Once Upon a Curfew

by Srishti Chaudhary

  ‘But if this effort to spare time was an everyday thing, a part of the routine like everything else, if she came to a place each day to read, just for the sake of it, if nothing else, or to learn a new language, or tutor someone else, or to work on something she always dreamt of, without distraction or household worries . . . it could really make life different for her.’

  The coffees had arrived by this time and Rana sipped on his without replying, deep in thought. Indu was happy to see that he was trying to imagine what she had just described, and so she didn’t interrupt him. Finally, he put his hands on the table.

  ‘I think I see what you mean now. It’ll take me a little more time to realize its significance, but I get your point. So we need to start working on a few basic points.’

  ‘Which are?’ Indu asked, leaning forward again.

  ‘Let’s start from the things we need: books. Different kinds, fiction, language . . . you are the best judge. Books are expensive, but we’ll acquire those slowly. We need to catalogue these books, get bookcases for them. We can build some. The next important point is how we get people to come here. Do you have any ideas?’

  Indu said, ‘My grandmother left me many books which are all lying, dusty and neglected, in bookcases in the house. I agree that we will need to catalogue them. As for getting people to the library, we can always hold events.’

  ‘What kind of events?’ Rana asked.

  ‘Something that would attract people—performances, entertainment, talks, discussions.’

  ‘And how do you want it to be—free or for a membership fee?’

  ‘It has to be free in the beginning. Nobody would pay for something that they don’t yet understand,’ Indu replied.

  He didn’t reply, and Indu looked at him for some time. He seemed smarter than she gave him credit for, and she found herself more receptive.

  ‘So what’s this about you and poetry?’ she asked him. ‘You fancy yourself a poet now?’

  He grinned at her sudden change of topic, his eyes laughing at her question. Indu noticed that the lines on his face made it crinkle when he smiled, and that he had to only smile and nod once for you to believe the sincerity of his words. She pushed away these thoughts as he replied, ‘I actually write for a weekly magazine Fawad runs. He has a special poetry page for me,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Do you also read poetry?’

  ‘Yes, I feel inspired by Ghalib.’

  ‘Ghalib? Really?’

  ‘No, Ghalib. You have to say it like you’re drunk.’

  Indu laughed, and he joined her.

  ‘God, your laugh is so abnormal.’

  ‘What do you mean, “abnormal”?’ Indu asked, suddenly conscious.

  ‘It increases with every breath, getting bigger and bigger. You could do sound for a horror story.’

  Indu made the meanest face she could muster and said, ‘What about your laugh, hun? You laugh like such a sheep!’

  That made him guffaw again, and he slapped the table, laughing.

  ‘See?’ Indu said, laughing at the way he laughed. ‘If you could hear yourself . . . people are starting to stare, you know . . .’

  ‘This morning I heard a song on the radio,’ Rana said, ‘“Tumne mujhe dekha”, do you know that one?’

  ‘Of course!’ she replied, a pfff escaping her lips. ‘I’ve seen that movie so many times. We used to watch them all together.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘In college, I mean. We had a screening one day of each week. It was the only day everybody turned up,’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s one of the only times you don’t have to think of life and its worries—’

  ‘Wait,’ he said suddenly, staring at her, straightening himself up from the chair he sat back on, ‘we could start by organizing a screening. That will draw people to the library, right?’

  Indu looked at him for a few seconds, realizing that it was actually a good idea. ‘You’re not so bad after all,’ she told him, nodding.

  ‘Once women turn up, we could tell them about the library, how they can be members etc.’

  ‘Which movie, though?’ Indu asked.

  ‘Has to be one with Rajesh Khanna, obviously,’ Rana said, laughing as he watched her smile at his name. ‘What are you doing now? Do you want to take a walk?’

  ‘A walk?’ she asked him, taken aback.

  ‘Yes, unless it’s too cold for you.’

  Indu considered it for a few seconds and then got up and put on her coat, saying it was fine.

