‘Are we friends?’ I asked.
‘Are we not?’
‘Does it mean we have another person to worry about?’ I asked.
‘That’s for you to decide.’
‘And you?’
‘You ask too many questions,’ she said. ‘Do you want to go somewhere?’
She hadn’t waited for my answer and didn’t tell me where we were going.
‘Since when have you been doing this?’
‘Eighth standard, I was late to school and I wandered around the entire day. One of the happiest days of my life,’ she said.
An hour later we were at Nehru Planetarium, our seat reclining, under the stars. I didn’t ask why we were here and she didn’t tell. What she did tell me was about the compost project she’s working on which was our pretext for going missing today. For an hour we travelled around the sun and cruised around constellations and sometimes looked at each other. She pointed and explained to me things she thought I wouldn’t get. ‘Do you want to be an astronaut?’ I asked her on our way back.
‘No, I just like to think things beyond this world we see exist,’ she said.
In the evening, Maa was happy to see the lunch box licked clean. Right now I am now thinking how alone Shahrazad is.
17 April 1999
From what Maa tells me, Baba was an accomplished playwright and an incredible actor in college. That one time in college he wrote a play in Sanskrit. None of the other actors in the cast could keep up with the words or intonations or Baba’s strict instructions. Rather than scrapping the play, he played all the roles himself!
‘There were only three girls and two boys in the audience and yet he performed like the world was watching, huffing and puffing around the stage, changing voices, genders, even costumes,’ Maa would tell us.
‘Then what?’ Dada and I would ask, listening to Maa–Baba’s love story for the umpteenth time.
‘I was so taken by your Baba’s performance. It’s then that I first thought of getting married to him. He was a force on the stage. He could have been a politician, I have always told your Baba that.’
I have no doubt. Dada and I have seen him in action both as sons and students. Parents all across north and west Delhi, and beyond, seek him out to teach their children Sanskrit and English. He tells stories and fables in his class, holding every child’s attention. He was like the Pied Piper before but infinitely more powerful and capable of raising an army of children voicing his opinions, repeating verbatim after him. Age has mellowed him down somewhat. But his very propensity to perform, to enthral, is often an embarrassment, like it was today.
‘I liked the lady,’ grumbled Baba about Jayalalithaa, the charismatic chief minister of Tamil Nadu, pointing at the television, veins popping in his neck. ‘But look what she has done!’
‘Ishh, turn the volume down,’ said Maa, nudging Baba.
‘Turn the volume down? The country’s government just fell and you want me to sip tea and eat mutton chops! Is that what you want me to do?’
‘I want you to stop discussing politics with our guests,’ said Maa.
In the audience were our new neighbours, B.B. Bhattacharya, his wife, Shanta Bhattacharya, and their daughter, Arundhati Bhattacharya. They had shifted into the flat next to ours just a day before. They are a lovely family—arrogant yet humble, rich but understated, beautiful but unassuming. We on the other hand were a bunch of people with megaphones strapped to our mouths.
‘We are so lucky they are Bengalis,’ Maa had chimed yesterday when the loaders unloaded their furniture. ‘I will call tomorrow.’
And so, here they were. While Bhattacharya Uncle and Baba argued about Jayalalithaa, I stole glances at Arundhati, who had carried a thick book with her. Maa’s eyes had lit up seeing Arundhati when she walked in. She is a studious-looking, bite-sized, feet-touching, nice Bengali girl—a Bengali mother’s prize.
‘Dada, you tell me?’ Baba continued, addressing Mr Bhattacharya. ‘Does it make any sense? If only Atalji had one more vote, we wouldn’t have elections again. Does Jayalalithaa not know how much it costs the country to hold elections again? What a leader! Bringing a no-confidence motion against the government when the country is already so weak.’
Bhattacharya Aunty butted in, ‘She topped the tenth board examinations in Tamil Nadu. So—’
‘I know, Boudi. But what did she do with it? She went into the movies!’
‘She was a big hit,’ Aunty said.
‘I know! That only shows how much these politicians want fame and money!’
