by Preti Taneja
Gargi raises her eyebrows.
—I know this interview is meant to be focused on you, Nina says. But Barunji, my editor, asked me to put this to you.
—As he already knows, Nina, directly from my sister Radha, Bapuji is currently at home, enjoying the Farm, taking a well-earned rest. Do not be concerned; we have a very experienced Board to hold the fort here. Everyone doing their bit.
—Great, says Nina. Thank you. So Bapuji is well. He’s not ah, retiring…
—We will carry on working for the good of the people, as we always have. Anyone who thinks that just because he is seventy-five, Bapuji has had it, better check their backsides. He is as vital as always, and we have so many plans. We are a very close family. Nothing can change that. You have a father Nina, I’m sure you feel the same.
Nina smiles, she agrees, she shuts her notebook. Gargi waits for her to put it away. Then she calls for Uppal: he brings in a sugar free Company Cola in a glass bottle, a quarter of lime wedged in its throat. A touch of nostalgenticity, a strategy for which Radha spent lakhs of her PR budget on a boutique consultancy: not a western one, but homegrown – design newbies, straight out of Bengaluru. How to coin the current trend. Gargi watches Nina smile at the bottle, stroke it, poke down the lime, insert the bendy straw. Suck it up. She allows Nina to finish, then to summon the makeup artists, the lights and the wardrobe girls, the photographer. The photoshoot begins.
The article is published the next day. Meet Mrs Devraj Grover, a woman guarding the top: a dynamo dedicated to her country’s growth, to her family and to the Company, hoping one day for a family of her own. The picture shows Gargi sitting behind the Mughal desk, smiling over paperwork, wearing her glasses (she insisted). She is dressed in a gold and black kameez and block print silk churidaar, an olive green dupatta, hand-embroidered with yellow sprigs. The caption reads: Mrs Devraj Grover, at work. Churidaar-kameez – Ritu Kumar, Kunti collection. Estée Lauder Malabar Spring eye-palette, MAC Lip Glass (clear), Mikimoto pearls (gifted by Mrs Devraj Grover’s husband, Surendra Grover, on the advent of their ten-year wedding anniversary).
—You had the picture taken in Bapuji’s office. Sitting in his chair, Surendra says.
He pauses, eyebrows raised, fingers hovering over his breakfast white moons of idli. He picks one out, breaks it in half, uses it to scoop yellow sambar into his mouth.
—Don’t tell me. It was Radha’s idea, he says.
Mistakes get made, Gargi tells herself. She takes her magazine and leaves Surendra to his dosa, which he always has on Saturdays.
She allows her feet to carry her through the parched gardens towards the glittering pool. The plants must wait for water. Every evening when the sprinklers are activated, each flower takes on an expectant freshness, a bride before her ceremony. The heat, Gargi thinks, inflames the desire, melts the will.
She has not come to the pool since the night Sita left. Drink, she remembers. To Gargi Company! She feels red upon red burn through her veins, invisible on the surface of her skin.
Jivan lies on a sun lounger, eyes closed, arm over face. His chest hair is tightly curled, dark. His black swimming shorts have bunched between his legs, catching the drops of water trailing the curve of his thighs. His mouth is open.
Surendra, Gargi thinks. Brunching.
She stands at the lounger, casting her shadow over Jivan. He moves his arm. Looks up. She passes him the magazine.
—Pretty cool!
He smiles at her, and flicks to the article in the centrefold.
—You look like you were born to it, babe. Which you were. You look damn hot.
He mimics an Indian accent, joking with her like a loving younger brother, or a best friend might.
At this point of time, Gargi tells herself, we are nothing more than old friends. Jivan was her sister’s playmate, he is Jeet’s half-brother, he is the son of unmarried parents. One of them is Ranjit Uncle, as close as a father to her.
And Jivan is also the naughty bachcha who was always getting into trouble with Radha: not big things, but enough to get Gargi scolded by Nanu for not watching over them properly. Weird obsession they had with dress-up. Always a Lottie would find Radha’s oversized dolls wearing Jivan’s T-shirts in Bapuji’s rooms. Or Radha’s party lehengas missing from her closet, later smuggled back from Nizamuddin by Jeet. Ranjit Uncle used to tease Jivan for being fair, and short. If Jivan stood up now, he would easily look over her head.