  The grubby stairs led them out on to the road, and the breeze, which had been light earlier, had become stronger. Indu was careful to stay clear of the cars that drove through puddles, for nothing enraged her more than being splashed by dirty water. She buttoned up her coat as the cloudy sky rumbled slightly. Hawkers lined the streets around the circle, which was thronged by customers now, crowding around the warmth of the food, looking forward to bhel puri, matar kulche and especially chai. Rana walked ahead and looked back at her, wondering if she would follow him. Indu dug her hands into the pockets of her coat, raised her chin and looked everywhere but at him, and in a few seconds she spotted Natty standing outside the Ambassador, watching her.

  Indu narrowed her eyes and walked towards him, making sure Rana noticed this change of direction and followed her.

  ‘Good evening, madame,’ Natty said, blinking innocently.

  She smiled and said, ‘I will return in some time. Please just wait here.’

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ Natty said, bowing slightly as Rana reached them.

  Rana looked behind him to see who Natty was talking to, and then realized it was him.

  ‘A very good evening,’ he finally replied, his face showing that he was impressed.

  ‘If you want, I can bring the car behind wherever you are going, madame, so you wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to me,’ Natty said.

  Indu smiled dangerously and replied, ‘I think I am fine, Natty.’

  ‘Also, there is some kind of strike on at Janpath,’ Rana said. ‘You’ll get stuck if you take the car out to the circle.’

  Natty gave a long, dramatic sigh and leant against the car. ‘Someone strikes for sugar, someone else for salt . . . these problems never end. So I say eat your samosa and forget about it.’

  They strolled for a while; there was less pressure to say something. Here and there, they would point out things to each other. Indu saw that he liked to walk with his hands in his pockets and constantly looked around, his neck turning often, drinking in the sights, watching the people who caught his fancy.

  It started drizzling soon, getting even colder. ‘Ha! Aren’t you regretting your thin jacket now?’ Indu asked Rana with a smirk, fingering her coat.

  ‘At least I have a hood, but you . . .’ he said laughing, pulling her hair up from the back to indicate the absence of the hood, his finger brushing her neck. Indu laughed as well, noticing his intimate movement. ‘I like Delhi best in February, when the simal blossoms on the trees,’ Indu said.

  Rana smiled. ‘I like living here. I don’t want to return to Lucknow; life is good there, of course, but people think of different things. The world seems smaller there and I want to be able to broaden my life.’

  Indu heard him talk of his life like he could do whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted, without obligation. They walked together, and she sometimes felt like bumping her shoulder against his, but contained herself, lest he began thinking she liked him.

  ‘When do I see you next?’ he asked her, the sound of his voice warming her in the rain.

  ‘Call my house at 11 tomorrow morning,’ she told him, hoisting her purse up, ‘and maybe you’ll get a chance to make yourself useful again.’

  He nodded, grinning.

  ‘I’ll think about the things we talked about in the meanwhile,’ she said.

  ‘Your laugh? Yes, better change it while you still can,’ he said.

  She gave him
a scathing look one last time and walked towards Natty and the Ambassador in a huff. He yelled out ‘goodbye, Indu’ from behind her, his own sheep-like laugh still booming in her ears.

  * * *

  A few days later, Amita arrived with a bag full of clothes, her face aggrieved. She banged the door shut and walked straight inside, past her mother, to what used to be her bedroom. Her mother called out to her and then followed. Indu made her way to the bedroom on hearing the commotion, throwing a quizzical look at her mother.

  She had never seen Amita fume this way. She paced the room, hands on her waist, and Esha watched them from afar, too scared to ask her if she wanted any tea or water at this apparently sensitive time. Indu and her mother stared at each other, at a loss for words, but they didn’t have to wait long; Amita seemed to tower over them both as she finally spoke loudly in anger.

  ‘That man,’ she said, her voice almost shaking, ‘deserves not a minute of the time that I’ve given him.’

  ‘What did he say?’ her mother asked immediately, moving towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder to pacify her.

