A Matter of Time

by Shashi Deshpande

  ‘Where’s he taking you, Aru?’

  ‘What does it matter? As long as they’re together ....’

  ‘Give him a break, Aru, he’s cute.’

  ‘Cute! I knew this girl had no taste.’

  ‘Oh you! You’re just prejudiced—and all because he calls you Rishi. I wish you could have heard him, Aru! “I say, call me Hrishi.” Hrishi! As if he’s sneezing!’

  ‘Will you stop it, both of you, and let me speak. First, I’m not the only one invited, it’s his birthday and he’s invited a lot of friends. And second, I think you’re two of the silliest people I’ve ever met.’

  To Charu’s surprise, Aru is smiling. Yes, her tone is pedantic and chiding, but she’s smiling. And, what’s really astonishing, she’s agreed to go for Rohit’s party. She could easily have got out of it with the excuse of her exams—just a fortnight away now—but she’s going.

  ‘I don’t know why I accepted,’ she confesses to Charu. ‘I know I’m going to be dead bored, I won’t know anyone, except Rohit and his sister ....’

  And yet she is neither isolated nor ignored; her reserve and air of composure attract a lot of attention, which she accepts with ease. To her surprise, Rohit makes no attempt to single her out, for which she is grateful. (Aru, for all her air of maturity, is naive in some matters. She has no idea that this is deliberate; she does not know how constantly she is impinging on Rohit’s vision, how hard he tries to stay away from her, to seem cool and indifferent. She is yet to learn how infinitely patient Rohit can be, how cunning in the pursuit of what he wants.)

  ‘I’m glad I went,’ she says to Charu the next day and she has the air of someone who has proved a point. What point? She does not explain. Putting the evening behind her, she immerses herself in her exams, beginning the task of cramming a whole year’s work in the last few days. Working so hard that she ‘out-Charus Charu’ as Gopal used to say. By the time the exams are done, her eyes are dark-ringed with fatigue and sleeplessness.

  ‘Why don’t Seema and you go to Premi’s for a few days? Take a break,’ Sumi suggests.

  But Aru refuses. She has her own plans, a holiday is nowhere on her agenda. First, it’s a computer class. And then—this is something Aru has not spoken of to anyone—it’s a women activists’ group. It’s Devaki who sees her, one of a number of silent demonstrators, standing in a public place, attracting the curious stares of passers-by. Devaki is startled and ‘yes, frightened somehow, I don’t know why. Maybe it was the way they all looked, alike, almost anonymous, you know. Or maybe it was the black gags they had covered their mouths with.’

  While Devaki goes on, Sumi’s mind flies to a picture of Kalyani, her tiny hand clamped tightly over their mouths, Premi’s and hers, silencing their cries.

  ‘No, I didn’t like it, I tell you, Sumi.’

  ‘What were they demonstrating about?’

  ‘You know, it’s so stupid of me, I didn’t try to find that out. I guess I just wanted to get away, seeing Aru there. But I imagine it was one of those women’s causes.’

  ‘In a way, I’m glad Aru is moving outwards, away from herself and her family. Still, I agree with you, Devi, it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know why, maybe because she’s too young. No, I don’t like it.’

  (None of them do actually, except, surprisingly, Kalyani, the same Kalyani who had not let her daughters cry out even at home.)

  ‘Why don’t you talk to her?’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do, Devi. It’s too late for me to exert my authority, I’ve never done it till now.’

  ‘Would you like me to talk to her?’

  ‘Hopeless. Gopal believed in democracy within the family and I went along with him. I know now that I did it because I was too lazy, I didn’t like any unpleasantness. I’ve started thinking Vasu and you are right and Gopal is wrong. Much better to lay down the law.’

  ‘Ha! Tell that to Hrishi. He’s so resentful—he calls us dictators.’

  ‘But what else is there, Devi? Once you destroy the hierarchial structure in a family, the whole thing goes to pieces. I don’t think affection can hold it up, it’s too delicate to be a prop.’

  ‘Hrishi says we’re hypocrites when we say he should at least keep up appearances of being dutiful and obedient.’

