But suddenly one evening, Sumi realizes that what lies at the core of Kalyani’s uneasiness is not money but something else.
There’s a call from Devaki for Hrishi, who, after bringing Charu home from the class, lingers, joining the girls in their conversation while they set the table for dinner.
‘My mother? What does she want?’
It’s not a long conversation. Devaki apparently does most of the talking, with Hrishi vainly trying to get a word in and making faces at the girls while he listens.
‘My mother’s gone mad,’ he says when he puts the phone down, looking slightly dazed. ‘Just because I’m a little late, only half an hour, mind you, she imagines I’m drunk or lying dead on the road, or Godknowswhat.’
‘Poor baby.’ Charu makes infant-soothing sounds. ‘Can’t it go alone anywhere then? Does it need its mummy to look after it, the poor little thing?’
‘Oh, shut up, Charu, I’ve had enough from my mother, now don’t you start.’
They all laugh at him, but Sumi, who picked up the phone, cannot forget the edge of anger in Devaki’s voice. It’s not because Hrishi is late, it’s because he is here, with us, with Charu. I’ve seen her looking at Hrishi and Charu. Devi loves me, she is fond of my girls, less of Charu than of Aru, perhaps, but it’s not that. It’s the idea of Charu and her only son, that’s what she doesn’t like. With their position and money, she’s more ambitious for Hrishi. But she’s so wrong. Charu and Hrishi have grown up together, they’re easy and comfortable with each other, but there’s nothing of the male-female in their relationship, they’re like two friends of the same sex, they don’t think of each other that way.
But in this Sumi is wrong, she is mistaken about Hrishi’s feelings, anyway. In fact both Sumi’s older daughters are fated to be pursued tenaciously by the two young men who set their hearts on them. Rohit now enters the scene and he makes his feelings for Aru quite clear, there is never any attempt to conceal them from anyone.
Goda brings him home. ‘This is Rohit, Lalita’s son,’ she says, modestly triumphant, and then explains his presence. Rohit is an architect; he heard about the Big House from Murthy, when, meeting him professionally, they stumbled upon their kinship.
‘He wanted to see it very much and Devi asked me to show it to him. So I brought him along ....’
Rohit, entirely composed, listens silently, smiling occasionally when he thinks a response is required. His silence acquires solidity and substance against the background of Kalyani’s and Goda’s patter, Kalyani’s especially. The presence of her kinsman seems to have gone to her head, she can’t stop talking. As she takes him round the house, she tells him all her stories, she makes him join her in standing reverently before the pictures of her parents in the hall, she gives the history of each room they enter and repeats her father’s jokes with an enjoyment that makes it seem they are still pristine fresh to her.
Rohit is an exquisitely well-mannered young man and if a small smile surfaces occasionally, he suppresses it. Kalyani’s words flow over him, he can’t take in everything she says. But he notices how, each time they enter a room, she lifts her feet to the exact height required to cross the high wooden threshold. He sees the way her hand brushes a wall, a door, as if communicating through them with the house, he hears the inflection in her voice when she speaks of her father. And something comes through that Murthy has not been able to tell him: this house is a living presence for Kalyani.
When they get to the front hall, Rohit takes in the magnificent staircase and is ready to go up when Kalyani stops him.
‘There’s nothing upstairs.’ Rohit’s look of disbelief pushes her into adding, and for the first time she seems uncomfortable, ‘just a small room. My father wanted to build more rooms upstairs, but—but his father died and he lost interest somehow. Come and sit down, Rohit. Goda will have got the coffee ready by now.’
Rohit, however, manages to slip out of the house and stands staring up. Yes, there it is, just one room as Kalyani said. Ugly and incongruous. Like a stopper on further growth.
He is still gazing at the room and thinking of its oddity when he hears the sound of a scooter, of girls’ voices. Charu, getting off, sees him first and moves to him with a puzzled look.
‘I’m Rohit.’ So complete is his self-possession that she automatically replies, ‘I’m Charu,’ but it’s obvious she expects him to explain his presence. Rohit, however, is looking past her at Aru who has removed her helmet and, relieved of its weight, is shaking her head so that her plait comes free and flies about her face. She turns to Charu, a smile on her face, and is on the point of saying something when she sees Rohit.