  Amita paced around some more before answering, ‘We had a huge fight. It had been going on for some time, but this morning . . . This morning he said that I wanted him to lead a lonely life.’

  ‘What? Why?’ Indu asked.

  ‘He said that he sought to fill the emptiness in his life by dedicating himself to his work, and that I was trying to prevent him from doing so.’

  ‘What emptiness? How does that even—’

  ‘The emptiness of not having children.’

  Indu stared at her sister, aghast, for it was one of those unspoken things, things that people might dare to think but never say aloud.

  ‘He said that he had emptiness in his life because you don’t have children?’ Indu asked her sister incredulously as her mother’s face turned to stone.

  ‘He wants to fill that hole by trying to expand his business,’ Amita said, ‘and that I was actively trying to prevent him from doing so.’

  ‘How?!’

  ‘Number 7,’ Indu’s mother said with a sigh.

  Indu stared at her sister.

  ‘That I was actively creating hurdles in his life—as if I want this! That I don’t want him to succeed, because I cannot. That it was my revenge because I don’t have the “skill or willingness it takes to study medicine”.’

  ‘Let me go and give him a piece of my mind—skills my foot!’ Indu said, flaring up. Her mother told her to calm down.

  They sat together for some time, and once both Amita and Indu had settled down, they discussed men and their insecurities. Indu insisted that Govind was trying to mask his own incompetence by projecting his problems onto Amita. Her mother, however, advised that they resolve their problems in a more appropriate manner, and that fights between a couple were part and parcel of married life. But Amita refused to go back to the man who was quick to blame the slightest hurdle in life on a biological issue. Indu supported her, which annoyed her mother even more.

  Amita shook her head. ‘This I cannot forget. I am done. I gave up a lot for him, but I’m not going to do it anymore.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Indu asked her.

  ‘I will resume studying.’

  5

  ‘I can cook bhindi, bharta, rajma, pulao and anda. But I don’t eat it. Oh, and also khichdi.’

  ‘Nobody likes to eat khichdi,’ Indu said, making a face at Esha, ‘so it’s fine if you don’t mention that.’

  Esha nodded at Indu, staring at her admiringly. It always made her uncomfortable whenever Esha looked at her like that, like she looked up to her.

  ‘You can say malai kofta also, everyone likes that,’ Indu told her. ‘And you can easily learn how to make it later.’

  Esha had told Indu that that evening, she was going to meet a boy, and if everything went well, she’d be married to him. When Indu had questioned her about the hurry, she had told her it was because of her stepfather, that she couldn’t be home alone with him, because her mother said he was a drunk and not trustworthy. It was easier for everyone that Esha be married so Sunita wouldn’t have to take her along everywhere she went to work.

  ‘That must be Amita didi, go open the door,’ Indu told Esha when she heard the doorbell ring.

  Indu hugged her sister as she walked inside, and Esha automatically headed to the kitchen to fetch her a glass of water.

  ‘At first I thought I overreacted, but now I am even more sure that I don’t want to see him,’ Amita said. Indu looked at her mother; she didn’t seem surprised.

  ‘He can set up his office thing anywhere,’ Indu said. ‘Why is he so bent on Number 7?’

  ‘That’s exactly what he said about you,’ Amita replied.

  ‘You cannot dismiss his feelings so easily, Indu,’ their mother said.

  ‘He’s posing an unnecessary problem in something so straightforward—’

  ‘He’s Amita’s husband, and what he wants is also important.’

  ‘Well, she’s made her decision, hasn’t she?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to stick to it,’ her mother replied.

  Amita got up and walked around, hands on her waist, not saying anything that would allow her mother to launch another attack at Indu.

  ‘Indu, you are so stubborn. If you don’t get the flat, it’s not like your life will stop,’ their mother began.

  ‘What do you mean? Of course life won’t stop; life won’t stop without so many things. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And you’re the one who actually told us that we must remain in control of the flat!’ Indu retorted.

