‘Go,’ I told Pradeep, who wouldn’t look me in the eye. He didn’t move, and I gave him a little shove. ‘Go, go,’ I insisted, ‘Go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning,’ and he finally took off, turning away from us and towards the quarters at the back of the house.
Shanti was sobbing. Tears ran down her face unchecked, and Maya lifted a tissue to her skin to stem their flow. ‘Shh,’ she said soothingly, patting her softly on the back, as if to calm a hysterical child. Shanti’s cries grew more muted, and I reached forward, putting my arms around her. Her chest heaved against me, and as I looked down, I was struck again by the white in her hair. Once Shanti was calmer, she said, ‘Now, what will become of the boy? He only has a roof over his head because you are kind.’
‘No,’ said Maya firmly. ‘This is his home.’
‘And what about his future?’ the woman asked. ‘How is he going to earn money? Or am I going to have to earn and provide for that great big lump until I’m dead and gone?’
‘There will be other jobs.’
‘Did he think about the girl he was going to marry?’ she jabbed. She broke away from my embrace. Her face was full of thunder, dark and pursed, and she asked, ‘Tell me, baby, who is going to marry that idiot now?’
‘Come on, Shanti.’
She didn’t speak then, this small, greying woman. She had been a second mother to us, scolding us when we had needed it, and comforting us too when we were ill or unhappy, but as I looked down at her, so solitary in her grief, I saw that I had never before been called upon to ease her pain.
XI
The monsoons were anticipated any day. The news channels gave over much of their hourly segments to tracking the path of the rain up the country, and in the meantime, North India held its breath. The heat seemed more unbearable; the air full with unspent moisture. We wore our crispest, most starched white cottons, but these were drenched the minute we stepped out. The grass in the garden grew bleached, the rooms indoors—airy and high-ceilinged—grew heavy with the smell of damp.
We grew sluggish too, and rose later. I bathed twice a day, and yet I felt my clothes stick to my skin the minute I was out of the bathroom. Maya, though, seemed unaffected by the humidity, and began to work as if possessed. She had the library aired out, and opened the connecting door to the garden room. The ancient wicker chairs were dusted, all the clutter from here was shifted to the living room on the first floor, and though every table upstairs heaved with decaying papers, the two rooms she had opened up on the ground floor were now spotless.
I asked Maya what had changed her mind about the magazine, and she threw her arms into the air. ‘It’s all falling apart—the house, our lives. And I’ve always been scared of change. But I heard you fight for us at Tasha-di’s flat, and something you said: “What’s the worst that could happen?”, struck a chord with me. The worst was happening, and the worst that was happening was that I was allowing it to happen.’
Pradeep’s help was enlisted in the clean up. No one spoke about the job he had lost, and he fell naturally into employment with us. His salary was paid out of the household budget, and though I offered to pay him out of my savings, Maya refused. ‘Keep your money for the magazine,’ she instructed, and I had a chimera, a hint of a memory of the big sister who had always guided me and led me away from trouble.
Pradeep began to come into the house, then, shortly after we returned from our morning walks, and set to unearthing the floor in the hallway. He would run errands for us, ferrying us about to supply stores and as we went to meetings with Tasha-di and potential recruits. After we were finished for the evening, he would move into the library and begin to work on the flooring there. We told him his working day ended when ours did, and though he never disagreed with us, we often heard him working as we dined on the first floor.
Ben wrote a few days later. ‘Are you not coming back?’
I replied straight away. ‘No. I’m launching a magazine with my sister.’
‘Seriously, then,’ he wrote back. ‘For real?’
‘For real,’ I replied, and smiled. For real.
I sometimes saw Raja Singh from the first floor veranda and quelled my urge to call out to him. He was a successful investor; a reader of the nation’s tastes; an incubator of new ideas; he had known Ma. Surely we could rely on him for advice. But there was a reluctance to accost him—he was so eminent, and our plan still so unformed—and he continued to pass by our house untroubled as I continued to tell myself I would approach him the next time I saw him.