‘This is Rohit.’ Charu mischievously mimics Rohit’s matter-of-fact tone, but to her astonishment, Aru, after only a moment’s pause, adds, ‘Oh yes, Lalita’s son,’ and then laughs at Charu’s amazement.
‘Lalita ....?’
‘Rohit!’ Coffee is ready. Oh, there you are, girls. Come and have your coffee.’
Through all the confusion of serving the coffee and snacks, Rohit’s eyes keep moving to Aru’s face. But it’s only when they have all settled down that Kalyani introduces her granddaughters to Rohit.
‘Oh, but we know him. He’s Lalita’s son.’
‘But ...’ Rohit tries to say something.
‘And Raghupati’s grandson.’
‘And whose great grandson is he, Aru?’
‘I don’t know. Ask Amma.’
‘Narasikaka’s.’
‘But—but ...’ Rohit, clinging desperately to his formal politeness, finally gets in, ‘how do you know all this?’
‘Ha! Mysterious, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean? You’re family, aren’t you? Even if you are Narasikaka’s branch, you’re still part of the family.’
‘What was wrong with Narasikaka, whoever he was, Amma?’
‘He was a son of a bitch.’
Charu splutters. ‘Don’t mind our ajji, Rohit. She’s the soul of tact really, most of the time, anyway.’
‘Really, Amma!’
‘What’s wrong with speaking the truth? Ask Goda about him. Remember, Goda, they used to say he brought his keep home once, brazenly wearing some of his wife’s jewellery which he had given her!’
‘Keep! God, what a word to use.’
Rohit is at first bewildered by their swift reactions and responses, but Goda and Kalyani soon draw him into the net of intimacy they create. Rohit relaxes and forgets to look at his watch, though his eyes keep stealing to Aru’s face every now and then. When he gets up to go finally, he seems reluctant to leave.
‘Come again, Rohit.’
‘There you are, Rohit! Forgiven for being Narasikaka’s descendant.’
The girls laugh at Kalyani, they don’t realize that for her, and for Goda too, the ancient feud still lives on. They don’t understand that the two women are, in fact, keeping alive the hatred of Narasikaka, transmitted to them in their childhood by Manorama. To Manorama, it was this uncle of her husband’s who was the villain of the story; for it was he who brought pressure on Vithalrao to marry again, when it was clear that Manorama, who had finally given birth to a daughter after a series of miscarriages, would have no more children. Failing in this, he tried to induce Vithalrao to adopt a son, preferably one of his own grandsons.
But Vithalrao, a modern man in the real sense of the word, rejected both. ‘Why should I leave my property to a stranger, to someone else’s child, rather than to my own daughter, no,’ looking at Goda, ‘to my own two daughters?’ he would say. (And Goda’s sari goes promptly to her eyes when this is quoted.)
Manorama, who had been terrified that her husband would marry again, never got over this fear. It was as if that deprived childhood which she so resolutely ignored, was always close to her, so close that a nudge was enough to push her back into it. To add to her insecurity, that main crutch, the one most women depended on, a son, was denied to her. All that she had was a daughter, Kalyani, who would get marrie
d and become part of another family.
‘I was a clever girl,’ Kalyani said once. ‘I was very good at Maths like my father. He wanted me to become an engineer—can you believe that? You will be the first woman engineer in the country, he used to say.’
And yet Kalyani was not allowed to complete her schooling. She was taken out of school and married off by Manorama to her own brother Shripati. Perhaps, after this, Manorama felt secure. The property would remain in the family now. Her family.
PREMI, WHO HAS carried within her the sense of extreme crisis she had encountered on her last visit, is surprised when she arrives, to see how normal everybody looks. Kalyani starts off, almost immediately, on her usual complaints, but after the silence Premi had encountered on her last visit, this seems almost welcome.
