Nimita's Place

  Another four very different years learning his own preferences through a series of relationships that left the high school affairs a sepia-toned memory. Sweet, no longer bitter.

  Four years that Irving remembered with enough affection to return Vicky’s hug without embarrassment at a school reunion in Hong Kong.

  Another four years, trying and failing to be the man his father wanted him to be. Four years finding solace in late night conversation with the similarly situated Vicky in more expensive bars in Causeway Bay.

  It was Vicky who reminded Irving how good he had been with the camera once. Who posed for a series of portraits that got a brief mention in Time Out and sold two prints at Irving’s sole gallery showing.

  It was with Vicky that Irving made that first Weibo post about goose noodles, igniting a social media storm about the merits of roast goose at Yung Kee Restaurant versus Yue Kee, both third-generation-owned establishments with fervent followings.

  It was Vicky who threw the parties when Irving landed his thousandth follower on social media, then his ten thousandth, and then the book deal.

  It was Vicky who—

  “Is your hand hurting?” Vimla asks and Irving realises he is massaging his right wrist.

  “You’ve been very busy writing, I see,” Vicky says. “How’s the book? What is it about again?”

  “Hashtag Halal,” Irving says. “Muslim food from Kashgar to Kashmir and Kuala Lumpur.”

  Vicky laughs. “No wonder you’re in no hurry to come back to Hong Kong. The Chinese government is not going to like you giving more publicity to minorities.”

  “But we’re expecting you for the wedding in June,” Vimla says. “Please give us your measurements, we’re getting all Vicky’s friends to co-ordinate outfits.”

  “On me, of course,” Vicky says.

  Irving sips his espresso. It is burnt, over-brewed.

  “Are you sure you only put Equal in this?” Vicky asks.

  Vimla sips her latte before replying. “What else would I have put, jaan?”

  Vicky makes a face but drinks.

  Irving hasn’t told Nimita about Vimla. Vimla was always part of Vicky’s monologue against his family, the girl from Delhi whose family visited Hong Kong every year because her grandfather and father had been friends with Vicky’s grandfather and father. “They expect me to marry her,” Vicky would say in school, twisting his lips.

  “I’m going to marry her,” Vicky said, years later, when Irving received the Singapore offer. “I love her and I’m going to marry her but there’s some unfinished business I need your help with,” he said. “Please.”

  Vicky purses his lips into a kiss-face and Vimla pinches his nose. “Behave. He’s such a child,” she tells Irving.

  “Now you’re too adult and busy for me, huh, Ms Cultural Attaché?”

  Vimla Tiwana is the junior cultural attaché at the Indian High Commission in Singapore. “As it is I’m taking long leave for the wedding, I couldn’t have avoided work these last few weeks.” Her phone buzzes. “Excuse me.” She looks at the screen, then holds it out to Vicky. “It’s Mummyji.”

  “She’s calling you, not me.” Vicky picks up his latte.

  Vimla takes the call. “Namaste, Mummyji. What? Sorry, reception is bad, hold on.” She gets up and moves out of the café.

  From the back, from the side, there are resemblances to Nimita. Aditi too resembles Nimita, the strong arch of eyebrow, the carved features.

  There was a time when Irving might have put it the other way around.

  Vicky relaxes into his chair.

  Irving touches his cup and braces himself to ask the questions hollowing out his skull.

  Vicky claps his hand to his coat pocket. “Damn, mine is buzzing too. Huh.” He starts typing. “Damn office. You’d think having your own business would mean your time is your own, but you’re just a slave to it all. Sorry, I should call her. Hey, Jing-an…” He too gets up and moves out of the café.

  Left alone, Irving looks at his phone. Still no response.

  Vimla returns to her seat. “Mummyji wants—oh, where’s Vicky?”

  Irving points. She nods and takes a distracted sip of her latte. “So many things to do. You have no idea how hard it is to organise a wedding when one family is in Delhi, one in Hong Kong and the bride is in Singapore.”

  He has to ask this. “Will you both be moving here?”

