Nimita's Place

  “God bless you, beta. Both you bacchas. God bless. God bless. If only Didi were able to hear this,” she says.

  Dad touches her arm. “She knows, Bua,” he says. “She knows.”

  It feels wrong that no one is in Dadi’s room right now, so I go there to be quiet for a while and look at her face, framed in flowers. If I close my eyes and listen, it feels like she is paying full attention to me. Sometimes I think I hear her speak, but, of course, that’s impossible.

  I hear Dad moving around, ice cubes clinking and the buas saying: “Sweeten your mouth, Janaki. Such good news, let me sweeten your mouth.”

  I lean against the shelf that is still lined with Dadi’s Agatha Christie collection. Nobody has read those books in a while. When I dusted them earlier today, I sneezed.

  “Divanka was looking very happy, no?” Pritty-Bua. “Glowing.”

  Mummy snorts. “That’s a myth, Didi.”

  “She must be so happy, of course.” Itty-Bua.

  “After so long.” Roshna-Badi-Bua sounds like she’s crying. “Ten years of marriage? Nine? God knows none of you have ever said anything to her but what a woman feels I know.”

  “We all know, Bua,” Dad says and it is enough. No one says anything more for a while.

  I open my eyes and look at the photos on Dadi’s shelf. There is one of me as a baby, held by Romy-Bhaiya as a teenager, with Mummy and Dad behind us. There is a wedding photo of Mummy and Dad. There is another wedding photo and another family photo that look like the first ones, only in this, Romy-Bhaiya’s and my ages seem to have been reversed.

  Urmila-Bua was seven years older than Dad. I never knew her. But I know her from photographs, from things Dadi said and then stopped herself from saying. One night when Dadi and Dad and Mummy sat in a surprise thunderstorm in the middle of January, they talked about Urmila-Bua because it was her birthday.

  It wasn’t as if she was dying to get married. Dadi supported her, supported her while she did her PhD mathematics from Bandra University, would have been happy to have her at home all her life. But Dada kept saying: “What will she do all alone?” and there were those friends of theirs from Delhi, the Tiwanas. Old, old connections who had a son and asked again and again for Urmila-Bua to come to their home. A great thing in those days for a woman almost thirty years old.

  “He’s also qualified, a master’s, it will be a good match,” everyone said, even Roshna-Badi-Bua and Shanti-Tayee. Not many men with a master’s degree would be willing to marry a PhD.

  Dowry is not demanded outright in India. First of all, it is illegal, but there are always gifts between families to show how much the couple is loved. I know what gifts were given because they came back eventually, 14 years after Urmila-Bua’s marriage, ten years after she died. The jewellery, the expensive saris, her maths books, they took that long to come home because the courts in India are so backed up with criminal cases, and Dadi and Dad and Mummy would not go for out-of-court settlement.

  “Why didn’t the bastard hang?” Dadi said once. The man who married Urmila-Bua went to jail for a while but was out in a few weeks. Tony-Chacha keeps an eye on the family for us but ever since I became a teenager, Dadi stopped asking in my hearing.

  There are things that are expected when a wedding is performed. It is expected that there will be children. Urmila-Bua never had any. Never could have any, but even today I don’t know, we don’t know whose fault it was. Maybe her husband’s, whose name we never speak. It didn’t matter. The fault is always the woman’s.

  She never told anyone. That was the worst part. She always came down in the summer holidays, smiling, laughing and if she hugged hard and cried at the railway station on leaving, wasn’t that expected from a daughter leaving one home to go to another?

  One day that stranger’s home would feel like her own, she was told. One day.

  That day never came.

  She lived in Delhi for four years, quietly teaching, never telling anyone the truth of what she was facing night after night, the insults, the taunts…and other things.

  Then her father, my Dada, died and a string was cut. Dadi received a call one morning, not from the man her daughter had married but from Shanti-Tayee.

  Roshna-Badi-Bua and Dadi flew out that day on the first plane to Delhi. A plane ride that very afternoon, in those days, at some ridiculous price, Romy-Bhaiya says. Only he would fill in the gaps of what I heard that night of the thunderstorm. Nobody else would tell me, not even Dadi.

