I protest feebly but am no match for her. As I turn to leave, she asks me if we’ll eat meat cooked in their house. I turn beet-root red as I nod. Our doorbell rings in ten minutes and the smiling couple is at the door. Vineet is hospitable and invites them in, he even wishes Shahaab happy birthday as Anjum bustles ahead of me into the kitchen while I follow as if it were her house. She places a huge tray on the counter and as she uncovers various bowls our house fills with the aroma of biryani, gosht and seviyaan.
I hug Anjum and howl.
***
Afterwards, I can’t believe I let my guard down like that. It’s something about Anjum—something that I can’t explain though. Vineet was visibly shocked and quite embarrassed. After they left he was tender with me for the first time. I let myself be held and felt a flicker of something new and warm.
The next morning, after my howling fiasco, Anjum came over in the morning and sat me down to explain how hard Vineet works, and why it was important that we keep a peaceful home. Anjum is the wisest bride I have ever met. She also told me how I should always be nicely dressed and smelling good when he returns from work, how men stray if their wives don’t look pretty or if they nag too much. I took her teaching to heart and made an effort to make Vineet love me. And if he was tired, I loved myself.
***
Our days shift into an easy rhythm. We spend our mornings together, talking, laughing, shopping and cooking. I begin to see Bombay with her wide-open eyes and begin to like the craziness of it, the freedom of the trains and the variety of its shops. For her everything is new and she is eager to learn it all from me.
I meet Shahaab and learn that he is from Gorakhpur and has family ties in Pakistan—hence the marriage with Anjum. How he got a bride from beyond the border, and then managed to get her across, is still a mystery to me. But I have the decency not to pry. He smiles at her and she looks back adoringly. I look at them, curious but no longer clueless. Vineet and I are getting along better, although we have miles to go before we reach this altitude. I even told him Anjum was from Pakistan and, apart from a ‘hmm that explains the food’, didn’t get much of a response. His rating went up a little that day. We’ve even gone out as couples together once or twice and I can see him warming up to Anjum like almost everyone around her does. Like I say, that’s just Anjum.
***
I have my head down and almost walk into Shahaab at the grocers’. He gives me a familiar smile. Who said Bombay was cold?
“Where’s Anjum?” I ask. I need to see her and tell her my news.
“She’s cleaning the house. My brothers are coming from Gorakhpur today,” he says.
“How much more will she clean?” I laugh.
He laughs along, “You know her by now, and then she has to cook a hundred things,” he says fondly.
“Let me go and meet her now, before she gets busy with her guests,” I say.
“Devar aa rahe hain aaj,” I say as she opens the door.
“Shahaab miley the kya neeche?” she smiles.
“No, you are busy, I won’t sit,” I say.
“Arrey sit, ya,” she imitates me and laughs. She’s one of my best students. There’s a long way to go but her interest in learning English is admirable. She keeps my morale boosted by saying I speak excellent English and she wants to be like me. I’ve never told her how often I wish I were like her; I’d be a happier person. But I must say, I am learning more every day.
The ‘brothers’ who were coming were village-brothers, no blood relations, and yet, the enthusiasm, the preparation, the warmth that I see in Anjum makes me question myself on a human scale. I think I’ll give myself a five. I haven’t even called my own sister to my new home, fearing she would sense we were not the lovey-dovey couple that I’d portrayed Vineet and I to be. Maybe a four. I also wouldn’t cook for my husband’s birthday at eight in the morning.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” I say as I follow her to the kitchen.
“I also,” she says, “but you first.”
“We are moving to Kuwait,” I say quietly. I expect her to cry, ask me to stay, not leave her alone in Bombay. “I feel like going back to Nagpur ya,” I whine. “Let Vineet go to Kuwait if he’s so mad about money.”
“No, Vandu, you will go with bhaiya,” she admonishes, “what will he do without you?” I hadn’t thought of that. I feel ashamed.
