Blueprint for Love

by Chatura Rao

  ‘No, no, not for me. I’m already married! You couldn’t tell?’ she flirted, eager to net handsome Zahyan for her young cousin.

  ‘My khala’s daughter is in her final year of a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology,’ she explained. ‘Her parents are very protective about her, so she’s studying by correspondence at home. The first day you walked in here I thought to myself, here is a good match for Mahnoor!’

  ‘Thank you,’ Zahyan had mumbled, not knowing what else to say. He plucked up courage and asked if her cousin was Sunni like himself.

  ‘Of course,’ Fabeha had said airily. ‘I would not be asking you to consider her if I did not know that your caste matches ours. Will you meet her?’

  Visions of a girl as clever and charming as Fabeha filled his head. Zahyan had stammered, ‘why not. . .’ and sealed the deal.

  Fabeha told Mahnoor the story later, imitating Zahyan’s frightened expression when she said the word “nikah”, and although she’d laughed as she was meant to, Mahnoor had found his shyness endearing. In his place she would have been as nervous.

  So Mahnoor and Zahyan were introduced at a coffee shop at Priya Circle. Fabeha had taken permission from all the older members of the family. Mahnoor’s mother, Amina Khala, had proclaimed that this meeting-sheeting over coffee-shofee was very unconventional, but this being Baroda and new-shoo generation (sigh), she would allow it. But her daughter would have to be delivered home in exactly an hour and a half and Fabeha must record the whole thing on her phone. Fabeha promised.

  When they entered the coffee shop, Mahnoor covered from head to toe in a burqa and Fabeha’s phone held up to shoot the first revelation of her face to Zahyan, he noticed what she was doing and glared so fiercely that she immediately lowered the phone and her gaze too, ashamed of intruding into their first moments together. Mahnoor and Fabeha did not know, then, the kind of practice Zahyan had had with his gaze. His glower had been welded in a furnace of time and suffering in his tiny home in Moti Daman, south of Gujarat, where he grew up.

  Zahyan told Mahnoor much later about it. His father, Shahbaaz Sheikh, used to work as a foreman at an automobile components factory in Nani Daman. He’d often missed attending work on account of his wife Mariya’s illness. She was prone to stretches of depression and had tried to end her life twice. Sometimes she had violent bursts of anger. It had begun when Zahyan was ten years old and his sisters six and four.

  He came back from playing one evening to find Zarina away at the neighbour’s, but six-year-old Safiya searching for a misplaced pencil in every nook of the house. Her mother followed her around with a piece of hot coal clutched in a pair of tongs, threatening to burn her if she did not locate it. Safiya’s tear-stained, dirt-smudged face, her small knees shaking as his mother’s eyes bulged with rage and vile words flew out of her mouth told Zahyan there was something badly wrong.

  ‘Ammi, I’ll find the pencil,’ he said, trying not to let his voice tremble or his courage falter as he came between his sister and her. ‘Just put the tongs aside. Promise I will find it . . .’ He nudged Safiya towards the front door, muttering, ‘Tu jaa. Go sit by the gate.’

  Although Mariya agreed to drop the coal, she kept the pair of tongs close and continued to mutter threats at Safiya. Zahyan managed to convince her to lie down with a wet towel draped across her forehead. He led his terrified little sister to the neighbouring lane to play with a litter of mongrel puppies. He kept his sisters away from the house till their father got home.

  His mother’s mood swings subsided with medication but off and on she’d suffer a relapse. At those times Zahyan would linger in and around the house, hoping to keep the girls safe just with his presence. What more could a boy his age do . . . he did not want to have to block or push his mother.

  By the time he was 13, Zahyan had the appearance of a much older boy. He’d developed an alertness, almost a sixth sense, about what might be happening at home, even if he was out in the market or at school or playing cricket on the playground half a kilometer away. He grew tall and lanky, and although his mother was stocky and powerful, quick to slap or punch, Zahyan’s brooding presence stilled her hand. Shahbaaz had been almost unable to cope with the situation. Once he realised that Zahyan could manage his mother’s illness and his sisters’ safety, he spent less and less time at home.

  Zahyan took charge of his mother’s medication, sisters’ school work, and daily household errands. He matured into a man with a capable presence by the time he was out of his teens.

