by Farahad Zama
“Who is it?” he called out.
“Me,” said Ramanujam’s father.
Ramanujam checked that the bathroom door was closed and let his father in.
“What is it, naanna?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”
His father came into the room and waved his hand dismis-sively. “Yes, yes, everything’s fine. Your uncle called from Kakinada. He’s received a wedding proposal for Chitti and he wants me to go there immediately.”
Chitti was his father’s younger brother’s daughter.
“That’s great news, naanna. Do you want me to come too? Our flight to Mumbai is not until the day after tomorrow.”
His father shook his head. “I will leave first thing in the morning, before you are even awake.”
Aruna came out of the bathroom, her sari back in place. Pulling up a chair from the study table that Ramanujam used, she urged her father-in-law to sit down.
“I heard the news. So Chitti has finally agreed to a match?”
Ramanujam’s father smiled at her. “Yes, that’s why there is no time to lose. Unfortunately, it means a bit of bad news for you.”
“Oh!” said Ramanujam. “What’s that?”
“I will be away for several days because we are all gathering at your uncle’s place in Kakinada and then going to the boy’s family in Yanam to finalise the details. And the farmer next to our land near Kottavalasa has made up his mind to sell. You need to go there for the registration.”
“So what’s the problem?” said Ramanujam. “I can go to the farmer tomorrow and be back by the evening. As I said, we are not leaving for Mumbai until the day after.”
His father shook his head. “It’s not that simple. The farmer said the documents are mortgaged with the State Bank. It will take him a few days to get the papers back and only then we can get it registered in our name.” He turned to Aruna. “Sorry, child,” he said. “I know you have been really looking forward to this holiday, but you will have to postpone it for a week or so.”
Aruna just nodded mutely. Her husband said, “All the tickets and hotels are booked, naanna. We won’t be able to organise them all again at such short notice. Why can’t we register the land either when you come back from Chitti’s engagement or when we are back from our holiday?”
“Sorry, Ramu,” said his father. “I’ve already paid the money to the farmer to redeem his mortgage. It’s not good to delay the registration. Transactions are like milk – the longer they are out in the open, the greater the chances of spoilage.”
“But, naanna,” said Ramanujam, before falling silent. He sounded to his own ears as if he was ten years old again. He sat down heavily on the bed with what was almost a flounce.
“Maava-gaaru – father-in-law – is right,” said Aruna. “That land business is worth lakhs of rupees. We can’t risk delaying it just to go on holiday.”
“Millions of rupees, dear, not just hundreds of thousands,” said Ramanujam’s father. “I’ve been after that farm for a long time because it bridges two of our other holdings. I couldn’t risk it going to anybody else and losing it for ever so I had to give the farmer the money when he approached me.”
“But the holiday…” began Ramanujam, in a last-ditch effort that even he knew was doomed to failure.
“Wherever we go, it will be a holiday,” said Aruna. “I’ll come with you and we can spend an extra few days there. We can go to Mumbai and Goa some other time.”
“It’s a really small town. There’ll be nowhere to stay,” said Ramanujam, sighing. “It’s OK; I’ll just go on my own and sort it out.”
“Nonsense. Aruna is correct,” said his father-in-law. “I know the revenue officer there. I’ll get him to arrange a room for the two of you in the government guest house. I’ll ask Peter to sort out a four-wheel-drive vehicle with a driver and you can explore the nearby villages. It will be enjoyable.”
Ramanujam looked dubious, but gave in. “All right. How will we know when to go?”
“As soon as the farmer has redeemed his documents, he will call me and I will ring you. The branch manager of the bank is a friend of mine and he will call me as well, so we’ll know if the farmer uses our money to pay off the loan and then tries to renege on the deal.”
Aruna marvelled at how many people her father-in-law could call on for help.
“All right,” said Ramanujam. “What do I check the documents for?”
