The Boy Who Loved

by Durjoy Datta

  ‘What about your friends? Did you make any?’

  ‘I haven’t had the time,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t paying Vedant so I was doing all the housework after office.’

  ‘There’s something I wanted to tell you. About your Tauji—’

  ‘I met them. They told me what they said.’

  ‘You met them? Why?’ I asked.

  ‘To pay them.’

  ‘Pay them what? Last respects?’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Raghu. I gave them half my salary.’

  I felt sucker-punched. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘They’ve brought me up, fed me, clothed me and sent me to a school. This is the least I could do.’

  ‘The least you could do was to report them to the police. Paying them half your salary is stupid.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘Can I ask you about—’

  ‘Please don’t, Raghu.’

  We turned to our food again. And now, it seemed she ate frantically just so she didn’t have to talk to me. Things had changed between us. I could feel it, I could read it on her face, and I feel foolish to have held what seem now to be archaic ideas about love. I had held Brahmi’s hand, I had embraced her, she had kept her head on my shoulder and cried and I had done the same but that didn’t bind us for life, no matter how I wished it would. She could change as a person and so could I. And it was possible for us to like someone else. And it would be wrong for anyone to judge a person who finds himself or herself incapable of loving the person he or she once loved. The laughable rules might still apply to me—because what if it is possible that I would ever feel even a shred of what I feel for her—but they don’t to anyone else. And having said that, I’m judging and cursing her for not being the same person who used to be in love with me. The look in her eyes was empty, her smiles fake, her hugs snug but cold, and even though only a table separated us, it was like we had never met.

  I had lost Brahmi.

  It was just a matter of time now before she would be sucked into her new world, her new life, and I would keep holding on to my defunct ideas and my incomplete love story. When she left for Gurgaon again she told me that she might come to see me the next day.

  ‘Tomorrow . . .’ she said.

  I nodded. I had already started waiting.

  25 December 1999

  Six hours in the balcony earned me nothing but scorn from Maa–Baba.

  I refused to accompany Maa to Boudi’s doctors’ visits—one to her own doctor and one to Maa’s. Then I refused to join Maa–Baba and Dada–Boudi for dinner which wasn’t devoid of drama either. Boudi wanted to cook, which didn’t go down well with Maa for reasons I’m not sure of. Did she think it would loosen her grip on the family kitchen? Was it because of Boudi’s religion? Or was it just concern over her pregnancy? At the end of it, Maa won, mothers always do, and cooked an elaborate fare which tasted like dirt.

  I should stop waiting for Brahmi. What am I still doing in the balcony?

  But there’s someone who’s waiting alongside me; only for her, I assume, it’s a bit of a celebration. Richa Mittal. She’s still there crouched at the corner of her balcony, like she has been since morning. By evening, her eyes filled up with love and despair and anger.

  Just like mine.

  Also, Merry Christmas.

  26 December 1999

  The day started off well. I was successfully weaning myself off her.

  I waited for her only for three hours, after which I busied myself with homework and household chores. Maa came to me while I was struggling with a permutation–combination word problem and said, ‘You’re a strong boy, my shona.’

  ‘I am,’ I said.

  And I was strong. There were chunks of time I wasn’t thinking of her at all, till the time the phone rang in the afternoon and I rushed to get it, hoping it was her. The receiver almost fell from my hands before I could put it to my ear. No one spoke. I wondered if it was Brahmi who couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to me after having left me in a lurch.

  Dada–Boudi and Maa–Baba went to a Chinese restaurant in the evening.

  ‘I need to be with Mina,’ I told Maa and excused myself from the family dinner.

  I dropped in at Didimaa’s place, endured her screeching taunts about the devil in Boudi’s womb and how my Maa, the demon, would carve it out, played with and fed Mina, and left for Brahmi’s Tauji–Taiji’s house. The labourers were pulling the scaffolding apart. If Brahmi was on the other side of the window it would have been impossible to reach her now. The distance, the jump, the fall—all of it would have been fatal.

