In the middle of it all, came a call from Harsha’s boarding school. It was the hostel warden. ‘Mr Srivastava,’ he said, ‘Harsha had a seizure this afternoon. We took her to an emergency room and sent for specialists. She is out of danger now but she is asking for her parents. Please come as soon as you can.’
Pinto left his election meeting, went directly to the police station to file a complaint that his wife Lavanya was missing, then drove without stopping towards Panchgani. In the car, he mentally cursed both Lavanya, and his involvement in politics. Kids are the most precious treasure in the world. At least he knew where she was. But what about Lavanya. Pinto had no clue where she was. Was Harsha’s seizure brought on by Lavanya’s ceasing to visit her? He had to find her for the sake of his child. He had to beg her to come back to him or, at least, be with their daughter. He’d stop pursuing her if she wanted that, but she had to promise she’d see Harsha regularly.
***
Meanwhile, the missing complaint he’d made—despite Manna’s protest—very soon made it to the news everywhere, on most of the channels and in the newspapers. Rumours also started spreading. Opponents left no stone unturned to damage his reputation:
‘Pintobhai used to beat his wife, that’s why she left him.’
‘Pintobhai is highly Westernized. He had an affair with his intern. How long can a wife put up with that sort of thing?’
‘We never expected that Pintobhai would ask for dowry such a long time after the wedding.’
‘A women’s oppressor cannot be a candidate for the chief minister.’
Manna had told him all this over the phone while he was still on the road to Panchgani. His cell kept ringing with urgent calls. He was in no mood to answer them, but picked up one from a journalist friend. In answer to his question, he didn’t hide anything. He told him clearly, ‘My wife didn’t want me to enter politics and so she left me. I am ready to leave politics for her and for my daughter, who I’m on my way to visit on her sickbed. Please don’t ask me anything more. I’m too distressed.’
The news spread like wildfire.
Some of his own party members had tried to take advantage of the situation. ‘How can Pinto be a successful politician if his family doesn’t support him?’ was one of the many leading questions they asked.
But public opinion was becoming even stronger in Pinto’s favour. Every day, people were appealing to Pinto not to leave his candidacy and to Lavanya to come back and accept Pinto as a politician.
There were several emotional speeches as well from the general public. ‘If Pinto becomes the chief minister, I’ll get my old-age pension,’ cried an almost crippled nonagerian on TV. ‘My life as a soldier will now have some meaning.
‘Pinto Uncle, if you become the CM, we’ll get better meals in schools,’ a group of municipal school children said, their eyes bright with hope.
A homemaker from the city was actually angry. ‘Pinto Babu,’ she upbraided him. ‘You sold dreams to us. Don’t dodge your responsibilities after that.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
I
n a small town called Akola, Lavanya was teaching primary school kids at a meagre salary of 5,000 rupees a month. She went by the name Lavi. She had cut her hair short, wore a plain white sari and had lost a lot of weight. She hadn’t been able to travel to meet Harsha for quite some time because she did not have enough money.
She didn’t know her long-term mission in life would be but in the short term, she was saving the little she could towards her trips to Harsha, and for the gifts she took with her to present to her daughter. How could she face Harsha empty-handed? What would she do if Harsha asked her to take her to a restaurant as she was fed up with the bland food of her boarding school? If she asked for a new dress for Diwali, or even daily requirements like stationery, would she be able to say no? She felt bitter.
In retrospect, she was confused whether it was Pinto’s madness or her own obstinacy that had given rise to the situation. Everything had been going so well. Was she solely responsible for the way things had come crashing down about her ears? Did she sacrifice her love for Pinto, as she didn’t want to force her decision on him, or was it mere hate, ignorance and stubbornness that caused her to act as she had?
She tried to talk it through in her own head. ‘I hate politics. I am angry with Pinto, but I don’t hate Pinto. Pinto is trying all possible ways to find me. Shouldn’t I go to him? Wasn’t his appeal to her to return to him, and his promises to junk politics made in earnest?’
