by Farahad Zama
Rehman was on his third crêpe when Vasu came into the dining room through the back door and the kitchen. He walked with small mincing steps because he had a towel wrapped tightly round his waist. His chest was bare and his hair was wet.
Mrs Ali came up behind the boy with another dosa. She put it on Rehman’s plate and turned to Vasu. “Make sure you dry your hair properly. It is winter and you’ll catch a chill.”
Vasu nodded and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
“Are you going out today?” asked Mrs Ali.
Rehman said, “Yes, ammi. Remember, I’m taking Vasu to the beach today. We won’t be back for lunch.”
Mrs Ali went into the kitchen and switched off the stove.
“Don’t forget you have to pick up Pari from the railway station. She is coming on the East Coast Express.”
“Is she really leaving Kowur for ever?” asked Rehman.
“Yes, she wants to live and work here. I’ve talked to the old woman – the ticket collector’s widow – who owns the house opposite and she’s agreed to let the room at the top to Pari. She wasn’t too keen on letting a room to a single woman but I explained the situation and she agreed. Paris had a difficult life, poor girl. I hope this change of scenery also marks a change in her fortune.”
Yes, poor girl, Rehman thought, chewing on the dosa. The last time he had seen Pari was just over a year ago. Her husband, Rehman’s sportsman cousin, had died when a beam sticking out of a lorry had hit him on the back of his head. When laid out on the bed, his muscled body had been perfect and he had seemed to be sleeping peacefully – even his face was untouched. Pari had been distraught, alternately screaming her grief, wanting to join him, or begging her husband to wake up and show them all that he was not dead. It had been hours before they were able to drag her away from the body so that it could be prepared for burial.
Soon after that, her adopted father had suffered a massive stroke that left him bedridden, incontinent and prone to violent seizures. Pari – her adopted mother having died several years before – had looked after him for almost a year until he too died.
“She’s not a pari. She’s a farishta – not a fairy but an angel,” said his mother breaking into his thoughts. “No natural daughter could have looked after her father with more devotion.”
“Where is she going to be working?”
“Don’t you listen to anything I say?” said his mother, coming and sitting down at the dining table. “She’s going for an interview at the call centre. You will have to take her.”
“No problem.”
Soon after, Rehman was ready too and he said, “See you, ammi. We’ll be back by three, so I’ll have plenty of time to go to the station.”
Rehman took out his two-wheeler and Vasu scrambled up behind him. They drove down the busy road, especially congested at the choke points where, over the years, two Hindu temples and a Muslim burial ground had prevented the widening of the road. On a traffic island outside the main bus stand, Rehman pointed out the statue of Gurajada Apparao, the first playwright who had written in common spoken Telugu. The great man looked lost among all the vehicles.
“A nation is not its lands; a nation is its hands,” said Vasu.
“He’s the author of those words,” said Rehman, turning left.
They went uphill, past the circuit house, before going downhill to the Beach Road. They drove along the coastal road out of town, past the cable car, keeping the long beach on their right and the rolling red clay hills on their left. Fifteen minutes later, they turned into a so-called resort – a hotel with an open-air restaurant. Rehman parked his motorbike and they both sat at a table under a laburnum tree. The place was empty this early in the morning and, apart from the occasional vehicle on the road, the only other sounds were the continuous roar of the sea in the background and the sharper tones of birds – chattering sparrows and singing mynahs mainly. A waiter came over. Vasu ordered a buttermilk and Rehman asked for a fresh-lime soda.
They were sipping their drinks when a car turned in and parked next to their bike. A young lady got out and started walking towards them.
Vasu looked at her and turned to Rehman. “She is…Usha Aunty.”
Rehman smiled at him. “That’s right. I called her yesterday and told her we would be here.”
The pendant that hung on a thin gold chain round her neck flashed in the sun. She passed into the shade of the trees and they both stood up to greet her. She wore open-toed, high-heeled sandals, jeans and a long, dark-blue cotton top, and her glossy black hair was tied in a ponytail. Rehman’s throat went dry for a moment. He swallowed and smiled at this glorious vision.