“Kuwait mein mere mamu rehte hain, I’ll give you his number. Mami is very good, she’ll take care of you,” she says decisively.
“Like you take care of me here,” I smile through misty eyes. “The carpet-mamu?” I ask.
She laughs, “You remember?”
I nod with pride.
“Ok, I’ll tell him to buy you a carpet,” she says like she’s consoling an errant child. And then hugs me as I go off on a crying spree again. It is all too much for me. It seems so unfair. I have just opened my heart and mind and now I am being asked to learn all over again.
Some time later, red-nosed but happier I am ready to leave. “Arrey, what did you want to tell me?” I remember as I am stepping out of the house. She blushes and caresses her tummy. I shriek and hug her. “Anjum! You didn’t tell me!” She turns red and hides her face in my shirt.
Ganapati Bappa Morya, we can hear the chant till our seventh floor. The Ganesh Puja festivities have started.
***
Kuwait turned out to be good for Vineet’s career; he was happier than he was in Bombay. Consequently, he was better at home too. His work hours were less demanding; the company shuttle picked and dropped him home; and our quality of life improved. I soon got used to Thursday being a half-day and Friday our new Sunday. The neighbourhood school selected me as the head of their Mathematics department, and earning in dinars felt satisfying. The loud azaan five times a day, rattling at first, soon became a part of me.
And I conceived my first child in Fintas, Kuwait, with maternal advice from Anjum’s mami.
***
When Ganesh was three we decided to move back to India. We wanted him to grow up in his own country and imbibe his own culture. We had made enough money to buy a house and Vineet had been offered a lucrative position. During the move, Anjum was not far from my mind, even though over time we had lost touch. The initial calls had become infrequent. Anjum was not an email person and after the first few mails routed through Shahaab, I’d gradually given up. Life had been busy with my job and then Ganesh, and those carefree days of gupshup over chai remained somewhere in the distant past.
The decision to move back to Bomaby, the task of shutting shop in Kuwait, and travel back to the homeland all passed in a haze. Underlying the exhaustion was the satisfaction that we were doing the right thing. We spent the first week in Vineet’s friend’s house. His wife cooked us delicious meals, helped me buy things for our flat and after the men left for work, looked after Ganesh as I collapsed on the bed exhausted.
The first weekend, they helped us move into our rented accommodation and helped in setting up the place. I thanked and hugged them, remembering a time when someone else had made my homecoming easy for me. Anjum had changed me, opened me up to be able to accept help from others and to give in return.
I thought of her often. I had taken her address and number from her mami and planned to get in touch with her. But somehow the days slipped away and, for some reason or the other, I kept putting it off. Perhaps I was afraid that she had changed, or that she would find me changed, and things would be different from the memories I held so dear.
Slowly, we settled into our new environment. Vineet was enjoying his position of power in the office. I was looking for a school for Ganesh where I could also teach and we were settling down well. Most importantly, Ganesh found many playmates his age and did not seem to miss Kuwait.
And now it really was time to go and find the person who had made this city feel like home to me. So one fine day, I found myself clutching Ganesh’s hand looking up at the building that Anjum lived in. I went in and fo
und the elevator door open and a little boy standing inside.
“Kaun sa floor, aunty?” I looked down at the little boy and smiled.
“Third please.” I notice the third floor indicator was already red. “Aap bhi third floor?” I ask him. He shakes his head vigorously, smiling at Ganesh.
In no time, we have reached. The friendly, little boy skids out of the lift, presses the doorbell at 301 about half a dozen times and says, “Aunty, aaiye na hamare ghar.” We can hear his mother’s exasperated tone from inside as she approaches to let him in, “Sammarrrr!”
She opens the door as the tornado rushes past her, almost toppling her small frame, shouting, “Ammi, aunty aayi hain.” I look straight into Anjum’s eyes, and without a word, we hug each other. “Vandu!” she cries tears of joy holding me. “Where did you disappear?”
