We that are young

by Preti Taneja

  The seductress is a strange goddess. A seven-headed Rakshas, with a different instrument of persuasion in each of its uncountable hands. When the fact of Radha and Jivan presented itself to Gargi, she set that demon to work. Tonight, among the celebrations, she will see what will bear fruit.

  No one told Gargi. She simply became aware, after her sister cried herself to sleep for the nth time since Bubu died – which was when, if she thinks about it, her own, silvering panic began – that there was an edge of something euphoric undercutting her sister’s terrible grief. Radha wants new clothes, a spa weekend in Dubai. She will not work; instead she spends hours doing Yoga or playing craps against herself using a pair of pearl dice (which, Gargi is almost sure, used to belong to Bubu, or were they Ranjit Uncle’s?). Instead of partying or talking, Radha now spends nights in her Amritsar room, alone, making lists of strange and ever-more extravagant cakes she says she will eat as soon as she can.

  When she was young, Radha used to love going on the water. Since they arrived in Srinagar – she has told Gargi over and over – she is afraid that if she even rides in a pleasure boat onto the hotel lake, she will fall in, she will drown. All she wants is to be told stories; stories from their mother, stories, stories, stories until she falls asleep. When Radha wakes up in the night, she screams that the walls are mocking her. She will only allow Jivan to come to her. He stays until she can sleep again.

  In the mornings Radha is languid, docile, as she used to be when she ate something sugary-tasty or had a good massage from their Lottie. Over time her body gets leaner but plumper, her hair sleeker, her face more rested. She begins to look as fresh as a new doll. She telephones the couture houses in Mumbai and Delhi and has the designers send trunks of clothes. She orders evening gowns and winter coats, as if planning her wedding trousseau.

  With a growing sense of outrage (a word she learned from Surendra – and which he only uses for her and her sisters), Gargi realises that Radha is very much in love. As Gargi works to complete negotiations, orders, budgets, and tries to make a profit on the hotel opening instead of losing everything there is left, Radha floats around the Srinagar hotel and its high security grounds. Wrapped in a muffler, she pets the flowers and talks to the birds, before disappearing for daily afternoon naps.

  Gargi’s need to keep busy both powers and exhausts her. Left to manage Bubu’s side of the business, she begins to sluice the best parts to her own name. Outrage is sated for a week at least. In the early mornings, before anyone can find her, she dresses in clothes no one would recognise, and slips down the hill in an auto – into the city, to walk.

  She walks through the party, watching Radha’s friends. What does it feel like to be so thin, so polished, so ripe that no matter what clothes you put on your body, your body is the only thing men see? What does it feel like to have the kind of conviction that no matter what your body looks like or what clothes you wear, your eyes seem to shine with everything you know you are owed from life? These girls never preen; they are too confident for that. They stand next to the pyramids of ladoos, of burfi, chocolate brownies and bite sized sushi rolls. They do not eat a single thing.

  First, they drink and smoke on the terrace – and stub the butts out on her inlaid floor. Then there will be drugs, discreetly. There are pockets of time when none of them can be seen, and she knows they have left as a flock of geese seeks warm weather; the rooms of the party are only a resting post between bathroom highs. Only later, past midnight, they might eat, picking at every tender shred of lamb, every juicy lychee, every bowl of rose syrup jalebi and lavender ice cream her new Srinagar kitchen can produce. Washed down with her champagne, taxed per bottle as import.

  The share price has to go up. They have not really recovered since Bapuji gave a press conference in which Barun J. Bharat – on a tip off from Twitter’s MrGee – asked Bapuji about a servant who apparently died from a beating at the Farm. Barun said he had photographs. How, he asked, could a campaigner such as Devraj Bapuji call for justice without answering this charge?

  —What is the nature of village justice? Bapuji said. It is brutality.

  After that, the share price took a beating that even the dead man might have sympathised with. Yet, Barun did not report that his widow was given a proper pension: five thousand rupees a month. And had a house bought in her village and jobs for her three nephews on some part of the site that will be the India Company’s Odisha sand mine, if tonight goes well. The woman’s daughters’ dowries are fixed also.

