Now, back in the house and having reconstructed the likely events leading up to the night’s fiasco, my mortification knew no bounds. I retrieved Peanut from Kajal and comforted myself and her with some gentle rocking. After a few long minutes, I heard the sound of my husband’s voice – he was back. I could only catch parts of the conversation from our room, but I made out that Papaji was informing him that I had already come home. Vijay in turn was telling Papaji what the scene below was about, and I cringed when I heard him say, ‘I’ve convinced them to come back in, and that there is no earthquake – it wasn’t easy, they just wouldn’t believe me. Finally, I told them there was just some misunderstanding that the, uh, baby of our house started by creating a lot of noise and confusion, and someone else must have been playing a prank, spreading panic about an earthquake.’
I carefully placed the now peacefully asleep Peanut on the bed and lay down with her, cuddling as close as possible to breathe in her baby smell. Vijay returned to the room after a few moments and we exchanged a long look. I was expecting him to be angry, but he just looked exhausted and a little bemused. He lay down on the other side of Peanut and we automatically and wordlessly reached for each other’s hands. We lay there together quietly for a while, both of us unable to drift off to sleep.
The various sounds in the apartment and outside started to settle down, and peace and quiet once again took over the late night hour. I could now make out the distinct sound of the waves crashing against the shore outside. As I sighed at the thought of dealing with all of Mummyji-Papaji’s inevitable questions the next morning, I heard Kajal finally turning off the light in the hallway, while mumbling something that sounded like an indignant ‘Bilkul bhookump ki tarah tha …’
12
Bye-bye, Thank You
‘So … you’re telling me that last night you were mistaken for a volcano?’ Lavanya’s eyebrows were arched so high that I couldn’t even see them any more. She had been listening wide-eyed and open-mouthed as I narrated the incident to her. For once, she had actually forgotten to take notes while I spoke, but now she made a wild scramble for her notebook, in order to capture every relevant detail with her pen.
‘Earthquake, earthquake,’ I mumbled and then felt idiotic about splitting hairs about this. As if it mattered which natural calamity it had supposedly been.
‘Hmmm,’ she said and there was a long pause as she looked at me thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her round cheeks before she finally spoke again. ‘You know what, Yashodhara? It is my professional assessment that you might just need to attend an anger management program. Would you like to try my Twelve Step Anger Management Program as a supplement to your existing program?’ Her eyes took on a dreamy look ‘You would be the perfect case study – a challenge that I could showcase …’
‘No, no, actually,’ I hurriedly cut in, ‘um, in fact, the reason I came by today was to tell you that we’ve decided that we’ll be trying to work things out on our own and that we, uh, don’t think we need counselling any more.’
Lavanya’s eyes almost popped out of her head and her shocked displeasure at this news was written all over her circular face. It fleetingly occurred to me that she looked like she could kind of use an anger management programme herself. She almost barked, ‘I see. And why is that?’ adding in a tone that sounded a trifle spiteful to me, ‘You’re only on Step TWO, you know.’
‘Yes, yes, we know,’ I said, squirming a bit, thinking that I should have insisted that Vijay be the one to break it to her despite my losing the toss. After all, he had been the one who suggested we drop the counselling. I should have at least insisted on best of three. Trying to choose my words carefully, I said, ‘The thing is, Lavanya – we’ve now spoken to his parents and they’ve been really nice and supportive. Er, and of course, your advice so far has been really valuable too. We just think that both of us have been a little foolish but we feel that things should get better soon.’
‘Oh,’ she said with heavy sarcasm. ‘Of course. Things always automatically get better on their own, right? Just like that. No need for concerted effort and any form of time investment in the relationship under the able guidance of a trained professional.’ She snapped her notebook shut abruptly. ‘Fine. Good luck to the both of you. I hope you’re able to work things out. You make a lovely couple. That will be fifteen hundred rupees for two sessions.’
I fumbled for my purse and meekly paid up. As I stood up to leave, I had the strong urge to ask her, ‘By any chance, do you have a drinking problem?’ Instead, I just said, ‘Bye, and thanks, Lavanya.’ Without looking up, she waved dismissively. As I walked out the door, I glanced back once and saw her ripping out the last few pages of her notebook and beginning to shred them into bits.
‘Wow. Thanks a ton, Vivi,’ I muttered under my breath and got out of there as quickly as I could.
Of course, we had to explain to Vijay’s parents the events that had transpired the night before.
I had tried to avoid the conversation by prolonging my breastfeeding of Peanut in the morning, until she bit down hard on my nipple and screamed in angry protest. I finally emerged from my room and hurriedly handed her over to the waiting Kajal.
Vijay and his parents were in the drawing room; Kajal informed me that they were waiting to have breakfast with me. I knew this was only an excuse and that they were really waiting to talk to me about the previous night – but there was no avoiding it now. I reluctantly headed over to them, with a last-minute, desperate sort of hope that perhaps acting like nothing had happened would make it all go away. I cleared my throat and cheerily breezed into the room with a ‘Good mooorning, Papaji, Mummyji.’
The looks that I received in return made it clear that it wasn’t going to work.