Maya was a revelation during these weeks. She had earlier told me she knew no one we could bring into the magazine, and she had been right. She had fallen out of touch with many of her college friends, and the others she had encountered were too senior to countenance working in a poorly funded start-up operating out of the founders’ crumbling home. And yet, there she was, despite all her natural reservations, feeding me ideas, telling me about two old college friends who had given up working after bearing children.
‘Either,’ she told me, ‘would be an asset. But it’s Sonia, really, who would be wonderful to have on board.’ We were in my bedroom. The monsoons had begun, and I woke every morning to sheets of water pouring down onto the balcony in front of my room. Everything was transformed by the rains. The grass, which had turned to straw, sprang back to vivid life overnight. Crickets chirped in the evening; earthworms moved languidly underfoot. The air smelt earthier. Birdsong seemed sweeter, there were reports of peacock sightings on a roof in the area. The neighbourhood seemed all at once lusher, fuller, and it affected us. We smiled more at each other, our pace grew more relaxed, and as I woke in the mornings, I didn’t immediately rise. There was comfort in the sound of the rain beating against the walls of the house, insistent and life-affirming, and I would choose to lay in bed, my eyes shut, taking in the drama of the heavens. It might have been my imagination, but I thought that the damp patch in my ceiling had spread a little, though I chose to ignore this. Maya was full of energy for our project, the air fragrant with possibility, and I was loathe to present any problems to her.
Our morning walks were halted. Maya came into my room, instead, after her yoga, and as I lay in bed, resisting the call of the day, she would pull open the curtains, and scold me for wasting time. Shanti would bring in tea, and Maya would snuggle in next to me, and as I took my first sips against the drumbeat of India’s monsoon, Maya would tell me of all she had thought of as I slept. Now she raised herself up against a pillow, and asked me, ‘You remember Sonia, surely?’
‘Hmm…’ I muttered noncommittally.
‘You must,’ she insisted, and as I shrugged, she said, ‘she was brilliant. I only ever lost prizes in college to her, and after graduation, she joined the best magazine in India.’
‘You were brilliant too,’ I said stoutly, but Maya raised her hand.
‘Sonia wrote beautifully about politics and social change. I was sure she would have been a major editor by now, but after she had her children, her ambition seemed to leave her. She didn’t have family in Delhi, and didn’t want to leave her children in the charge of help, so she resigned from the magazine. I still see her by-line sometimes in an online magazine, but I don’t think she’s writing regularly.’
I looked at her for a moment. ‘Both the brilliant girls from your degree gave up writing.’
‘Well,’ she said. She turned away from my gaze, and set her cup of tea down on a side table. ‘I had my own version of care assigned to me.’
Maya had picked up the edge of my bed cover, and was running her fingers through it. She traced out the peacock pattern on the worn fabric, her fingers running through the design repeatedly, as if she was rubbing an itch, and I thought—perhaps for the first time—of all she had given up. She had been alone in that house, shrouded in the silence Ma had built up around her, and instead of relieving her burden, I had been away and unencumbered. ‘I’m sorry, Maya,’ I said, but she was shaking her head. Her head was bo
wed now, and I saw her blink rapidly, but she didn’t speak. I thought of speaking again, of expressing my regret, of promising to be better, but I wasn’t in the habit of providing comfort to her, and I didn’t know how my words would be received. We sat in silence then, as the rain lashed down around us. If she felt uncomfortable, she didn’t mention it. Our tea grew cold. I took another sip, but felt my action to be too noisy. The sip sounded loud to me, the ensuing gulp louder still, and I set my cup down on a table.
We continued quiet, and Maya made no move to change the situation. In the end, and to distract her from her thoughts, I asked her, ‘So are you still in touch with her?’
This jolted her. ‘Who?’
‘This Sonia girl you told me about.’