  Everyday has brought some fresh fight. There are charges that include corruption, money laundering, major defaulting on unsecured loans from state banks (to fund, mostly, the eco-car); fraud, tax evasion, theft. The Company has broken labour, development and transport laws that no one, particularly the national government, has ever before given two hoots about (no, Gargi corrects herself – a shit about). These accusations must be made to disappear. After the Delhi riot, the proposals for an anti-corruption Bill are stalled and might be persuaded to die; of this, Gargi can only feel guiltily glad. The guilt stopped with the most astonishing news of all: That Gargi Devraj Grover is being charged by the state of Napurthala under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill, 2007 – which holds, as her vakil has informed her, a five thousand rupee fine (plus tax, the Company mani-pedi costs more) and a jail term of three months. This, if Bapuji and Sita can prove that Gargi has neglected to look after her father as a daughter should. The media went down on Bapuji’s side, the column inches have been harder and longer on this than any other charge made against the Company to date.

  This is how the people lick the foam from a cappuccino that – if it wasn’t for Gargi – they wouldn’t even be able to beg for in India. She cannot bring herself to pay the fine. She would rather go sing in jail.

  In the mornings she wanders in the city, and all of these thoughts fall away. She notices instead the gap between the women and the models in the shop windows; how, after years of coming and going here, more and more are wearing chadors, head to floor. Her own artisans – the box-makers – all confirm this. They work in one house, a different floor for whittling, a different room for sanding, another for base coat (the middle floor, with the most light, given over to hand-painting the lovely patterns before varnishing takes place under the eaves). As she sits with them, watching their rhythmic work, they tell her their sons are leaving for Aligarh and Delhi; also that their ways are being lost between the Sunnis and the Hindus tearing the state between them. The shawl men say the same. Some mornings she goes to the home of the embroiderers she knows, and drinks sheer chai. She watches them stitch leaves and flowers, pink roses primped with white, knowing a year or more will go by until the piece is finished. Sometimes their young sons come sit and stare at her. They tell her what they are studying and she brings them iPods and earphones; she sees them try to hide their pleasure from their fathers – stitching, stitching. Where will these boys be in two years, in five?

  Gargi goes to a particular market. She is there as it opens for the morning – the one before the bridge, at the junction of lake and road. She watches the men unload their wooden cages of chickens, scrawny looking things, stacked on top of each other, miserable as forgotten old men. They don’t raise a squawk when the men pick them out one by one to cleave off their heads. Chop chop. She buys slices of paneer cut from a fresh, soggy moon of the stuff, she sprinkles a sachet of Company sugar on it, and eats it straight from the paper bag. Never mind the flies. Always, she is back at her desk in the hotel before the first business of the day. Thinking about Radha, and Jivan.

  It is morning, the day before the party. Gargi feels an answer come to her just as muezzin heralds the dawn and calls the faithful to prayer. Gargi is alone in her suite, counting her breaths. Tomorrow, the New India Company will open the heavy, handmade doors of its most desirable address. A 360-room hotel, with panopticon views. Screening rooms on the VIP floors. A martini bar carved out of ice. Several landings for w
omen travelling alone, served only by female staff until the hour of 9pm (none of them would work beyond that). A dumpling restaurant with an antique Buddhist bell (sourced by Jeet all the way from Tibet). In the grounds, a tower that seems to hang suspended over a private lake. All of Srinagar below. The Rani suite.

  Gargi hears the summons to prayer echo across the city, and thinks: Jivan. Radha.

  In the bathroom she pulls at the dark circles under her eyes; she picks at the blemishes her dermatologist has not been able to eradicate. A few hairs coming from her chin must be removed before tomorrow. She washes her face. Shameless, Surendra called her. Worse than a whore, a sexless woman, the kind no one would even rape. That morning, after the night Bubu died, when Jivan and she reached Delhi, Surendra was waiting, outraged – yes, outraged – that she had let Bapuji leave Amritsar and take his chances in the storm.

  Then Uppal (where is he?) came to tell them about Ranjit, and Bubu. She stood on the verandah in the clothes she had worn since the night before. She felt cold all over although it was almost noon.