Mummyji, in her no-nonsense way, got straight to the point and asked what the matter was. How could we have created such a ruckus; what could be so serious that we had to cause a neighbourhood evacuation, and so on. Papaji, in his mild-mannered way, suggested that perhaps they could help in case we had any problems – after all, that’s what parents were for.
Vijay decided to intervene at this point, clearly sensing my acute embarrassment from my general demeanour and from the fact that for once, I had absolutely nothing to say.
The gist of his eloquent speech in Hindi was that we had been having some fights lately; a lot of them were to do with how to raise Peanut, and in general, about the various differences that we had. And perhaps we had been wrong to hide it from them.
He went on to say that he thought the solution was simple
– for us to accept each other as we were. To my utter surprise, he bravely added that this meant everybody accepting that I was not exactly the type of bahu they may have wanted. Avoiding my incredulous eye, he confessed that I had plenty of good qualities and if they were focused on – and if you managed to forget for a moment my tendency to simulate earthquakes – I really was a great person to be with.
He even went on to admit that we had not been honest about the way in which we had portrayed our lives to them – for example, once in a while, we indulged in a drink or two. He hurriedly adding that neither of us had any drinking problems, and nor did we intend to anytime in the forseeable future.
Mummyji had been hearing him out rather impatiently and she jumped in at this point to tell him that she had always known all of this – and that it had never been an issue in the first place. She also said, rather tartly, that it had been hard to believe Kajal’s stories about the staple diet of my family being the tomato. Papaji then interjected to point out that all these was just little details, and that the most important thing for them was that we try and be happy together.
There was a lull in the conversation at this point and we were all lost in our own thoughts. There was some noise from just outside the doorway, and I became dimly aware it was Peanut struggling and squealing to get out of the arms of the clearly eavesdropping Kajal.
Something struck Vijay then and he aske
d Mummyji and Papaji whether in their fifty-odd years of marriage, they had themselves had a really serious fight – because as he declared wonderingly, he certainly didn’t recall being witness to even small arguments in all his years at home with them.
Mummyji almost snorted and said, ‘Ladne ki kya baat hain? Arrey, kabhi main maan jaati hoon, kabhi wo maan jaate hain.’
Yeah right, I thought. Sometimes I agree with what he’s saying, sometimes he agrees with what I’m saying. As if that would solve everything.
After breakfast, Vijay and I went out for a walk on Bandstand. We walked along side by side in silence for a while.
I spoke first and said with complete earnestness, ‘I am really sorry about last night. You know that, na?’
He looked seriously at me for a moment. I knew there was no reason he should let me off that easily, but then his mouth twitched and he said, ‘Why, did something happen last night?’ and then he started laughing.
I gazed at him in wonderment, thinking for a moment that perhaps the stress had got to him and he had finally lost it. He put his arm around me and said, ‘Oh, honey … you’re such a … bhookump.’
It was at this point that he told me about the exchange that he had heard between Mummyji and Kajal. He imitated Kajal’s ‘Mummyji-Mummyji-bhookump-aaya,’ and despite my mortification and embarassment, I couldn’t help laughing as I pictured the scene in my head. We fell silent, as we strolled along together.
This time he spoke first. ‘Look. We both know that we need to sort things out. But I really don’t think it’s about counselling. What we need is something more basic, perhaps … like you not trying to kill me every time I say something you don’t agree with … You being just a little less sarcastic … And as I said, our being more accepting of each other.’
I reluctantly admitted that perhaps one of the issues we had was my constant flaring up and my liberal use of sarcasm on every occasion. I promised to work on it, but couldn’t resist adding, ‘You know, you’ve really added to the stress by trying to turn me into a different person around the family – till that little speech you just gave your parents, which was very nice, by the way.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ He looked pleased ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and you’re quite an okay person, really.’
‘Wow. Thanks,’ I muttered.
‘No, really,’ he persisted. ‘Something that our crazy … I mean our counsellor said actually got me thinking. She said we should try focusing on the most positive memories we have of each other. So I was thinking about that time back in Bangalore, at the airport, when that guy was hassling me about my smoking, how you came and defended me by shouting at him. I remember when I saw you rushing up to us and felt so happy, thinking, ‘Here comes my Jhansi ki Rani. Now this guy’s had it. Remember that?’
I had no recollection whatsoever of this incident and was privately cursing myself for ever defending his smoking, but out loud I said, ‘Wonderful, wonderful. Even the best memory you have of me involves my yelling. That’s great. It makes me feel all warm inside.’
‘So,’ he said, ‘what was the incident about me that came to your mind?’
‘Well,’ I admitted. ‘There were a lot. Mostly how you took care of me when I was pregnant. It almost makes me want to get pregnant again.’
He stopped walking and stood there, staring at me.
‘Almost,’ I clarified.