  There were…things about the death that were not simple. Suicide was what the man who married her said, but there were marks on the body. Old bruises. Things like that.

  I never knew my Urmila-Bua. There are old photographs of her in our house. I asked Romy-Bhaiya and even he doesn’t remember much. He was not even four years old when she died. He said she used to play with him: hide-and-seek, Scrabble, Ludo and her own invention, a super-strong soap solution that let them both blow long-lasting bubbles through a loop of thin wire.

  What Bhaiya remembers is that the soap bubbles never burst. They could be batted around, hand to hand, long after ordinary soap bubbles would have disappeared. It was always a surprise when Urmila-Bua’s bubbles finally gave in and imploded.

  4.

  The platter of salad covers almost half the table at Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant. The dish is separated into coloured segments: there are long, curly strips of orange carrot; green-and-white cucumber; white radish; maroon beetroot; reddish turnip; pink pickled ginger; brown, black and bright green seaweed; multicoloured mushrooms; fried tofu; and some other foods I don’t recognise. In the centre are bowls of dark sauce, crispy things, sesame seeds, peanuts and also a tiny container of oil which the waiter adjusts carefully.

  He asks Dr Alagasamy: “Shall I do for you?”

  “Please,” says the boss. “We can toss the salad but I don’t know the words.”

  The waiter laughs. “No problem, no problem. I say first then you say in English, can?”

  “Let’s lo hei,” Dr Alagasamy says and stands.

  We all stand, Bala, Siddiqui, Santha and I, holding our chopsticks ready to mix the good-luck salad.

  “Remember to toss high,” the waiter says. “First, gong xi fa cai!”

  We all say it as our chopsticks meet in the salad. “Happy Chinese New Year 2015!” Dr Alagasamy says.

  The waiter adds some vegan fish strips—the real Chinese salad has raw fish, can you imagine!—and we toss it with the vegetables. “Nian nian you yu! Abundance all year long!” he says.

  “Higher!” Dr Alagasamy says, tossing the radish so high it falls onto Siddiqui’s hair and his spectacles. “Sorry ah, Siddiqui!”

  “No problem,” he says.

  The waiter adds some segments of juicy pomelo. “Da ji da li!”

  “This one I know,” Santha says, stabbing the fruit in her excitement. “Big luck! Big luck!” Juice squirts all over the salad.

  The waiter sprinkles powdered spice and then adds oil. “Attract wealth! Lots of wealth!”

  Carrots. “Good luck is coming soon!” He has forgotten to speak Chinese—is it Mandarin or Cantonese? “Good luck in career! Good business! Sweet taste in life!” Crunchy bits, peanuts and sesame seeds, the dark sauces. “Toss high! Higher! SG50 luck! Jubilee year luck!” This year is Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary of independence so everyone is extra happy and every shop is giving SG50 special sales prices.

  We fling the food up to the ceiling, sometimes using our chopsticks to lift the vegetables high, sometimes using our chopsticks to bat the flying strips back into the platter before they fall on the table.

  “Gong xi fa cai!” Dr Alagasamy says again and we’re done. Santha distributes the tossed salad into our bowls.

  There is not a single Chinese person in our lab but every year, before the Chinese New Year holidays, Dr Alagasamy takes us all for a vegetarian good-luck meal to this restaurant near the lab. We eat fast because, like all Chinese restaurants today, Eight Treas
ures Vegetarian Restaurant will close by 3pm so the waiters and cooks can go home and have a reunion dinner with their families.

  Chia Ying and Irving say there should be fireworks during Chinese New Year but rockets and loud firecrackers are banned here. Only sparklers are allowed. Only the government can set off loud rockets and hold firework shows during Christmas, New Year’s and National Day.

  “That’s one thing I don’t understand about Singapore,” Irving says. “No fireworks during Chinese New Year. It’s not Chinese.”

  “No legal fireworks,” Chia Ying says. There was a story in the news about some Chinese immigrants who let off rockets at Clarke Quay last week. A small incident, but it’s become a big issue about whether Singapore should allow foreign workers if they can’t observe the rules. Very nasty things are being said online about “useless foreign talent” and “keeping Singapore for Singaporeans”—all posted by Singapore Chinese about the Chinese from China.

