by Nikita Singh
I know that our precautions seem extreme to others, but every time I imagine something bad happening, it ensures me that we are doing the right thing. How would we feel if something were to happen to any of us, just because we had a craving for pizza?
Four months after Alia was born, we finally felt comfortable enough to introduce her to both sets of grandparents. Of course, since they took flights to visit us, we asked them to quarantine at a hotel for fourteen days first, get tested on day one and then again on day fourteen, and then come to our home. When they did, we had them go straight to the bathroom, take baths and change into fresh clothes before holding Alia. It seemed like a lot when we explained the precautions to them, but, in the end, wasn’t it worth it, for them to hold their first grandchild?
‘This can’t be right …’ I say out loud, to myself. ‘There’s no way. Pratham!’
‘Nina? Did you say something?’ Pratham calls from the bedroom, where he and his parents are playing with Alia on her half-birthday. My parents had returned home after a month, declaring that there really wasn’t enough room for all of us in our small apartment, not when no one was allowed to go outside for a walk without having to go straight to the bathroom to take a bath afterwards. I know that they cared less about the small space and more about our perfectly justified precautions.
‘Can you come here?’ I call back. My voice is shaky. I reread the email. When Pratham appears, I shove my phone in his face. ‘Have you seen this email? I was looking for Alia’s medical records to check what other vaccines she needs when I found this …’
As Pratham reads, his brows furrow. I watch him go through the same set of emotions I had gone through mere moments ago.
I breathe in disbelief. ‘How is this possible? How could we miss this? This email wasn’t unread. I must’ve opened it when I was half-asleep or something …’
‘This is dated 2 May. What were we doing then?’ Pratham searches my eyes.
‘We were probably dead tired. Alia was less than a month old! We had no idea what we were doing! But, like, shouldn’t the hospital have called us? I don’t remember getting a call. Did you get a call?’
‘We definitely missed some calls in the first month … We missed a lot of things! Like this email …’
Pratham and I look at each other, our eyes wide. Our hospital had emailed me a positive COVID-19 test result roughly three weeks after I delivered Alia, and we never saw it. We either missed their phone calls, or the hospital didn’t call us, due to oversight or the incompetence of their overworked staff.
I take the phone back from Pratham and stare at the email. I can’t believe that after everything we have done in the last six months to protect our family from COVID-19, it turns out that I already had COVID-19 and didn’t know about it. That while we quarantined diligently, insulating ourselves, and our baby, from the outside world, the virus had been in our home all along, quiet, undetected.
N A T A S H A
Gautam’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He didn’t have to check it to know that it was Natasha. This was the third time she had called today. He had picked up the first time, right before an important meeting, but had to let the second call go to voicemail. This time, he grew concerned. She never called him twice, without giving him a chance to call her back in-between calls. She knew he always called her as soon as he got a free moment.
His gut told him something was wrong. He gulped and tried not to panic. Not before he found a cause for panic, at least. He turned to the room and said, ‘Excuse me, guys. I have to take this.’
The two other men in the room, sitting on either side of him around the large conference table, looked at him and nodded shortly. ‘Sure,’ one of them said.
Gautam slipped out through the glass door and took the call. ‘Natasha? Is everything okay?’ He tried and failed to keep the panic out of his voice.
‘Gautam? Gautam, please come home,’ Natasha sobbed on the other side.
‘What happened? Are you okay?’ Gautam’s heart began to thud wildly in his chest.
‘I’m … I’m … not.’
‘What is it? Do you need medical help? Are you bleeding?’
‘Yes …’ Natasha’s voice was shaky, barely audible.
There was a pause, during which a hundred horrifying pictures ran through Gautam’s mind. Some imagined, others from memory. He never should’ve left her alone. He knew deep within that something like this would happen. He had felt a premonition somewhere within him, but had brushed it off as paranoia. Just because it had happened once didn’t mean it had to happen again. They’d come across terrible luck in the past year, but things had been looking better. He never should’ve left her alone. How many times had she begged him to be with her? Why didn’t he just stay?
