Book Read Free

Blueprint for Love

Page 12

by Chatura Rao


  Wajidbhai had stayed back to calm Solanki down.

  ‘I’ll lodge a police complaint against that bastard. Once they have him in the lock up they’ll break him into pieces. He’ll regret being born! He dared to touch me . . . the insolence!’ Solanki’s hair was dishevelled and eyes bulging with pain and rage.

  ‘He is not feeling well; he has suffered a lot,’ Wajidbhai explained in heavy, placatory tones. ‘It is a matter of honour. Surely you understand that. His wife and he will be leaving Gandhinagar very soon. Let them go in peace.’

  He didn’t stay a minute longer than he had to in Solanki’s office. Once his Party workers arrived it would be a matter of ego for him to file a charge of violence against Zahyan. Besides they might decide to pay Wajidbhai back for the beating Solanki had received. Best to move along.

  He left Solanki swearing and combing his hair with a gold-plated comb he kept in his drawer, and boarded the first rickshaw that stopped for him back to Juhapura.

  25

  Z

  ahyan had been waiting at the shop for half an hour when Wajidbhai’s rickshaw trundled to a halt outside. Rizwan and Salim had taken their leave of Zahyan. It was a weekday and they had work to do.

  Wajidbhai patted Zahyan’s shoulder as he brushed past him and went into his shop. He was perspiring and seemed grateful just to sit under the fan for a few minutes without speaking.

  ‘The plan, young man,’ Wajidbhai began with a piercing look, ‘had been for me to talk Solanki into apologising or at least admitting an error on his part. Confrontations have their own rules. I realised too late that you are too naive and raw to abide by these. We should have left you here in Juhapura. Then again how could we?’

  Zahyan stood mutely before him.

  ‘Sit down,’ Wajidbhai said; patting the bench he occupied one end of. ‘See, that bastard had it coming for how he spoke . . . But you must learn some lessons from this. Control your temper. Don’t stage an unplanned attack–you nearly compromised all of us. The knives were for our own safety in case we came under attack. It was sheer luck you couldn’t get yours out.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Zahyan mumbled, ‘I’m not myself these days.’

  ‘Bring us some water,’ Wajidbhai motioned at the surahi in a corner of his shop. Zahyan fetched a tumbler of it for him.

  ‘So what are your plans now?’ Wajidbhai asked after he’d drunk.

  ‘My wife and I will leave for Baroda to be with our family. I’ll look for a job.’

  ‘And the house–what was it called? Ishq? What a name for a residence,’ Wajidbhai laughed. ‘More like a brothel!’

  Zahyan smiled politely. He was grateful to Wajidbhai for arranging a meeting with Solanki. He wouldn’t have been able to do it alone. Nothing much had come of it, of course; a cuff to the side of Hareshbhai Solanki’s head was little relief for Mahnoor’s sufferings. If he’d only gotten the knife out of his waist pouch quicker.

  ‘My uncle in Abu Dhabi will decide what to do with it,’ Zahyan explained. ‘A Hindu estate agent, one of Solanki’s associates, has been in touch with him. Chachajaan says they’re offering him a fair deal. He might take the offer. He does not want any more trouble.’

  ‘So they will have it their way,’ Wajidbhai smiled cynically. ‘That’s the way of the world: might is right. But our day will come . . .’

  ‘I can’t wait for that,’ Zahyan said moodily. ‘My wife and I have to move on.’

  ‘Sure you do,’ Wajidbhai agreed. ‘I have some people in Baroda,’ he continued. ‘My wife’s brother Usman Qureshi contested the last Assembly polls from Gotri. I’ll give him your number, just in case–’

  ‘We won’t get into any more trouble,’ Zahyan smiled stiffly.

  Wajidbhai considered him and nodded. ‘In case you need him, or if he needs your support,’ he finished.

  ‘My support?’ Zahyan asked, trying to understand.

  ‘You attacked a Hindu politician,’ Wajidbhai said gravely. ‘The word will get around. In the community you’ll be a man to watch out for.’ Solanki would be watching him, as would the police and the elements that operated beyond the law, he desisted from saying.