  Her Tauji–Taiji were surprised to see me but unlike other times they weren’t baying for my blood. It seemed like the money they were getting from Brahmi had satiated them. They had probably assumed I was behind her visit to them last week.

  ‘I just want to know the name of the company she works in,’ I asked them.

  There were surprised I didn’t know.

  I was not invited in. I was asked to wait and the door closed on my face. A few minutes later, they gave me a slip of paper with the company name, phone number and address on it.

  ‘Tell her we miss her,’ they said before I left.

  From there I went to the closest PCO and dialled the number of the company. The receptionist asked me if I knew the person I was calling for.

  ‘I know her,’ I said.

  The call was transferred to her desk. The phone rang but no one answered. I asked the receptionist to try again. She did it, with no effect.

  ‘You should call after an hour. She is not at her desk.’

  And so I waited outside the PCO, watching time go by. An hour later, I called her again. I was told the same thing.

  ‘She’s not at her desk. Why don’t you call after an hour?’

  So I waited, feeling stupid.

  This time, she picked up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Brahmi?’

  ‘How did you get this number?’

  ‘I found it in the directory. You were supposed to come see me?’ I asked.

  ‘I was swamped with work,’ she said, her voice curt.

  ‘It’s okay. I have been really busy too. I don’t think I would have had the time to meet you as well.’

  ‘Did you call earlier too?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I did but never mind. I was just getting a little bored.’

  ‘Is there something you wanted to talk about?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really. I just wanted to ask if you called me in the afternoon. There was a missed call and no one spoke.’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ I said.

  ‘How’s everyone?’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Listen, I need to go. I am really busy.’

  ‘Fine, I will talk to you later then,’ she said. ‘Will you be home on New Year’s?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said.

  ‘I might come that side to see you.’

  ‘Okay, the next minute is about to start. I should disconnect,’ I said. ‘Bye now.’

  ‘Bye.’

  We didn’t need to say we loved each other.

  What’s wrecking my heart is not Brahmi’s coldness towards me but her unwillingness to come clean and tell me that it’s over, that she feels nothing for me. At least then I can start mourning and make a fresh start.

  I just need to hear it from her.

  1 January 2000

  New Year’s Eve came and went. All the nonsense around the change of the century and the millennium grated on me. What’s the big deal? The last time the millennium changed, we found more religions, more pretexts to kill each other. And do you think those people would have still celebrated the year 1900 had they known they would suffer through two World Wars and countless genocides. It’s hopeless and pathetic to celebrate the passage of time, to think the coming time will miraculously be better. It’s the refuge of the impotent. Time, money, religion, society�
��everything we have collectively thought of and choose to believe in only hurts us. What power will money have, will time have, if we choose to stop believing in it. If we smash the clocks and burn our currencies. But love, that’s not our invention. That’s hardwired into us, to hurt us, to enthral us, to get us down to our knees. I waited for her till 11.59 and then at 12.00 I made a resolution to stop moping over Brahmi’s prolonged absence, to scruff her out of my heart, not think endlessly about her, but at 12.01 all I could think of was to pick up the phone and call her, hear her voice, see her face, and maybe hug her again. I want to cry and bawl and run all the way to Brahmi, to be her knight in shining armour, have a job in a call centre, have a house and TV and whatever Vedant has. Why couldn’t I be the hero for just fucking once?

  I had still been struggling with these thoughts when Dada called home. Boudi had suddenly fallen sick. Maa–Baba and I rushed to the hospital, half dressed but wide awake. Most of all, it was Maa who was terrified beyond her wits.

  She whispered in Baba’s ears, ‘What if something happens to Meenakshi?’

  When they met Dada in the corridor, they asked first about the unborn child and then about Boudi, which was curious and disheartening.

  ‘She’s okay.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ asked Maa.

  ‘She got hurt in the office.’

