This too was due to the fact that he had omitted to lock the door. He had just shut it and settled himself down for a nice, long bathroom break.
In walked Kajal, slamming the door open with an impressive sense of purpose. Only to find Vijay sitting on the toilet with his pants around his feet, and the by-now familiar deer-in-headlights look on his face.
It was, he later blustered indignantly to me, only the fact that he was working on the laptop in the loo, that saved him from complete and utter embarrassment.
‘I’m telling you, Dell ne meri izzat bachha li!’
I nodded sympathetically, but from whatever I had heard, I couldn’t agree that his izzat was intact.
One of the household duties that Kajal had assumed for herself was that of taking care of our clothes. Like Zarreena earlier, she would dump various clothes indiscriminately into the washing machine, regularly turning our clothes into attractive shades of pink. She would then hang them out to dry, and afterwards cleverly hide them in places where we could never hope to find them without her help. It was clear that she needed to feel needed.
One day, she heard Vijay grumbling after his bath that he could never find his underwear when he needed it. He rummaged around, finally found one at the back of his drawer and got dressed quickly. However, in the meantime, Kajal had also leapt into action. She dove into her secret cove, extracted an underwear and re-emerged to present it to him with a pleased and triumphant ‘Chaddi chahiye, jamai babu?’
This by itself would perhaps not have been so bad, considering all that they had already been through together. But at this point, he was sitting fully dressed at the table and having his breakfast. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the undie in question was actually one of mine, and that too a particularly red and skimpy number. He almost choked on his omelette, and then turned red, mumbling his refusal of her offering.
‘What’s with her?’ he fumed to me later. ‘Couldn’t she see I was at the table? And giving me your underwear! I tell you, she’s doing it on purpose.’
I tried to calm him down and stifle my own chuckles. ‘Vijay, don’t you think you’re being harsh? After all, she’s an old conservative woman herself. All this must be hard on her. In fact, she probably gets more embarrassed than you each time.’
He stopped pacing the room and I saw a wicked gleam in his brown eyes. ‘You think? She gets embarrassed?’
I looked at him suspiciously. ‘Yes, of course … What on earth are you doing?’ For he had opened my cupboard and was rummaging through the drawers with great determination. He found what he was looking for and held it up – one of the laciest black undies I possessed, a remnant from our honeymoon days. ‘There! I’m going to ask her if this is hers!’
The major problem between them, I had concluded, was merely one of communication.
The fact was Vijay tended to mumble in the ordinary course of conversation, and Kajal was hard of hearing. Therefore, most of his requests escaped her. Further, she was inexplicably shy around him, and found it difficult to talk to him directly, and so would end up addressing the walls instead. I was used to both of their individual eccentricities and thus played the mediator, but it got tiring.
A typical exchange would go thus:
Kajal would murmur to the north-east facing wall in the drawing room, ‘Jamai babu ko chai chahiye?’
Vijay, oblivious to having been asked anything, would continue doing whatever he happened to be doing.
I would get a little annoyed at this and say, ‘Vijay, Kajal is asking if you want to have tea.’
Vijay would look up, surprised. ‘When? Where? Oh yes, I want some tea.’ He would turn his head to address her over his shoulder. ‘Haan, chahiye.’
Kajal would continue lurking behind him, having missed the fact that he had said something to her.
I would grit my teeth and say, ‘Vijay, she didn’t hear you. You have to speak up, she can’t hear very well.’
Vijay would roll his eyes at me and then turn his head all the way around to look at her directly, and say in a clear and penetrating voice, ‘Haan, chahiye.’ He would then turn his attention back to whatever was occupying him, adding a mumbled ‘thank you’.
Kajal, having forgotten the original question but always pleased to be of service, would then ask him, ‘Kya chahiye, jamai babu?’
Vijay and she would then look each other in confused silence. Sometimes I would jump in to clarify things. At other times, I would just leave the room.
4
The Princess and the Pea-brains
The one thing that Vijay and Kajal had in common was their worship of Princess Peanut.