We started walking again. I continued, ‘But seriously. It’s just been really hard for me to understand why you suddenly became so cold and unwilling to open up and talk of late … I thought we’d always had these problems but things just got so much worse …’
He looked as if he was struggling with whatever he was planning to say next. Finally, he said, ‘Actually. The thing is that I didn’t know how to tell you – it’s just that after you moved back here, I was feeling bad because of all our fighting …’ He paused and then continued reluctantly, ‘… but then I read an SMS exchange on your phone between you and some guy called Gary. I found it difficult to act the same after that.’
This time, I stopped in my tracks and stared incredulously at him. He stopped too and said, his words coming out in a rush, as if he was getting something heavy off his chest, ‘I know that you’re going to say I had no business reading your text messages and perhaps I didn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been having inappropriate exchanges with someone, and even though we might be having problems, that really doesn’t mean you start to get overly intimate with some old foreign boyfriend or whoever he may be. But last night, when I thought for a minute that you’d actually done something silly, I realized you’re much too important to me and that this thing is something that we can get past. And I don’t want to hear about him, I’ve forgiven you already, so …’
I spoke slowly, my head spinning, ‘Wait just a minute, Vijay. What exactly did you read?’
He said sulkily, ‘I don’t remember. Something about how he missed you and the days in Bangalore before you got married, and how great things had been when you were living together. And …’ he added bitterly, ‘… he ended by saying “Love you”. You never even told me that you had lived with someone else before me. Maybe you didn’t feel comfortable about it, but it certainly came as a shock to me.’
All of this was making immense sense to me now.
I said with the same sarcasm that I had resolved about two minutes ago to control, ‘Yes, honey. Or maybe Gary is the name that I’ve used for your brother’s wife Garima on my phone.’
There was a heavy silence in the air as Vijay registered what I had just said.
I stood there tapping my feet, closely watching his face, very interested in hearing what he would have to say for himself at this point.
He looked around thoughtfully – up at the sky, out at the sea, down at the ground – everywhere but at my face.
‘Ah,’ he finally said.
I waited for more.
He took me by the shoulder and, gently steering me towards the house, gave me his most winning smile, one that suggested that nothing had ever been out of place between us, and said, ‘Ghar chalein?’
13
The Night Under the Stars
Vijay’s parents were due to go back to Jaipur. They insisted they had a nice time with us, but we knew that Mummyji was missing her kitchen, her garden and her park waali ladies; and Papaji wanted to go back to his familiar routine too.
Their flight was on Saturday morning at about 9 a.m., and Vijay and I went to drop them off at the airport. We touched their feet in parting, and when I straightened up, Mummyji held me by the shoulders and then reached up to hug me. She was clearly feeling emotional and her ‘achhe se rehna’ was both a blessing and the extraction of a promise from us. They went into the airport while Vijay and I waited outside for a few minutes.
We had offered to get them some sort of assistance inside the airport but Papaji, who never took a favour if he could help it, said they would manage fine. And sure enough, as we watched them a tad anxiously through the glass windows, they did seem to be finding their bearings and were already heading for the right queue. As we followed their progress with our eyes, I heard Vijay chuckling softly to himself.
When I asked him what was funny, he said, ‘Nothing. I just think they make a cute couple.’
I looked at them once more. Papaji, tall and white-haired, carrying their one simple tiny suitcase, with his slow but sure long strides, occasionally stopping to look at his boarding pass to check some detail – and Mummyji in her pink sari, the pallu over her head, a whole head shorter than Papaji, taking quick steps in her small flat sandals to keep pace with him. I was surprised to find I had a lump in my throat, which I quickly swallowed. Yes, actually they were a rather cute couple.
Married for over fifty years, and so in tune with each other that they never even fought. I did the math. Married about fifteen times longer than me and Vijay – and no earthquake-related emergency evacuations to their c
redit, at least none that I was aware of.
‘Ladne ki kya baat hain? Kabhi main maan jaati hoon, kabhi wo maan jaate hain.’ Mummyji’s voice rang in my ears.
She had made it sound so simple.
My god.
Could it really be that simple?
That afternoon, I asked Vijay, ‘I know having Peanut has been the best possible thing in the world and all that. But do you sometimes miss the days it was just us?’
Peanut had been really cranky since about noon and we had been taking turns carrying and rocking her for the last two hours. It was only now at about 2 p.m. that she had finally tired herself out and fallen asleep. Being possibly even more tired than her, we were also taking the opportunity to lie down on either side of her.
He replied almost immediately, ‘Of course. Especially when we were in Bangalore. The house to ourselves, only part-time help … when we could cuddle up together on the sofa and watch four hours of Friends, uninterrupted …’
‘… when we could just drop everything and drive out of town for the weekends …’ I interjected.
‘… and we would drag our blankets up to the roof and sleep under the stars …’
‘Oh my god,’ I said remembering. ‘We used to sleep on the roof, under the stars … and the big moon and clouds, and watch for shooting stars …’ It all came back in a rush to me and I was overcome by a deep sense of nostalgia. ‘It seems so long ago … everything is different now … Are those days gone for ever?’
‘No,’ Vijay assured me. ‘Only for the next eighteen years – then Peanut will get out of the house and hopefully take Kajal with her, and it will be just you and me again.’
JUST MARRIED, PLEASE EXCUSE Page 22