A Matter of Time

by Shashi Deshpande

  ‘Yamunabai went on teaching until she died. Just a little before her death, she moved into a large room that her brothers built for her. For a long time our school was nothing more than that one room. We had to fight for everything, from a blackboard to a piece of chalk. Everything, we were made to feel, was a luxury we had no right to ask for. I sometimes think we moved forward crawling on our knees, begging for things.

  ‘It was I who wanted to give the school her name. I don’t think Yamunabai herself would have thought it important, I don’t think she would have cared. Nimittamatram bhava Savyasachi—that was her mantra, her article of faith. “We must never forget that we are only the instruments.” My mother quoted Yamunabai’s words to me when we were struggling with the school; I always remember them.’

  Nimittamatram bhava Savyasachi—be thou only the instrument, Arjuna. The end is not us, it is outside us, it is quite separate from us. We are only the instruments.

  This bit, the cat’s tail that gives a hint that the jigsaw puzzle has a cat in the centre, will come into Aru’s hand then, a gift from the past. But all this is, as has already been said, much later. Right now, Aru is fumbling, not knowing what she wants, not knowing what she has to do.

  SUMMER IS SUDDENLY upon them. The mango blossoms are already darkening and falling off, the pea-sized fruits beginning to be visible. And the cuckoo is with them. Kalyani is excited about it.

  ‘There it is,’ she says. ‘Each year my father promised a gift to the one who heard it first. He was always the one who did.’ And then she adds, ‘It comes at exactly the same time every year.’

  She speaks as if this is the same bird that sang in her childhood, in her father’s lifetime. None of them can share her excitement, they are too involved in trying to get used to the sudden fierce heat. Kalyani is the only one who seems immune to it, as if her small body has a thermostat that keeps it at an even temperature.

  ‘Stop complaining,’ she chides them. ‘Summer is the time of mangoes and jasmines, think of that. And look how much sweeter water tastes. And just think of ....’

  ‘Spare us, Amma,’ Charu groans. ‘It’s bad enough having to put up with this without your talking about mangoes and jasmines. What use are they to me now? I feel as if I’m on fire.’

  It is a dry heat which the body seems to hoard jealously, not letting anything escape, so that the hair, the skin, seem to crackle with it. Charu, nearing her final examination, and, it seems to her anxious family, the limit of her endurance, feels it the most.

  ‘What sadist thought of having exams in summer, only God knows!’

  ‘Would you like to move into my room? It’s cooler there, you know.’

  ‘No, thanks, Ma. It’s all the same, really. And you know how I like to spread myself about.’

  Sumi has moved out of the large room. ‘It’s impossibly hot in there,’ she said. And it’s true that in spite of the thick screen the trees provide against direct sunshine, the room is oppressive. The fan, hanging low in the centre of the room, does nothing to help. On the contrary, listening to the slow ponderous creaking of its blades at night, Sumi has had peculiar visions. She has seen the fan coming down on her body, crushing it, she has seen her body hanging from the fan, the ghastly shape slowly spinning and twirling.

  She has not spoken of these things to anyone, but has asked herself: why, when I don’t want to die, when I don’t have the least desire to die, do I see these images? Suicide has never been on her agenda, not in adolescence, not even during those terrible days after Seema’s birth. Post natal depression, they had called it. To her, however, it had not been depression but fear, a sense of impending doom. It was this same fear that had overcome her after Aru’s accident. This is it, she had thought that night, sitting by Aru’s bed, her heart thudding and pounding in panic, this is it.

  But Aru recovered and the feeling remained unspent. Now, Sumi feels she has left the darkness and the fears behind her in the big bedroom she has moved out of. There are no shadows in this, the ‘comer room’. No ghosts either. Dispossessed of everything by her in-laws on her widowhood, perhaps Kalyani’s aunt, whose room this had been, had had nothing to leave behind, not even sorrow or anger. And the room, in spite of being fanless, is cooler, the neem tree just outside the window bringing in, with a sursurating murmur, occasional whiffs of cool breeze.