  The waiter tops up my glass with Chinese tea. Dr Alagasamy holds his glass out. “A toast,” he says, and we all pick up our glasses. “To a prosperous new year ahead and much success. No false positives, only good experimental results!”

  We clink our glasses and drink.

  Siddiqui raises his glass. “I’d like to propose a toast as well. To Nimita and her first research proposal!”

  Boss nods. “Yes, well done, Nimita. To your success.”

  “Hear, hear,” Santha says as our glasses clink.

  I feel my face getting hot.

  We drink and the Chinese tea warms my bones. My wrist hurts less. I didn’t want to wear my lab sweatshirt for this nice lunch and my silk kurta is too thin in this air-conditioned restaurant.

  Next to me, on my right, Bala eats his tossed salad.

  Across the table, Siddiqui seems to be trying to catch my eye. What does he want, the soy sauce?

  I raise the bottle and he shakes his head a little. He shakes it towards my right. His mouth makes a duck-face and “O” shape.

  Toast? What should I—oh yes. Of course.

  My face is hot again. I raise my glass.

  “I’d also like to toast. Thank you, all of you. I couldn’t have done this without your guidance, sir,” I nod at boss, “and without your help, Santha, Siddiqui.” I take a deep breath. “Bala. Thank you, all of you, for your help. And your trust.”

  Naatak-baazi, which I would have done if I had been thinking properly, and which now isn’t naatak-baazi at all. Before we submitted the proposal in end-December, everyone pitched in to help, following my instructions and experimental design. Siddiqui made a few suggestions to streamline the first set of reactions, Santha helped me print and laminate the proposal poster. Bala—well, I didn’t find any more enzymes floating in the water bath.

  As we drink, I turn to Bala and say: “You know, I’m so new at this, only a master’s, so I really need the guidance of you senior people.”

  Bala’s moustache quivers. He nods his head.

  Across the table, Dr Alagasamy catches my eye and smiles at me.

  This is why boss does this, I realise. How stupid of me not to realise. He gets us around a table to eat and talk for this reason. A lot of problems are solved by eating together.

  Except Bala and me, everyone at this table has invited the rest of the lab home.

  Maybe I should also have them over for dinner? There is no real occasion coming up but still.

  In my head, Dadi smiles in approval.

  “So, three days off! What are your plans?” Dr Alagasamy says.

  Siddiqui looks at his phone which shows a photo of Rehima and Meher. “Just rest at home with the family.”

  Santha says: “I’m taking my parents to Bintan.”

  Bala says: “Letchemi and I are going to Bali.” He looks at his watch and smiles. “Tonight. Small holiday.”

  “What about you, Nimita?” boss says.

  “I’m going to turn my phone off and sleep,” I say and everyone laughs. They don’t know that I really mean it.

  Chia Ying is back in Malaysia for Chinese New Year, Irving has gone back to Hong Kong, so I am all alone at home for the next three days. I’ve played all Irving’s games except the stupid dating sims.

  Usually I would take a few extra days off during the Chinese New Year break and visit Mumbai, but after what happened on Diwali, I’m not really talking to Dad and Mummy.

  The day after Lakshmi Puja, Mummy told me that Romy-Bhaiya wants to sell the Lonavla house. It is in both our names so he needs my okay.

  “With the baby coming and with all this uncertainty about Divanka going back to work, they will need the money,” she said.

  I couldn’t believe what she was saying. Sell the Lonavla property which Dadi bought with the money that came when Urmila-Bua’s case was settled in our favour? Sell that house?

  “We get rental from that place. It is a good investment,” I told her.

  “Romy and Divanka are settled in the US, they have green card status. They need money they can invest there, not little bits of money here and there in Indian rupees.”

  What Mummy didn’t say and we both know is that Romy-Bhaiya’s part-time contracts are not enough to support a wife and child. The American economy has not been doing well for more than six years now, so no chance of getting a better job either.

  Divanka-Bhabhi’s job with Hewlett-Packard makes good money, but if she went back to work after the baby was born, childcare would also cost a lot, not like in India. Unless Romy-Bhaiya stays at home instead—but what man will do that?

