‘Sir? Where is the baby’s ticket? ’
Vijay was stunned. ‘The baby needs a ticket? Nobody told me the baby needs a ticket! I mentioned so many times while making the reservations that we are travelling with a baby and no one mentioned a ticket! A ticket? Are you sure? Are you sure she needs a ticket? Can’t be!’
‘Sir, please go and buy a ticket for the baby at the counter outside quickly. There is an infant ticket for some five hundred rupees plus taxes – if I hadn’t seen her here, you would have been turned back at the gate.’
‘This is ridiculous … no one told me … a ticket! Are you sure?’
The tall, lanky figure raced off, leaving me staring at his back with my mouth open. I couldn’t quite believe it. My husband had carefully planned and organized everything with the express purpose of getting our new baby home. And had forgotten to buy her ticket.
I had barely recovered from this when he returned with the infant ticket. Finally, we had everything in hand and had got rid of our bulky check-in baggage.
We were about to board the flight and were proceeding through the gate. I was carrying Peanut, and Kajal had insisted on carrying three bags – her own bag, Peanut’s diaper bag and my small purse – all tightly under one arm.
As we went through the final security check, the guard casually checked a tag sticking out of the bag most visible under Kajal’s arm. ‘Ek hi bag hain, na?’ Kajal, as expected, ignored this question and trudged past him.
Vijay also ignored the question and the guard lost whatever little interest he had in the matter. It would have ended there, but I blurted out in a bizarre burst of honesty, ‘Ek nahin, teen hain.’ The guard then called Kajal back and listlessly checked all the three bags – and we found that my purse had not been stamped by the security men at the X-ray counter. Vijay had to go back and get it re-checked, but not before giving me a malevolent glare for opening my big mouth.
In the bus, he looked at me and mimicked in an unfairly high-pitched voice, ‘Nahin, nahin! Hamare paas toh TEEN bag hain! Mera naam hain Yashodhara Satyavadi Harish Chandra Lal.’
We finally trudged up the stairs onto the flight and were greeted by perky flight attendants. I was glad that Vijay had at least blocked good seats for us, front row – which meant extra leg space. We got to our seats to find that in this particular craft, the front row seats had hardly any leg space at all, forget about anything extra. As an added bonus, there was no window either. We took our seats stoically – I took what would have been the window seat, Kajal was in the aisle seat and Vijay sat in the middle with his long legs encroaching into my already cramped leg space.
The flight was gearing up to take off. And unfortunately, Peanut sitting on my lap was gearing up for a particularly big potty. I could feel her straining and thought, ‘Oh no. Not now.’
I had developed a fairly quick, efficient methodology to check whether Peanut had done potty. I would just stick my finger into her diaper. This was perhaps not the smartest thing to do, but it usually worked well. Except when she had actually done potty as I now discovered, finding myself unpleasantly potty-fingered.
As soon as the seat belt sign was switched off, I went to the toilet to wash my hands while Vijay changed Peanut’s diaper and dirty clothes, and Kajal looked on with keen interest.
A few minutes later, I hurried back to my seat to find Vijay dancing in the aisle, rocking a bawling Peanut, who had chosen this most opportune time to throw a massive tantrum. In a few moments, an air-hostess came up from behind him, to bat her eyelids at Vijay, in the manner that women reserve for fathers of cute, tiny babies and asked him sympathetically, ‘Having some trouble, sir?’
In the last few minutes, Vijay had conducted a difficult diaper-changing operation with an uncooperative baby, had undressed her and changed her clothes while she wailed at him like an angry banshee, and had then been swaying back and forth like a drunken palm tree in a failing attempt to calm her down.
He replied to the concerned eyelid-batting air-hostess, over his shoulder in his most suave, charming manner, ‘No, no trouble at all.’
We discovered that the flight had lots of empty seats. After a while, Vijay sprawled himself across three seats, holding Peanut on his lap. I sat down in the opposite aisle seat, glad that the neighboring seats were also free. The air-hostess came with piping-hot breakfasts. I took my own tray, and also thoughtfully asked for a north Indian veg meal for Vijay, since he was holding Peanut. As I put his tray down on the table next to mine, the sympathetic air-hostess enquired, ‘Ma’am is not having anything?’ She was referring to Kajal, who was still sitting in her original front row seat. I realized that she was probably feeling too shy to eat, so I asked for another north Indian veg meal for her, which I planned to give to her once the meal trolley passed.
