by Simi K. Rao
But least was I prepared for the effect it would have on me, she mused, driving straight into a deep muddy puddle, effectively bringing the vehicle to a spluttering halt.
“Where the hell am I?” She muttered to herself, looking around apprehensively as an eerie silence enveloped her.
The street was deserted… Well, not really—if she took into account the numerous nondescript mounds of flesh splattering the sidewalk; those of innumerable homeless humans and their beasts who took their chances against the elements every day.
One of them stirred, appearing to find her of some interest, hence propelling her into instantaneous action. Miserable wretches! she thought.
The engine finally coughed, then engaged with a steady purr. She pushed ahead. Soon her desperate eyes lit on a familiar landmark—Nirula’s. Home wasn’t far.
She fell to brooding again, her mind still a quagmire of activity. The turn of events had left her completely rattled. She hadn’t presumed Rihaan (being the MCP he was) would come pleading to her door, especially after becoming victim of such a humiliating farce. Nor had she expected him to be so beguilingly naïve in worldly matters. Deepika was simply the pits as far as she was concerned.
Yet Naina had chosen not to stay with him. The only reason for her appearance today was to buy him some time. A relationship like theirs was bound to fail. It was Deepika he had proposed to wed, not her. She had just been a stand-in, as he’d said. A role that could have been played equally well by any other girl. There was nothing special or unique about her.
A fresh wave of moisture adrift down her cheeks was disposed of with a swift rub from the back of her hand. He’ll be fine. He has a loving family and they’ll find him a bride who suits him perfectly.
With that notion, Naina made her way back to her lonesome abode.
But to dispatch Rihaan from her mind wasn’t an easy task.
Pausing outside her apartment, she stared at the spot where she’d discovered him earlier that day trying to put on an act of nonchalance, and she couldn’t prevent a smile. He’d reminded her of a puppy who had lost his master—hazel eyes forlorn yet full of hope.
“Stop perseverating, Naina!” she chided herself. “Rihaan isn’t a puppy, nor are you his savior! He’s a grown man highly capable of taking care of himself!”
But am I?
Refusing to pursue the thought, she threw open the door.
It was pitch black inside, but Naina didn’t turn on the lights. Instead she chose to find her way about in the dark—an exercise she often indulged in when returning home late. An attempt to hone her instincts, to sharpen her brain…a vital skill for any woman, especially one who’d chosen to spend her life alone. Alone! What a depressing thought!
She walked into the bedroom and turned on the bedside lamp. Her head drooping like a wilted flower, she sunk down on the hand woven dhurrie on the side of the bed; a rare impetuous fling with luxury, but the bright splash of color failed to lift her spirits. The solitude of the apartment which in the past had afforded welcome solace from the hue and cry of her daily routine, now seemed to aggravate her sense of isolation and despair. What did the future hold? Would she ever find someone she’d want to share her life with every day? Or would she perish alone? Would she ever find love and have a family of her own? None of the omens appeared to portend such a likelihood.
This is terrible! I’m being made to pay dearly for my one impulsive error for which I’ve no one to blame but myself. And I’m calling the poor guy naïve? She rolled over in bed, in a desperate attempt to get comfortable…
This won’t do! I need to get a grip, find my focus, get back to my life where there’s no place for men or family! I’m a single woman and thus will I remain. “Yes!” she concluded, closing her eyes with a determined nod.
But sleep receded too far away from reach.
Family isn’t really a bad idea, particularly one like Rihaan’s, she mused. Even his mother, who resembles a consummate bully at the outset, seemed to harbor a softer side. It’ll be fun to parry wits with her for sure. Naina smiled.
And then…, the very image she had been struggling so hard to fend away; that of the teasing gleam in Rihaan’s eyes that made her heart skip a beat before leaping ahead into a mad dash. What did they mean to communicate? A mutually shared daring secret?
“No! Stop it, Naina! You can’t go on like this! You just can’t!” She sat up with a wretched cry, her body drenched in sticky sweat. Despite it being a muggy night, she had cocooned herself in oppressive folds of the cotton sheet—a flimsy defense against the hordes of voracious airborne parasites that migrated inside, who regardless of her dedicated and indefatigable application of much touted repellents she routinely squandered half her paltry income on, seemed to find her flesh particularly irresistible.
“Now who am I trying to fool?” she laughed wryly before getting out of bed and padding to the bathroom where she doused her face with cold water.
Oftentimes, the restless psyche is driven to find comfort in a favorite distraction and so was Naina’s. But the consolation was tepid at best. She soon found that out while slowly flicking through the slides of the most recent photo essay she had done on the street children of Delhi, which she had submitted to Landscape a few weeks ago. She had yet to hear from them. It was the most ambitious and difficult venture she’d undertaken, and dangerous, too. Investigative journalism for a lone woman is not child’s play, especially when she’s trying to ferret out the merciless exploiters of innocence who operate in underground networks as convoluted and ruthless as any drug cartel. Fortunately she had the sense to reign in her enthusiasm in time or would have paid a dear price for her curiosity.