  “Oh, Vicky didn’t tell you?” Another sip. “He was looking at some business opportunities here, but I can do a parallel transfer to Hong Kong, which works out better in the long run. Better career opportunities for Vicky and me…” She hesitates. “He’s very settled in Hong Kong, you know? I don’t think it would be good for him to be uprooted.”

  Irving nods, imagining Vicky as a branch on that extensive tree of mother and sister and aunts that Irving had been gloriously grafted onto.

  “And with Daddyji gone, Mummyji just can’t do without him, no?”

  Irving nods again, thinking about his own family tree. Perhaps he should call his parents tonight. If only he knew what to say.

  Vicky returns.

  “Jaan, Mummyji says one Dior set is on offer in duty-free. She wants for Aditi and all your aunts. Also, we have to buy a present for your niece’s graduation.”

  “Jaanu, that’s why I’m marrying you, so you will take care of all this.” Vicky puts an arm around her. “Come on then, let’s go in.”

  Irving walks them to the security gate. “Thanks so much, Irving,” Vimla says. “We’re expecting you in June, yah?”

  Irving shakes her hand and then turns to Vicky.

  Vicky grabs him in a bear hug. “Take care, yah?” He smells of latte and cigarette smoke.

  Irving pats him on the back. Soon enough, Vicky lets go.

  The couple hand their passports and tickets to security and get in line before the immigration counters.

  Irving turns to walk away.

  He sees her and knows her before his eyes resolve her from a dark blue dot at the other end of the long departure hall. She walks slowly, so very slowly, past the Bengawan Solo cake shop, the money exchange and the café where his espresso still sits unfinished. He stands, waiting till her face materialises, meeting her eyes, willing her to keep walking.

  Nimita stops five metres away from him.

  Irving nods his head to the left, behind him.

  She steps up to his side.

  They turn to face the glass wall separating travellers from those who have come to bid them farewell.

  She is shivering, maybe from excitement, probably from the cold. It is only 18 degrees in the airport terminal and Nimita puts a sweatshirt on when the living room air-con is at 26.

  Irving begins taking off his jacket. Then stops. Then shrugs it off and drapes it around her shoulders.

  It hurts him to notice the blue kurta with mirrors embroidered on the front, the green slim pants and matching earrings that she once wore to eat xiao long bao with him. Instead he looks through the glass at Vicky.

  Vicky is smiling at his companion, tucking a lock of Vimla’s hair behind her ear.

  Irving hears Nimita inhale.

  “That’s Vimla Tiwana,” he says quickly. He speaks quickly to minimise the pain, like ripping a band-aid off the wound. “Vimla is his fiancée. They’re getting married in June.”

  “Washing powder Vimla?” he thinks he hears her say.

  But when he looks at her, her lips are pressed tight together.

  It hurts to note the fall of tears, the drops gathering at the corner of her mouth and dripping onto the neckline of her kurta, darkening the weave.

  Vicky and Vimla go through immigration. They turn back, raise their hands.

  Irving raises his too, and notes that Nimita is now behind him. He keeps his hand raised until they walk away into duty-free and it is safe to turn and press his back to the glass wall, preventing her from seeing the space where the couple was.

  The tears are half-dry tracks on
her cheeks now. Her lips tremble. Beneath the jacket, one hand moves to the other.

  Irving takes her right hand before it can meet her left. She startles, but lets him take it.

  She says nothing as he starts rubbing the wrist joint. His fingers trace and retrace the bony protrusion and scar tissue, feeling for knots beneath the skin.

  She inhales and he gentles his touch. He is doing his best to ease the hurt without increasing her pain.

  5.

  “The letter came,” Chia Ying says on Haanji.

  “Hold on a minute.” I close the door to Dadi’s room so I will not be interrupted by the sounds of people playing with Kishmish.

  In the silence, I touch Dadi’s face, smiling and unchanging in its glass frame, adorned with garlands of real orange marigolds I made for Lakshmi Puja. She has been gone for exactly four years now, but when I stand in her room, when any of us stand here, we can still feel her presence.

  Nobody has read her Agatha Christie books since she died. I dusted the bookshelf before puja yesterday.