  In the last few years, Zahyan’s father, grateful for being spared the care of his wife for so many years, and now retired from his job, had taken over once again. He got Safiya and Zarina married. He became rather tender towards his spouse. She was not young anymore, not trying to kill or die any longer. Ravaged by the violent ups and downs of her illness and the medication, though still formidable, she was a shadow of her old self.

  Zahyan, having completed a Masters in Science and with a B. Ed. degree, got a job as a junior college teacher. Unlike his father, he was unable to shed the anger. It shadowed his heart and left visible rings of darkness around his eyes.

  9

  S

  ubdued by Zahyan’s reaction to her phone camera, Fabeha had withdrawn to the neighbouring table where she occupied herself playing Angry Birds. The space seemed to clear up, to belong solely to the two who had come here to meet.

  ‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ Zahyan asked, although he knew the answer. Fabeha had rattled off details of Mahnoor’s family during another chat in the college staff room.

  ‘I have two younger brothers, Arbaaz and Ayaz,’ she replied.

  ‘I have two younger sisters,’ Zahyan said. ‘Zarina is the same age as you. You’re twenty-one, right?’ His younger sister was a sharp-tongued girl, quite different from the one seated quietly before him, her expression as yielding as the moonlight for which she was named.

  They read the menu carefully and realised they both like cold coffee with chocolate ice-cream. When the order arrived they drank and ate, relieved not to have to speak for a while.

  ‘What is your dream in life?’ Zahyan asked her when their hour together was nearly up.

  ‘To marry a good man,’ she replied shyly after some thought. ‘And to make a home for our children.’

  ‘I would not be able to afford a luxurious place,’ Zahyan cautioned. ‘You might have to be content with very little.’

  ‘I would be,’ she said, adding softly, ‘Just a roof and walls to protect us from the sun and rain, and a place to be together.’

  ‘You must have a career,’ he said sternly, to cover his confusion at the effect her words had on his heart. She nodded, a tiny frown of determination appearing on her brow. Then Fabeha was standing by their table.

  ‘If you lovebirds are done, can we leave?’ she asked with a stiff smile.

  They were married eight months later. The nikah passed as if in a dream. Zahyan took the lion’s share of responsibility of all the arrangements, as he was wont to. Mahnoor was pale and quiet, doing exactly what she was told to by her bossy relatives. She was not a pretty bride. Layers of makeup made her look white as a clown; her lips and cheeks were rouged in purple, masking her natural fragility.

  They were sent to sleep in the one bedroom of Zahyan’s parents’ home the night of the wedding, with whispers and laughter, hints and teasing about the night to come. Once alone, Zahyan took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled, grateful to God for uniting them. They lay down on a bed fragrant with fresh rose petals and, in each other’s arms, slept.

  The next morning, Zahyan’s mother asked the bride if she had had a colourful night. Mahnoor did not understand what she meant. Fabeha had tried to explain the details of marital duty (and pleasure), but chanting tauba tauba, Mahnoor had closed her ears with her hands and rocked to and fro, refusing to listen.

  Now Mariya told her husband that their son had married a complet
e fool and he should be told to quickly change the situation. Else what would the neighbours say? That their son was not a man! And how would Zahyan and Mahnoor beget children? Shahbaaz called Zahyan to him.

  ‘Son, you’re a man.’

  Zahyan frowned. He waited for his father to make himself clear.

  ‘You must do your duty,’ Shahbaaz tried again. ‘It is not correct for a married man not to . . . to neglect his God-given duty.’

  Shahbaaz scratched his head and beard and cast an uneasy glance towards the kitchen from where his wife was grimly monitoring the conversation.

  ‘To produce children, carry on the family bloodline,’ Shahbaaz said in a rush.

  Zahyan received the order quietly, but did not act on it. His bride was very shy and his mother’s crude questions had frightened her further. She had become reserved to the point of misery.

  A couple of weeks later, when it was clear that the bride was still a virgin, Zahyan was teased good naturedly by his mother’s brothers who had come over for a meal. Mariya had put them up to it.

  ‘Our young stud has yet to prove his prowess, we hear.’