  How – Surendra wanted to know – did Bubu, a man, a leader of the family, allow you and Radha to behave so badly?

  Surendra said that she and Radha could not run the Company alone. He said it was out of the question: they must apologise to Bapuji; they must take care of Ranjitji; they must get Sita back.

  —Shut up, Surendra, she said. Then wanted to laugh at his gaping fish mouth.

  She could tell him what his life is built on – and watch him run crying, calling for his Mama to give milk. She knows he does not care about Bapuji, and even less about her. He cares about how things look and what people say. He is so stupid that he does not realise: Sita is going to come back for her shares. Then Surendra will smile at her and try to appease her, while whining to the pundit about his fate and raging in private about her lack of respect.

  She realised then that nothing about Sita makes sense to Surendra, or Bubu, or Bapuji. She hoped, fiercely, that Sita would come back and show them what women can really be. She hoped Sita had taken a lover, found more pleasure with him than she, Gargi, ever did in the marriage bed. With Surendra for a husband, she thought, who needs eunuchs? She said this to him, out loud – and sounded to herself like a peacock screeching, so she tried to stop. Then she remembered that all the peacocks were dead.

  Me, and mine, and the Company.

  Me, and mine and the Company.

  Me and mine and the Company.

  Me and mine and the Company.

  Me and mine and the Company.

  She sang this under her breath. It kept her standing against his hand-wringing. Never has she spoken what she really feels, or wants to say. Out, rage! – it’s a drug. A truth drug! Laughter bubbled up in her and she had to put her hands over her mouth to actually stop it from escaping. It came out as a croak – as if Surendra had cursed her to become a fat frog. A Frog Princess in need of kissing. She liked it. She decided that after the Kashmir hotel opened, she would find a prince brave enough to do it.

  The day before the opening night Gargi dresses in her old clothes; she makes her way into the city. In the market the sellers nod to her now; they have seen her face for three weeks almost – a middle-aged, middle-class Indian woman in a dun coloured shawl with no children attached to her and some money to spend (that’s all they are interested in). She passes the chickens. She does not stop for paneer. Hunger has her looking for something else. The market climbs a short hill and she follows it until she reaches the apple sellers. In her youth she and Radha were brought rare, late Ambris from the orchards around Shopian and the villages of Anantnag at this time of year – deep, blush red apples, medium sized and polished, with an aroma that could fill a room. They ate slice after slice of them, year after year, until the American apple became the more popular. Gargi is looking for a perfect Ambri, to give to Radha today.

  She is back in her room by 9am. She showers and dresses carefully. White, her new favourite colour. The apple so stark against her reflection. In the bathroom cabinet she searches through her medicine box, until she finds what she is looking for. A liquid laxative which Jeet used to give her before parties, to help her lose weight. The stuff is ayurvedic, it scours the insides; two drops can keep a woman in her room for twenty-four hours. Using the medicine pack syringe, Gargi injects half the bottle into the apple.

  —What’s up sis? Radha opens the door and squinnys at her. Gargs, you’re looking tired.

  Gargi smiles at Radha, in her vest and loose silk pants; even unwashed she is so lovely. She smells of fat and soap – the whole room does, Gargi thinks. That intricate French furniture. The lilac walls. That terrible picture of Bubu. On the dining table dishes are laid; there is a plate of half eaten food – Radha is having a breakfast of khichdi and lamb chops. The rest of the suite, bedroom, bathroom, open-plan living area is pristine – every surface polished, each cushion standing on point.

  —I’m exhausted with so much going on, Gargi says. I can’t wait for this thing to be over. And just go back to everyday work.

  —Are you crazy? Radha spins around in a circle, she collapses on her chaise longue, he hands resting on her stomach. She drums it, gently.

  —Tomorrow is going to be awesome! We’re going to party all night. @MrGee says we shouldn’t be opening hotels while the people are suffering here but what does he know? No one hearted that tweet. Radha hugs a cushion. Everyone is going to love you, Didi, just like I do. Come here, come sit down. Want to have gulab jamun? Ice cream? Sheila! Radha calls to her new companion. A confident girl; Gargi has instructed her to sleep in an ante-room, and not to leave Radha alone.

