The Cambridge Curry Club

by Saumya Balsari

  The driver’s verdict spread like bushfire. As the bus lurched forward, several passengers began to scramble for seats now as scarce as small change in the shops. A couple searched in vain, and the woman glared at Durga and the head buried in the newspaper. ‘Look, they are nicely sitting in our seats,’ she grumbled, but her meek husband ventured, ‘Never mind, at least no one died under this bus.’

  Everyone agreed. No one wanted a ride in a chariot of death. Durga saw the newspaper shake, hearing little snorts. Soon she was giggling, her face red and puffy. The hard-faced woman nudged her companion. ‘Look at these youngsters, no respect for death.’

  The bus emptied opposite the post office near the Hanging Gardens. The driver hurriedly lowered himself from the seat to stand outside the bus, mopping his brow. Fate had saved him this time, but it was a sign: there was danger lurking on the roads. He would take up a job in an office canteen instead. At least he would not mistake food for anything else.

  The newspaper was lowered and a cheeky grin emerged. ‘Hi, I’m Vivek!’ he announced. ‘Did you enjoy the ride?’

  ‘That was a really stupid thing to do. You could have been killed.’

  ‘But you noticed me, didn’t you? And now you’ll never forget me.’

  Durga never forgot. Vivek was inseparable from his motorbike, calling it Moody Baby, and unknown to her mother Durga had soon travelled the length and breadth of Bombay. The lights of the Haji Ali Mosque in the middle of the sea twinkled as they sped towards Bandra, her hair a pennant in the wind. Durga’s mother frowned; who could have imagined bus rides to college could cause such damage to her daughter’s hair? She prepared herbal concoctions using areetha and shikakai as shampoo substitutes, and oiled her daughter’s hair with angry tugs.

  Two years later, Durga’s mother found out, and her first question, fearing much worse, was whether Vivek had held Durga’s hand. Vivek made her laugh, said Durga. Her mother was sufficiently alarmed to discuss the matter with her husband. ‘I think Durga should settle down,’ she said firmly.

  He protested, ‘But she’s only twenty-four. She’s just finished the double MA and she’s applying for the scholarship to Cambridge.’

  ‘Let her get married and continue her studies. We should start looking now,’ insisted her mother, lips sewing a thin line. ‘She should not get into the wrong company.’

  Vivek, the son of a businessman who manufactured matchboxes, was not the right company, she asserted, and the nonsense about him making Durga laugh was just that – nonsense. He was hardly going to set her alight. She should find a life companion with an intellect to match. Durga’s mother awaited the impending visit of Mrs Kamath, friend of Aunty Sarojini and community matchmaker.

  Mrs Kamath was a florid woman with a heaving bosom that moved like a rusty pendulum; her large gold earrings and prominently displayed mangalsutra, a gold chain with black beads and gold pendant, were not only a symbol of her married status but a calling card. She settled down comfortably to ‘ladies talk only’. As she bit appreciatively into the pohe snack prepared with reluctance by Durga’s mother, she confided, ‘I have “n” number of boys lined up for Durga. Just say the word.’ She patted the sofa with a plump hand, inviting the mother to move closer.

  ‘First of all,’ began Durga’s mother firmly to Mrs Kamath, ‘you should understand that my daughter is highly intelligent. She wants to study for many more years and we want a boy who understands that. We would like the two to get married first, and study together later. Durga would like to go abroad, so we are willing to wait until the right one comes along.’

  ‘Of course, anyone who knows your cultured family would expect that only, no question. Best match will be found. Now can I have her horoscope?’ humoured Mrs Kamath.

  The family stood firm. Horoscopes would not be necessary. Mrs Kamath sensed steel; years of experience had taught her it would buckle and melt like butter.

  Dressed in an orange silk sari for the occasion, Durga’s mother stood uncertainly in front of her wardrobe mirror before dabbing Chanel No. 5 on her wrist. The bottle had lain in pristine condition since they had left England eleven years earlier. It was a frivolous gesture for a serious business.

  Sitting uncomfortably in the opulent living room, Durga and her mother were boldly examined by a middle-aged couple seated on a silk sofa across the room.