Ramanujam’s father smacked his forehead. “When our elders said that too much education turns brains into mush, they must have been thinking about you. Check the adangal – I know that field has been with the farmer’s family for generations, but make sure the document refers to the right piece of land. It should be 4.7 acres. Why am I telling you simple facts that you should already know? You’ve been coming with me on these occasions since you were a teenager.”
“I never paid much attention,” Ramanujam confessed. “You know I am not interested in all this dealing-wheeling, naanna.”
“Not interested? Do you think your income from being a doctor supports all this?” his father said, waving his hand in a circle, as if to encompass the house, the garden and everything else around them.
“We don’t need to keep buying and selling lands and houses, naanna. We have enough money to support the next four generations even if we didn’t earn a single extra naya paisa. And my doctor’s salary is not exactly small. Why don’t you take it easy and stop running around?”
The older man stood up abruptly. “Is this what I should be listening to? Money is like water in a pond. If there is no stream flowing in, the pond will dry up. Nabobs, far richer than us, have become paupers when their income didn’t keep pace with their expenses. You’ve had an easy life so far; grow up now and start taking your responsibilities seriously. You will be told when you have to go to the village. Just make sure you do and try not to mess it up.” He turned to go.
Ramanujam stared with a frozen expression on his face. Aruna rushed forward and stopped her father-in-law.
“My father always says that one should not leave for a journey on an angry note. Please, sir, come and sit down. You know your son better than anybody else, so you must be sure that he never meant to insult you. He was only looking out for your health.” She turned to her husband. “Weren’t you?” she said. “Weren’t you?” she repeated more loudly, when he didn’t reply.
Ramanujam looked at Aruna as if startled and stood up. “Yes, naanna, sorry. Of course, I didn’t mean any offence.”
His father turned back and sat down on the chair. “Isn’t it said that one single act of taking a dip in the River Ganga is enough to wipe out a lifetime of sins?”
Ramanujam nodded slowly.
“In the same way, even if you acted foolishly every single day of your existence, you will still not be a fool.”
Ramanujam gazed at his father in silence.
“Ask me why.”
“Why?” said Ramanujam reluctantly, knowing that his father was not about to flatter him.
“Because you married this wise girl,” said his father. “That balances everything else out.”
Aruna blushed. Ramanujam suddenly smiled and pulled Aruna down next to him. “You are right,” he said. “I am sorry, naanna. I will try to pay more attention in future.”
His father shook his head. “I was wrong. There is no point in trying to teach a cow to act like a guard dog. It’s just not in its nature. You are a good doctor and that’s where your mind should be – on your patients, not on the next deal.”
“So what’s the way forward, maava-gaaru?” asked Aruna.
Ramanujam’s father thought for a moment and then broke into a smile. “I’ve got it. Why does Ramu have to do it when I’ve got a daughter?”
“Of course, Mani,” said Ramanujam. Mani was Ramanujam’s married sister and mother of two. She had not initially been happy with her brother marrying a poor girl like Aruna, but was now friendly with her sister-in-law.
“I told
you that you were a fool and I was not wrong,” said his father happily. “How can we put anything in her name? If we do, it will belong to her husband and in-laws. I am not doing all this work to give away our wealth. No, I meant Aruna.”
“But…” protested Aruna. “I don’t think…”
Her father-in-law waved her down. “You have a good head on your shoulders and you will be perfect. Register the land in your name. I will tell the revenue officer to check all the paperwork for you and make sure there are no problems. When I come back, I will show you all the different properties we have and you can slowly start taking over from me. You are both right, I do need to start taking it easy at my age.”
Unexpectedly, tears filled Aruna’s eyes. The idea that a girl like her from a poor family would be the mistress of a large property portfolio was overwhelming. Her father-in-law was also being very progressive. Ownership of land was strictly passed down from father to son and transferring it into a daughter-in-law’s name was almost unheard of. Why, she might get ideas above her station and start feeling independent!