It took her a moment to realise who I spoke of. She shook her head, and said, ‘No,’ and then, ‘Yes. We’re not friends, exactly, but we keep in touch as part of a group. There are the usual greetings over Diwali, and maybe a catch up at a party once a year. But no,’ she said again thoughtfully, ‘we’re not friends.’
There was an hourglass I had once taken from a board game. I had loved to see the grains of sand slip down the funnel and deposit down the bottom of the surface, and instead of spurring me on to be mindful of time, I had found the motion relaxing. This hourglass rested on a table next to the bed, and Maya picked it up. She looked at it, turning it over as the sand ran out, and I asked her, ‘Do you have her number?’
‘Yes,’ and then, as she turned the hourglass again and set it back down on the table, ‘I called her this morning. We can go meet her later on today.’
XII
Sonia listened to our plans for The Satirist with great interest before telling us she wasn’t able to help. Both of her children were in full-time education, and she told us she would have to be back home in time for their return from school. Sahil, her oldest, was fifteen, and reaching his crucial years at school, and she didn’t want to be distracted when he was at home.
‘Ok,’ said Maya. I was downhearted at the rejection, but Maya made a suggestion. ‘Why don’t you take the local interest stories then. Any oddities that strike you. You can add the satirical tone to The Satirist.’ Sonia was nodding thoughtfully, and I knew my sister had caught her imagination. ‘And then, when your kids are older, you can move back into looking at politics.’
‘Yes,’ said Sonia. She had a long face, her features serious, her words and movements measured, and she took a while to continue. She had on a loose-fitting tracksuit, which she pointed to apologetically. ‘This is all I wear these days. I’m a professional mother now, Maya. And Sahil does need me.’
‘Look,’ I said, and both women turned to me with surprise. I had been largely silent thus far, letting the two old journalists lead the conversation, and as I spoke, I worried I was breaking the rhythm of their interaction. ‘This is all a little bit of a gamble. I’m uprooting myself to start The Satirist. So, in a way, is Maya.’ Sonia looked at Maya, who shrugged. I continued, anxious to persuade Sonia. ‘If we look at the world around us,’ and here I ran out of inspiration. I looked at my sister, but it was no use. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘The world,’ she said, the words spilling out of her mouth, ‘is changing beyond recognition. I’m not just talking about climate change and the change in the political order, though these in themselves are terrifying. I’m talking about the way news is presented, and about the way we interact with it. I’m talking about our shorter attention spans and about how everything we consume is interactive. We spend more time online, and we curate who we listen to. This has led to a polarisation of our discourse, and to an increasing shrillness in our debates and news. And this is why we need to turn to the old way of disseminating our information. This is why our columns need to be shorter, and pithier, just as we have to be balanced and unbiased at a time when so few others are.’
This was the longest speech I had ever heard from Maya. Her articles had always been persuasive, well argued, well researched and immaculately structured, and to see her talents translate to the spoken word was new to me. I surged in confidence all at once. Yes, I thought. We could do this. This ridiculous idea of starting up a print magazine as the world grew digital sounded suddenly not only possible, but urgently needed. I looked across at Sonia, who seemed similarly affected by Maya’s words.
She nodded, going to where Maya sat. She perched herself on the arm of Maya’s chair, and put her arms around my sister. ‘I always wondered,’ said Sonia. ‘Why you stopped writing.’
Maya gave her a wry smile. ‘Life,’ she said, ‘gets in the way.’
‘Well,’ nodded Sonia. She looked around her living room, filled as it was with photos of her children. ‘Like Siya says, you’re both uprooting yourselves.’
She didn’t speak further. ‘You can step back anytime…’ I started, but Maya shot me down with a quick look. Sonia laughed. She looked at me and then at my sister, and both burst out into loud, irrepressible peals of laughter I pretended to mind.
The purchases continued. We ordered new computers and desks, with Pradeep in charge of all the ferrying and building work. The wedding, which had been brokered and then cancelled after news of Pradeep’s unemployment reached the village, was now back on.