  ‘And you’re telling us now!’ shouted Maa, inviting looks from the others around us.

  ‘She didn’t want to worry you. Anyway, the doctors did an ultrasound. Everything is in order. They are going to let her go in an hour,’ said Dada.

  We went to Dada’s flat from the hospital. While Boudi rested on the sofa, the bulge in her stomach dangerously big, Dada and Maa fought, faces flushed, lips quivering.

  ‘What’s the need for her to go to office? How are the doctors still allowing this? And don’t teach me about career. I have a career too. When it’s time to rest, it’s time to rest,’ Maa addressed Dada as if Boudi wasn’t in the room.

  ‘If she wants to work, she will work, Maa. What will she do sitting in the house all day? She will get bored.’

  ‘Bored! Just so she doesn’t get bored she will put my grandchild at risk? No! Tell her she’s not going to office tomorrow,’ said Maa.

  ‘Your Maa is correct. Enough has happened. It will be good if this house doesn’t see any more misfortune,’ said Baba.

  ‘Nothing will happe—’

  ‘Chup kor to! Shut up! How many kids have you had, huh? What do you know what can or cannot happen?’ snapped Maa, invoking her right to win an argument like this. Our dead sister was helping Maa from even beyond the grave.

  ‘Maa, I’m not getting into this. She will manage,’ said Dada.

  ‘I saw how she managed! I saw how the two of you managed! Great job! Should I clap for you two? Let’s do that!’ screamed Maa. She got up from her chair and turned to Boudi. ‘In our families, it’s the mother who takes care of her pregnant daughter. Since your family . . . that means I have to take care of you. I am asking you to stop going to office from tomorrow.’

  Boudi looked blankly at Maa. ‘Don’t do what you did today. Tell me the minute something happens? Am I clear?’

  She looked at Dada and said in Bengali, ‘The next time she does something like this I’m going to slap her. Mind you.’ She switched back and said, ‘Both of you have done enough to hurt this family. Like your Baba said, I don’t want another misfortune. You wouldn’t be able to live down a dead child, Anirban. I’m telling you.’

  As Maa–Baba turned away from them, Dada spoke, ‘Maa. You can’t keep talking to us like this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maa, you keep taunting her. We are married now. She feels hurt when you say what you do.’

  ‘What do you want me to say then? Praise? Ei dekho! Look here now! What great deed my son has done getting a Musalman girl home! Is that what you want me to say? We are doing everything to accept this situation. Please forgive us if we are not better parents to you. I hope in your next life you don’t get us as your parents.’

  ‘Maa—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear anything more. You’re giving us a grandchild, that is khub bhalo. Very good. But we won’t ever forget how you have hurt us, how you have disgraced us in public,’ said Maa, now sniffling into her saree.

  Before Dada could say anything, Baba ushered her out.

  ‘I think you should listen to Maa,’ I said. ‘It’s not too much she’s asking for.’

  Then I left.

  3 January 2000

  Today morning, I wanted to let it out, tell someone how disgracefully Dada had behaved with Maa–Baba, and so I rang Arundhati’s bell. Who am I kidding? I had to fill the Brahmi-sized hole in my heart with anything I could get. It took her five minutes to get the door.

  ‘You can’t come in,’ she said.

  ‘Why? You have an exam?’

  ‘No, Rishab is here,’ she said and giggled.

  ‘I needed to talk to you. It’s im—’

  ‘Raghu? Rishab, my boyfriend, is here.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So! You have to go! I will talk to you later!’ she said with a laugh and closed the door. I could hear her and her boyfriend, the boy I’d helped her meet, laugh from behind the door. I didn’t even want to think about what was happening behind the door. Disappointed, I walked back to my room and wrote a long letter to Brahmi, not knowing how it would reach her. After a point, I realized the futility of it and tore it. She’s gone. She doesn’t care. Had she cared she would have called and explained her absence. Sometimes in the nights, I just put the phone receiver to my ear and pretend she’s on the other side. I don’t talk, obviously. I’m not a lunatic. But I imagine what it would be like to talk to her like that again. I miss her with every fibre of my being, no matter how much I try not to.