Aruna got up, bent and touched her father-in-law’s feet with her hands. “I will try my best to justify the confidence you are showing in me,” she said.
The old man blessed her in Sanskrit with a hand over her head. “Chiranjeevi soubhagyavati bhava,” he said. May you for ever remain a married woman. “I am sure you will not let me down.”
“After tomorrow, I have the rest of the week off,” said Aruna, straightening up. “I hope that Sir won’t mind if I turn up having told him that I am going to be away on holiday.”
“Of course he won’t. No employer will,” said her father-in-law. “How is Mr Ali, by the way? I haven’t met him since your wedding.”
Like his daughter, her father-in-law too had initially been against their marriage; he had even gone to Mr Ali’s house to threaten him for encouraging the unsuitable match. Aruna didn’t know what exactly Mr Ali had said, but her father-in-law had been convinced enough to go ahead with the wedding.
“He is doing well,” said Aruna. “Madam says that’s because he doesn’t let anything worry him.”
“So many people have asked me why I am sending my daughter-in-law out to work,” Ramanujam’s father said. “As if I am forcing you to go out.”
“Oh,” whispered Aruna.
It had been one of her conditions before agreeing to marry Ramanujam that she should be allowed to continue working after the wedding and use her wages to help her parents and sister.
“Don’t look so worried,” said Ramanujam’s father, smiling. “They are just jealous that I have such a good daughter-in-law. Your parents don’t have a son, so I don’t see anything wrong in your supporting them in their old age. And I trust Mr Ali and his wife. They are good people.” He stood up.
“Naanna, who is going with you and amma?” said Ramanujam.
“Well, Peter is driving us,” said his father.
“Peter’s leg gives him difficulty, naanna. Also, in a wedding house, there will always be work. Why don’t you also take Kaka and his sister with you?” said Ramanujam.
“If we take them all, who will help you here?” said his father.
“We are both on holiday from the day after tomorrow anyway. We can manage easily.”
“There is no need for that. There are servants in your uncle’s house too.”
“I insist,” said Ramanujam. “They will be able to help in Kakinada and in Yanam too.”
His father looked doubtful. Aruna glanced at her father-in-law and then turned to stare at her husband, puzzled. Why was Ram being so insistent? Suddenly it felt as if a light had been switched on in her mind and she understood.
“Yes, maava-gaaru,” she said. “We’ll just be here for a few days until the farmer gets his papers ready. What will the servants do after that on their own? It’s better if you take them with you. At least they’ll be some use to you there.”
Her father-in-law nodded and stood up. “That makes sense, I suppose. All right, we’ll do that. I’d better go and tell them to pack and be ready for the morning.”
He left and Ramanujam closed the door behind him. Aruna hugged him tightly. “I love you,” she said, her eyes shining. She was smiling.
“Come home early tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I hand over the patients.”
Aruna nodded enthusiastically, her face against his chest, her smile refusing to leave her. Several days on their own in the house with nobody else around, not even servants. She could cook for her husband whatever food he liked and they could lounge around the whole time, letting their hair down, playing silly games, being free with each other. When she gazed up at him, his stare was intense and her mouth was slightly open, her lips feeling full and moist. Aruna and Ram had never experienced such privacy before. It would be better than any holiday.
Eleven
“What was so urgent that I had to drop work and come to Vizag?” Dilawar said to his mother.
They were on NH-5, the highway leading home from the airport. He had caught an early-morning flight and now it was just past 9 a.m.
“I am hungry. The airline food was like plastic. I couldn’t stomach it at all.”
“By the time we reach home, the maid will have puri halwa ready. Your favourite. What do you eat for breakfast in Bombay?” she asked. His mother still called Mumbai by its original name, even though it was now many years since its name had changed.
“If it’s a weekday, I just have toast with jam.”
“How can you eat bread, like an unwell person? Can’t you get a proper cooked breakfast of idli sambhar or roti sabzi in Bombay?”