  ‘It’s too small for you, Sumi,’ Kalyani had warned her, but cleared of all the junk, the room proves to have enough room for a bed and a writing table, which is all that Sumi needs. Looking at the room after they have finished arranging it, Aru feels as if her mother has moved back to some earlier time of her life. It’s a schoolgirl’s room, she thinks, there is nothing here to show that Sumi is a woman, the mother of three grown daughters. The impression of being a student’s room in a hostel is heightened by the untidiness that has crept in within a day. Aru, peeping in, is about to exclaim over the disorder, the crumpled bed, the books lying everywhere; but her mother’s face, intensely absorbed, stops her and she goes away without speaking, wondering what it is her mother is doing that calls for such intense concentration.

  Sumi is writing out, rewriting, rather, ‘The Gardener’s Son’, incorporating into it some of the impromptu alterations made during the rehearsals. The success of the play on stage has given her the courage to take it seriously. And to her own surprise, there’s another idea knocking at the door, slowly shaping itself into a second play.

  ‘She’s as ugly as Surpanakha,’ she has heard Kalyani say. And she has been thinking since then of this demon sister of the demon king Ravana, who fell in love with the Aryan prince Rama. An unpleasant story, it’s occured to her, with the two princes Rama and Lakshmana mocking and ridiculing her and finally mutilating her by cutting off her nose.

  ‘Oh, I miss him so much,’ Sumi’s friend Vani had burst out when her husband was away for a year abroad. And then added, ‘Specially at night. There! It’s out. I can’t say this to anyone.’

  Female sexuality. We’re ashamed of owning it, we can’t speak of it, not even to our own selves. But Surpanakha was not, she spoke of her desires, she flaunted them. And therefore, were the men, unused to such women, frightened? Did they feel threatened by her? I think so. Surpanakha, neither ugly nor hideous, but a woman charged with sexuality, not frightened of displaying it—it is this Surpanakha I’m going to write about.

  Sumi sighs, puts down her pen and goes in to make herself a cup of tea. The corner room, separated from the rest of the house by the staircase, is sheltered from sounds in the other wing. So that Sumi, coming out of her room, is surprised to find herself alone at home, except for Charu, who, head on her book, is fast asleep. Sumi picks up the pencil that has rolled away from Charu’s fingers, looks down at the sleeping girl doubtfully, then softly says, ‘Charu?’

  Charu is wide awake in an instant. ‘Sumi? My God, did I fall asleep? How long have I been sleeping? What’s the time?’

  ‘Past five.’

  ‘Five. Damn damn damn, I should have finished this chapter by now.’

  ‘Want some tea?’

  ‘Yes, Ma. I’ll just have a wash.’

  But when Sumi returns with the tea, Charu is staring blankly at her book.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing gets into my head. I can’t do it, Ma, I just can’t. There’s only ten days left and I know nothing, I’m blank.’

  ‘Come on, have your tea and then we’re going for a walk.’

  ‘A walk? Are you crazy? I don’t have the time.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You’re coming with me. I’ll give you five minutes to get ready.’

  Charu suddenly smiles. ‘Ten minutes, Ma, give me ten minutes.’

  ‘Left right quick march?’ she asks when they are on the road, reverting to the language of childhood.

  ‘Okay.’

  But in a while Sumi flags. ‘It’s no good, Charu, I can’t do it.’

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘A little. I’m getting old, Char
u.’

  ‘Not you, Ma, not you.’

  ‘Do I have to prove it to you like I did to Amma?’

  Charu laughs, remembering Kalyani’s horrified exclamation, ‘Sumi! That’s a grey hair!’

  ‘One? Wear your specs, Amma and see how many more there are.’

  At which Kalyani had seriously put on her glasses and Sumi had just as gravely offered her head for inspection.

  ‘No, you don’t! I know you’re not old. You still have a long way to go.’

  ‘The last year has been a long way. Let’s sit down. I know a good place.’

  She leads the way to a garden, a triangular bit of space really, between the two branches of a forking road. Nondescript, perhaps, at other times, with its few bushes and trees; but now with the tabubea flowering, it looks flamboyantly colourful. The grass under the jacaranda is a multicoloured carpet on which Sumi sinks down thankfully.