‘Tasha …’ he murmured, and the questions came pouring out of him. ‘What happened? How did this happen?’
‘I …’ Natasha sobbed. Her voice sounded muffled, as if she was speaking through layers of fabric. ‘I was cooking … I was chopping tomatoes … My bad arm. It just … Suddenly, there was so much blood everywhere.’
‘Out of the blue? I don’t understand—’
‘Come home, Gautam. Please, I need you …’
‘Yes, yes, I’m coming. How much blood … is it worse than before? Were you in the – hello? Hello? Are you there? Natasha?’
There were three sharp beeps, and then nothing. Gautam immediately called back her number. It went straight to voicemail. Had she hung up by accident? Had her phone died? Was she losing more blood? He couldn’t let panic overwhelm him. He had to fix this. He had to save her. She had endured enough.
He moved swiftly. First, he called 911 and gave the operator whatever little information he had and their address. Then, he swung by the conference room to say, ‘I have to go home. My wife. There’s a medical emergency.’ His co-workers looked at him with wide eyes for a short second, then nodded fervently. Gautam was already gone.
Falguni placed her phone face down on the couch. Then, she flung the fridge door open and poked her head in. The cool air felt nice on her warm face. She could feel her ears burning. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that they were flushed red. She snatched the bottle of orange juice and slammed the door shut.
Her breath came in gasps. Gautam would be here soon.
She slipped to the floor, leaning against the fridge. How did this happen? How did they get here? She only sat there, on the floor, for a few minutes, but it felt like hours. Time had lost its meaning. In the short while that Falguni sat on the floor, eyes closed, head resting against the fridge door, clutching a bottle of orange juice, she relived years of her life … everything that had led to this moment, all came rushing back to her.
She was only twenty-two when her father got the phone call from Arun Uncle, presenting him with the rishta, the proposal. Arun Uncle’s sister-in-law’s brother was an NRI, living in New York and earning a salary of over `1 crore per year. That was all they knew at first. A few days on, Gautam’s photo was forwarded to Falguni’s father over WhatsApp.
Falguni had thrown a tantrum, created a scene in front of everyone in revolt.
‘I don’t want to get married!’ she cried.
Her chachis and chachas had glared at her. So had her dada and dadi. But she knew she had her parents’ sympathy, counting on which, she pressed on. ‘Papa, please. Bas ek saal aur. All I ask for is another year. Why are you rushing like this? I’m only twenty—’
‘Wait for what?’ her older cousin had interjected. Gulab Bhaiya was always butting his head in other people’s business where it didn’t belong.
‘I … I want to study more!’ Falguni pulled that one out of thin air. She had no interest in further education, but she said what every other young girl in the country resorted to, to delay an impending arranged marriage.
‘Oh-ho-ho! Now you want to study? Then why have you not been doing it since last year, instead of just sitting at home useless?’
‘
I needed a break! I didn’t know what I wanted!’
‘And now you do?’ her chachi challenged.
‘Umm … I want to be a teacher. I want to do a B.Ed. or maybe fill forms for bank jobs,’ Falguni said desperately.
‘Those are two very different things,’ Gulab Bhaiya declared victoriously. ‘You have no idea what you want to do with your life—’
‘I know that I don’t want to get married! Just give me one more year, Papa.’ Falguni turned to her father and pleaded, her voice low, cajoling. ‘What’s the rush? Please! There’s no reason to rush—’
‘Gunnu,’ her father said. His tone was different than what she had expected. More stoic. It stilled something in her. ‘Bas. Bohot ho gaya. Enough!’
His voice sent shivers down her spine. ‘Papa, please,’ she braved a last meek attempt.