I laugh and cry together. “Anjum, perfect English!”
She scoops Ganesh into her arms and drags me into her three-bedroom haveli that smells of biryani and murgi ka saalan. It is spotlessly clean with the same beautiful carpet on the floor that I remember. Her first-born Zoya comes and takes Ganesh away , and he laughs delightedly as she tickles him. Samar points to a picture of us on the wall; Anjum and Shahaab’s huge wedding portrait has been joined by numerous other family photos, but we have pride of place. She makes chai and takes my phone from me when Vineet calls to insist we have dinner with them that night. I sip my tea and am content to listen to her stories as our children play close by.
Anjum, our star, is back in our life.
∞
ABOUT ANDY PAULA
Andy Paula is a world citizen who is equally at home in India, UK or Kuwait. As a child she had more friends from other communities than from her own. The erudite Indian family she hails from ensured that she had a secular upbringing and respected differences. A hitherto unknown aspect of her family was revealed to her when her famously progressive grandmother told a young Andy that she could marry anybody she wanted except Christians or Muslims. Having studied in Christian missionary schools all her life and enjoyed biryani with friends every Eid, this was a rude blow to her value system. In a household that encouraged intelligent discussion, this declaration by the matriarch remained an unbendable statute. “I was so embarrassed that I became uneasy with my Catholic & Muslim friends, assailed by guilt, fearing the aftermath of the discovery that my family was not as modern as they portrayed themselves to be.’’
A silent crusader of oneness, Andy’s evolution was at university when she was pursuing her masters in English. Her horizons broadened as she found like-minded youth who were passionate about secularism and world peace. Together they formed a society under her leadership that warranted that their contemporaries broke free from the limiting beliefs handed down by their ancestors.
The Love Across Borders concept resonated with Andy’s principles so deeply that she sent in her contribution, Anjum, the very same day.
***
Love’s Labor
by Andy Paula
Will caste and community keep Pia and Sathya apart, or will they find a way to overcome it all?
Available on www.indireads.com
Dressed to Kill
PARUL TYAGI
This was Sejal’s second visit to the majestic and mystical Chandni Chowk. For all North Indian brides, it was obligatory to shop here at least once. And a Delhi bride could very possibly be booked under the criminal section of the Trousseau Act if she did not venture here. Sejal had no intention of not complying with tradition. She had been here exactly thirty-two days earlier, and she had counted the days till she would come here again.
Today was the day she was going to get her bridal dress—a red and green outfit that she had dreamt of all her life. As she alighted from the rickety rickshaw she was greeted with the seductive smell of freshly coiled jalebis. Another mandate for all brides, like the visit to Chandni Chowk, was to remain on a strict diet, till literally, the day before the wedding when female relatives would shove motichoor ladoos into the bride’s mouth saying “kha le beta, kha le.”
Avoiding even looking at the jalebis swimming cheerfully in the big kadhai of oil, Sejal held her mother’s hand and made her way to the Novelty Emporium where her wedding lehanga awaited her.
“Namaskar Pandit-ji.” She greeted the seventy-year-old bespectacled shop owner who sat behind the counter, counting fresh notes.
“Namaskar, namaskar. I was waiting for you,” he greeted them warmly.
“Pandit-ji, this girl has not slept for two nights now. I cannot tell you how excited she is!” said Mrs. Rupa Shah, shaking her head at her excited daughter.
“I understand, Madam-ji. I have dressed many brides in my forty years here and I see the same excitement in each one of them.”
He waved them over to a plush sofa. They sat and were served colas. Sejal could barely sit still; she rubbed her hands and fidgeted like a child and her mother looked at her indulgently.
Twice they were asked if they would like another drink, some water? Who was interested but? All Sejal wanted was that they reveal her dream dress. She would try it on, click a few pictures, share a sob moment with her mother and head happily back with it, to the parking lot, two kilometers away, where they’d had to park their car.