But her ego was a hurdle. She was embarrassed to face Pinto after what had passed in their last confrontation. She was close to realizing that she had overreacted. Her impression about politics was also changing slowly. When she heard of the pitiful appeals made to Pinto to return to them from all strata and ages of the general public, she wondered if she was taking him away from the worthy cause of serving his countrymen. Sometimes she’d think, ‘How much trust the public bestows on Pinto! Why can’t I?’
Innovative Pinto had lost all his sense of self by now. He was guided by others completely. He’d visit places wherever others would suggest there was a possibility of finding Lavanya. Imran’s idea was, ‘Lavanya would not go very far. She’d stay close to her daughter, especially after her recent illness. After living here, she’d started liking Maharashtra, so chances are we’ll find her here.’
Imran’s even more practical idea was to resort to their invented Gumshuda system. ‘The software is ready,’ he said persuasively to Pinto, ‘it just needs a slight nudge to come into operation. We could use that “lost and found” formula to find Lavanya!’
‘When so much media coverage has been of no help, why should Gumshuda work?’ asked Pinto, who had lost his optimistic take on things in addition to everything else. But he agreed in his desperation to give it a try. By this time, he had built up a fairly vast number of political contacts as well, so it was easier for him to implement it now in Maharashtra. Imran worked day and night to get the system up and running.
Pinto appealed to people to paste posters with Lavanya’s picture and details everywhere the Gumshuda system had been put in place. TV coverage supplemented the communication. One such poster found its way to a wall of the school at which Lavanya was teaching.
It was not easy to recognize her as she had completely changed. Kids have a habit of writing on walls and adding funny touches to any posters they find. One of the school kids took a pencil and made some changes to the poster, making Lavanya’s hair look like it had been cut short and converting the skirt she was wearing in the picture to a sari. A school teacher passing by scolded the children for scrawling on the walls, then stopped short to stare at the poster. The woman pictured in it looked uncannily like her colleague Lavi. She immediately headed for the police station.
***
Pinto was in front of Lavi’s room in a matter of hours. With him were Imran and a local police inspector. Pinto knocked on the door.
He waited for what seemed like ages for someone to answer and then he heard those familiar footsteps approaching, and the door opened.
It was not the time for complaint or reproach. It was a time of joy, forgiveness and long-lost togetherness. Pinto and Lavanya held each other without worrying what Lavi’s neighbours were thinking.
‘You look so beautiful,’ Pinto whispered against her cheek and hair. For the first time his heart opened to her completely and the love he felt for her was impossible to deny even in their familiar jesting.
As for Lavanya, she’d never felt more at home as she stayed in the clinging circle of Pinto’s arms wordlessly.
Pinto continued to whisper, ‘You are the love of my life, you are the reason I am, and you deserve to be happy.’
‘No less than you do,’ she sobbed.
‘I promise to quit politics, and stop inventing anything if you don’t want me to. I will do anything so long as you stay by my side, to make things like they were. To be together again as a family.’
; He found himself babbling and forced himself to swallow his own tears. ‘We must go fetch Harsha home. Now. I never want to be away from her. You cannot imagine what torture I went through before I could actually get to see Harsha safe and sound and recuperating in bed at Florence. If—God forbid—she falls sick again, it will be in her own bed at home, with her mother and father beside her. We’ll find her a school in Pune—and any university that she wants to go to later. Maybe even Harvard?’
‘Oh, Pinto,’ was all Lavanya could say. She may have been a soggy, weepy mess by now, but it was an ecstatically happy mess, the kind of mess she never wanted to be out of.
Pinto couldn’t help but brag through even an emotional moment such as this: ‘See, I used my technology to find you.’
Lavanya wouldn’t spare Pinto either. ‘Didn’t I always say you’re a selfish scientist?’ She hugged him even tighter. A flash lit up the picture they made together. The paparazzi had caught up with them.
But Pinto and Lavanya barely noticed them. Like lovebirds, they were too intent on each other to care about breaking news.
Pinto Has An Idea Page 24