“It’d have been a different matter altogether if I was working with some kind of back up; I’d have dragged each and every one of those sniveling bastards to court and put them behind bars forever. No! Cowards like them don’t deserve the dignity of a trial, they should be lynched in public, each one of them!” She said so with vehemence enough to upset her still full cup of cocoa all over the laptop keyboard.
With a horrified scream, she scrambled to salvage the precious device, when her eyes fell on the date on the desktop calendar.
A chilling dread settled into her bones. It was that time of year again.
She’d been trying to ignore it like she did every year, hoping if she did so long enough, it’d just recede and drop out of sight. But no, it always came back—all the pain and hurt she had worked so hard to erase—back in stark Technicolor and with uncanny precision.
Her gaze shifted to her reflection in the large poster frame that hung over her bed and she cursed the day she was born.
***
It was monsoon in the desert—a time to rejoice and celebrate. The local populace had been parched of good tidings however transient they may be. It was that time of the year when evanescent showers brought temporary relief from the hundred plus degrees of scorching heat. A time when Lord Shiva danced the tandav in the heavens and peacocks strutted proud and arrogant on the ground.
It was a time of hope—when the desiccated wells glistened with more than a hint of moisture, so the perennially suffering women of the villages could cut a mile or two off their daily treks for water.
And… It was also a time to rejoice twice over, because almost twenty-three years ago to this day, the Rathod household had welcomed their first and only girl child.
But the celebrations didn’t last long.
Naina almost believed in the stories she concocted. They did vary from time to time, albeit slightly. Her most favored was the one she had narrated today—that she was an orphan and didn’t really have much in the form of family. For her, the term felt alien. From what she had seen, family meant unconditional love, trust and support. No member would ever be considered an obligation nor would he or she ever be subject to intentional harm or used as a pawn on a chess
board for another’s personal gains.
There was once a time when Naina felt she had a real family, when she had felt loved. That had been long ago when her mother was still alive. She passed when Naina was perhaps five or six, but she didn’t recall the circumstances exactly. However, she did remember her mother—her beautiful, wonderful mother. Her revolutionary, trend-setting, modern woman mother. The one who had rebelled against the tradition of parda and refused to restrict herself to the zanana quarters. Indeed, after the death of her in-laws, she had taken it upon herself to abolish the practice altogether, even daring to converse freely with the male guests who visited the house. She was the mother whom Naina’s father had fallen hopelessly in love with and who’s only daughter’s birth had been celebrated like royalty.
Though several of the memories were vague, Naina fiercely held on to them. She wove them together with whimsical threads of affection and kept them securely locked away within an area of her brain from where she could retrieve them at will. For they conveyed to her that her birth wasn’t an accident, that somebody had wanted her and loved her; treasured her existence.
But just as the joy of the monsoon rains was fleeting, so were those moments of happiness.
Her mother succumbed to a sudden unknown illness right after she welcomed her eldest daughter-in-law home. And with her death, Naina’s family fell apart. Her grief stricken father, blaming his only daughter for his loss (she being the natural target), banished her from his sight. Then a short while thereafter, having resorted to drown his sorrows in bottles of bourbon, he too perished.
Thus of her family, all that remained were those who considered her an unnecessary accessory, a mistake, and a weakling. Except perhaps her beloved brother, Yuvraj, (second out of a total of four) who had left home for the city to train to be a teacher, and then decided to stay there.
“Because city life agrees better with me,” he told her.
But she had believed it to be otherwise—he wished to shield his young family from his prejudiced and overbearing clan who routinely sneered at his progressive ways. So, it came as no minor surprise when just before her thirteenth birthday, Naina found herself handed over to his care and dispatched to the city as well. Perhaps, her brothers thought it a better option than keeping her in a small town where her adolescent beauty and uncharacteristic streak of defiance made her a dangerous liability to have around.
As a consequence, she received an excellent education unlike the usual lot for most women in her community and she also grew independent, thereby essentially banning herself from the traditional marriage market.
Naina had just begun to believe the ties were permanently severed when a couple of years ago she received a summons to attend the anniversary of her mother’s death. “Let us forgive and forget,” she had been told and she had acquiesced gladly—after all, blood is thicker than water, isn’t it?
Sadly it isn’t, particularly if you are a lowly woman born in a misogynist society.
If mother was alive, she would never have allowed this to happen. But she isn’t. I’m all alone.
Naina blinked away her tears. “But alone doesn’t mean helpless, does it?” she said aloud to herself. Think, Naina, think!
There was only one way out; perhaps a desperate move—but she didn’t see any other way.
***
The following morning, after whiling away as much time as he could in bed, Rihaan joined the rest of the brood at breakfast. It was probably best to face the situation head-on, as dodging it would only land him in a worse pickle than he was in.
He’d barely taken a seat at the table when the interrogation began—his mother had never suffered from jet lag. “Where is my bahu, Rihaan?”
“Still sleeping?” His Aunt Rashmi piped in with a knowing wink.
“No, she isn’t,” he said.
“Then perhaps she is getting ready; I can go and help,” Rima suggested, starting up from her seat.
It seemed to Rihaan like she had adopted Naina as her younger sibling already. “You won’t find her in the room, sis.”