I was with Pradeep in the library, monitoring the layout of the desks. Pradeep didn’t speak much, indicating his agreement with my suggestions with a short nod. I asked for a few desks to be moved so that Maya and I were sitting opposite each other, and as he followed my instructions, I said, ‘It’s all slowly coming together.’
I had spoken softly, but he looked up now and nodded. ‘Yes, Didi,’ he said, and then, wiping his hands and reaching into a trouser pocket, he asked me, ‘would you like to see a picture?’
I was caught off-guard by his question, but he pulled out a small passport photo sized image. This he now brought towards me. ‘A photo of my phancee.’
I understood the word to mean his fiancée, and took the proffered picture. The image itself was out of focus, and the card lined, as if it had been folded and refolded repeatedly, and I squinted to get a better view. The girl in the picture was slim and looked serious. She didn’t smile, and I wondered if the photo had in fact been taken for an official purpose. Pradeep was looking at me, expecting a reply, and I returned to scrutinising his fiancée’s features. She was young, just out of her teens perhaps, and elegant. Her hair fell straight down her shoulders, her lips were full and wide. The sternness of her features couldn’t hide that. There was an intelligence I thought I detected in her eyes, a sharpness, a knowledge, and I wondered how they would pair up, Pradeep, always so solemn and subservient, and this proud young creature with intelligence in her eyes.
Maya called Tania, the other friend from college she had thought of. Tania had married well and vanished from journalism. ‘But,’ she told me and Sonia, ‘she must feel the itch of work.’
A call was placed, then, though it went unanswered, and was not returned. Maya sent Tania a message on Facebook, but there was no response to that either. ‘Is it a tricky time for her, do you think?’ she asked Sonia. ‘An exam year for one of her kids, maybe?’
‘I can’t imagine so,’ Sonia replied. ‘Her children are much younger than mine.’ She looked at us, so anxious to hear her opinion, and she blinked. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked around at us again, straining in our seats in our eagerness, and sighed. ‘I was never really very good friends with her,’ she added, but what she didn’t mention was that we were a rag-tag crew of associates without any pedigree. Asking an acquaintance to emerge from retirement for the sake of our little half-baked plan wasn’t likely to appeal to most.
Sonia did have thoughts on two more hires. One was a friend’s daughter, freshly out of college and looking for a job. ‘She doesn’t have any experience,’ she told us, ‘but she’s bright, and I’m sure she will learn quickly.’
The girl, Natasha, was contacted, and called in for an interview. She had interned
for a month at a daily newspaper, and as she walked into our office—the old garden room full of its bamboo armchairs—I could see her sniff. She sat through the hour-long meeting, then told us she didn’t think we were the right place for her.
‘But,’ an astonished Sonia pointed out, ‘this is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of an amazing new magazine. You’ll be working right alongside two industry veterans, and you’ll get your earliest by-lines much sooner than you otherwise would.’ Natasha still pursed her lips, and Sonia added, ‘Think of all the experience you’ll gain.’
‘But this is it,’ the girl pointed out, ‘What would I gain from working for a magazine no one has heard of?’
Natasha had baldly stated what Tania’s silence had implied, and both Maya and I were daunted. The girl was right; no one had heard of us. No one would buy our magazine. We were destined to end in failure. No offer was extended to Natasha, though it was clear it wouldn’t have been accepted even if it had been made.
‘How’s it going?’ Benjamin wrote.
‘No one wants to write for a magazine started by nobodies.’
‘Losers,’ he wrote back.
‘Yes, right,’ I thought. ‘Losers.’
Tasha-di, who joined us in interviewing the young graduate, began to voice fresh concerns about the money I was putting at risk, telling us not to be irresponsible, and her arguments began to sway my sister. Always credulous, always obedient, Maya found it natural to doubt herself. ‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea,’ she told me. ‘What experience do we have of running a magazine, anyway?’
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