“Hi, Usha. Glad you could make it.”
“I told you I would come, didn’t I?” she said, smiling at him. She had not initiated any of their meetings but had never refused to catch up with him whenever he called her.
Rehman nudged Vasu and the boy put his hands together. “Namaste, Usha Aunty,” he said.
“Lovely to see you again,” she said. “Are you enjoying the city?”
“Yes, madam.”
They all sat down again and the waiter rushed over. Rehman couldn’t help noticing how he fawned over Usha. Was it because she had come in a car or was it just because she was beautiful?
Fifteen minutes later, they had finished their drinks and Vasu had gone round all the chairs on the lawn, twice. He came back and said, “Come on, Uncle. You said we could go to the beach.”
Rehman looked at Usha and said, “Shall we?”
She nodded. Rehman called the waiter back and settled the bill. They walked down a path between the thatched cottages that tried to simulate a rural ambience (with air-conditioning and mosquito repellents) and on to the sandy beach. Vasu ran ahead of them as Usha bent down to take off her sandals. She lost her balance as she tried to stand on one leg and unbuckle the other sandal. Rehman put his hand out instinctively and Usha supported herself on his arm. Her hand felt cool. She looked up at him and smiled. Rehman stared unabashedly at her clear face. He noticed that her lipstick had become slightly smudged – probably from the glass – but her lips still looked juicy and well defined. A stray strand of hair had escaped the hairband and cut a dark slash against her fair cheeks.
She held on to his hand for a bit longer, not seeming in any hurry to break contact. She finally let go of his hand and held her sandals by their straps. Rehman, who was wearing flip-flops, didn’t bother taking them off. The sharp grains of sand tickled his feet. The sun shone but, because it was still winter, it was nicely warm and not hot. Ahead of them, Vasu had almost reached the water. Rehman shouted out, “Careful…”
The beach was virtually flat up to the high-tide mark and then sloped down quite sharply where the fluffy sand gave way to a smooth, packed surface where the sea had pounded it. There were no other living creatures at that early hour, except a few seagulls wheeling in the air. Vasu was dancing halfway down the slope, shouting challenges to the sea above the continuous noise of the surf. A wave broke several yards in front of him, running out of energy just before it reached him. The boy laughed and went a couple of feet closer to the edge.
The next two waves combined into one and rose dangerously high before crashing down with a roar. A maelstrom of white water rushed up the shore, overtaking Vasu before he could run away. It reached his knees and he had to stop. The bottom of his shorts got wet before the wave receded. Vasu laughed, his boyish voice clear as birdsong.
A traditional wooden fishing sail boat had been dragged up the beach about a hundred yards away. Rehman pointed towards it and Usha nodded.
“Vasu, we’ll be sitting by the boat. Come with us.”
They sat down in the shade of the colourful boat. Vasu followed, left his rubber flip-flops next to them and went back to the waterline.
Rehman took out a bottle of water from his rucksack and offered it to Usha. She shook her head.
“I should have got a sheet to sit on,” he said.
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“I think there is a plastic sheet in the car, but I can’t be bothered to go now,” said Usha.
“Do you want me to get it?” said Rehman.
She shook her head. “We can dust off the sand when we leave.”
They were both silent for some time, watching Vasu play on the beach. He was collecting flat shells that looked like a child’s slipper and throwing them into the water. A garland of marigolds, probably a fisherman’s offering to the sea the previous evening, had washed up. The waves moved it to and fro on the beach. A ship was on the horizon, sailing slowly away from the harbour. Usha and Rehman sat next to each other, their backs against the hard wood of the boat.
“When I was a boy, we lived for a while in a fishermen’s colony. In those days, they used to spend all their free time spinning thread. Now they just use nylon,” said Rehman.
“There are so many things like that. Years ago, my mother and the cook in our house used to spend hours every afternoon picking stones out of rice. Nowadays, there are no stones in the rice.”