  ‘Who knows? The pretence may become the real thing after some time.’

  In the end, Sumi says nothing, so that Aru is unware of her mother’s uneasiness. It would have made no difference to her even if she had. For the first time, Aru is finding a proper frame for her feelings about their situation. To be part of a group gives her a sense of getting somewhere. And it is because of her association with the group that she meets Surekha. Listening to Surekha speaking about ‘Women and the law’, she is filled with excitement. As soon as the lecture is over she approaches her and asks, ‘Can I come and see you, ma’am?’

  ‘Is it a legal matter? All right, come tomorrow. No, not tomorrow, the day after. Come after six.’

  Aru is punctual to the minute, to the second almost, but Surekha seems surprised to see her, she doesn’t immediately know who she is.

  ‘I met you at your lecture, ma’am, I said I wanted to meet you and you asked me to come here.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I? All right, but you’ll have to wait a while.’

  ‘My office,’ Surekha had called it. It’s only a converted garage behind her house, a small, dark airless room. So dark that Surekha and her typist, working behind a wooden partition, need the lights on the whole day. The few potted plants look surprisingly healthy in such an atmosphere, but for the rest it is an untidy mess of papers and books.

  ‘I started off here because it was convenient. My mother-in-law was a paralytic, I couldn’t get away from the house. Even this was only wishful thinking, I had no real hopes of starting work seriously. But it was like a lighthouse for me; some day I would work here.’

  This information comes to Aru later. Now, Surekha, having asked her to wait, seems to have forgotten about her. It is the typist who reminds her. Aru can hear her murmur and then Surekha’s loud voice. ‘My God, I forgot. Are you still there?’ she shouts out.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Okay, Nagma, we’ll complete this tomorrow. Come on in here.’

  The typist, having tidied her table, walks past Aru with a smile, then returns and touches Aru’s plait.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says.

  ‘What?’ Surekha looks up, smiles at the two of them. The smile transforms her rather heavy face. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Off you go, Nagma, or you’ll miss your bus. And you, Rapunzel, come and sit down.’

  Rapunzel? Aru is too confused to smile.

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know the story? I can’t believe your parents didn’t send you to a convent school to learn all the fairy-tales!’

  Aru does not immediately get the irony in her tone. It is some time before she learns to understand what Surekha is saying, not from the words, but from the way it is said.

  ‘Well, let’s get down to business. Tell me what it is.’

  Aru has come prepared, but finds it hard to go on in the face of Surekha’s obvious inattention. She keeps fiddling with the papers on her table, sips some water, stretches her legs, and when she does listen, or seems to, stares at some point behind Aru’s right ear, her eyes unfocussed, the gaze turned inwards. Aru’s words trail away. For a moment there is silence. Suddenly Surekha snaps to attention.

  ‘Oh shoot!’ Aru is fascinated by the expression. ‘I wasn’t listening. I’m sorry, I really am. I’m feeling quite stupid today. It’s not a good day for me, the second day of my periods never is.’

  Aru will soon get used to Surekha’s total lack of inhibitions about her body. ‘Growl, growl,’ she will hear her muttering back to the rumbling sounds in her abdomen.

  ‘It’s not very urgent, is it? No? Then come back—next week? The courts close on Monday, I’ll have more time then. Yes, come next week.’

  What day, wha
t time, Aru wants to know, but Surekha is vague. This, Aru soon realizes, is Surekha’s style of functioning: she never commits herself to a day or a time. How do her clients cope, Aru wonders each time she comes and finds Surekha unprepared to see her. Like I do, I guess, she concludes.

  The second time Aru goes to her, Surekha gives her all her attention. The staccato sounds of Nagma’s typewriter form a steady background to their conversation. Conversation? It can’t be called that; Surekha never seems to stop talking, she probes, she asks questions, scarcely listening, it seems, to the answers. How old are you? How many brothers and sisters? What do your parents do? And while she is eliciting answers to her questions, Aru has a feeling that this strange woman is doing something more, that she is peering into her—into her—Aru can’t find the word and settles awkwardly for ‘soul’.