An immediate uproar of anxious and scandalous whispers along the dining table was heard among those gathered.
“Then where is she?” his mother asked.
Rihaan looked her straight in the eye; it was important he did. “She had to leave on an assignment.”
“Assignment? What assignment? Isn’t she supposed to be a teacher of some sort and shouldn’t she be on vacation?”
“Naina also happens to be a much sought after photojournalist,” Rihaan said, his brain racing as the falsehoods came pouring out. “She had signed up for a few projects a while ago that she’s obligated to fulfill. The wedding was planned in haste.” That much he knew was true. “She got a call last night. I wanted to go with her but…”
“What? Unplanned wedding? I don’t believe it! What is going on, Rihaan?” Shobha said rising from her seat.
“Mom, listen…” he protested.
Then for the first time in his life, his phone rang and miraculously saved him from further discussion and embarrassing himself.
“It’s her!” He shouted in genuine excitement. “She wants me to come right away. Got to go!” He was out the door in a flash.
Journeys
The few hours that followed had Rihaan seriously questioning his rationalizing skills. Truly he seemed to have taken leave of his senses. Feeling his skull gingerly with both hands, he sincerely prayed the wiring was still intact—his livelihood was at stake!
“Aww… Crap! What in hell was that?” The aggrieved frustration he’d been so stoutly keeping a muzzle on eventually found a release.
“A pothole,” she said. “Don’t you have potholes in America?” His beauteous companion replied with a sweet smile.
That maddened him even further. “You call that a pothole? It’s more like a sinkhole! And no, we don’t have potholes in America. And even if they do crop up now and then, they get fixed right away. We could’ve got killed back there! You should report it to the local authorities!”
“Really? You think that’d work?” she snickered, turning to look out of the window of the bus. “Dr. Mehta, what world are you living in? Even if they do take action, it’ll be a patch up job, to be washed away with the next rains. Our society eats and breathes corruption; it’s part of our lives. We’d be lost without it.”
Then she burst into a hearty laugh at his astounded expression. “Don’t worry. We made it this far, didn’t we? It’ll get better once we’re on the highway.”
Rihaan settled back, preparing to brace his frame against the worn out seat cushion. Had they really made it? He was having a rough time figuring out his wife—not in ‘that’ sense as she seemed so often to admonish him. She had proved once again that she was a personality of extreme opposites—at times a silly school girl prankster who pitched in at a lark to help her ‘friend’ and at others, this compelling, brilliant young woman who spilled acidic gyan at the drop of a hat. Even a chameleon would be put to shame!
Why did he sense there was more to this beautiful disaster than she was willing to reveal? She sat by his side, unassuming and carefree like a village belle, swathed in pleats of gay silk, the edge wrapped tightly around her head like a makeshift shield against the gusty wind, with her pensive eyes trained into the distance. What did she see? The vast stretches of chaotic third world urban sprawl or something far different? What mysteries lay camouflaged inside those exquisite depths of her eyes? He urged to probe further, delve deeper, and have a conversation—an intellectual powwow with the brain behind that proud brow. It’d surely be well worth his while.
Just then, his body was clobbered by another bone crunching jolt.
Rihaan! What are you thinking? She’s a female! And you want nothing to do with the likes of them, remember? Women, especially wily ones like her, can ruin your life! Just follow her
advice, finish the task at hand and move on.
Yes, move on! Resolute, he shifted his attention in another direction and chanced upon a pretty young girl staring wide-eyed at him. He acknowledged her with a smile; she colored; her male escort sporting a particularly luxurious handlebar appendage bristled, and Naina giggled.
Rihaan balked. Now what on earth coerced me to take this godforsaken journey?
He didn’t have to venture too far for the answer. It’s my brain, he thought. My wonderful eternally pragmatic intellect that of late has launched itself on an acid trip! What else can possibly explain the goings on?
Earlier that day, just prior to receiving Naina’s message, he’d almost been at the verge of wishing her to Timbuktu or another equally remote location for an indefinite period; notwithstanding whether his parents believed him or not. Perhaps he should have.
I need your help. Can you come to my place ASAP?
He had stared at his phone nonplussed. What is with this girl?
He didn’t try to reason how she’d come by his number. It was glaringly obvious she was far sharper than he when it came to practical matters. Yet, he hadn’t paused to deliberate. He had run like a lovelorn blockhead, leaving his bewildered family behind. His mother must have figured it out by now—he was insane.
“Sorry, I must have the wrong apartment,” he blurted, stepping away when he saw a stranger open Naina’s door.
“No, Rihaan, you are exactly where you’re supposed to be. Thanks for coming so promptly.”
The voice arrested him in his tracks. He swung around and gawked at the woman. Sure enough, it was her, but in an entirely new avatar. With her slim figure ensconced in a vibrant ethnic sari, a smattering of simple jewelry, and face bare of all makeup—not that she needed any—Naina presented the image of a chaste and comely desi bride. A sight beautiful enough to melt the most discerning of hearts.
He must have worn a profusely befuddled expression because she burst into a peal of laughter. He composed himself and mustered a straight face. It took some doing. “Care to clue me in?” He asked rather brusquely.