An eagle flew past them, chased by three crows. It twisted and turned, making abrupt turns to outwit its pursuers. The eagle gave a sharp cry and Usha shivered slightly. “I feel a premonition – of something,” she said.
Rehman was surprised. He followed her gaze and looked at the eagle’s struggle. When it was well over the water the crows gave up and turned back. The eagle soared in the air, gaining altitude, and wheeled in a big arc back towards the coast.
After several moments of silence Rehman laughed and said, “We are talking like a couple of old people. Tell me about your family – are you scared of your mother or your father?”
Usha answered instantly, “My father, of course. My mother is almost a doormat. I get so angry with her. I tell her to stand up to naanna, but she just smiles and shrugs. The only time I remember her contradicting my father was when I was offered the television job.”
“Oh! What happened? Didn’t she want to you to take it up?”
“On the contrary! I was really surprised. My father came over all traditional and harrumphed about a woman of the family appearing on TV, but amma told him not to be a hen in a coop. He was struck dumb. And so I started working.”
“That must have been a shock to your father.”
Usha smiled. “Poor man…Mind you, if naannamma, my grandmother, had said no, he would have still refused. But she said there was nothing wrong with being a journalist. It’s not like acting in movies with heroes, she said. After that my father didn’t have a leg to stand on. She can be fierce when necessary and naanna grumbles but he never crosses his mother.”
“You had gone to her house when we met in the café in Kottavalasa, didn’t you?”
“That’s right. She is always sweet to me. You see, naanna never says no to his mother and naannamma never says no to me, so naanna never says no to me.”
Rehman laughed. “Transitive logic,” he said.
“What?”
Rehman waved his hand in dismissal. “Just something I learned in my engineering studies. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C.”
“Something like that. What about you? Are your parents happy about what you do? After all, your mother wasn’t too keen on you going back to Royyapalem for the protest.”
Rehman shrugged. “So-so. By the way, she is still embarrassed about what you did.”
Rehman and his friends had been protesting against the setting up of a Special Economic Zone in a village called Royyapalem that would have meant that the villagers would have lost their land. The police had broken up the protest and injured several people, including Rehman, while arresting them. Rehman and his friends had been acquitted on a technicality. When Usha interviewed Rehman outside the court, Rehman had declared that he was going straight back to Royyapalem to continue the protest. Rehman’s mother, who had been standing just out of camera shot, disagreed loudly. Usha put her on camera and questioned her. The interview had been telecast repeatedly as ‘A Mother’s Anguish’.
Usha smiled. “That and the other interview of your mother I did in Royyapalem itself got the best ratings of any of my work. My producer was really happy.”
“I think my mother was secredy proud of them, too, though she pretends that you jumped on her and she didn’t have a choice.”
“I hope so…”
The talk moved on to other topics. Would Vizag become the state capital if Telangana split away from Andhra? Did they even want it to happen when it would probably spoil the small-town charm of their city? What kind of events did she like covering? Did he like cricket?
The conversation drifted into a companionable silence. After a couple of minutes, Rehman turned to her and said, “What – ”
At the same time, Usha turned towards him and said, “I – ”
They both laughed and Rehman said, “You first…”
“No, no…you first.”
“You.”
“First, you.”
Rehman shook his head, smiling. “We are acting like the Nawabs of Lucknow who missed the train.”
“I’ve heard that saying before, but never understood it,” said Usha.
Rehman shrugged. “By the time railways came to India, Pax Britannica was well established and the noblemen of Lucknow had turned effete and decadent. Unlike their ancestors who fought real wars, they staged pigeon-flying contests or chess competitions among themselves. They spent their spare time listening to poetry, dallying with courtesans and chewing paan. But they were all impeccably well mannered.”
Usha was gazing at him and her wide eyes disturbed him. He looked down at her long fingers trailing in the sand as if sieving it.