  Aru herself shows neither anger nor resentment at this inquisition. It’s as if she thinks that this is something all lawyers put their clients through. There is something innocent about her obedience and her patience, which seems to touch Nagma, who keeps giving her sympathetic looks. But Surekha is unwavering.

  ‘And your mother isn’t interested in a divorce?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘You live with your grandparents. No problem there?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘They’re willing to have you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And your mother has a job now?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Surekha closes the book in front of her with such a loud clap that Nagma looks at her in surprise.

  ‘All right, then, Arundhati, what’s your problem? What is it that you want?’

  Justice. It’s a word impossible to say aloud—Aru realizes that. You can stand in public holding up a placard asking for justice for someone else. But to say, ‘I want justice’ is not easy. Aru hesitates.

  ‘You want your rights as a daughter, I guess.’ Surekha helps her out. ‘Is that it? Well, you do have rights as a daughter. It’s your father’s duty and responsibility to maintain you and your sisters until you are married. And your mother, too, of course.’

  Aru is pleased. Surekha is on her side, after all, she’s going to help her.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ she tells Aru, ‘to be living now. Do you know Manu doesn’t mention any duty to maintain a daughter? The duty is only towards a wife, parents and sons.’

  ‘So we can go to court against my father?’

  ‘Yes, you can—under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act. Under the Criminal Procedure Code too—but that’s only to prevent vagrancy. And you and your mother are scarcely in danger of that, are you? Are you?’

  Is she joking? Her face doesn’t give that impression. Yet Aru is uncomfortable. She ignores it, however, and decides to go straight to the point.

  ‘No. Will you help us, ma’am?’

  ‘To sue your father for maintenance? That comes under the Family Courts—you don’t need a lawyer. But I’ll give you some advice. Free. Don’t do it.’

  ‘But ma’am ....’

  ‘You say your mother has a job. Your father has given her all that they had. You have a home to live in. There are people prepared to help you with your education. So what more do you want, Arundhati? To punish him?’

  ‘But all these other people helping us—that’s charity. I don’t want charity. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Don’t speak to me of what’s fair.’

  Nagma’s fingers stop again. Surekha’s voice is crackling with anger. There is a sudden silence. Surekha looks at Aru’s face and says, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. Nothing is fair in this world, you have to learn to accept that.’

  ‘So you won’t help?’

  ‘Well ... well,’ she repeats and this time it’s decisive. ‘Let me think it over. Come again.’

  Why am I going to her? She’s hostile, she won’t help me. But for some reason, Aru does. Again and yet again. She becomes less of a stranger, she even helps out when Nagma stays away because of the flu. And yet Surekha never slackens in her hostility to Aru’s case.

  ‘It’s a pity,’ she says once, ‘that there’s no property dispute in your case. The law takes property very seriously. Now, don’t look so scornful. Property is an absolute fact. Unlike emotions. Just imagine how it would be if the law were to take those into account? Whose emotions would it give weight to? Your father’s? Your mother’s? Yours?’

  ‘But, ma’am, you said in your lecture that we should always work through the law, not go outside it.’

  ‘Quite right, so we should. I despised the law once. I thought then, it’s only to protect the property of the rich. But I know now that even a beggar will put up a fight for his begging bowl. It’s his.’

  ‘But he can’t go to the courts.’

  ‘Ah, that’s another matter. And in your case, I don’t see that going to the law will help anyone. It would be just vendetta.’

  And another time, Aru pleads, ‘Isn’t there anything at all we—I—can do? I heard ...’ Aru says it hesitantly, ‘that there is something called restitution of conjugal rights.’

  ‘Aha! A wife asking for that! Yes, your mother could file such a suit, I guess. But she won’t. I could scrape up something myself, but,’ she looks at Aru like a stern teacher, ‘I will not. The law is not a game, I never use it that way. You have to understand that, otherwise we have nothing to say to each other.’

  Aru opens her mouth to say something, changes her mind and walks out.

  She won’t come back, Surekha thinks. But she does, the very next evening, just as Surekha is locking up.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll come another time.’