  “I’ll buy it from him,” I said. “I’ll buy the house.” I have almost $160,000 in my Singapore savings, even after the cost of the Diwali trip. At the Indian rupee exchange rate, that would be enough, surely.

  Mummy clicked her tongue. “Don’t be silly, Nimmy.”

  “What is silly? He won’t take money from his sister or what?”

  “You’re being emotional,” she said.

  “Call Dad in here and have this conversation,” I said. “Dad!”

  I couldn’t believe it when Dad agreed with Mummy about selling the Lonavla house. It was as if both of them had forgotten the day we went to buy it. I was there. I was only six years old but I have not forgotten.

  Dadi had her eye on the Lonavla property long before we bought it. It was our programme every weekend: we would drive to Lonavla to buy the gur-and-peanut chikki, have tea at a roadside stall and look down at this dollhouse on a lower hill, surrounded by blooming flowers in pink and purple and red and yellow. All the colours that don’t grow in our garden in Mumbai.

  “Those are cold-weather flowers, that’s why,” Dadi said. “Lupins, asters, proper tea roses. Those sort of flowers grow in Edinburgh too, I think.”

  Dadi said she and Dada talked a lot about travelling to the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe but they never did. “It was too expensive when your Dada was alive,” Dadi said. “And then there was no point.”

  It was the year Urmila-Bua’s things came back home. Dad and Mummy had to sort them out because Dadi wouldn’t even look at them. She went into her room for an entire day after the jewellery and saris arrived and wouldn’t come out. But the next morning she sat down with her cheque book and bank book and did sums on the dining table. She said: “There is enough for a property in the children’s names.”

  Dad’s face went black. “We don’t need that money. I just didn’t want that bastard to have it.”

  “We have that money and I want to use it for a house in your children’s name,” Dadi said.

  I don’t remember exactly how Dadi convinced Dad. Maybe she didn’t convince Dad. Only Mummy and I went with her to Lonavla.

  “My husband and I, we would come for a holiday and see your house all the time,” Dadi told the owner of the house after the “Hi” and “Hello” and “Will you have tea” bit was over. We accepted tea, of course, but only I drank mine and ate all the biscuits.

  Dadi was seated near the window and when
she pointed up, the owner’s eyes followed her fingers to the tea stall far above, a little black speck in the distance.

  “We always said that when He retired, we would buy this house and stay here.”

  The owner was respectfully silent.

  “He’s been dead ten years, but I would like to make His wishes come true,” said Dadi.

  I saw the seller—not relax, exactly, but definitely sit a little differently. His body leaned towards Dadi instead of sitting straight against the back of the sofa. His face was also softer now, his hands clasped and he was listening to her.

  “I was from the Punjab before Partition,” she told him. “I lived in Lahore, undivided India. We lost everything in 1947. I learnt then that we don’t own land, not even the land we were born in. We only hold it in trust for whoever comes after. We hope the land will go to our own children but who can predict God’s will?”

  The owner nodded. “Bhabhiji, my children are in the States, they don’t want anything in India any more. I want to go to them as well, but to leave your home after so many years.”

  Dadi nodded. “I understand.”

  “I couldn’t sell to just anyone.”

  “Bhai Sahib, I understand.”

  We sat in silence for a while longer. When the conversation began again, it was about the price, how much would be in declared “white money” or cheque and how much in “hand money”, the black part, which need not be declared.

  The conversation allowed Dadi to give a little more in black and a little less in white, which was perfect for tax purposes.

  “What did you do?” I asked Dadi later, lying in the big bed we shared those days. “At that man’s house, what did you do?”

  Dadi always understood me and she always answered me. “Naatak-baazi,” she said. Play-acting. “When you’re older you’ll understand.”

  “Tell me now,” I said.

  She said: “There are two types of naatak-baazi. One is the kind that actors use in plays and movies to make people believe in a story. The other is the kind you use in real life, also to make people believe in a story. You see, there are at least two kinds of stories being told at any one time. Like now, this is the story of Nimmy talking to her Dadi but it is also the story of her Dadi talking to Nimmy.”