Finally it arrived! A young boy reverently carrying a red-and-yellow bandhini printed box walked in, with coy smile on his face. He too, played up the moment of anticipation, by walking at a stately but excruciatingly slow pace.
“Here it is,” remarked Pandit-ji unnecessarily. The atmosphere was charged with expectation, anxiety, and hope. In a moment Sejal was going to lay her eyes on the her dream wedding dress, a creation with gold zari-work that she had selected from the bridal wear collection of a top designer and spent five hours with the Master-ji in this very shop, explaining exactly how she wanted each peacock and curlicue while critically comparing the design to the photograph on her phone screen.
“Ok, now close your eyes,” said Rupa, “I’ll tell you when to open them.”
“No way Mummy,” Sejal didn’t want to miss a second of the unveiling.
The boy carefully put the box on the wide wooden table, specifically designed to showcase the finished dreams that Pandit-ji crafted for his brides. He switched on the specially placed light above the table and placed a small stool in front of the full-length mirror where Sejal could model the lehanga. When the finished outfit appeared from under the wraps of a shimmery gold cloth, it was the most magnificent work of art Sejal had ever laid eyes on. There it was, her wedding dress, which she had taken such pains to get exactly right.
“Go try it on bitiya.” Pandit-ji pointed to the dressing room next to his counter.
“I don’t think it’s even required! I love it and I am sure it fits me perfectly,” Sejal said, without lifting her eyes from the gem in front of her. It was difficult to determine whether her eyes sparkled more or her gold-worked lehanga.
“Arre, why won’t you try? Have I come all the way just to pick it? Stop staring at it and go and try it on,” her mother insisted.
“Ma, stop playing my puppeteer! Today is Monday. Come Sunday, I’ll be gone and you can’t boss me around then,” Sejal chuckled.
Carefully, she lifted her lehanga blouse and skirt and went to follow her mother’s orders.
Pandit-ji looked satisfied at having fulfilled the dreams of yet another bride.
Just then another mother-daughter couple entered the Emporium.
“Salaam Pandit-ji,” said the younger woman. She was almost an exact replica of Sejal, tall and slim with the same long dark hair.
Pandit-ji got up, and with the same measure of warmth he had accorded Sejal, he greeted the lovely bride-to-be.
“Welcome Saleema bitiya. How are you doing?”
“I can’t put it into words! My stomach is churning and it feels as if all your Indian butterflies have joined their Pakistani peers inside it,” Saleema said, putting her hand nervously on her stomach.
>
Pandit-ji gave her a gentle pat on the head.
“Madam Hassan ka box leke aao,” he called for the boy to repeat his processional act of carrying the box that contained a young bride’s most prized possession.
Saleema was Pandit-ji’s customer from the other side of the border. His grandfather had dressed her grandmother and his father had dressed her mother. Like Sejal, this was also Saleema’s final visit to the shop. Here with her mother, she was going back home the next day on the afternoon flight.
Saleema had broadly explained what she wanted to the Master-ji on her first visit and the rest of the communication had been via email. She had sent Pandit-ji the exact color, exact motifs and the exact neckline cut that she wanted and couldn’t wait to see the outcome.
As Saleema’s lehanga was unwrapped, Rupa also decided to peek and see what exactly these people from faraway lands were getting. Pandit-ji carefully lifted the lehanga and put it on a similar table in front of Saleema and her mother.
There was absolute quiet, like the silence before a storm. There were none of the happy bride responses that Pandit-ji was accustomed to. No outbursts of excited happiness, no shrieks of joy. Nothing.
“What is it Saleema beti? Sub theek hae naa,” Pandit-ji dared to cut through the stillness.
Saleema looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. She managed to speak.
“But…this is not…Pandit-ji this is not the color I sent you,” she burst out.
A minor earthquake was no doubt recorded in both countries.
Love Across Borders Page 4