by Farahad Zama
The son had no answer to that, so he kept silent. His mother was on her deathbed and she was dragging up events from decades past, complaining against her husband who had pre-deceased her years ago.
'I don't have a daughter,' she said. 'But I do have a granddaughter.' She turned towards him and gripped his fingers with a sudden, surprising strength. 'Promise me, son. Promise me that you will get that land back and pass it on to your daughter.'
The old man looked around the table at his family after he finished telling his tale. They nodded solemnly back at him – his wife, his son Ramanujam, daughter-in-law Aruna and his daughter Mani. His grandson paid no attention to the talk of the adults. Aruna’s father-in-law said, 'I wanted my mother to be at peace, so of course I agreed. I swore an oath on her that I would do my best to recover her ancestral lands and pass it on to Mani when the time came.'
'And so you should naanna,' said Mani.
'So you can get that land?' asked Ramanujam, laughing.
'It's not a joke,' said Mani, scowling at her brother. 'A promise made to a dying woman is a serious matter, especially if the woman is your mother.'
'And especially if it means that you will get a good inheritance,' said Ramanujam.
'See naanna. Look how he is teasing me,' said Mani, looking as if she was about to throw a tantrum.
Aruna realized with sudden clarity that she had seen that exact expression before – on Mani's son's face. She almost smiled but kept control of her facial muscles. It was one thing for the son of the house to tease his sister; quite another for her to do so.
Ramanujam's mother interrupted. 'Stop it son,' she said to Ramanujam and turned to Mani. 'You know that you are a lucky woman. There are so many brothers who would begrudge what their sisters inherit, but Ramanujam is not like that.'
Mani nodded. 'I know,' she said. 'But that still doesn't mean that he can tease me.'
Aruna noticed that her father-in-law had finished his brinjal fry. She signaled to the cook and crooked a finger at her father-in-law's plate. The cook hurried over to serve them. Her father-in-law waited until the cook left his side, and then said, 'Now you know why it is important to me to get this land. I've tried over the years to buy the land back from my cousin but he has always refused to sell it. The last time I asked, he insulted me and I would rather not go back to him again. That's why I am relying on both of you to finalise this transaction for me.' He looked at his son and daughter-in-law.
Ramanujam and Aruna nodded. 'We'll do our best naanna,' they said, in almost perfect unison.
'Now, remember, my cousin is a powerful man and I don't know why he's selling the land. But you have to act as if it's not important whether we get the land or not. Otherwise he'll climb up a coconut tree and refuse to negotiate. He loves money. He always has.' The old man scowled, obviously remembering some childhood episode involving his cousin's cupidity. 'Flattery is the way to get to him.'
Later that evening, after they had retired to their bedroom, Ramanujam said, 'I had a call from Ravi.'
Ravi was his colleague and Aruna had gone to him to be checked out why she was getting tired so easily these days. 'What did he say?' asked Aruna.
'It's as I suspected. You are anaemic. He asked you to come over to his OP clinic at ten.'
'What does that mean?' she asked, getting out of the sari and standing in front of him in petticoat and blouse.
His eyes roved over her body appreciatively and he didn't answer for a second. 'Well?' she said, shifting her weight from one leg to another.
He grinned and said, 'If you stand like that in your underwear, how can I remember what to say?'
'All right, I'll cover up,' she said, reaching for her nightdress.
'There's no hurry for that,' he said, pulling the dress out of her hand. He stepped forward and took her in his arms, kissing her on the forehead. 'Go to the outpatient clinic tomorrow and get an iron injection. He'll probably give you some iron tablets to take as a course and you'll be fine.'
She melted in to his arms, feeling secure in his embrace. His hands started moving down her body and she pushed him back. 'I am tired,' she said.
'I know,' he said. 'Come to bed and let me make you better.'
'Come to bed like this?' she said. 'Let me put on my nightdress. I'll be cold.'
'All the better to hug me more tightly,' he said, laughing, and that, she decided, wasn't a bad idea at all.