  Nobody even uses her bed. It is made every week with fresh sheets and pillow covers, just as it was the week after she passed away in her sleep. She died ten months after feeding me sugar and curds in front of these pictures of Shiva and Parvati and Rama and Sita and Lakshmana and the statue of elephant-headed Ganesha. I moved them all into Dadi’s room yesterday for puja.

  Kishmish’s first Lakshmi Puja. So small my niece is, like a doll just the size of my forearm. I was amazed Divanka-Bhabhi and Romy-Bhaiya brought her to visit us all the way from Houston. So small, and it is so dangerously cold this year in Mumbai, colder even than Houston. Cold enough that I have to take painkillers daily to reduce the swelling in my right wrist.

  Wearing long-sleeved woollen cardigans helps. They smell of mothballs, all our winter clothes, brought out from storage.

  Only Kishmish’s woollens are brand-new, smelling of baby powder. Bundled in bright blue or bright pink or wearing a fuzzy rainbow hat with pompoms, my niece is cute enough to be an Instagram star. Not that I would ever share her photos on social media. That’s just dangerous.

  “Hello?” Chia Ying says from the phone. I prop it up on the puja place.

  “Okay, ready. Please open it.”

  She shows me the flat white envelope with the stamp of the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore. She tears a strip off the side, takes out the letter and reads it.

  She places the letter close to her laptop camera.

  “No, the focus is off. Just read it please.”

  Her silence has prepared me for the answer. “We are sorry to inform you that your application for permanent residency has not been approved. You can continue to reside and work in Singapore under your current pass.”

  She puts the letter aside. “Nimmy, I’m so sorry.”

  I shake my head. Swallow the lump in my throat. “No, it’s okay.”

  Three breaths into pranayama breathing, I hear Chia Ying exhaling too and have to laugh.

  “No really, Chia Ying, it’s okay. I didn’t expect it to go through.” A lie, I was hoping but then again I made the application too early, na?

  I applied for PR in October last year. How was the immigration person assessing my case to know that my idea for linking methylated-DNA to throat-tumour formation would win a two-million-dollar grant for Dr Alagasamy’s lab? The news came only in June this year.

  “You okay?”

  “A-one,” I tell Chia Ying. I am okay. I have a three-year contract, a project to lead and the buas have not had time to text about eligible men this Diwali. They are too busy congratulating me and telling me I should have worn better clothes beneath my lab coat for the photo in The Straits Times.

  I will definitely get a salary hike this year. Even more definitely, when I reapply with a higher salary and a copy of the newspaper article, I will get my PR.

  I can afford to wait.

  Hafeezah is paying interest on time. Haanji has raised nearly half-a-million in US dollars on Kickstarter since Irving did the video post with Gautam Bhatia sharing his mother’s gulab jamun recipe.

  I told Gautam after I received my consultation fee and contract for stock options: “You fly Irving to Delhi, good ticket not cheap one, then take him to all the places like Kake Da Hotel and Nirula’s. Make him give a shoutout to Haanji with every post. Then see.”

  But stupid Gautam only said: “Nirula’s has become very down-market. You come to Delhi and we’ll go check out restaurants together first.”

  Irving has moved into the university residence. It is a nice flat, small but with a good kitchen. He experiments with a lot of recipes for his book Hashtag Halal: Muslim Cuisine from Kashgar to Kashmir to Kuala Lumpur. Rehima’s seviyaan recipe is in the book, as is Hafeezah’s beef rendang. He calls me over to taste-test the food and play games on his PlayStation. Chia Ying always seems to have something else to do.

  Chia Ying sighs now.

  “What’s wrong?” My turn to ask.

  She moves her shoulders. “Raymond wants to buy a place.”

  Oh. “In Singapore?” Maybe that Yew Tee condo unit is still available.

  It’s not that bad. I can still rent a room from them, surely.

  “In Delhi!” She screeches the name so loudly I have to clap my hands over my ears.

  “Wait, what? In Delhi?”

  Raymond’s post at NDTV has become permanent. He wants Chia Ying to move there. Start a family.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you go?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Would you live in Delhi?”

  I don’t dare tell her I wouldn’t. “Listen, talk to Raymond. Ask him if he’s sure he doesn’t want to move back to Singapore.”

  “And if he’s sure?”