By the time the baby was about six months old, Kajal was convinced that Peanut was to Superbaby what Clark Kent was to Superman. She believed Peanut had achieved such feats as being able to wipe her own head with her towel when told – ‘Sar ponchho!’ and brush her own hair with her hairbrush when told – ‘Kangi karo!’
The simple truth of the matter, not always obvious to the innocent bystander whom Kajal regaled with Peanut’s achievements, was that Peanut’s general tendency at this age was to place all objects on her head. So when Kajal handed her a towel or a hairbrush or any such item, she would simply place it on her head. Then Kajal would ask her to wipe her hair or comb it and be delighted by her apparent comprehension.
Still, I was genuinely surprised when I saw that Kajal appeared to be right about the fact that Peanut would actually look down towards her own feet when asked ‘Aapke paaun kahaan hain?’ She was sitting in her high chair having a meal when Kajal showed me that she could do this. I excitedly told Vijay that I thought Peanut might actually be the genius we had always suspected she would be, and asked Kajal to give Vijay a demonstration of this latest achievement. Kajal dutifully said to Peanut, ‘Aapke paaun kahaan hain?’ and Peanut almost immediately looked down at her feet again. I said, ‘Isn’t that fantastic?’ Vijay nodded drily, and then pulled me by the arm to sit on the sofa next to him. He then asked Kajal to get Peanut to give us a repeat performance. As I watched from this angle, it was obvious that when Kajal asked Peanut where her feet were, underneath the high chair tray, she was also unconsciously patting Peanut’s feet.
Kajal believed that Peanut fully understood her own name and responded to it. She said ‘Onoooshka’ and Peanut turned her head towards her. This, I tried to tell her, was just a function of the tone in which one addressed a baby. To demonstrate, I called in the same tone, ‘Seth Dhanraj Daulatwaaaala,’ and Peanut turned her head towards me. Kajal was unfazed by this, and her enthusiasm was not in the least dampened.
Kajal would also tell visitors that Peanut could flick her wrist or dance upon being told to do so. This was an interesting trick which I soon figured out. She would actually just watch Peanut closely and whenever the baby spontaneously started to either flick her wrist or wave her arms in the air, Kajal would pipe in with the instruction, ‘Aise haath hilao’ or ‘Dancy karo’. Her sense of timing was so impeccable that our visitors were mighty impressed. The illusion was complete, no one more fooled by it than the doting Kajal herself.
Meanwhile, Vijay continued to try and stake a claim on Peanut as a parent and compete with me for her affections, even more so now that we were living together again. He was unashamedly blatant about it, and his behaviour bordered on the ridiculous.
One evening, I was sitting and playing with Peanut on the bed. She was in a giggly mood, flopping all over the place and bouncing around on the soft bed. I turned my head for a minute to talk to Vijay, and saw out of the corner of my eye that Peanut was doing a backward flop with full gusto. I also noticed simultaneously that my husband had foolishly left his laptop on the edge of the bed, which was exactly where our baby’s head was going to land in the next few milliseconds. Time stood still for me, my heart skipped a beat. Some sort of mother’s instinct kicked in and without thinking, I lashed out with my right hand and thwacked Peanut’s head, deflecting her in the nick of time. Sh
e landed safely on the bed, her head narrowly missing the laptop, although her happy four-toothed grin was wiped off her face. Startled by my intervention, she started to cry loudly.
Vijay had so far been a mute observer to this event, but now he leapt into action. To my shock, instead of congratulating me on my quick action, he simply used the opportunity to win some brownie points with Peanut, immediately pouncing upon the wailing, confused child and saying, ‘Oh my poor little one … Mama hit you? … Dada ke paas aao … Dada nahin maarega …’
Although Peanut was still young, I fully believed in the fact that she would benefit from our reading to her. I made it a point to sit down with her every evening and read at least three books to her. She obviously understood nothing, but sat quietly looking at the pictures as I read slowly and carefully, varying the intonation of my voice to keep it interesting for her. I also used the illustrations to point out things that the stories didn’t even mention, in order to familiarize her with different objects and concepts.