  He leaned forward despite his considerable belly to rest a hand on Zahyan’s shoulder. ‘You’re new to this game but don’t be a fool. Watch your back. Stand by your own. Make connections with those who can support you if trouble comes.’

  ‘I never wanted it,’ Zahyan said disconsolately.

  They sat in silence on the bench that was across from the store counter, their knees a mere foot from each other’s, but thoughts far apart, dwelling on things they’d seen and known.

  ‘There’s no justification,’ Wajidbhai said slowly, ‘for the evil that men heap on each other . . . No way to reconcile to it either. Only thing to do is to get past it somehow.’

  Zahyan inclined his head to this wisdom. ‘I’ll take your leave. My wife is waiting for me at Rizwanbhai’s and would worry that something has happened. Thank you for everything.’

  Wajidbhai got to his feet with a grunt and they embraced.

  When Zahyan reached home, he found Mahnoor packed and ready to leave for Baroda. Ashfiya had an early lunch ready on the table and parathas parcelled for their journey.

  Mahnoor watched him anxiously for a hint as to how the meeting with Solanki had gone, but he did not speak much, just hastened to take a bath and get ready. They had only a couple of hours to go for the afternoon train to Baroda.

  Rizwan, Salim and the three little boys came to see them off on the narrow street bustling with activity. Salim had asked a cab driver friend to drop them to Gandhinagar Railway Station, which was thirty kilometers away.

  They could not keep the taxi waiting long on the busy street. Zahyan gravely thanked the men. ‘Apply coconut oil to keep a cool head, brother!’ Salim advised.

  ‘I’ll phone you every Sunday!’ Mahnoor promised Ashfiya’s boys.

  ‘Allah haafez, Noora Khala!’ they called as the cab pulled away.

  Mahnoor twisted around to look at their warm faces and waved for as long as she could. Then she eased close to Zahyan and rested her head on his shoulder. She was wearing a new burqa that Ashfiya had gifted her. He trailed his fingers against her soft cheek and then held the end of the fine black fabric closeting her face, between his fingertips.

  ‘Don’t get used to wearing this,’ he said. ‘When we reach Baroda we’ll start looking for jobs immediately.’

  She nodded, relieved that he was speaking of daily things, of moving on.

  ‘Zahyan, before we settle down, I want to meet Suveer Bhaijaan’s mother,’ she said somewhat nervously. ‘I’ve wanted to ask you, but was afraid to bother you. You’ve been busy doing important things . . .’

  Like trying to help her recover from the assault in ways she probably did not need, Zahyan thought grimly. How much wiser than his her heart was.

  26

  R

  eva stood on the road outside her apartment as the cab driver loaded her suitcases into the taxi. It was dinner time, but she’d lost her appetite.

  Down on the street, the late evening breeze ruffled her hair and she tried to steady her breathing. She was disturbed by the ugliness that had played out in the last few hours. How had they all lived together for so long, within the same walls, without their real intentions showing? Perhaps the truth had been clear from the start if only she’d wanted to see it. She’d ignored their hypocrisy on many occasions simply because they had been applying it to others and not to her. Perhaps this made her a self-gratifying hypocrite too.

  She thought about her father who lived with her brother in Indore. She would have to tell him her marriage was over. It would add to the sorrow that had aged him terribly since her mother died eight years ago. She thought about Suveer, and she didn’t let herself think about him.

  As the cab driver loaded her luggage into the taxi, her phone rang. Thinking it must be her colleague who was expecting her at the office tomorrow, she was surprised t
o see it was Hamida calling. She’d heard from Hamida only four or five times over the past few years, and their conversations had been brief and stilted.

  She paused a moment and then decided to take the call.

  ‘Hi Didi,’ Hamida chirped. The greeting was almost a question: am I permitted to speak to you? Her tone with Reva was always tentative. She admired her and was grateful for her help in the past. She also always remembered how she’d let Reva down.

  ‘How are you, Didi? How is your family?’ Hamida went on in her usual formal way.

  ‘I’ve left my husband’s house,’ Reva said, unable to stop the words. ‘My own was broken down long ago. I’m without a home,’ her voice unravelled.

  Hamida was practically homeless herself, exiled in ways more relentless than Reva would ever be. Yet she reached out.