  ‘I found this place by chance. I’ve stayed so many years in this area and I had never seen it before.’

  She is silent, thinking of that day, of the despair she had brought here with her. And the man lying on the grass, eyes closed, as if sleeping, yet something about his body revealing that he was not. And how, in some way, when she got up to go, she had felt lighter, as if some of her despair had been absorbed by the sleeping man.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it? Yeah, I guess it is. I’m sorry, Ma,’ Charu seems a bit shamefaced, ‘I can’t see anything these days except the pages of my books, diagrams and questions and answers. I know it’s crazy, but ....’

  ‘That’s how it is before any exam.’

  “You know, Ma, just before I fell asleep, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t see any words on the pages, I just kept seeing us, as we were before. I remembered, God knows why, a day when we were playing cards. Seema kept sniffling, she had a cold, she couldn’t help it, but I can remember I was irritated with her. Yet somehow, thinking of it, that day seemed so wonderful, all of it, even Seema’s sniffles. I thought—if only we could go back there! My God, I must be mad to get sentimental about Seema’s sniffles. But I want us to be like that again, the way we were. I keep thinking—surely Papa will want to be back with us, he’ll come home and we’ll be like before.’ She turns to Sumi, a look of suspicion on her face. ‘You will take him back, won’t you, if he returns? You won’t act all high and mighty, will you?’

  ‘High and mighty? No, I can never be that. But taking him back—I don’t know, Charu, that sounds odd to me. As if he’s a pet dog who’s strayed away or something. No, Charu, I’m not trying to be funny. The truth is, as I told Aru, I’m not a good hater. I can never keep it up for long. But even if he comes back, things can never be the way they were, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I want them to be, I don’t like change.’ Charu speaks like a mutinous child. ‘What are you laughing at?’

  ‘You silly girl, you’re dying to finish your pre-university and get into medical college. Isn’t that change?

  ‘But that will be my doing. I don’t want things to change because of what other people do.’

  ‘It’s never possible to avoid that. Come on, time to go back. And let’s buy some ice-cream on the way.’

  ‘What are we celebrating?’

  ‘My last pay packet. No job from the first.’

  Sumi’s tone, even and light, gives no indication that she is worried by the prospect. Certainly the anxiety about money, like the by-now familiar incubus of loneliness, is almost a relief after the earlier inexplicable, haunting fears. But thoughts of money keep ticking in her mind almost all the time: Charu’s exams, all the fees need to be paid, the scooter needs overhauling, the moped is on its last legs, Seema needs new clothes—and so it goes on and on. She knows the money that Ramesh has deposited in her name is there for her to use, she knows she can ask her father any time for money; nevertheless she longs intensely for some of her own. Not much, just enough to live on comfortably—to eat and drink, for fees, books, clothes and ... Suddenly, she laughs at herself, thinking of the bottomless pit of ‘enough’.

  And then she meets Nagaraj and her thoughts about money take a different, unexpected turn. Nagaraj greets her as if that evening, when she had walked out on him, has never happened. He is his normal surly self.

  ‘You have not yet found a house, I think?’ he asks.

  Strange man, he seems almost pleased when she shakes her head.

  ‘I’ve decided to stay on here with my parents.’

  ‘That is a very good decision, madam, a very wise decision. Safer for you and your daughters to be with your parents. The world is not a good place for women to be on their own.’

  Even as she is wondering how to respond to this statement, he goes on, ‘And this is your parents’ property, I think you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good property, madam, this is very valuable property.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Have you people any idea of developing it?’

  ‘Developing?’

  ‘I mean demolishing this,’ he seems quite unconscious of the irony, ‘and building apartments.’

  ‘No, I don’t know, I don’t think so ....’

  ‘But if you ever think of it, please come to me, madam. I will put you in touch with a good party, I will see you are not cheated. Most people will cheat you.’

  ‘But this is not mine, you know that. I have no say in the matter. It’s my parents’ property.’