‘Why couldn’t you have come a day or two earlier? I know you had to be in your own home for Diwali, but you could have tried to be here for Bhau-bij—of course, it doesn’t occur to you that Nikhil has three sisters here. And I suppose you’ve come with a return ticket as usual!’
Premi’s attempts to give reasonable answers founder on Kalyani’s refusal to understand Premi’s position as the only woman in her family.
‘I have to go back on Sunday, Amma, Nikhil’s school reopens on Monday.’
‘Nikhil’s school! What class are you in, Nikhil?’
‘Third standard,’ Nikhil replies promptly.
‘Third standard! And his mother says he can’t miss school for a few days!’
‘Nikhil, you stay back, beta, let your mother go.’
‘And my school?’
‘Throw it in the dustbin.’
‘Chuck it into the sea.’
‘We’ll make a nice, fine chutney out of it.’
Nikhil, sitting in a tall chair, his palms placed flat on its arms, his legs dangling, moves his gaze swiftly from face to face, enchanted by this nonsensical conversation.
‘I want to stay longer here, Mama,’ he declares when Shyam and Shweta join them. ‘Hundreds of people here.’
‘Hundreds, Nikki?’
‘Thousands.’
Nikhil’s presence, as always, livens them up. He is shamelessly pampered by everyone, but perhaps because he is never just a passive receiver, he somehow manages to remain unspoilt. His affection for them, for his aunt Sumi especially, makes him radiate happiness at being with them. Even Shripati does not mind his frequent incursions into his room and Nikhil, running up and down the stairs, creates a link between the room and the rest of the house, so that they seem to come together, even if only temporarily.
Gopal’s first question, when Premi visits him, is also about Nikhil. ‘Why haven’t you brought him?’
Premi hesitates. She has not spoken to anyone about this visit; the fact that none of them has referred to Gopal has made her chary of mentioning him.
‘Well, never mind. Bring him on your next visit.’
Gopal smiles at her as if he has understood her hesitation. And for Premi, it happens again, as it does each time she meets Gopal after a long interval. The picture of Gopal she has held within her, of the thin, withdrawn young man whom she had, as a girl, watched secretly from a distance through the trees, clashes with the man Gopal is now, the man he has become. And there is a jolt, she has to make a slight adjustment, like after wearing her contacts, before the two pictures dovetail into one.
This time she notices that he has lost weight; his clothes hang on him, making him look gaunt. But he is genuinely pleased to see her and unlike her, is wholly at ease. Yet in a few moments he gets up and says, ‘Let’s go out somewhere. I’m sick of this place.’
She gets into the rickshaw with him with a sense of girlish excitement. ‘My treat,’ she says childishly when they settle down on the hard, rickety chairs of a garden restaurant.
‘Sure. You owe me one anyway.’
‘I do?’
‘You promised me a treat when you passed your finals, remember? And then you got engaged and married, all in a month, and forgot about it. But I haven’t.’
‘Do you know what the truth is, Gopal? When I came home after my finals, I didn’t know it myself, that I was to marry Anil, I mean. Anil doesn’t believe me, but that’s the truth. Amma didn’t know, either. I was the one who told her. But,’ she smiles, an awkward, strained smile, ‘why am I speaking of all that now? What will you have, Gopal? A dosa for me.’
In spite of her disclaimer, she goes back to the topic herself after the waiter has gone away with their orders.
‘It was the same about my going to Bombay to do medicine. Baba got the forms for me, he told me to fill them up and said I was to go to Bombay. I can’t help thinking that Baba sent me away to punish Amma. Sumi and you had just got married, remember? I think he wanted to tell Amma—you let Sumi get away, so you can’t have your other daughter, either. You think it’s far-fetched? Yes, I can see you do. But you don’t know Baba. I do, I can believe anything about him.’
Gopal’s silence makes her falter, then she deliberately changes the subject.
‘You can’t imagine how exciting it used to be, coming here when we were children. “Going to Cantonment” was the biggest treat we could have. Goda-mavshi and Bhauji-kaka brought us here each time they came home for a vacation. They would take us out, give us treats, buy us clothes. Choose anything you want, they would tell Sumi and me. But somehow, I always felt Goda-mavshi was worried about spending too much—she’s a bit of a kanjoos like Amma—and so I’d choose something not very expensive. But Sumi never seemed to care, she bought what she liked, without thinking of the money. And then I used to lie awake at night, thinking—why didn’t I choose something else? Why did I go in for something cheap?’