  ‘Where is your son?’ asked Durga’s mother for the second time as a servant brought in silver glasses of rose sherbet on a silver tray. Ignoring her question, the man addressed Durga. ‘As you know, we are a well-known industrialist family in Maharashtra. We believe that girls should be educated, of course, and it is commendable that you want to continue your studies, but our daughter-in-law is expected to look after this family first. It is a lot of responsibility, and she must be ready for this status and position.’

  ‘How many in your family?’ inquired Durga’s mother, directing the question at his wife. The husband answered proudly, ‘We have three eligible sons.’

  ‘But which princeling are we supposed to meet?’ asked Durga’s mother. ‘You’ve seen my daughter, but not a single one of your sons is here. This is not a cattle fair.’ She rose hastily to her feet. ‘Enough of this nonsense! Come, Durga, let’s go!’

  Mrs Kamath meekly apologised as they drove away. Rich people were ‘like that only’, she prattled, but there was no need to fret, she had already found another, the ‘best’ match for Durga.

  ‘The boy is from a good Saraswat Brahmin family. Engineer. Good-looking, tall, fair, very fair. Lives in America, New Jersey. Your Durga can continue studying there. These American universities are first-class. The boy has no sisters, no brothers. And on top of it, his parents live far away. Only slight problem and you know I am telling you honestly, I never hide anything, the boy is moody. You see, what happened is that he was married,’ confided Mrs Kamath. She placed a warning hand on Durga’s mother. ‘No, no, just wait. I know what you must be thinking and what you are going to say, but he was married for a short time only. He is as good as new.’

  ‘What was the problem, then?’

  ‘Nothing much. He had a child, poor thing, dead at birth and then the wife had a nervous breakdown and she left him. These things happen, nobody’s fault. Since a long time it is over. He is on his own. Only thing, he gets a little angry. Moody, shouts a little, but when he is married again, when there is another child, everything will be all right.’

  Durga’s mother terminated the conversation. ‘Really, this Mr Fair-Very-Fair-Shouter needs professional help, not yours or ours. We send him our prayers and good wishes for his complete recovery.’

  ‘Your mother knows what’s best for you,’ concluded Vivek when Durga described the meetings with Mrs Kamath.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ she asked as they walked along Juhu Beach in the sunset. The sand was warm and sticky under her feet.

  ‘Never mind that. When are you going to apply for the scholarship to Cambridge?’

  ‘Soon, but what are you going to do with your life?’ she wanted to know.

  He grinned. ‘Make bigger and better matchboxes, what else? You go ahead and do the fame thing for both of us. Remember, even if you do this marriage stuff, make sure you study and do something great with your life. Don’t become a housewife buying brinjals in Dadar market, I’m counting on you.’

  Durga had little time to pursue either the advice or the application; her father had a heart attack the next day. The doctor pronounced it mild, but Durga’s mother abandoned her books and ministered to her husband with alternating panic and calm.

  It was weeks since Mrs Kamath had successfully brokered a match; she planned her next visit to Durga’s mother with care. Mrs Kamath was no longer her usual ebullient and persuasive self; her daughter’s marriage had been under strain over a property wrangle, and she herself suffered from headaches and back pain. The doctor’s diagnosis was bad for business; depression and matchmaking were an incompatible combination.

  �
�I have come with five proposals, not one,’ she gurgled. ‘This time you will not say “No”, I know that. Your pretty daughter is in such demand, really!’ Mrs Kamath shuffled the order of the ‘proposals’ with practised ease. ‘See, the first one is a really good offer, but they insist the girl should be a computer engineer. That too, software, only. The second family wants blood tests after the boy and girl have decided, because nowadays, these modern people you know, they want to be sure the couple can have children. And healthy children, also. The third wants quick marriage, there are four brothers next in line. It is a joint family. The fourth is a college lecturer, he lives a little bit far away – in Mangalore.’

  Mrs Kamath put down her teacup with finality. Satisfied with the results of her strategy, she said, ‘So you didn’t like the other four? Never mind. No problem, what is the hurry? Durga is young, beautiful and intelligent. We can wait two years, three years, five years, whatever you say. But I thought that with Bhausaheb’s health problem, God grant him long life, but you know how these illnesses suddenly come upon us, you are so sensible, I know you will want to have everything settled at the right time. Now I have one last offer. Of course, I will have to see about this one if you like him, because the boy is very much in demand, but if you are keen I can give you the details. Chitpavan family. He is a doctor doing research in Cambridge. Parents and sister live in Pune. He will return after studies, that much I can tell you.’ She paused. ‘Also handsome.’ It had been a masterstroke to pretend to gather her handbag in a hurry. Durga’s mother asked her to stay for another cup of tea.