One evening, when I was too busy to do this, I asked Vijay to take over. He obviously didn’t believe in the many benefits of reading to a child, preferring to play with her instead. I insisted that he stop balancing the book on his head and dropping it to make her laugh, and actually read something to her. He flopped down on the bed with a sigh, took her onto his lap and started to read the book to her. I was satisfied and went off, but couldn’t resist checking after a while on how he was doing. When I peeped into the room, I saw him flipping through the pages at random and saying, ‘Eee dekho … tree … Eee dekho … witch! Eee dekho … bad-tempered bhalu …’ He then said, ‘Okay, we’re done,’ and happily plonked down the book and started teaching a giggling Peanut how to do somersaults.
I had a special bedtime song for Peanut. I was very fond of it because it was taught to me by my grandfather. ‘Kitni sundar pyaari chidiya … rang birangi nyaari chidiya … aasman mein wo udti hain … phir bhi kabhi nahin dar ti hain.’ This song would take me back to the days of my childhood and fill me with nostalgic happiness – until I heard Vijay lulling Peanut to sleep with it. He had added his own little unique twist to my song, replacing the word for ‘bird’ with the word for ‘underwear’.
I had plenty of experience with this tendency of his to spoil songs by changing the lyrics, but hearing him go ‘Kitni sundar pyaari chaddiyaan … rang birangi nyaari chaddiyaan’ filled me with great annoyance. It was sacrilege to ruin this, my favourite childhood lullaby. The worst part was that I knew that after this, I would never be able to sing it again without mental images of colourful underwear floating through the sky.
It was still a constant struggle for me to get Peanut to sleep properly at night. She continued to wake up every couple of hours, and it was taking a toll on me.
I said wearily to Vijay one evening, ‘We need to bathe and massage Peanut properly this evening. She may sleep for a few hours then.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it!’
I corrected him. ‘We will do it. But this time, I think we should reverse the order. We should bathe her first and then massage her. It will help her sleep better.’
Vijay made scoffing sounds and said, ‘Why? That’s not how we do it.’
I asked with interest, ‘And who is this “we”?’
Vijay ignored the question and said, ‘It just doesn’t make sense. See, first we should massage her, then we wash the oil away with a sponge bath.’
I set my jaw resolutely. ‘But I’ve checked – it says everywhere that we should massage her after the bath.’
Vijay challenged me on this one. ‘And just where have you read this?’
It sounded a bit lame even to me. ‘On the Johnson’s Baby Oil bottle …’ I said. I then continued more confidently, ‘But I’m sure I read it elsewhere too. Anyway, it makes sense, doesn’t it? A bath is invigorating, a massage is relaxing … so we massage her later.’
Vijay was clearly in an argumentative mood. ‘But I always feel sleepy after a bath.’
I said, ‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t you bathe in the morning to get fresh?’
‘Bathing makes you only momentarily fresh. I am always sleepy by eleven a.m. in office,’ was Vijay’s sagacious reply.
I gave him a withering look. ‘Hmmm. Don’t be so silly, please.’
After a moment of silence, Vijay said, ‘Look here, Y. Water makes you tired. After all, don’t you feel tired after a swim?’
I asked, the irritation clear in my voice, ‘Are you really going to equate a half-hour swim with a five-minute bath in a tub?’
Vijay retreated while I prepared the bath and massage material, both of us now in a sullen mood. A few moments later, he re-entered the battlefield with gusto, and played his final trump card.
He spat out, in his I’m-the-Man-of-the-House voice, ‘I want one more baby!’
I stared at him, speechless.
He continued, ‘And I will do whatever I want, my way, with that one!’
It took me a moment to figure out he was just being silly, and I couldn’t help laughing.
Eventually, we cooperated enough to give Peanut a bath together, and the mood was further lightened by Vijay’s repeated chanting of ‘Har har Gange, Punditji nange’ as we poured water on the bemused baby. For the moment, peace reigned in the Lal-Sharma household.