I now had three full meal trays in front of me. I heard Vijay calling my name, and turned to see him leaning back in his seat with an amused smirk on his face, Peanut clinging to him like a monkey. He remarked with reproach in his voice, loud enough for a dozen people to hear, ‘You know, you’re only supposed to take one meal. Don’t eat so much.’
I turned red and glared at him, only to get a cheeky grin in return. I waited till the airhostesses passed and took one tray over to Kajal. She was very embarrassed and said, with a touch of emotion, ‘Aap mere liye itna sab kya le aaye.’ I told her it was a standard airplane meal, and asked her not to be shy and just eat. I was actually quite worried that, without any sleep the night before and with the lack of nutrition, she might faint – and that was the last thing we needed.
The rest of the flight passed without incident. Peanut fell asleep in my arms and woke up dutifully to feed just as we were landing. We had reached Mumbai. I reflected that it had been almost six months since I was here last. And then, it had been just Vijay and a grumpily pregnant me who had flown off to Delhi. How things had changed.
We got off the plane and were now inside the Mumbai airport. I went off for a loo break while Vijay collected the baggage. I was very tired. I looked at myself in the mirror, and thought, Not bad for a Mum. Not that bad, anyway. Just some dark circles under the eyes, and perhaps only about ten kilos above my pre-pregnancy weight. I tried not to think about the fact that I now weighed as much as my husband.
Another young woman wafted in through the door and stood next to me at the mirrors. She was not only much slimmer and better dressed, but also one of those who managed to have good-looking, straight hair even in humid Mumbai. I told myself that I was a Zen Mother who refused to compare. I coolly finished washing my hands and put my hands under the automatic hand dryer. It refused to come on. I waited. It still refused. I waited a few more seconds. I could feel the young woman’s eyes on me, and I muttered, ‘Stupid things never work.’
I picked up my bag to leave the loo, and noticed she was still looking at me strangely. To o late, the realization hit me that I had been standing with my hands held out imploringly under an empty paper towel dispenser. Feeling like a fool, I beat a hasty retreat. I tried to cheer myself up by thinking it was just exhaustion, but at the back of my mind I was wondering how I had actually ever managed to gain admission to an IIM. It just went to show – there’s no real way to separate the wheat from the chaff, and at this point I felt like the chaff of all chaffs. And I wasn’t even too sure what chaff was.
2
Back On Bandstand
We collected our luggage and exited the airport. We stood, straining our eyes for our driver until I spotted a familiar car being deftly manoeuvered into a parking spot up ahead at an unnecessarily high speed, and a short, thin figure leaping out of the driver’s seat in a sprightly manner. It was none other than young Vinod. I couldn’t keep from grinning when I saw him.
Vinod walked up to us, quickly taking the trolley from Kajal and wheeling it to the car. I noted that he seemed to have lost weight since I saw him last. I greeted him, but he seemed tongue-tied with shyness and just smiled at me. I remarked that he had become
thin. This seemed to embarrass him even further and he looked down, shuffling his feet. I decided to break the ice and held up Peanut, saying, ‘Isko toh hello bolo … iska naam hain Anoushka.’ He repeated ‘Anoushka’ slowly, and his face lit up with a smile as he looked at the sleeping Peanut. We piled into the car – miraculously, we fit, despite all our luggage. And then we were off.
When we reached the apartment, the security guards jumped into action and helped us with our luggage. I didn’t remember the help in Mumbai being so good. Then it struck me that they would be expecting big tips from Vijay in the khushi of my return with the baby. Well, they would not be disappointed. I was truly exhausted now and went ahead upstairs, the baby in Kajal’s arms. As I fumbled with my key in the lock, I noted a pair of ugly, familiar red-and-yellow slippers outside the door and realized Zarreena must be inside. I applied some pressure on the door with my shoulder, and stumbled because she chose to swing it open at the same moment. She yelled at me, ‘ABHI ANDAR NAHIN AANA TUMEE!’ So we stood there patiently while she squirted a small lemon around us, muttering all the while in a strange little ceremony, which ended with her sprinkling a few drops of water on my feet. And then she grabbed Peanut from Kajal and brought her inside quickly, cooing at her delightedly, if it is possible to coo at the top of your voice.