She watches him, the grown up Jivan. Water droplets trickle and sparkle. He is staring at her picture, as if he can see the fears that run like mountain chiru through her, replacing her breath with their bleats.
—What’s wrong? he says. The pic is fantastic. You’ll be every Mumbai banker’s pinup.
—Thanks, that’s why I went into business, she says.
—Gargi, come on. You look great. What’s to worry about?
She has a sense that if she speaks, she would crack the perfect shimmer of this moment. Her body would be exposed, its weight-loss-weight-gain stretchmarks on her hips, the self-made scars from the compass point of her school days, criss-crossing up her thighs. The triangular forest of dark, curled hairs between.
The research that has just come in – almost one year late – on the new car says that the common man does not want zippy, affordable eco-friendly automobiles. The common man wants beasts like hers: oxcart wheels, fenders to break walls, cars that could ram (if you so pleased) every other idiot off the road. But the production funds have already been spent; every delay means they are losing crores. In addition to this, a tools-down strike is brewing in the Ghaziabad construction plant, potentially three thousand workers demanding what? Bapuji says all they want is more holiday time and paid leave, as if even the state would gift them such things.
She has also been drawn into a bakwaas administrative nightmare with some government eco-depot over the sand mining they have been doing in Puri beach: it’s a question of religious sanctity – (Uppal should have sorted this out) – and the sea turtles are suffering. What about her beloved concrete: self-consolidating, high-performance, ultra-micro-reinforced, all Company stamped, needed to pour on the earth for the new metro extensions, the housing blocks, the hotel expansions the government praises her so much for? As if all of that is not enough, they’re about to be hit by a tax inspection across the hotels, all the key staff have to work day and night to prepare the right papers – and get rid of the wrong ones. The Kashmir hotel is not even finished; the delicate negotiations need more grease; the contractors are eating their high-performance grit weight in bribes to get the plans realised in time for Diwali. There are new terrorist threats in the Valley, there is still no real news from Sita. It is almost four o’clock and she does not know what Bapuji and Nanu want to eat for tonight’s dinner.
Silence seems to rise like smoke from the scorched grass. The blue of the pool answers the sky.
—I don’t come down here enough, she says. It’s relaxing.
—Come on then, says Jivan. I dare you. Blow it all off, no one will say anything. Radha is in Goa. She’s got some UK magazine people with her, so technically it’s work. I think Bubu is in Gurgaon, at Utopicity. Three hundred units of luxury apartments complete with concierge, gym, golf membership and club, a mini mall and deli-cum-supermarket, and a special touch: private tutors supplied on demand for pre-school kids. All of it Vastu compliant, with extra charge for Feng Shui.
—Very good, she says. You’ve been studying. Did you know Radha loves to spa in the rain? If it is raining down there. Not like you, roasting here. And Ranjit Uncle is in Mumbai meeting with the banks; no one else can reassure them by saying nothing in exactly the right way. Surendra is busy eating idli-dosa. Then a nap, then he has cocktails and golf this evening.
—Gocktails, Jivan says. He grins.
—What? Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you – have you seen Jeet since you got back? I’m missing him. We need him for Board stuff. Your dad said a trip, but no one in the office k
nows where. Which isn’t unusual. But I could use his head right now.
—He’s taken off, Jivan says. He told me the night I got back that he was going on a ‘pilgrimage’, know what I mean? To pray at the shrine of some poor bastard, who hasn’t got a clue that Jeet’s going to rob him of his family treasures.
—Jeet doesn’t do that, Gargi says.
—Of course not, I’m joking. He’ll be back soon, I guess. Anyway, good job, Gargi Madam. Jivan smiles at her. Fans her with the magazine.
—Time for a swim, he says. The water is fine.
She thinks about taking off her clothes, getting in the pool. She wants to feel her hair like reeds in the water, her limbs held as if by arms that will never let her drop. She thinks of her body, encased in its one-piece. Her swimming style, which Radha calls Aunty in the kuaan: chin raised, hands paddling, hardly moving as she tries to keep her head above the surface. Her body its own life-buoy.