“One evening, the story goes, two nawabs reached the first-class compartment of the Lucknow-Delhi Express at the same time. Since neither had arrived before the other, each asked the other to go in first. While they were both saying, you first, their servants made discreet enquiries among themselves and found out that both gentlemen were of the same rank and age. They both had the same amount of land and money. Neither was superior to the other so they both kept saying, you first, until the train left the station and the gents were left standing on the platform.”
Usha laughed – a tinkling, musical sound. “You have to admire their civilised behaviour. People today just push and shove with no consideration for others. By the way, what made you take up the protest in Royyapalem? I never understood that – you don’t have any family or friends there as far as I know.”
“I – ”
A shout came from the waterline and Rehman felt his chest tighten as he realised that he had forgotten about Vasu playing in the waves. He should have been more careful; anything could have happened. It was a relief to see the boy running towards them, his dark legs wet up to his thighs.
“Look at what I’ve caught!”
He slowly opened his cupped hands. A tiny, soft-shelled crab started crawling up his fingers.
“It tickles,” the boy said happily and shook his hand. The crustacean flew in the air and landed on Usha’s shoulder.
“Eeek,” screamed Usha, jumping up and trying to brush the crab off. It scuttled on to her back. Usha twisted her arms round but could not get hold of it. She went round in circles but the crab remained safely on her back, out of her reach. After she had made three full revolutions, she stopped and looked at the others.
Rehman was on his feet, bent double, with his hands on his knees, laughing so much that tears were starting. Vasu looked perplexed, staring alternately at Rehman and Usha. After a moment, he too began laughing. Usha moved forward angrily and stomped on Rehman’s foot.
“Oww,” said Rehman, hopping on one foot and glaring at her.
“Help me,” said Usha. “What kind of man are you? Instead of helping a woman, you are laughing at her.”
“Sorry,” said Rehman, wiping the tears away. He couldn’t stop grinning, however.
He moved behind Usha and scooped the crab off her. The crab fe
ll to the ground and burrowed into the soft sand, disappearing in a couple of seconds. Her back was warm and exciting under the thin cotton top and his hand lingered. Usha stopped moving and went still under his touch. Rehman’s laughter ceased and he jerked his hand away. He stepped back and stared at his palm as if it was branded with a hot iron.
Vasu ran back towards the water and Usha turned towards Rehman, with a smile. She sobered up when she saw his expression. “Rehman…”
He dropped his hand and looked at her seriously. “Usha, I’m sorry.”
She put a finger vertically across his lips, just touching them. “Shh. You don’t have to apologise.”
He took a deep breath and stepped back. They looked into one another’s eyes and Rehman felt himself drowning. It was a while before he said, “Shall we go for lunch?”
She nodded and Rehman turned to call Vasu back. They left the beach; Rehman talked to the waiter, who said it was OK to leave his motorbike in the restaurant’s parking area. They all got into Usha’s car and Vasu jumped up and down on the back seat, testing the car’s suspension. Rehman turned around and said, “Vasu, don’t do that.”
Vasu just grinned at him. “This is a fantastic car, Aunty,” he said to Usha.
The air-conditioning came on as they slipped out of the restaurant and on to the road.
“Wow!” said Vasu.
Rehman and Usha looked at each other, smiling.
“Where are we going?” asked Usha.
“This way,” replied Rehman pointing north.
The car ate up the miles. Round each bend, a fresh vista of blue sea, dotted here and there with triangular white sails, was laid before them. They passed little fishing villages. About ten minutes later, Rehman asked Usha to slow down. After a few seconds, he pointed to a row of coconut trees and told her to turn off, down an unmade dirt road. It was bumpy until they came to an open area. Usha parked the car under one of the coconut trees, next to a couple of motorcycles.
An Alsatian dog came over to them, its pink tongue hanging out, as they all got out the car. Vasu hung back behind Rehman but relaxed when he saw that the powerful-looking canine was friendly. A shack made of corrugated tin sheets and palm leaves came into view.