I introduced Zarreena and Kajal, although nobody was listening to me.
Zarreena said, ‘YEH TOH SAAB KI DUPLICATE COPY HAIN’ and Kajal demurred, ‘Wahan pe toh sab kehte hain ki yeh apni mummy jaisi lagti hain.’
Zarreena said, ‘OH-HOOO – ISKO TUMNE PAAUN MEIN PAYAL KYON NAHIN PEHNAYA, JEE?’ Kajal jumped in, before I could answer, ‘Hamare yahan haath pe hi pehnaate hain. Paaun pe nahin.’
Zarreena said, ‘HAMARE YAHAN PAAUN PE BHI PEHNAATE HAIN!’
Kajal: ‘Hamare yahan nahin pehnate …’
Zarreena: ‘PEHNAATE HAIN, JEE!’
I quickly interrupted because I could see this could go on indefinitely. I peaceably suggested that we could make her wear payals on her feet sometimes, but not always. Both parties looked satisfied at this and there was a moment of silence.
Then Zarreena said, ‘BAHUT SUNDAR HAIN BABA!’ and this seemed to momentarily win over Kajal, who looked quite mollified and as proud as if she was solely responsible for Peanut’s looks.
After the brief silence, Zarreena seemed to remember something and annouced, ‘OH! KITNA KHILONA LAAYA SAAB, DEKHO, DEKHO,’ and ran to bring out a large green tub, which she had ingeniously removed from the bathroom to house the toys which I had sent with Vijay the previous weekend. She picked out a musical toy, pressed it to play a tune, and told Kajal, ‘ISKO DEKHO, BAAJA BAJTA HAIN, JEEE!’
Now, it so happened that the toy she had chosen to show Kajal was one which had been Kajal’s favourite back in Delhi. It was a caterpillar that, when pressed on its tummy, played the most annoyingly tinny version of that knick-knack-paddywack song. ‘This old man … he played one …’ Kajal used to play it tirelessly, over and over, with the most adoring smile on her face, to a highly unimpressed Peanut – until I had finally lost patience, confiscated it and hidden it from her. So now, when she saw Zarreena showing it off like a new discovery, it was a bit too much for her. She said, the contempt clear in her voice, ‘Mere ko pata hain. Yeh wahaan se hi aaya hain. Iss khilone se usko bahut khilaaya hain maine.’
Zarreena was hardly listening, though. She said to Peanut, ‘KYA NAAM HAIN? MAINE TOH SONIA RAKHA HAIN … MAIN SAAB KO BHI BATAYEE … SONIAA, SONIAAA, SONIAAAA …’
Kajal mustered up every ounce of dignity that she possesed, and replied in no uncertain terms. ‘Mera naam Kajal hain.’
I stifled my laughter but Zarreena cackled unabashedly, ‘NAHIN JEEE! ISKA NAAM.’
Kajal said stiffly, ‘Achha … Iska naam toh Onoshka hain …’ She considered for a moment ‘Par main bhi isko Shonee bulaati hoon … Shonee … Shonia … ek hi hain …’ This similarity over their chosen name for Peanut seemed to make her finally eye Zarreena with approval, and they played with the baby quite peacefully from thereon. They were soon joined by Vinod, who had been sent in by Vijay to get further acquainted with Peanut.
While the three of them played, laughed and fussed with the baby, I went to take a look around our little apartment. It looked a lot bigger than I remembered it. Vijay had got Zarreena to wash everything, including the curtains, and the whole place looked sparkling new. I walked around the apartment and paused to look at the breathtaking view of the sea. And I suddenly realized that while I would miss the comforts of my Delhi home, I was very happy to be back on Bandstand.
3
Kajal Settles In
Over the next few weeks, we settled back into our life in Mumbai, with the two new additions to the family – Peanut and Kajal. While Vijay was besotted with the former, there were many things about the latter that drove him up the wall. He had never lived with full-time help before, and found it difficult to get used to her – and there was no denying that Kajal definitely took some getting used to.