When Aruna arrived at the outpatient clinic of the next morning, there was a crowd of people already there. She could have gone to a private doctor, but Ravi was a friend of her husband's and he ran the clinic in the Government hospital on Mondays. Even though her sari was cotton and her jewellery understated, she still stood out from the huddled masses waiting to be called in by the doctors. The people here ranged from poor to very poor to destitute. Some of them had come from outlying villages. Illness on top of poverty had worn them out and their tired, patient desperation was clear on their faces and in their postures. She felt guilty as she was ushered by the porter into the doctor's room ahead of all the others.
'Hello Aruna,' said Ravi, smiling at her. He asked her to sit down on a spare chair as he continued to examine the child in front of him. 'Stick your tongue out... aaah,' he said, peering into the child's throat. There was a paper in front of the doctor with her name written on it and Aruna looked at it with interest, trying to decipher what it said, but it could have been written in the ancient Mohenjo-Daro Brahmi script for all the sense she made of it. She had taken a blood test the previous week in a private diagnostic centre and they had obviously sent the results directly to the doctor.
Once Ravi had explained to the child and her parents that all the tablets had to be taken, even if the child started feeling better, and they had left, he turned to Aruna and pulled the report form the diagnostic centre closer to him. 'There's absolutely nothing wrong with you Aruna, except an iron deficiency. Now if you ate meat, I would have simply asked you to eat liver regularly and left it at that, but since you are Brahmins, I think an iron injection is appropriate. How do you feel about that?'
Aruna shrugged. 'If that's what you think is right, then I'll go with that.'
Ravi nodded. 'I've discussed it with Ram, of course, and he agrees too.' He rang a bell and a stout nurse came in. 'Prepare the lady's injection,' he said. The nurse nodded and withdrew.
'It seems very busy today,' said Aruna.
'Oh yes,' said Ravi. 'It's always busy of course, but today we have the narco test as well and that's delayed everything.'
'Narco test?'
'The truth serum test for the accused in the Stamp Duty racket.'
'Yes, I read about that in the paper. Are you carrying out the test?'
'We just give the injection. It's the CID who are asking the questions.'
Aruna was thrilled. She felt that she had become privy to some juicy gossip. The Stamp Duty racket had involved forgeries worth hundreds of millions of rupees and the only person who had been arrested so far was a low level clerk in the Registrar's office. The papers were hinting that such a huge scam could not have been carried out by one small individual and that there was collusion at high levels among politicians and bureaucrats. The nurse called her behind the screen and Aruna went to get her injection. She had been warned that iron injections were painful but it was surprisingly painless and she thanked the nurse for doing such a good job.
As planned before hand, she called Ramanujam when she left the clinic. 'Just stay in the car,' he said. 'I'll be there in a few minutes as soon as I wrap up here.'
While they were eating a veg-thali lunch at Daspalla restaurant, a conversation involving them was happening back at the clinic.
'What do you mean that wasn't an iron injection?' said Ravi. 'Oh my God, I hope nothing happens to her. She is the wife of a very good friend.' The nurse stayed silent and Ravi held his head in his hands. 'How could you be such an idiot anyway? We could lose our jobs or get lynched if we start giving wrong drugs to t
he wrong people. I have to call Ravi and tell him, oh God.' He shook his head. 'What did you give her anyway?'
'The truth serum, doctor,' said the nurse in a small voice. She had been a nurse for twenty years and she knew that she had blundered. She couldn't understand how it had happened. Nothing like this had ever occurred under her watch before – she was pretty sure about it.
'Sodium Pentothol... there shouldn't be anything too bad from that I suppose.' He turned to her. 'If something like this happens again, I am going straight to the authorities, do you understand? It's not just you, I'll lose my license too and we'll both be shoved into jail.'
She nodded in understanding and scurried away as fast as she could behind the screen. She touched the silver cross that hung on a chain from her neck and murmured a quick prayer. 'O My God, relying on Thy almighty power and infinite mercy, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and Life Everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.'