Only for the moment, of course.
Just Married, Please Excuse
5
All Ees Really Not That Well
It was nearing 8 p.m. on Friday. Peanut was already asleep, but Vijay still wasn’t home.
I watched the ticking clock, willing the minute hand to move faster. As usual, it didn’t work, but it helped to pass the time. I had spent the entire day at home with Kajal and Peanut and was feeling listless and bored.
Many weeks of my maternity leave still stretched ahead of me and I realized that I wasn’t cut out to be a stay-at-home mum. It had been nice to sit around doing nothing but staring at Peanut in the beginning, but now a part of me really missed having co-workers and colleagues to discuss all those important marketing strategies with. And of course, the bitching. Oh, and the coffee breaks.
I craved adult company. However, here I was stuck at home with only Kajal and Peanut.
I moodily reflected that Vijay seemed to be coming back really late nowadays from work. Sure, he had said he was really busy and his office was about one and a half hours away, but that really was no excuse. We were rarely getting time together nowadays.
When he came home, all that he was typically interested in talking about was what Peanut had done through the day. Unfortunately, conversations about her would inevitably result in bickering. I thought about how over the last few months – ever since Peanut had come along, and especially since we had moved back to Mumbai, our relationship had become more strained than ever before. And of late, for some reason, Vijay seemed to be something he had never been before – cold.
As I thought about how long it had been since Vijay and I’d had our last proper conversation, I also realized with a start how long it had been since we had actually, uh, done it.
It had been months – I didn’t even want to count how many. In any case, I had been suffering some sort of a complex because I was still carrying about ten kilos of extra weight and my piddly attempts at working out were doing nothing to make them go away. But if I had been feeling fat and unattractive before, it was made worse by the sudden realization that my husband evidently thought so too.
This was really the limit. He never wanted to talk to me any more; he didn’t find me interesting any more; he never even wanted to touch me any more. I grew increasingly agitated at these thoughts.
He had only used me as a mere vessel to fulfil his need to procreate and now that the child was here, I had been relegated to the background as part of the more disposable and movable variety of furniture. I was irrelevant. Unwanted. Tears pricked at my eyes as I realized that our relationship was dying, if not already dead.
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br /> I would move back to my mother’s house for ever, I resolved, only momentarily distracted by a memory of my little sister asking innocently while watching TV at the age of six, ‘Why do all women go to Mai-ke when they are angry? Where is Mai-ke anyway?’
The sound of the key being turned in the door brought me back to the present. It was almost 8.30 p.m. I swallowed hard once and blinked back my tears. I really had loved this man. I resolved that even though we clearly were no longer meant to be together, I would handle our impending separation with grace and wisdom.
He strode in, no doubt exhausted after the day’s work and long commute, and almost bumped into me as I stood waiting for him rigidly in the hallway.
‘Oh, hi,’ he said. He was completely oblivious to my state of agitation as he dropped his laptop bag onto a chair and asked, ‘What’s Peanut doing?’
There was a pause that hung heavy between us as I worked up the strength to compose myself enough to converse with him normally, and ask him how his day had been. After all, the key thing going forward would be for us to treat each other with respect. I knew he deserved that much from me.
‘I KNOW YOU HATE ME! AND I HATE YOU TOO!’ I screamed, and the tears began to flow freely down my face as I whirled around and ran into my bedroom, slamming it shut.
‘I know just what you mean,’ said Vivi, handing me another tissue from the box, which I accepted gratefully through all my unladylike sniffling and snorting. She watched as I blew my nose and continued in a sympathetic tone, ‘I’m telling you, all men are alike. They pretend to be so modern, so … you know, metrosexual – but they just don’t ever want to talk about anything, and they are clearly not in touch with their feelings … or their feminine side …’
As she rambled on, I privately thought that Vijay had never in his life pretended to be either modern or metrosexual – or for that matter, admitted to having a feminine side. But the point about his refusing to communicate was definitely true – now more than ever.
JUST MARRIED, PLEASE EXCUSE Page 17