  —No, no, Gargi says. I don’t want to eat. But look what I brought you.

  Now is the time, now.

  —An apple. An Ambri! says Radha.

  —I went to the market this morning and I found it for you myself. Remember how we used to love these?

  —Gargi!

  Radha takes the apple. She kisses it and rubs it. She takes a large bite.

  Gargi wanders to the windows, as if she wants to look at the sculptures outside. She thinks of Jivan, of tomorrow night – and the party – and hears herself say,

  —Do you want to try out the medium with me? He’s waiting downstairs.

  —He’s here? Radha eats some more apple. She nods. Let’s get him up. Are you sure you won’t have something? Sheila! Get me that champagne open, and bring the Lalique flutes. And bring my Kashmiri medicine, you know which the box is?

  —Hanji Radha Madam, party shuru ho rahi hai? Sheila comes in from Radha’s bedroom, carrying a sandalwood box, intricately carved. She gives Radha and Gargi a wild look as if they are her friends or sisters.

  Rude girl, thinks Gargi. Radha shouldn’t encourage her.

  Sheila steps to one side, but Gargi can feel her, watching them.

  —Let me introduce you to my lovely little golden box of Kashmiri medicine, Radha says. Gifted to me by the two dearly departed men from my life. My darling Bubu, and Ranjit Uncle, one of whom got this for me when I got married and took up my post as head of PR, the other has been filling it ever since. So thoughtful! You know, Ranjit Uncle even arranged a special delivery for the party, and it came, addressed to him only, as if he didn’t intend to share. Never mind. I am sure he would want us to have it. Radha gnaws on the apple; she is almost at the core.

  What is it about Radha that so seduces? If Gargi can answer this question, she thinks she will feel the kind of youth that her sister wears as carelessly as that silk strap, which falls off her shoulder as if in awe of her skin. She wants to belong, like that strap to the body it clings to – she does not always want to be the one who pulls herself up, Ma Gargiji. She imagines herself at the party. Tomorrow, she has decided, when Radha will lie like a peanut shell in the bed, Gargi will be both herself, and Radha, and Sita – all at once. She will go in search of Jivan.

  —Drugs? Now? Gargi says. It’s 10am.

  —Don’t freak out. Th
ink of it as a painkiller. It comes straight through from Afghanistan. Radha laughs, and rolls her eyes. Chill out, Big Sis. Soaked in the strands of the cloth coming in from Pakistan. Woven into the rugs, Bubu’s own designs – hero of mine.

  Radha bites the apple. Chews, swallows, grins. She is eating the apple, thinks Gargi. Stop! No. Good.

  —Do you really think there is anything I don’t know about the Company? she says. How do you think we paid for your wedding?

  —Sure Gargi, Radha says. But did you know that Ranjit Uncle kept back a special little stash of the very finest all for himself and Kritik Uncle – and even Daddy took some, every now and then?

  —The public will never believe it. Can you get Barun?

  —Aré, stop working for one second, Gargi. Come on. And didn’t you hear that Barun quit his job? Some sex scandal. He’s gone to the UK, to write a fiction.

  —O, says Gargi.

  —Never mind. It’s time you took your first ride. It’s going to be wild.

  —The medium is here, Gargi says. Finish your apple. We can save this for tomorrow. OK?

  —OK. But you have to promise you will do this with me. For once, we’ll party together.

  Radha chews the apple down to the core. All that remains is the stick.

  —I promise, Gargi says.

  They wait together for the medium. Radha orders the curtains to be closed against the sun, blocking out the long shadows cast by the Western garden across her tiled floor. They lie on cushions on the Kashmiri carpet. Gargi strokes it, remembering how she ordered it when Radha got married. It is silk. The colour of a lake in winter, woven with fine shapes of rare animals, somewhere among them a precious white tiger cub, the palest the world has seen. It was her personal wedding gift for Radha and Bubu. It is sweet, after all, that Radha wants it here. Yes, she seems to be in a very sweet mood today.