‘What? No! Why are you asking?’
‘I just checked the telephone bill from the last month . . . there was a number he has called from the phone. It’s a Bangalore number.’
‘Oh, must be the office number, no?’ I said.
‘I checked the area code. It’s not around his office. I called the number too. It was someone’s house, a girl’s,’ she said.
‘Must be a colleague?’
‘Zubeida. Have you heard of that name? You will tell me if you know something?’ she asked, her face twisting as the Muslim name rolled off her tongue.
‘Of course.’
‘You kids are growing up so fast,’ she said wistfully. She let go to my hand and left.
I can’t sleep now. Things are going to change. They have already been set in motion and I fear the worst. I have already lost Brahmi who believes I think as shallowly about love as the others, I just lied to Maa about Dada, and Dada’s gone to get his to-be Musalman wife.
I feel like the mutineers of 1857 who were strapped to canons to be blown to pieces. What must have gone through their heads in their last moment? When they smelt the gunpowder and the match being struck. That. I feel exactly that.
P.S. 250 home owners got possession of an apartment building near my house. It’s nine-storeys high. Just saying.
1 June 1999
It has been three days since Maa sniffed out Dada’s secret and hasn’t left the house since then. I wanted to warn Dada before Maa caught him in his lie. Dada came back today afternoon looking worse. Before I could tell him, he stared dead straight at me and said, ‘I’m telling them about Zubeida.’
‘Maa knows,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maa asked me if I knew about any girl named Zubeida in Bangalore. She saw the STD number on the bill. Why would you call from the house phone? You could have called from the market.’
‘That doesn’t matter any more. I’m telling Maa–Baba that I want to get married to her.’
‘What if they don’t agree?’
‘They will have to. I will tell them I love her and that I can’t live without her. I shouldn’t have to make this choice. And if I have to make one, I will pick Zubeida. As you said before, I held her hand, I told her I loved her. And what kind of a man would I be if I went back on that? I’m getting married to her. I am telling them tomorrow.’
He locked himself in the room. I wished I could call Brahmi but that option was thrown out of the window.
2 June 1999
It’s all coming to an end.
The Gangulys will never be the same.
Dada’s betrayal of the Gangulys will rank over Mir Jafar’s selling our beloved Bengal and, in consequence, India to the British, over Judas’ poison kiss to Jesus, over Brutus’ knife, and over the hunchback Ephialtes’ betrayal of the band of brothers at the battle of Thermopylae.
Years of unconditional love laid waste.
Zubeida Quaze was our Cyril Radcliffe, the man who fashioned two countries, India and Pakistan, out of one. And on hearing the news the Gangulys crumbled like pre-Partition India did—in disbelief, tears, disappointment and then violence. Zubeida Quaze, like a pebble flying at a high velocity, smashed against us, once a strong windshield with a clear future, leaving behind spiderweb-like cracks and a cloudy way ahead.
Only a few sentences had been exchanged when I was sent to my room. I had my ears pinned to the door and occasionally peeped through the doors. I could only hear little snippets of the conversation that fractured our family in a matter of minutes.
‘What’s the problem if I get married to her? I love her! There’s no other way,’ Dada was saying.
Maa was crying, her voice like a dying animal. She said, ‘We strictly told you. No Musalmans! Chhee chhee! I won’t let a Musalman girl step into this house! Over my dead body! Is she ready to convert? Will she be a Hindu like us?’
‘Why will she do that Maa? Maa, I will die without her, and she without me. We can’t live without each other. We can’t even imagine such a life. Why don’t you understand that, Maa?’