The slap across her face threw her to the ground. The sting caused tears to pour freely out of her eyes. Her entire body shook. No one moved. No one said anything. No one came to help her get up. The shock and betrayal hurt more than the part of her cheek that had connected with the back of her father’s hand. She was confused, confounded. What had just happened? Why? She had heard horror stories from her friends about their fathers, but her own father wasn’t that type of a man.
She looked from one frozen face to another. They were all looking at her. Yet, there was absolute silence. ‘Kya …?’ she began, but courage deserted her. Her mind raced. What did they know? Who told them? What was going to happen to her? Would she never see Manoj again? Would he find her?
Falguni picked herself up from the floor. Her pride stopped herself from touching her face. All 5'2"of her slight frame stood tall. Her eyes travelled to every face in the room. No one spoke. They stood there, gathered in the dining room. Her younger cousins put their heads down and pretended to do their homework at the dining table. Her dada sat in front of the TV in the drawing room, with his back turned to them. Her dadi looked on from the kitchen door.
Breathing heavily, Falguni stomped towards the room she shared with her younger brother. When she walked by her father, he held out an arm to stop her.
‘You think we are blind idiots?’ He was breathing heavily, and his voice came out in a snarl. ‘Gulab told us everything. We are accepting Arun’s rishta. You are going to marry Gautam and go to America. You’re going to forget all about this Manoj character. And, till then, you are not to leave the house alone. Understood?’
Falguni’s face burned. Fresh, hot tears flowed down her throbbing cheek. In embarrassment, in pain, in horror. In a matter of minutes, her life had crashed down around her.
The decision to change her name was her cousin’s brilliant idea. According to him, Falguni sounded too gawar, too ‘villager-like’. As far as status went, she was marrying up. Which meant she needed to act the part, starting with her name. Natasha Thakur sounded far classier than Falguni Kumari. Once she was married, she would get a fresh start in life. All traces of Falguni Kumari from Daltonganj, Jharkhand, would be erased.
This was important to the rest of her family too. Ever since the local newspaper printed articles about Falguni Kumari attempting to elope with a farmer’s son, Manoj Shankar, Falguni’s family had been obsessed with erasing all of her past life, put it behind them and move on.
Falguni couldn’t protest; she had lost all her power. Now, she was assigned the role of the perfect porcelain doll: stay silent, look pretty, be discarded from her family and sent to another.
After the wedding, Gautam promptly returned to New York. He had only been able to get two weeks off from work, for his own wedding, a fact that was brought up and commented upon by relatives on both sides at the ceremony. The most that Falguni and Gautam had spoken to each other was at the wedding reception, during which they sat in garish red velvet wing armchairs placed next to each other, at the centre of a makeshift stage. They were on display like that for four hours. People neither of them knew came up on the stage, and Falguni and Gautam would share a look to communicate if the newest guests they had the honour to welcome looked older than the bride and groom, and, if they did, they bent down and touched their feet. If not, they would bring their palms together, bow their heads and say, ‘Namaste ji.’
It almost became a game, during which Falguni built a certain camaraderie with Gautam. Maybe this marriage wasn’t going to be as terrible as she had imagined. Then again, she spotted Manoj by the chow mein stand, standing still with his friend Pankaj, his eyes fixed on her. When their eyes met, Falguni was transported out of her body, to a hot summer day under a bushy tree, tucked away in the shade, his sweat rubbing on to her skin, her lips parted, his mouth on her breast.
Before she could follow her new husband to New York, Falguni lived with Gautam’s family for six months in Gaya. The process of getting a passport and a visa was time-consuming.
There, she built a surprisingly strong friendship with Gautam’s younger sister, Garima. She learned a lot about her new family from her. Garima was in her final year of college, and was far more modern than Falguni and her friends back in Daltonganj. For instance, she was allowed to wear jeans with her kurta, even without a dupatta. Some of Garima’s friends were male and were even invited to their house often. Falguni brought chai and snacks to them in the drawing room, going from one person to the next, holding out the tray. She would stand by the door and listen to them talk, uninhibited. This wasn’t a family of secrets.