“Who has time in the mornings, ammi-jaan?”
“That’s why you need a wife to look after you,” she said.
“Ammi-jaan! Not again. How many times do we have to talk about this matter? I don’t want to marry just so I can have a cooked breakfast every morning.”
His mother was silent for a moment and then said, “And what do you do at weekends?”
“Oh, I get up late and have a brunch. Before Shaan left, he used to cook something.”
“Who is Shaan?” said his mother sharply.
Dilawar’s face froze in horror and he went quite pale as the blood drained from it. He stared at her, goggle-eyed. “Umm…” he said, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish that has jumped out of its bowl.
His mother fixed him steadily with the same laser-sharp look that he remembered from when he was a boy and had broken a window with a cricket ball.
“Umm…a friend,” he said. “Just a friend,” he repeated, more firmly. An ex-friend.
They both sat back, each looking out of their side-window, while the driver negotiated the four-lane road into town, slowing only where the traffic police had constructed chicanes with makeshift barriers to cut speed and reduce traffic accidents.
An hour later, Dilawar was in the living room watching a Test match between Australia and India. Having eaten, he had sat with his father until the bedridden man had fallen asleep. Dilawar was now fulminating against the umpire who had not given the Australian batsman out.
“Don’t you have eyes, you blind idiot,” he said. “The batsman was miles out. You could have fitted the entire Great Barrier Reef between him and the crease.”
The umpires halfway round the world totally ignored Dilawar’s shouts and the Indian bowler started his run-up for the next ball. Disgusted, Dilawar threw the small cushion in his hands down on the floor.
His mother came in with Nadira Aunty. “Why are you making such a racket? You will disturb your father.”
Dilawar took his eyes off the TV and turned to his mother. “I don’t remember abba-jaan taking a nap so early in the day,” he said.
His mother sighed and sat down next to him. Nadira Aunty sat opposite. “He had a chest infection a few weeks ago and that took a lot out of him. Since then, he has been getting tired very easily and sleeping much more.”
Dilawar bent down and picked the cushion up off the floor. He had vague recollections of his father as an active man who played cricket with him and took him swimming, but in reality those memories had been largely blotted out by a lifetime of watching his father lie in bed, silent and immobile, moving only when turned by others to prevent bedsores. Apart from a retainer who came twice a week to help give his father a wash, his mother pretty much looked after him on her own.
Much of their family wealth had been frittered away in a fruitless attempt to find a cure. Finally his grandparents’ death, and an honest doctor’s opinion that the damage was incurable, had put a stop to the money gushing out to charlatans and fake herbalists. More had been lost in a court case – he wasn’t clear what it was, nobody ever talked about it – but it involved old family friends-cum-business partners who had fallen out with his parents. Dilawar remembered that there had been angry recriminations and talk of betrayal between his grandfather and the other man, but it was all ancient history now.
They had never actually become poor – there were too many parcels of land, pieces of art and antique jewellery and silverware for that – but his mother felt humiliated having to bargain endlessly for a few extra rupees with the smarmy brokers who bought these heirlooms. The family had slowly begun living on less and less, shedding celebrations, retainers and expenses each year, like a star that, after going nova, contracts on itself and dims slowly. Once Dilawar started earning, he had asked his mother to hire more servants and a nurse for his father, but his mother had gotten used to caring for her husband on her own and she refused. She had, however, upgraded to a full-time maid and a part-time cook, so she could leave the house for a couple of hours every now and then.
His mother, unaccountably, seemed nervous. He looked at Nadira Aunty. The two friends definitely had something more than their arms up their sleeves.
“Why did you call me so urgently from Mumbai?” he asked.
Before his mother could say anything, Nadira Aunty said, “We have found a bride for you.”
Dilawar realised that he should have suspected something like this. When the original date that his mother had given him for his wedding had passed, he had been happy – thinking that the whole matter would blow over. But it obviously hadn’t.