  ‘Are you in Bandra? I can get to you in an hour.’

  Reva agreed to go to the Carter Road promenade and wait there for Hamida. While she waited she would browse on her phone for a hotel room that suited her budget. There was no reason not to sit by the sea for a few hours. The night stretched empty before her.

  While she waited, she phoned her brother and told him what had happened.

  ‘So Tarun might call you,’ she said. ‘Listen, don’t say anything to Papa till I’ve come to a decision. He’ll just worry.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Shiv promised. ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘I’d planned to stay with Nina at her place in Khar. It turns out she’s travelling for the next three days. I guess I’ll have to get a hotel room.’

  ‘Don’t you have any other friends?’

  ‘Not any of my own . . .’ She didn’t need to explain they were all Tarun’s.

  There was a worried pause. ‘Can you come to Indore?’ Shiv asked.

  ‘No, Dada, I have to go to work. I’ve already taken too much time off.’

  ‘Where will you stay, re? Do you have money? I’ll transfer some to your account. Will about fifty thousand do?’

  ‘I’ll find a hotel, Dada,’ she said, a lump forming in her throat at his concern. ‘I have money in the bank. Please don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Who else will? Alright phone me when you’ve checked into a hotel.’

  Immediately after, Tarun called.

  ‘I’ve been trying your number. Do you have restless feet or some kind of itch in your butt to keep leaving home? Where the fuck are you?’ He was half angry, half laughing in frustration at her ways. She was a wild child–his wild child–and he was tired of having to keep her in check.

  ‘Leave me alone, Tarun,’ she said. ‘I told you I need time to think.’

  ‘Come home and think. You’re my wife, dammit! Tell me where you are, I’ll pick you up. Chalo, I’m in the car already . . .’ She heard him start the engine of his Honda City and his stereo came on full blast with it.

  She cut the call and switched her phone off, returning to the relative peace of the open road. He knew what she meant when she said she needed time; he simply didn’t want to acknowledge it. Reva had moved out of the apartment so soon after she’d returned to it, feeling instinctively that she shouldn’t stay. Else an action so sudden was unusual. The cycle of time and change for her had always been much longer and less eventful than Tarun’s.

  When she switched her phone on again, knowing Hamida would need directions to her, she found she had six missed calls from Tarun. There was also a Facebook notification. He’d tagged her in a post.

  She didn’t log on to Facebook as Hamida arrived just about then. She was wearing a red-and-black cotton salwar kameez and carrying a plastic bag with a change of clothes. From here she’d be going on to her mother’s pavement home in Bombay Central to stay the night with her. In the morning she would take her mother to the public hospital to see a doctor for an incessant winter cough that wasn’t getting better.

  Over the years Hamida had not managed to take that step up the social ladder that she had craved. She was too unsettled and emotionally disturbed to attend college and study for her Bachelor’s Degree. She’d given up trying, although she said in a faraway manner to Reva that she would do it through a correspondence programme in a year or two.

  She’d gone back to Mitraa to work part-time as a social worker, and struggled through the rest of her days with sales and event management jobs, doing whatever she could to earn a little extra. She looked sadder than Reva remembered, quite different from the restless, spunky girl she’d been. The sense of a world full of potential spread out at her feet had faded.

  Reva and Hamida sat on the promenade wall. It was past 9 pm and the road behind them was less busy now that the evening rush had abated. The curve of concrete that hemmed out the sea still had people jogging, walking, selling peanuts and chaat. Many simply loitered and took in the sights and sounds around them.

  The night breeze had turned chilly. The women sat closer together because of it, Hamida draped in a dupatta and Reva with a stole about her shoulders. She could smell Hamida from this close. Not unpleasant, just the smell of a body undisguised by deodorants.

  Reva bought them both small cups of coffee off a man vending it from a flask attached to his bicycle.

  ‘Will you go back to your husband?’ Hamida asked her as they sipped.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Your old house that was broken down, who lived there that you liked?’ Hamida had always asked her questions as guilelessly as a child would. She was as curious about Reva as Reva had been about her many years ago.