  ‘No, come on. I wound up early today, we’re going out for dinner.’

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow.’

  ‘No, come in, I have half an hour.’

  She opens the door, switches on the lights and fans. There’s a strange smell in the room, not the usual muggy, closed-in odour but something stronger, more fruity, that makes Aru’s nose twitch. In a while she connects it to her grandfather’s room in the evening, when he has his usual single drink. Aru is not so naive as to imagine that women don’t drink, but to think of Surekha sitting alone here with a drink fills her somehow with dismay. And pity. It makes her feel less intimidated by Surekha.

  ‘Tell me, what is it?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of what you said. And maybe you’re right. But it’s not only that I’m trying to hurt my father, it’s also ... I get so angry when I think of how stupid they are, they’ve just thrown it all away. And then I think, maybe it’s my fault.’

  It pours out of Aru. She tells Surekha about the article Gopal wrote, the students’ attack on him, Gopal’s retraction of the article ....

  ‘I couldn’t believe he could do that. If he didn’t believe in it, why did he write it? And if he did, how could he say it was all wrong? I was furious, I said terrible things to him, I called him a coward and I said—oh, so many things I shouldn’t have. And maybe that’s why ...’ Her face is anguished. ‘It has to be because of that, there’s nothing else, nothing went wrong between him and Sumi. And I feel so helpless. If I could go back and unsay all those things ....’

  ‘No, Aru, you can never undo things you’ve done.’

  Aru? Has she called her Aru? And her face ... it brings Aru out of her own distress.

  ‘I’m sorry, have I said something wrong?’ Aru asks timidly. There is no reply. ‘Ma’am, can I ...?’

  Surekha, face hidden, holds out a hand. With a heroic effort she recovers herself. The struggle to get out of whatever it is that has shaken her, leaves its mark on her face.

  ‘Look, Arundhati, I’ll do this much,’ she says when she can speak. ‘I’ll meet your parents.’

  ‘Why? Sorry, ma’am.’

  Surekha disregards both the question and the apology.

  ‘Separately. Will you arrange that? Right, let’s go then.’

  Coming out of t
he stuffy room into the soft fragrant night is like entering another world. They stand in silence for a while, savouring the freshness, a silence that is broken by Surekha’s vigorous slap on her arm.

  ‘Damn these mosquitoes, they make a beeline for me. Good night, Arundhati. Where’s your scooter?’

  ‘I don’t have it. My mother needed it.’

  ‘Come on then, we’ll drop you. Come and wait while I get ready.’

  Aru demurs, but Surekha is insistent. She takes her home, shows her the bathroom and leaving her with a glass of water, goes inside to get ready. Aru, overcome by the lassitude that follows extreme fatigue, is almost lulled into drowsiness by the soft murmurs from the bedroom. Surekha laughs once, it is a happy laugh. And yet her face when she spoke of never being able to undo things—what was it that had made her look that way?

  ‘Right, Aru, let’s go. You haven’t met my husband, have you?’

  Dressed in a bright silk sari, her hair piled high on her head, lipstick slashed across her mouth, Surekha is a transformed person. The fact that wisps of hair are already escaping from the knot, that her sari pleats hang unevenly and the lipstick is slightly smudged does not detract from her dignity. On the contrary, there is something about her unawareness of these things that adds to it. Aru unthinkingly moves to her, bends down to straighten the pleats, then stops, abashed by her own temerity.

  ‘Oh, go on, do it, I’m used to it, this man is forever trying to smarten me up.’

  ‘She never looks at herself in the mirror, that’s her problem.’

  But he is smiling at her and Aru, reassured, completes her job.

  In the car, the couple converse in low voices. Aru can hear only murmurs, but there is no sense of being excluded; on the contrary, she finds it comforting. She is used to this kind of talk, two people exchanging the inconsequential trivia of their day. It makes her feel cocooned, safe. Like being a child again, listening to your parents converse companionably, knowing that all’s well. She’s suddenly overwhelmed by memories that rush out of some secret recess, of getting into her parents’ bed, between them, the warmth of their bodies, the smell of the blankets which was them, which meant safety, happiness.