Aruna and Ramanujam finished their lunch and Peter drove them to Ramanujam's uncle's house, which was in MVP colony. The house was a white single-story rectangular house with a terrace on top. There were three coconut trees in the back and a jasmine creeper covered the front wall. Just as they got down from the car, Ramanujam's phone rang. 'It's Ravi,' he said to Aruna and answered the phone.
His face drained of colour as he listened and Aruna reached out to pat him on his arm. 'How can this happen? I sent...'
'I am really sorry Ram. I apologize unreservedly. The only good thing about it is that there are no great side effects from Sodium Pentothol. But Aruna still has to take an iron injection. I'll come tonight after work and give her the injection myself so she doesn't have to come back to the hospital.'
Ravi apologized again and finally Ramanujam put the phone back in his pocket. He took a deep breath and Aruna whispered, 'What is it? You are scaring me now.'
Ramanujam immediately smiled. 'No worries at all! It's just that the injection they gave you... well, it wasn't an iron supplement.'
Aruna frowned. 'So what was it?'
'Sodium... it was a truth serum.'
Aruna gasped and put a hand to her mouth. 'T..truth serum,' she said. 'Oh dear! What am I going to do?'
Ramanujam broke social convention and gave her a quick hug in public. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'Truth serum or no, when did you last tell a lie?'
Aruna thought about the client in the Marriage Bureau the previous day and how she had thought that they hadn't laughed at her because the only requirement she had for her son's bride was to be tall. They wouldn't laugh at whatever constraints a paying customer set, but... had either Mr Ali or Aruna herself actually said an untruth? They hadn't. It was a fact that any one requirement, however weird or wonderful, could mostly be satisfied. 'Shall we go back home?' she asked.
'Too late,' said Ramanujam, whispering, and indicated with his head towards the door that had just opened.
Aruna silently said the Gayatri Mantra, her standard prayer whenever she needed courage. She shouldn't be afraid of truth. Hadn't her father drilled into her the verse from the Upanishads: satyameva jayate nanrtam; satyena panthā vitato devayanah. Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood; through truth, the divine path reveals itself.
Still, she couldn't help being nervous as she stepped over the threshold into the house of the man whom they had to convince if her father-in-law's word to his dead mother was to be kept.
'Namaste Prasad Uncle,' said Ramanujam.
'Come in, take a seat,' said his uncle. Aruna looked at the man with interest. He had not come to their wedding, but had, instead, sent his youngest son – a calculated insult. She knew that he was a couple of years older than her father-in-law, but he appeared much younger, with dyed hair and luxuriant moustache. He was stocky and short, not much more than five and a half feet. Unlike her father-in-law who wore only white, his cousin wore a dark blue shirt and grey trousers. He looked Aruna up and down as if she was a prize cow at a cattle market. He turned to Ramanujam. 'When I heard that you had gone against your father's wishes and married a poor girl, I thought you had brought home an Apsara, a celestial beauty, but really, she is quite a normal looking girl.'
Ramanujam looked embarrassed but didn't say anything. Aruna bristled but kept quiet too. She had been brought up to not think too highly of her appearance. In fact, it was only after her marriage, that she had begun to think of herself as a physical being who delighted in her sensuality and in her husband's appreciation of her body. Prasad gestured and they sat down. 'How is your father?' he asked.
Ramanujam nodded. 'He is fine uncle.'
'We were good friends once upon a time and now he doesn't even come to visit me and instead sends his son and daughter-in-law.'
Aruna suddenly felt her tongue loosening. After all, for bad to flourish, doesn't it only require good to be silent? She didn't remember where she had read that, but she had definitely read it. And she could ignore insults against herself but not against her father-in-law, a man she respected almost as much as her father and Mr Ali. 'Well sir, you didn't come to your friend's son's wedding too. You sent your youngest son. At least my father-in-law sent his oldest son.'
Prasad looked at her in blank surprise for a second, and then frowned. 'When men are talking, well-bred ladies stay silent,' he said.
Ramanujam flashed his eyes at her. Be silent, he seemed to be saying. Remember, we have to get him to agree to sell the land to us. Aruna looked away. Was it the truth serum that was unlocking her tongue? O Lord Rama, what a dangerous situation she was in!