  ‘Hurry up lest the new daughter-in-law complain about feeling cold at night . . .’

  Zahyan who didn’t have much of a sense of humour, and implacable ideas of both responsibility and pride, was upset by the ribbing.

  That night he tried to convince Mahnoor, both by explaining that it was their duty to consummate the marriage and by kissing and stroking her arms and back. He had been persuaded once by his friends to have paid sex. It had been without much foreplay, quick and easy. Here Mahnoor’s nervousness was heightened–she had been told by Mariya that the whole family had their eye on their conjugal activity or rather, lack of it. She tried to push him away and twist herself out of his embrace, saying again and again that she was frightened.

  When he couldn’t get her to see how desperately important it was, Zahyan forced himself on her. When he was done he rolled off and throwing an arm over his eyes, pretended to sleep.

  Mahnoor dragged up her salwar and fastened it with leaden hands. She turned towards the wall, rubbing at eyes in which tears kept welling. She tried to ignore the burning pain in her vagina, willed it to recede.

  Zahyan, though he spoke neither words of love nor apology, was tormented by conflicting thoughts. He regretted hurting her. Yet, he was angry at her inability to relax and allow what had to be done to be more pleasurable for both. As he lay there, a greater sense of failure came over him when he realised the extent to which his mother still controlled his life. It seemed as if little had changed from his childhood years spent trying to mitigate the power she had to destroy the fabric of the family, and his joy.

  The next morning Mariya found smears of blood and semen on the bedclothes and rejoiced. She ordered a celebratory breakfast of minced meat parathas and sweet sheera. Her son barely touched the food, more silent than ever, setting out to work early. Mahnoor retched when she saw the oily meat. Zahyan had sex with Mahnoor every night for the next few, hoping she would somehow get used to it or even come to like being with him. But it didn’t get easier. She tried to be forgiving of the pain and even affectionate towards him in the morning when she readied his breakfast and packed his lunch.

  Soon after, she fell ill with a high fever. Zahyan was sure the unhappiness between them had caused it. He told himself at first that the act had had to be done, and Mahnoor could not pretend to be a child at this stage of her life. But he was saddened by the light going out of her eyes. He’d come straight home from work, make her a simple meal of khichdi since his mother would not, bring her hot milk and turmeric to soothe and strengthen her, and mop down her feverish face, hands and feet in the wee hours.

  The noise of the household seemed to fade into faraway impressions for Mahnoor. The dimly-lit, tiny corner of the house (Mariya had taken back her bedroom) where she lay on fever-damp sheets, the sense of Zahyan’s nearness and concern, became the world and more.

  When Naved Chacha, his father’s rich cousin in Abu Dhabi asked if a member of the family could oversee the renovation of his newly bought house in Gandhinagar, Zahyan jumped at the chance to move out of the family home. Mahnoor and he packed and left for Gandhinagar. He got a job as a teacher at Rainbow Riders School. She became Assistant to the Principal of a nursery school called Tiny Tots. They were happy to be on their own. In the bedroom, though, things got no better. Mariya’s forcing of Zahyan’s claim to his conjugal right had deeply scarred the relationship.

  Mahnoor sat on the mattress in the room Zahyan and she slept in, in this tiny one bedroom-hall-kitchen they called home, and thought about all of this. She didn’t understand what had happened, and indeed, how common it was between people, virtually strangers who had to have sex as soon as they were married. She thought instead that she might need medical help. She had read in the newspaper some months ago about a condition where a woman went dry during the act of sex. Was that the condition she was afflicted with?

  Zahyan seems to have given up on us having a child. He treats me with concern and care for my every need. And never touches me, not even to hold my hand. I long for . . .

  I don’t know what I long for anymore, Mahnoor mumbled, when her pen had hovered over the page too long. Tearing the page out of her diary, she shredded it so it would not fall into anyone’s hands.

  She stood up and, as she tied a scarf about her head, met her own eyes in the mirror. She had a smooth complexion and evenly spaced features in a round face. When they first got married, Zahyan, not articulate, would buy a rose for her on his way back from college and when no one was looking, press it into her hand when she reached to take his empty lunch box. He once likened her cheeks to its velvety petals. Now two years later he more often than not avoided looking directly at her face, and never at her body.