  *

  Dip dip. That was what the tea-seller at Nasik Station had said as Durga arrived from the riverbanks, the immersion of her parents’ ashes over. She had asked for tea. ‘Will a dip dip do?’ He had mimicked the dunking of an imaginary teabag in the chipped white cup he slid under her nose.

  Her cousin had unexpectedly found a quiet spot on the ghat behind a little marble temple and under a magnificent banyan, and he waded into the sunlit water with the urns. He had performed the last rites, accompanied by her silent resistance and welling anger; this should have been a daughter’s right. There was also a distant memory of the same annoying cousin thrashing about in a Bombay swimming pool; he had caressed her teenage thighs before swiftly escaping in a noisy splash.

  The tranquillity of the moment and the sweet chimes of the temple bell were replaced by the loud tones of a raunchy film song, ‘Choli ke Peeche Kya Hai’ (What’s Behind the Blouse), streaming from a transistor held by a young man in an unbuttoned shirt and tight trousers ambling down the path above. It was a cruel, noisy requiem for the disjointed lives of her parents, crushed in a pilgrims’ stampede. Durga’s Aunty Sarojini offered consolation. At least the bodies had been recovered: other victims would be missing for ever.

  Durga plunged into legalities and paperwork. Uncle Manohar shook his head sadly as he looked at the disarray of his brother’s financial affairs. Still, there was a small retirement flat in Pune as Durga’s inheritance; at least she had a roof over her head, and by God’s grace it need not be his.

  Mrs Kamath seized the opportunity to sway Durga’s Aunty Sarojini; the girl was vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous sharks now that she was alone in the world. Besides, she added, embroidering past conversations without guilt, she could hear the mother’s voice pleading: ‘Only you can find me a good boy for Durga, I am counting on you.’ Sarojini was moved as Mrs Kamath, dabbing her eyes, embellished stories of her visits to Durga’s mother. There was no time to lose, said Mrs Kamath, with determination. It was in Durga’s best interests to marry the doctor. He was also a gynaecologist, what more could a girl want? One way or another, exulted Aunty Sarojini later to her niece, she would be going to Cambridge.

  When Durga and her husband returned home together after the wedding, his mother had greeted them at the door with a ceremonial thali for the ritual washing of Durga’s feet, her silk blouse tight under armpits circled with sweat. The silver thali made a loud sharp thak sound as she placed it on the floor; Durga stepped into the thali, and her sister-in-law Archana reluctantly poured a few symbolic drops of water from a jug onto the bride’s feet. The mother barked, ‘Napkin, napkin, bring napkin!’ berating the servant as Archana ordered him to take the ‘dirty water’ away, and Durga’s feet left the thali cleansed for her new life. Both mother and daughter ignored the ceremonial coconut Durga was carrying, and as she entered the house the servant took it casually from her, as if she were a wordless postman expecting a Diwali tip. The family had green coconut chutney at dinner.

  Atul’s relatives were in attendance on her wedding night. A noisy card game coupled with intermittent desultory singing led the uncles to chorus their demands to Atul, who obligingly obtained whisky from his gynaecologist father, owner of Patwardhan’s Maternity Clinic. The Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles were concealed behind the woollen suits smelling of mothballs in his steel Godrej cupboard with the cracked mirror. Atul’s cousin, a fair, green-eyed woman with long, plaited brown hair, sent Durga a sullen, smouldering look. There was something proprietorial about the cousin, thought Durga. And his sister, his parents, the entire family. She was married to the mob.

  The nuptial bed was bedecked with rajnigandha flowers and rose petals. Atul and Durga had made their way to his old bedroom accompanied by winks and jokes from the uncles. Minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was his sister Archana. With only a token apology, she removed a hairbrush from Atul’s wardrobe. Her sharp, satisfied eyes noted the couple’s awkwardness.

