have properly announced to us in nearly ten years of marriage.

  After the puja and pure vegetarian dinner, we open boxes of laddoos and pedhas and kaju katli and other Diwali mithai. On the dot at 10pm, Anand-Bade-Phupha’s chauffeur drives up in the Mercedes-Benz. Anand-Bade-Phupha and Roshna-Badi-Bua come in slowly, leaning on the driver’s arm and on a walking stick. They are hugged, they have their feet touched, they sit a while in Dadi’s room and “feel Didi’s presence”.

  Soon after, Itty-Bua and Pritty-Bua drop in with Alok-Uncle and Prem-Uncle.

  All of them own bigger houses than ours but because Dadi is the eldest in the family, everyone comes to our little three-bedroom in Modern Colony for Diwali. We play cards all night and in the morning, drive up to Lonavla, eat chikki and take a look at Dadi’s house.

  This year my cousins are scattered around India, the US, Dubai and the UK for studies or work so I am the only young person in the house.

  After everyone refuses chai three times and sits around the mithai with steaming hot cups anyway, Dad clears his throat. “We have some news,” he says. “We’ll let Romy tell you.” He opens his laptop and clicks on the Haanji icon.

  “Haan, very useful app that one, no?” Itty-Bua looks at me. “I’ve stopped using WhatsApp call, really.”

  Romy-Bhaiya comes on with Divanka-Bhabhi and tells everyone the good news. The buas squeal and jump up to hug the laptop. Alok-Uncle and Prem-Uncle call for whiskey to celebrate. Anand-Bade-Phupha thumps his walking stick on the ground and Roshna-Badi-Bua claps her hands to her face.