  As she locked her door (Zahyan had already left for the school he worked at), she noticed a lean, bearded man with bags slung about him, listening pleasantly to Sarojben, her immediate neighbour, at her doorstep. Sarojben did not acknowledge her at all and Mahnoor was used to that, but she wondered who the lodger was.

  Their neighbourhood had been teeming with journalists and television crew the last couple of days. Stories about PPP India’s demands had appeared in the national newspaper and on news channels, but so far their own street had been quiet. It was tucked away behind the posh environs of Puneet Nagar. Though concrete, the houses were small–practically slum dwelling–and no one cared who came to live there. Or not yet, at any rate.

  Since the bungalow Zahyan and she took care of for his uncle was under siege, Naved Chacha had proposed they stop going in to clean it. Alarmed by the news on TV yesterday Mahnoor’s father had called from Baroda to suggest they leave the area, but Zahyan, ever dutiful, wanted to keep an eye on his uncle’s property.

  ‘It’s not time to worry yet,’ he assured his father-in-law. ‘There are a couple of other Muslim residents here–we’re not alone. Besides Mahnoor and I are not doing anything illegal.’

  Her father hung up, uneasy but resigned.

  Feeling somewhat nervous now, Mahnoor averted her face when Sarojben’s bearded guest looked her way. Adjusting her head scarf and dupatta, tucking her house keys deep into the big ochre purse that was almost lost in the voluminous yellow-and-green salwar kameez she wore, she began to walk as fast as she could. She had to get to the bus stop and board the nursery school bus. Her first duty for the day was shepherding the children safely to school. So she thought no more about him.

  10

  S

  uveer had indeed noticed her, and paused at Sarojben’s gate to watch her walk quickly away.

  ‘Is your neighbour a Muslim?’ he asked Sarojben. Her face lost all cheer. The shift in expression was so dramatic Suveer knew that she was doing it partly for effect.

  ‘You want to take my interview?’ Sarojben asked grimly.

  ‘What about?’ he was puzzled.

  ‘People in our
area have already been speaking on TV. But I can tell you, in an interview,’ she pointed to his equipment, ‘something very few people know . . . about that woman from Ishq Bungalow.’

  ‘Ishq?’

  ‘Yes. Isn’t that the house you’ve come to shoot? All the protests taking place outside it. So the girl you just saw,’ Sarojben raised an eyebrow in the direction of the street, ‘the Muslim girl, her husband is the new owner’s nephew. They are the caretakers of Ishq. Nannubhai, who lives right opposite the back gate of the bungalow, realised the connection just last evening. He recalled noticing the Muslim go in through the back gate carrying a bottle of floor cleaner about ten days ago. Nannubhai is saying that the couple spies on the protesters and reports back to their rich uncle who lives in Dubai.’

  The “rich uncle’’, Suveer knew, lived in Abu Dhabi. His mind raced with the possibility of getting an exclusive angle on the story, through interviews of, or about, the young caretakers of the controversial bungalow. He realised almost immediately that this might compromise their safety, so now would not be a good time to cover the story from this point of view. What if the people at the forefront of the protests found out about these caretakers who lived in the back lane? Sarojben, for one, seemed perfectly ready to give out the information.

  ‘What’s the nephew’s name?’ he asked.

  ‘Something Sheikh. Pakistani name,’ she added carelessly. ‘He teaches in a school, I think. Hareshbhai Solanki and his party workers don’t seem to know about him. They probably think Ishq Bungalow is completely under lock and key. Imagine what would happen if they found out.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Already people here are starting to talk.’

  ‘What have the caretakers to do with any of this? Anyway I have to go.’ Suveer hoisted his rucksack onto his shoulders and walked away. Despite his habitual objectivity, he was worried. Her viciousness drew its strength from deep wells of history filtered through a communal point of view. She probably believed that Babar, the founder of the Mughal Empire, had destroyed the Ram temple in Ayodhya and built the Babri Masjid in its place. The event is unproven in archaeology but gleams with truth for the thousands who see mythology as fact, faith as incontestable. Sarojben wielded self-righteousness like a mace. She also knew that the law of the land would likely take a lenient view if she acted from this position.