  ‘Didn’t your mother teach you to cook?’ reproached Atul’s mother a week later. ‘I have taught Archana everything. Studying is not an excuse. It is every woman’s duty to learn these things, and you will be doing the cooking in Cambridge, anyway.’ She placed the lid firmly on the pressure cooker. ‘He loves vangebhaji, it’s his favourite dish. You must learn everything about our style of cooking, although I must say he will still miss my special touch.’

  As if on cue, Atul walked into the kitchen, placing an arm around his mother’s waist. ‘Yes,’ he said simply, ‘and if only I could, I would have you in Cambridge with me.’ She looked as if she would cry.

  Durga’s moments alone with her husband were hurried rather than intimate; both waited for the knock on the door. The days passed in the constant company of his relatives and friends, who saw little need for their privacy. Atul’s light-eyed cousin Shreya developed a mysterious infection that she could only discuss in confidence, so they disappeared to talk in hushed tones on balconies with lush overhanging bougainvillaea, in rooms darkened against the midday sun.

  Durga and Atul were awakened one night by a harsh, reedy wail from his parents’ room. He hurried out, indicating that she should remain in bed, and did not return until the morning. As he explained to Durga later, his mother was suffering separation pangs again, as she had done when he had left for Cambridge for the first time. She experienced breathing difficulties, and complained of palpitations and impenetrable aches in the neck and limbs. He had stayed by her side, they had chatted late into the night, and he had finally lain across her lap in exhaustion. He would invite her to Cambridge next summer, he said; that would brighten her mood.

  A professional family portrait was suggested before they left for England; there was excitement as Atul made an appointment with Patekar’s Studios at Deccan Gymkhana. It was the equivalent of a family trip to Disneyland. His mother stood in front of her grey Godrej steel cupboard, searching endlessly among the piles of neatly folded saris, as his sister hovered to advise. Atul was handsome in his black wedding suit although it pinched at the elbows; he stole an appreciative glance at Durga in a purple and red Paithani sari that had belonged to her mother.

  Atul’s aunt and his cousin Shreya arrived unannounced. His mother stood in front of her cupboard again, calling out to them to select two saris: they had accepted the invitation to accompany the family to the studio. Fifteen minutes later they wer
e waiting, stiff and starched, for his father, who had been delayed by the slow progress of a patient at Patwardhan’s Maternity Clinic. ‘Are you giving birth to a buffalo?’ he asked in desperation, glancing at his watch. The sweating, heaving woman cast him a pleading look. He relented. ‘Push harder!’ he commanded.

  He arrived at Patekar’s Studio along with his family to find it changed. The big cameras and black cloth and popping flashbulbs were gone, and Patekar Senior had retired; his fingers were too unsteady. The son, a smart young man, was courteous, but the Pune air in the studio was one of efficiency, of the instant one-hour passport photo service, the multiplex cinema and the Barista coffee shop. The magician’s curtained lair of mysterious dusty props and the world of quiet, leafy lanes were gone forever.

  Patekar Senior would have slowly arranged the family members around the Patwardhan patriarch seated on a grand velvet chair, but his son Ravi was more hurried, now habituated to digital commercial photography. He had snappily assigned everyone their places, but there was a cousin who hovered unhappily on the periphery. With an intuition his father would have applauded, he subtly altered the arrangement; Atul now stood beaming – if a little squashed – between radiant cousin and wife.

  Durga rang Vivek and her relatives from her new home in Pune; the conversations were stilted and guarded. Atul’s mother and sister were watchful, displaying their displeasure at her continued links with her old life. Durga had clung to her surname fiercely, unwilling to exchange ‘Prabhu’ for ‘Patwardhan’. Atul’s anorexic aunt, who lived in Florida and organised classical music soirées for visiting artistes from India, intervened with the persuasive vocabulary of a Sicilian warlord to announce closure on the matter: Durga was no longer a ‘Prabhu’.

  ‘Do you have any idea what a well-known family we are in Pune?’ challenged Archana. ‘Or is it because you think you are too good for us that you didn’t want to change your name?’ She had waited until Atul was out strolling with his parents in the University Gardens. ‘And forget about all those fancy friends. Who is this Vivek I heard you phoning?’