—I can’t, she says. Tomorrow maybe.
To Gargi this feels like the first calm moment since that night, when, after they sat by this pool and toasted to her future, she and Jivan stayed up almost until dawn, walking in diminishing circles, she, showing him the places on the Farm which she loved and which he had never seen built: the duck pond, the sundial courtyard. The ornate jhoola, cocooned in its orange blossom bower. There they had sat, swinging gently together. He’d pulled her head onto his shoulder. She told him it was her mother’s own swing, which Bapuji had ordered to be left to age, become overgrown.
—After your mother died, Jivan had said, my dad banned Jeet or me from talking about her. Bapuji’s orders, apparently.
—You remember that. You can’t have been more than, what? Eleven? Same as Radha.
—Ranjit told us your Ma had gone to Srinagar, and she wasn’t coming back. Jeet had to explain to me she was dead. He wouldn’t say how.
Gargi’s own recall of this time is laden. Expectations on her, elbowing out grief. Nanu had told her at breakfast that her mama had gone to Srinagar, was not coming back. Sita was only ten-months-old. She needed feeding. The Lottie was making a mess, so Gargi sent her away. As she listened to Nanu, she spooned food into her sister’s mouth. Then went to check Radha was ready for school.
Sitting on the swing, she remembered Nanu telling her that there had been a fire at the Srinagar house. She was fifteen – still she didn’t believe it. How could a house, with everyone and all the things in it, burn down?
—I thought maybe Mummy had got so tired of being with us that she left us for the next life, she said. Why am I telling you this? I never think about it now.
Except every birthday, when she feels the age of her mother’s death getting closer. Making tiny, insistent holes in her hopes, as moths devour shawls. Except every time she does something, for Bapuji, for Nanu, for Radha or Sita, that her mother should have been there to do.
—Do you really believe in all that reincarnation stuff? Jivan had asked.
She hadn’t known why – it might have been his American accent – but his voice seemed to dilute her faith. Just for one moment, she had tasted that doubt. Then swallowed. Why not? she had said. It can’t all be mumbo-jumbo.
—Mumbo-jumbo, he had repeated, and laughed.
—Don’t you believe in God? Gargi had asked. And had wondered how he could live like that. Maybe being in the States for so long had taken him too far away, after all.
—Nanu is a very dedicated Hindu, she’s very spiritual, never even touches eggs, she had said.
—Nanu doesn’t eat eggs, so that means there is a God?
—Do you really want to know how my mother died? Don’t you know anything about Kashmir? Her voice had risen. Jivan stayed still, eyes on hers.
—I’m Indian again, he’d reminded her. You have to educate me. That’s always been your job.
Google it, she had wanted to say. I’m not here to tell you what you should know. The words came out of her slowly – the story of how her Nanaji was sick, so her Mama went back to Srinagar to look after him. She was always going back there, always worrying about him, even though Bapuji didn’t like it. There was unrest in the streets, her mother’s Pandit community under siege.
—She was killed, and so was my grandfather, in the street outside their own house, Gargi said.
—In the case against religion, the prosecution rests. Jivan sat back on the bench and folded his arms.
—Bapuji went mad. We lost all that land.
Jivan’s face had remained in the shadows. The jhoola had rocked them. He whispered something, it sounded like, land, honey.
—Yes, they call Kashmir the ‘Land of Milk and Honey’, she replied. So much for that.
Then Jivan put his hands on hers. His were warm, bigger than Surendra’s, the palms rougher, though the nails were buffed. She had looked at the knots their fingers made together. If hands could speak would they answer her question – Who am I to you?
—If I had been allowed to stay in India, Jivan had said, I would have been able to help you.
—How? What would you have done?
—I would have made sure you didn’t have ladoo in your hair!
—Oh no, do I? Oh God, like a small kid!
She pulled her hands away but he was laughing. He asked her to sit with her back to him and she, conscious of her naked spine, her bare shoulders in the bright yellow dress, had obeyed.
—Canary, he said. Your hair is so long.