‘Don’t your parents mind these boys coming to the house?’ Falguni once asked, keeping her voice low as she stirred the pot of dal.
‘Of course not! They’re not backward like that!’ Garima said. She was perched on the counter, her legs dangling playfully. ‘You don’t have to worry either, Bhabhi. I know your parents were very strict, but you’re in our family now. As soon as your visa comes, you’ll fly to join Bhaiya in New York. Forget about all those rules in Daltonganj. Who cares?’
Falguni was too scared to hope, but the thought of her family never being able to put a hand on her again brought a smile to her lips.
‘And who knows? I’ll join you in New York soon too! I’m applying to universities there. I’ll keep trying till I get in. You could even do it with me! We can be successful career women one day. Just leave all of this behind.’ There was a contagious spark in Garima’s eyes.
Falguni felt something in her chest loosen.
When Falguni finally made it to New York, she wasn’t as overwhelmed as she had feared she would be. Garima had prepared her well. They’d watched all ten seasons of Friends on Garima’s laptop with English subtitles on, to facilitate her understanding of the American accent. Falguni’s education had been in Hindi medium; so even though she could read English, her spoken English needed a lot of work. Garima was fluent in the foreign language and took pride in helping her sister-in-law.
Once in New York, Falguni really missed Garima’s friendship. She had grown accustomed to her warmth and humour. They still spoke through WhatsApp video calls, but the ten-and-a-half-hour time difference made it difficult to stay connected the way they had been in Gaya.
Now, Falguni was on her own, trying to learn who her husband was. The first thing she noticed about Gautam was that he was … balding. It was evident now due to the absence of the groom’s sehra from his head. Also, in the brief time he had spent in India after their wedding, he had always worn a cap, even indoors. Outdoors, he wore dark black sunglasses that made him look blind. It was as though he had never seen the sun before in his life.
Gautam was a man of routine. He woke up at the same time every morning, took a shower, put on his work clothes that he had ironed and hung on the back of the door the night before, ate cereal in 2 per cent fat milk and took the subway to his office. He came home at the same time every evening, and Falguni had dinner ready. They ate together, he called home, and they watched TV for an hour before bed.
The problem was: he didn’t sleep in the bed with her. Every night, he took the time to lower the back o
f the couch to lay it flat, stretched out a fitted bedsheet around the edges, topped it with a flat sheet and a blanket, and pulled the curtains to make the living room blackout dark. In the morning, he meticulously undid the entire set up, only to do it all over again at night.
At first, Falguni was relieved, the same way she had been on their wedding night, when he’d told her she could sleep on the bed and he slept on the floor out of respect for her privacy. They had been strangers, after all. However, after being married for nine months, and living together for three months, Falguni found it deeply unsettling that he didn’t share the bed with her.
She wasn’t physically attracted to him. He wore old-man spectacles. He wasn’t very tall either. He had dry patches around his eyes and wore lifts in his shoes when he went to work, adding two inches to his 5’7” frame. She couldn’t help but compare him to Manoj, who used to work in a farm and had the firm body of a farmer. He had no extra fat on his body, which moved like well-oiled machinery. So, this soft, stout man was hardly stirring desire in her. But what else was there to do?
Falguni’s days had begun to resemble one another. They lived in downtown Manhattan because Gautam wanted to experience the vibrant energy of the place, opting for it over the comfort and familiarity of Jersey City, with its many Indian grocery stores, restaurants and people. Falguni had to learn to order Indian groceries online. She had even learned to cook pasta from Garima over a WhatsApp video call. Once Falguni learned how to use Gautam’s iPad to search for recipes on YouTube, she didn’t look back. Every day, she tried to cook something new. Every week, they ordered different groceries, venturing more and more into territories foreign to her.
After three months of it, she had grown tired. Gautam was still appreciative of her efforts, but seeing as Falguni’s only role in his life was to cook and clean for him, she felt like his maid. Sex could change that.