Prasad looked at Ramanujam. 'I am a busy man,' he said. 'Tell me what you've come for.'
'My husband is a doctor and a very busy man himself. And this is my one day off in the week, so we don't have much time to waste either,' said Aruna.
'Be silent, Aruna,' said Ramanujam softly. Aruna subsided with an almost-invisible sulk.
'We have heard that you are selling my mother's land,' said Ramanujam.
Prasad laughed. 'That reminds me of the Brahmin who went down to the river ghat one early morning for his bath and saw a walking stick floating by in the water. He picked it up and after his bath, as he reached for the stick, he knocked it by mistake and it fell into the water and started floating away. My stick, my stick, he started crying.'
Aruna liked the story. It was the kind of story that her father or Mr Ali would have related.
'I meant the land your father bought from my grandfather,' said Ramanujam.
'I know,' said Prasad. 'Why should I sell it to you? I have a number of buyers chasing after me.'
'We'll pay as well as anybody,' said Ramanujam.
'I am not even sure that I want to sell the land anyway.'
Ramanujam didn't know what to say to that. Aruna said, 'That's not what we heard, uncle. Apparently you've even contacted a broker.'
'Who told you that?' said Prasad. 'That's not true.'
'The broker contacted us,' said Aruna. 'He knew my father-in-law has always been interested in buying that land.'
Prasad shrugged. 'You know what brokers are like,' he said. 'At the sign of a deal they start swarming like flies round a sugarcane press. I was just exploring the possibility that's all. I don't need to actually sell the land.'
Aruna's inhibitions were now fully suppressed. 'Hasn't the Income Tax department raided you? My father-in-law was saying that they must have frozen all your accounts and assessed a huge amount of back taxes.'
'Don't talk to me about Income Tax,' said Prasad. His face turned a peculiar shade of purple and his moustache bristled. 'Leeches, that's what they are. They suck a hard-working man's blood dry. They don't have any respect for a man's position in society either. Do you know they made a mess of the whole house? Land and gold I can understand but they counted each of your aunt's saris too and put a value against them and said I had to pay tax.'
'My father is willing to pay immediate cash, uncle.'
Prasad leaned forwards.
'Your father and I go back a long way. We have been rivals most of that time. He got a cycle, I wanted a motorcycle. I bought a house, he wanted a mansion, and so it has been all our lives. A man who sells land is always less than the one who buys it, that's an ancient saying. So why should I sell my land to my old rival?'
Ramanujam said, 'But uncle....'
Prasad shook his head. 'I am sorry. My decision is final. You've come to my house as guests. Please eat something and go.'
Ramanujam got up. 'You are a busy man, uncle. I will not intrude.'
Aruna stood up reluctantly. 'You quote ancient sayings,' she said. 'Then you must know that compassion is a quality that is even bigger than mere prestige. You know why my father-in-law wants to buy the land back. It is no secret that his mother was most unhappy when her inheritance was sold away. It's in your power to fulfill a man's promise to his dying mother. So I don't understand what you mean by buyers and sellers of land. That's such a trivial consideration.'
Ramanujam held her by the elbow and hissed, 'Be silent, Aruna.'
Aruna turned on him. 'Why should I be silent? I am only telling the truth as I see it. Here is a man who can help his cousin and old friend and refuses to do so. It's not even as if he has to lose anything by doing so. He's selling the land anyway and your father will pay top price. I've been brought up to always respect elders but it's difficult when I see a man of advancing years behave in such a petty manner.' She faced Prasad again. 'The time when the balance of your good and bad deeds will be measured is not far away. Think about that and behave accordingly.'
Prasad stood up. His face was red, his cheeks puffed up. He pointed to the door and said, 'Get out of my house both of you and never darken this threshold again. Tell your father that as well. I am not going to be insulted by a slip of a woman in my own house. Who does she think she is? You and your father were both out of your minds when you brought this uncouth woman into our family. Get out.' He screamed the last words.