  ‘I’m not really liking your behaviour. That day, you threw such a tantrum—’

  ‘Well, it was needed—’

  ‘You threw up your hands and started yelling, I won’t eat, I won’t drink, I’ll die!’ her mother said, mimicking her in a way that Indu thought was a very unfair and inaccurate depiction.

  ‘I may have been a bit melodramatic, but I did what I had to,’ Indu said, raising her chin and closing her eyes in dignity. They both glanced at Amita, who was still pacing around the room.

  ‘Govind doesn’t understand Indu. He’s always grumbling, “Why do you always let her have her way? She’s immature.” What he actually cannot stand is that I chose to support you over him. But how could I not, after he basically never supported me? And so . . . he stopped talking to me when I tried to sort things out with him today. I shouldn’t have gone, it was a moment of weakness. He says I’m afraid to say things that I should. But when I did, today, he launched the attack on me, took out his frustration, said that things weren’t going his way. It’s weak behaviour, is what it is.’

  Her mother put her head in her hands.

  ‘I’m moving back here,’ Amita announced, and Indu tried not to look too delighted in front of her mother; she was glad not because she wanted her sister’s marriage to be in trouble, but because it would be nice to have her around.

  * * *

  She found him leaning against a pole, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, looking around as people went by. She watched him for a few seconds from inside the car as his hair blew in the light breeze, the bristles of his beard glistening under the sun. He held his jacket on his arm and was soaking in the sunshine. She saw him spot the Ambassador as they pulled over to where he was standing, and he straightened up and nodded at the car in greeting. She asked Natty to stop and got out of the car. Wearing her dupatta elegantly, she gave him a cursory look before putting on her sunglasses.

  He smiled at her as they approached each other, and Indu watched the corners of his eyes crinkle. She looked away, as she always did, when she saw him looking at her, her sunglasses making her seem even more pompous, but she couldn’t restrain her lips from curving upwards as he grinned broadly at her.

  ‘Ah, you’re smiling,’ he said. ‘Did the sun come out right today?’

  She made a face at him, her smile disappeared,
and she took off her sunglasses and gave him an icy stare. That didn’t deter him, though, as he went on grinning.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ she told him, turning around and indicating the Ambassador.

  ‘Are you excited?’ he asked, adding, ‘about our Indu-Rana day out?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not just a day out, we also have to get some work done.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said and cheerfully took a seat at the back.

  She got in from the other side, sitting as far away from him as possible, and found him already in conversation with Natty.

  ‘You have to drive her everywhere, huh?’ he was asking.

  ‘It is the will of God,’ Natty said in an exaggerated tone, starting the car, but then, noticing Indu’s expression, added, ‘and my utmost pleasure, of course.’

  Rana chuckled, sitting lazily with his arms behind his head, looking out the window. Indu stared at him, but he didn’t turn towards her.

  ‘Do you eat non-vegetarian food?’ Rana had asked her.

  ‘I’ve had some,’ Indu admitted, ‘and I would like to try some more, but most people I know don’t eat it very often.’

  Rana put a hand on his mouth and snorted. ‘Thank your gods you’ve met me, then! I may be a Rajput, but kebabs are my first love.’

  When Indu laughed, he said they would go to Karim’s.

  Indu was watching him when he turned to her and asked, ‘Why don’t you drive yourself?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘Why should I?’ she said.

  ‘Seriously, why don’t you drive?’ he asked her.

  She looked at him derisively for a few seconds and then finally admitted, ‘I’m scared.’

  He shrugged without judgement. ‘We can teach you. Right, Natty?’

  Natty gave a thumbs-up from the front.

  In a rare display of amiability, Indu gave a slight smile. They slowed as they passed a market with stationery shops, and Indu suggested they buy some.

  Walking on the side of the road, Rana let out a loud noise of contempt when he saw a large hoarding that said ‘Progress through Congress’, next to which were a calf and cow in a nurturing embrace. ‘What?’ Indu asked him sharply.