She felt his breath on her back, a shade warmer than the pre-dawn air. Had shut her eyes to welcome an old memory of her mother doing this. Fingers combing through her hair, slow rocking under the bougainvillea’s puckered lips. She could hear grasshoppers singing and the sounds of men cheering and splashing; it had been that time of night: the Drunken Dip. She let Jivan play with her hair. Her anger and hurt drained from her shoulders, her neck and out of her mouth in a slow sigh.
Then a peacock had cried, high and harsh. Her eyes had opened. She must go and organise the buffet breakfast. People would be cold after the swim, be expecting garam garam paranthe. Croissants.
For many years, the Tuesday Parties had only been held once every two months and always finished at midnight, on the stroke. It had been a point of honour that each man in the Hundred would be at his desk the next day: No shirking on Company time. Slowly the parties became monthly, then every fortnight. Since Bapuji turned seventy-five, the nights have got more and more wild, lasting into Wednesday morning, even afternoon. Bapuji’s temper is a rakshas, but since Sita left, he has been playing the sprite, lighting pockets of chaos like flash fires across the Farm. Gargi never knows what mischief will ignite next.
The day before Gargi’s interview and photoshoot, the noise from the party had humped through the house. Gargi had gone looking for Bapuji as various members of the Hundred ignored her or tried to persuade her to join in their games. The house-servants kept serving Bapuji all he wanted; they were scared of him – even more than she was, or she would have closed the kitchen down, full stop.
Nanu has been no help. Refusing to get up until Sita comes home again, until wedding preparations are underway. Nanu does not want to hear stories, does not want to bathe. Yet she is full of happy predictions. Yesterday evening Gargi had gone to tend to her. Nanu lay on her bed, she seemed to be shrinking, pickling herself from within. Her body looked frail but her grip was steel. She wanted the lights and the covers and the air temperature adjusted; she wanted some music. She refused to eat, but would take liquid food. Will you talk to Bapuji, to bring Sita home? Gargi wanted to beg Nanu’s advice – but all she got was her grandmother, ninety-years-old in full rhetorical flow, quoting from some scripture – the name and section of which Gargi, if she was any shade of good – should have known.
—Crack, says Vishnu, and half the egg becomes heaven, half is hell. If the gold is all we can see, the shell will be empty of both, Nanu said, and coughed as she finished, and rolled over on her bed, turning her face to the wall. After some tim
e, she began to snore in soft shudders, as if weeping in her dreams.
Gargi had left her. Gone back through the house to bursts of cheering – the men watching sports in the central living room. The noise became a metal band around her head, so tight. In the games room, she had discovered Jivan playing poker with a few of the quieter men, three from this batch that Gargi knows by name. Rahul, Shiv, Manoj. She stood a step or two behind Jivan, while he said things that she didn’t understand: straight up flush, he’s going to bet the farm. Later, Jivan found her lying in the darkened Red Room, a mask over her eyes. He left – she thought he’d gone back to his game. But as the house became quiet, that evening before dinner, Uppal informed her that Jivan had kicked at least half of the Tuesday boys out of the house, told them not to come back. Until they were properly invited by Gargi herself.
It is hard to believe, now, in the smothering heat of midmorning, next to the still pool. That all of this had raged.
—Jivan, she says, thank you again for the other night.
—No problem, he says. It is my job now. I better show I can do it.
Snip, snip, snitch. The sound of shears at the hedge beyond the water.
Gargi moves away from Jivan. She shades her eyes with her hand.
—I have to find my Dad, she says. I have to tell him we have voted for you to replace Kritik Uncle, at least for now. He’s not avoiding you, it’s just – he’s doing his own thing. I’m sure he will want to meet you again. I’m so sorry he hasn’t yet.
—It’s OK. It’s been so many years I can wait a bit longer. Jivan frowns. Then he waves the magazine at her. I’m keeping this. You know where I am if you need me.
If Gargi had three wishes, the first two would be to have her sisters’ abilities: Radha’s to attract and Sita’s to speak out. The third would be: the ability not to look back. She gives Jivan a last smile. She walks away, wondering if he is still watching her.