I personally thought that she was a blessing and was trying to build her confidence in terms of handling Peanut, so that she would be able to take care of her when I went back to work. But I didn’t want to relinquish most responsibilities just yet, so while I was at home full-time, she really didn’t have that much to do for Peanut. She therefore took it upon herself to try and make herself useful in other household matters. She tended to try too hard to please Vijay and often displayed prize levels of absent-mindedness in her dealings with him. This led Vijay to become convinced that she was just out to get him.
One morning, in the first week after we had moved back, she brought Vijay’s early morning tea to him, greeting him with a chirpy ‘Gud Mawrning, jamai babu!’
Vijay stretched, never at his brightest in the mornings. ‘Good morning.’
Kajal asked him, ‘Biskoot laau?’
Vijay mumbled his assent. ‘Haan … ek, do, le aao …’ There was a pause, after which Kajal gently repeated, ‘Biskoot laau?’
Vijay said a bit more clearly, ‘Haan … ek, do, le aao …’ Kajal smiled indulgently and disappeared. Ten minutes passed.
Vijay was not usually a biscuit eater in the mornings, but now that the idea had been planted in his head, he was in the mood for a biskoot or two to dunk in his tea and went off looking for the same. He went to the kitchen and found the biscuit tin himself, and on his way back, noticed that Kajal was standing by the drawing room window, gazing at the wide ocean in a very contemplative mood. It was as if, he later told me, ‘Wo soch rahi thi, main itne bade saagar mein kahaan se biskoot dhoondke laau.’ A bit annoyed now, Vijay purposely rattled the biscuit tin as he passed to get her attention.
She turned towards him slowly, the very picture of early morning serenity, and proceeded to rub it in with a final, affectionate ‘Biskoot laau?’
Kajal also had a tendency to play the martyr in almost every situation. It was an integral part of who she was – I’d had a lifetime to get used to it, but it was proving difficult for Vijay to adjust to.
One late night, I asked her if she’d had dinner and she looked down at her feet with a little modest laugh and sighed that since jamai babu had not eaten yet, there was no way that she could eat.
This statement, when I repeated it to him, did not please Vijay any more than the title ‘jamai babu’ did. He had been enjoying his 11 p.m. beer and snack, sprawled out on our sofa. I suggested that he eat his dinner early so that Kajal, in turn, could eat before midnight, but he became uncharacteristically belligerent. ‘Why? Why can’t I eat whenever I want to in my own house? Who asked her to wait until I’ve eaten?’ I tried to explain to him that this was how she had always been, but he just grumbled and mumbled. Eventually, he sat down at the dining table and shovelled down a couple of parathas, but kept glaring occasionally at the kitchen door behind which Kajal lurked.
Vijay was also increasingly convinced that Kajal sneaked around to spy on him, with the singular intent of
embarrassing him. Why else, he argued, was it that every time he took off his pants to change into his shorts, she would walk through the door?
Initially, I didn’t believe it and thought that he was exaggerating. But then, I saw it a couple of times with my own eyes.
After a hard day’s work at the office, Vijay would enter the comfort and privacy – or so he thought – of our bedroom to change out of his pants. Unmindful of the fact that there was someone else living in our house now, he would simply whip off his belt and unbutton his pants, letting them fall in a loose heap around his feet. Exactly at this point the door would bang open, and Kajal would walk in with a glass of water on a tray for him. There he would be, standing frozen like the proverbial deer caught in headlights, his pants trapping his feet, leaving very little to cover his modesty except the length of his shirt and the underwear that always looked tiny at the top of his mile-long legs. Kajal, being short-sighted, would continue to approach him with the glass of water and an ingratiating smile on her face. By the time it became obvious to her that he was half-naked, it would be too late for her to make a bolt for the door. Vijay would glare at her with his face going red, mutter that he didn’t want any water, but then take the glass hastily so that she would just leave.
It was quite fascinating. Especially since she never changed the timing of her entrance and he never remembered to actually lock the door, so the cycle was repeated at least two or three times in a week.
Of course, I pooh-poohed his suggestion that she was doing it deliberately. While I assured him that he might be considered eye-candy by some members of the opposite sex, Kajal was, at over fifty years of age, probably too old for that sort of thing. He continued to eye her with suspicion – and the situation was exacerbated when one day, she walked in on him in the loo.
JUST MARRIED, PLEASE EXCUSE Page 16