  “If he’s sure, then buy a house. It will be cheaper than Singapore. I’ll ask my Tony-Chacha to help. He’ll make sure you’re not cheated.”

  Chia Ying rubs her temples. “This is crazy. I never thought I’d live in Delhi.”

  Me too. “Life is uncertain,” I tell her in consolation. “Who knows where any of us will end up settling down? Ten years ago, I never even dreamed of moving to Singapore. But hey, now I can visit you in Delhi. My family will help you throw a proper Punjabi wedding, if you like.”

  “Yah?” Chia Ying smiles.

  I look at Dadi’s photo for a long time after the call. Life is uncertain. Who knows where any of us will end up settling down?

  Who knew that Vicky Malhotra would send two wedding invitations to Bukit Batok?

  I gave Irving his when I went over to NTU for food and video games. He opened it and said: “I’m planning to be in Bangkok that weekend. You should come with me.”

  I was busy with work, so said no. “Maybe another time we can have a holiday together,” I said and the tips of his ears went red.

  Dad knocks on the door of Dadi’s room. Time to drive up to Lonavla.

  It takes one hour to drive out of Mumbai. Apart from all the vehicles on the road, the lanes are thick with used firecrackers. Dad has to drive slowly in case there’s a nail hidden somewhere in all the ash and heaps of paper.

  Divanka-Bhabhi and Romy-Bhaiya turn white because they are no longer used to driving in India. Kishmish cries a little at the start, but then she goes to sleep against Bhabhi’s chest.

  Fifteen minutes waiting in the long queues at the toll gates. Once we get to the expressway and the ghats proper, though, we all wake up. Cold mountain air comes through the windows and makes Dad fumble with the heater.

  The hills are green, so green. Splashes of white in the distance become waterfalls up close.

  “Is that ice on the rocks?” Romy-Bhaiya asks. It is illegal to stop the car to look and it is too cold to do this without chai, anyway.

  Mummy takes some change from her purse and throws it out of the window as we pass a roadside shrine. There are so many small temples on the ghats, stone walls built around idols or somet
imes just a rock with red tilak on it. Truck drivers, car drivers, everyone except motorcycle riders without a pillion passenger will pay respect by throwing change. The lonely twisting ghat roads have killed people. Why risk angering the gods?

  The roads become much less lonely, too full in fact, as we approach Lonavla proper. There are dozens of chaiwallas and restaurants and shops selling chikki and chocolate fudge. We can’t see the hills any more.

  We have a thali lunch at the vegetarian Anand Bhavan restaurant—I take a picture and send it to Irving—and fill the empty vacuum flask with hot masala chai. We’ve got biscuits and mithai from home for the tenant, but before we visit them, there is a tradition to maintain.

  We drive past the approach lane to Dadi’s house, higher and higher into the hills. A truck wants to overtake us and Dad lets it.

  We drive into a cloud. The mist makes it impossible to see out of the windows for a few seconds.

  “Look, baby, look,” Divanka-Bhabhi says, holding Kishmish up.

  We stop the car at “lookout point”, as Dadi used to call it. There was once a dhaba there—sometimes there is still a chaiwalla—but if it is cold or has been raining, like today, he takes a holiday.

  We get out of the car, Divanka-Bhabhi pushing Kishmish’s face into her neck.

  “Pull the cap down over her face,” Mummy says. “It’s got holes for her eyes and mouth.”

  I take out the cups and thermos. The rocks are too wet to sit on, so we stand and drink our tea and look down.

  The house is as beautiful as ever from this distance. No sign of the rubbish in the garden that made Dad so angry some months ago. No trace of the peeling paint and loose roof tiles that made the tenant so angry a few weeks ago.

  No sign of the work that will need to be done to fix up the place—either for this tenant or for sale, as Romy-Bhaiya wants. We still haven’t come to an agreement on that.

  From a distance, it looks like a scene from a movie or a dream. I can see only green, fields and fields of cool green. The house carves its own space in the hillside with splashes of colour from the garden: purple, white, pink and deep red.

  “Roses. Asters. Gerberas,” Mummy says, sounding surprised. “Look, Deepu, he must be growing gerberas.”