Gopal, laughing with her, thinks of how different the two sisters make their childhood out to be. The only lack Sumi complains about is books. ‘I used to steal books,’ she had confessed to him once. ‘I would borrow them and if the girls didn’t ask for them back after a time, I would tear off the first page, write my own name on them and keep them. After all, if they didn’t miss them, why shouldn’t I have them?’
But Premi’s memories, even the few she can speak of, are only of deprivation and fear. Looking at Premi, ‘the picture of Bombay chic’ as Charu calls her, in her expensive cotton sari, her beautifully groomed hair, her simple but expensive jewellery, Gopal has always felt that she is constantly reminding herself of how far she has got away from the child Premi.
‘Okay,’ Gopal breaks into the silence. ‘You can say it. Go on.’
‘Why did you do it, Gopal?’
He does not pretend not to understand her question but plunges into an answer straightaway, as if continuing an unspoken argument that has been going on between them under the surface of their conversation.
‘Why did I do it? I can give you so many answers, but I’ve begun thinking that the plain truth is that I just got tired.’
‘Tired? Of Sumi?’
Gopal takes no notice of the shock in her voice, he goes on as if she hasn’t spoken.
‘You remember the Yaksha’s question to Yudhishtira: what is the greatest wonder in this world? And what Yudhishtira’s answer was? We see people die and yet we go on as if we are going to live forever. Yes, it’s true, that is the greatest marvel this world holds, it’s the miracle. In fact, it’s the secret of life itself. We know it’s all there, the pain and suffering, old age, loneliness and death, but we think, somehow we believe that it’s not for us. The day we stop believing in this untruth, the day we face the truth that we too are mortal, that this is our fate as well, it will become difficult, almost impossible to go on. And if it happens to all of us, the human race will become extinct.’ He pauses and goes on, ‘It happened to me. I stopped believing. The miracle failed for me and there was nothing left. You’ve got to be the Buddha for that emptiness to be filled with compassion for the world. For me there was just emptiness.’
‘I don’t understand you, Gopal. You mean this is why you left
Sumi?’
‘Well, let me put it this way. I could no longer believe that there is a meaning to my life, a happy culmination waiting for me at the end of it. Can you imagine what living with such a person would be for my children? For Sumi?’
‘No meaning to your life?’ Premi gets hold of that phrase. ‘Oh Gopal, what about your children?’
‘For you, it’s Nikhil, isn’t it? But not for me; to think of being the purpose of my parents’ life would have been too heavy a burden for me to carry. Can I then burden my children with that load? No, Premi, the meaning has to be found in your own life.’
For the first time, he is speaking to me as a person, not as Sumi’s kid sister. He never saw me and in a way I liked it for it made me invisible and I could watch him easily. I was a little in love with him then. A little? No, as much as a girl of thirteen can be. I was awake the night Sumi went to his room, I knew she had gone and where, I had seen them look at each other. I slept on her bed that night as if it would make me Sumi—I remember that. In love? I don’t know, but Gopal was the man against whom I measured all other men.
Yes, Anil too. He had scarcely looked at me before we got engaged, I was only the awkward girl, the daughter of a family friend who spent occasional weekends in their home. And then we got engaged and he played his role of fiancé to the hilt. But to me there was something false in the picture, there was some irritant in it that hurt me, like a piece of grit in the eye. He said the word ‘love’ often, as if it was a magic word that could convert all the things he did—the phone calls, the gifts, the going out together, the endearments—into something real. But they never became real. For me the real thing was Gopal looking at Sumi. Everything else was trash. It was only when Nikhil was born that I knew what love really meant. It was only then that Anil became real to me; he was the father of my child. Perhaps you can make a lie the truth by acting on it for years. But Gopal says he found out his life was a lie.
A Matter of Time Page 13