  Today both Bhattacharya Uncle and Mittal Uncle were at home, telling Baba how inter-religion and inter-caste marriages are the ruin of mankind.

  Mittal Uncle said, ‘Do you think what’s written in the ancient books is all dung? No? It means something. That’s why the child in your daughter-in-law’s stomach is giving so many problems. It’s unholy.’

  Bhattacharya Uncle was milder. ‘Every race is different,’ he said.

  Later I was asked to fetch a mixer-grinder from Didimaa’s house. I had planned a quick in and out but Mama wasn’t home and I had to wait for him to come back. Didimaa welcomed me with a laugh that chilled me to my bones. She smelt my despair and kept asking me if the ruin of the Gangulys had come yet. She asked me to make her tea. I pretended to not hear her. The angrier she became the more it gladdened me.

  I held on to my silence till she suddenly screamed, ‘Yes! Yes! Laugh at the old woman! Why wouldn’t you! Be happy, Raghu, celebrate, eat mangsho and paesh, because a dark time is upon you! A very dark time! You two brothers will never be happy. Never!’

  I turned to look at her. Her glare bore into me.

  ‘Ah! I’m right!’ she continued in her evil prophetic tone. ‘The brothers will never reconcile. Only death, only death will make you brothers again. Now, the kid looks at me! And why not? He’s scared now. He’s shaking in his bones. And why shouldn’t he? There’s a life at stake.’

  I wondered who had told her about the scare a couple of days ago.

  ‘Not to the child,’ Didimaa screamed, waving her bony fingers at me. ‘But to your Dada! What did you brothers think? Both of you will love and have a fulfilling life after how your Maa and you boys treated your Didimaa? No, no! I cursed you and your brother long back! Didn’t your Maa tell you? I told that petni that both her sons will fall in love and die young! Both! And see, that’s what happening . . . your elder brother married death itself! And you’re going the same way. Falling in love, destroying yourself! Who can turn fate?’

  ‘Fuck off, Didimaa,’ I said.

  I knew she didn’t know what I had just said and maybe that’s why I said it.

  ‘Asking me to keep my
mouth shut? Sure! Do that! But no one can stop what’s happening. The beginning of your end is nigh. The girl in your life and the woman in his will take both of you to your graves! So go! Fall in love! And end the Ganguly bloodline once and for all! It’s fate!’ said Didimaa and started to scream and laugh.

  I couldn’t take it any more so I left. Had I stayed I would have smacked Didimaa. But now as I am writing this, her voice rings loudly in my ears.

  6 January 2000

  When I woke up, I found Dada smoking next to me on the balcony.

  ‘You have been out for two hours,’ he told me. ‘Should we go inside?’

  I nodded groggily.

  Dada and I sat silently in front of each other for the good part of an hour. He didn’t want an explanation for my ludicrous behaviour, which to him probably wasn’t absurd at all. I had seen him during the time he thought his story had met with an untimely end and if anything he looked way worse than I do.

  To cheer me up, or at least fill up my time, Dada–Boudi took me out to eat to Gola in Connaught Place. For the most part, they spoke, joked, laughed and hoped I would join in but I had nothing to say. Their smiles and their happiness irritated me.

  ‘I don’t want to talk in clichés,’ said Boudi. ‘But at least you can be happy that you felt something strong, something real. Not a lot of people can claim that now, can they?’

  ‘I don’t see how that’s reassuring.’

  Dada slapped my back and said, ‘A few years down the line when you get over her, I will ask Zubeida to set you up with one of her cousins.’

  ‘Preferably someone who’s as religious as she is,’ I said.

  ‘Maa will be so happy,’ said Boudi and laughed. ‘She will love us!’

  And then we all cracked up.

  ‘I love Maa, though,’ said Boudi.