  ‘Now, yes, but some day it will be yours. And then ....’

  Some day it will be yours.

  For the first time she feels a sense of attachment to the house. Mine. No, ours. It will be Premi’s and mine—or will it? Knowing Baba, it could well be Nikhil’s. He’s the only male in the family. Nikhil belongs to his father’s family, he most clearly and emphatically does; yet, to Baba he may be the only possible heir.

  Sumi is angry with herself for these thoughts but they don’t leave her. Sitting in her room, she hears her father’s footsteps go up the stairs. Slow, halting, tired. Yes, tired is the word. He’s getting old, my father is getting old. He’s nearly seventy, after all. A quiver of panic goes through her at the thought of his mortality. My father dying ....

  Nevertheless, Nagaraj’s words keep chiming in her mind.

  ‘Some day it will be yours.’

  ‘Good property, very valuable property.’

  ‘And then ....’

  Oh God, how can I think of such things? Sumi is ashamed of herself, she chastises herself for such thoughts, but once lodged inside her mind, the idea takes root, branches off to the present.

  Whose is it now? Baba’s, yes, I know that. But it was Amma’s father’s, it should have been hers. Why did they not give it to her? She finds herself looking into the conundrum of justice, a well so deep, dark and unfathomable, that she draws back.

  IF SUMI HAS turned away from the confusing maze of justice, her daughter Aru is moving into the heart of it, trying to reach it through the dusty lanes of the law. It is here that she meets Surekha.

  Who is Surekha? (It seems wrong, unfair perhaps, to introduce a character at so late a stage. But no rules, if indeed there are any, can keep Surekha out.) Her name begins to punctuate Aru’s conversation, making Sumi curious, for Aru has never, not even as a child, spoken much of her friends at home. That Surekha is not a friend, that she is a lawyer, is soon apparent; with Aru’s current obsession, her association with a lawyer is to be expected. Nevertheless, Surekha will be a surprise to Sumi. She has pictured her as a young, smart professional; instead, she will see a woman closer to her age than to Aru’s, overweight, sloppily dressed, talking too much. And both dogmatic and opinionated—qualities which, Sumi knows, Aru has never been able to put up with.

  But Aru has changed: Sumi has to admit this. There is, for instance, her altered relationship with Kalyani. It has suddenly become evident to all of them that Aru and Kalyani have, at some time, without their having noticed it,
forged a partnership. It becomes overt the day Aru comes home and finds Kalyani hobbling. She exclaims at the sight of her grandmother’s tiny feet, swollen to a degree that makes it impossible for her to wear her slippers.

  ‘It’s nothing, only the heat, Aru.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us? We could have called Ramesh. I’ll ring him up and ask him to come.’

  ‘What! Ask that busy doctor to come home and examine my swollen feet? Poor boy. No, leave it alone, I’ll be all right.’

  Nevertheless she sinks down gratefully into the chair Aru leads her to. And when Aru gets her a basin of cold water to immerse her feet in, she lets them down into the water with an audible sigh.

  ‘You shouldn’t pamper an old woman like this, Aru,’ she says when the girl gets her a cup of coffee.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What will I do when you go away?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, Amma.’

  ‘Of course you will. Daughters don’t belong. All three of you birds will fly away to your own nests.’

  Aru’s response to Kalyani’s playful, tender words is a serious, intent look. And when Kalyani speaks again, it is as if she is replying to all that the look conveyed.

  ‘You can’t stop living because someone else has got hurt.’

  Coming from a woman who never speaks of ‘life’, the statement cannot be ignored; it has to be taken note of. Aru recognizes this.

  ‘No, Amma, but I can take care that I don’t get hurt the same way.’

  Nothing more is said on the subject, but for that one brief moment Kalyani and Aru have met on common ground. Something has been stated in the silence that becomes a link between them. Kalyani no longer speaks of Rohit; there are no more references to ‘what a good boy he is’ and ‘such a good thing that we know the family.’

  She says nothing even when Rohit rings up Aru to invite her out. It is left to Hrishi and Charu, suddenly unemployed after finishing their exams, to make much of it.