  ‘My parents, cousin sisters and brothers,’ Reva replied. ‘I liked them. I loved the old stories from the time I wasn’t born. The house had cupboards that stored objects and the memories attached to them. My sisters and brothers are scattered all over the world now . . . Singapore, America, Dubai and India too, of course. But without that house we grew up in, we’re quite rootless. At least I am . . . I feel unmoored.’

  Hamida nodded.

  ‘Sometimes, sitting with Lila Didi, speaking my troubles to her,’ Hamida said, ‘or in the shelter home on some few days when I had fun with Bina, Neha and the other girls, I felt I belonged there. But Bina went back to Chhatisgarh and then it did not feel like home. So I don’t go there much.’ She thought for a moment and said, ‘Where my mother is, is home, though it has neither walls nor a roof. I’m not making much sense, am I?’

  Reva looked across the quiet dark sea, thinking how Hamida had accepted the truth of her loneliness. She realised that some places or times had been home for her because of the comfort she’d felt there with the people she’d been with. Like the room at the Retreat where Suveer and she had made love and in the spaces they’d met to celebrate Aboli’s birthday. Suveer’s presence had made her feel right. Perhaps she would never find a lasting physical space to call home.

  A sigh escaped her as she sat up straight to stretch her tired back.

  ‘Didi, lie down. Put your head in my lap,’ Hamida offered.

  ‘Here?’ Reva asked, squinting tiredly at the stains and blotches on the concrete wall on which they sat.

  ‘Rest a little. It is pleasant,’ Hamida said with a wan smile. ‘Those with no roof over their heads find that sometimes the sky does just as well.’

  Without a word Reva stretched her frame along the flat wide wall and lay her head in Hamida’s lap, in the folds of her worn cotton kurta. Tears welled up in her eyes and she breathed her thanks.

  Hamida smoothed Reva’s tangled hair back from her forehead with her palm. Her gaze met Reva’s briefly and passed on over the sea.

  27

  Z

  ahyan’s mother Mariya had gone into mourning when word had reached their home, a week before, of the incident at Puneet Nagar. She’d begun beating her chest and tearing her hair, to the mortification of her brothers and sisters-in-law who came from across the city to console her, until her husband had ordered her to follow him into the bedroom.

  ‘Do you wish to bring permanent dishonour on the fa
mily by staging a public mourning?’ Shahbaaz admonished sternly. ‘You are informing the whole world about what happened to our daughter-in-law.’

  ‘That bad luck girl! Ruined, ruined!’ Mariya chanted, trying to get out of the bedroom to her audience assembled outside. Even a couple of the neighbours had joined in, Mariya’s friends, their dupattas pressed to their mouths in sympathy.

  Her husband dragged her by her heavy arm to the bed and made her sit.

  ‘Now listen. From what I was told, our daughter-in-law was a victim of circumstance,’ he said. ‘If you blame her, you bring censure upon Zahyan and on us who put her there. We failed in our duty to keep her safe.’

  Mariya fell silent.

  ‘We will take better care of our daughter-in-law from now on. Hereon things will be as I say,’ his eyes burned.

  Mariya rocked back and forth while she sat cross-legged on the bed, her teary gaze trained blankly on the stained wall behind him. He couldn’t tell if she was listening to him. In the days of her illness when the children were growing up she’d spend hours tuning into voices only she could hear. But today her husband was not concerned about her. His priority lay in handling the threat that loomed over his family’s honour.

  The next day Shahbaaz sent Mariya away on a train to her sister’s home in Jabalpur with an instruction not to return until he came to fetch her.

  When Zahyan and Mahnoor arrived, with some trepidation, at his father’s doorstep in Subhanpura, they found the house grim. Light barely entered the windows of this thick-walled home and today even those were shut tight.

  They spoke to him in the glare of the naked bulb that hung from the living room ceiling.

  ‘Keep her safe,’ Zahyan’s father and uncle counselled. ‘She should be veiled if she steps out of the house. She must go nowhere unaccompanied. We will have it no other way.’

  Zahyan committed nothing, just sat before them, his dark gaze averted. He did not speak much to Mahnoor, who had shrunk into herself in her father-in-law’s unsmiling presence.

 

‹ Prev