I turned to where she pointed. On the balcony, Richa had been staring at us. She saw me and disappeared inside the house.
‘A neighbour.’
‘I will see you tomorrow?’ she said.
‘Brahmi? There’s something I wanted to ask you.’
‘What?’
‘What do your parents do?’
‘Is that important for you to know?’
‘Me? Not really,’ I said and realized how stupid it must have sounded. ‘Maa asked me a few days ago. Never mind. I will see you tomorrow.’
‘They are both engineers,’ she said.
Today was a quieter day. I wasn’t cursed and neither were Dada and Boudi. They maintained a steely silence and apart from being chided for leaving the light on in the bathroom, no words were exchanged between Maa–Baba and me.
16 July 1999
Maa–Baba were home when I got back and like the past few days, they ignored my presence. I coughed lightly. I have taken to coughing quiet frequently now, hoping Maa would show some concern, maybe think that I’m suffering from a mild strain of tuberculosis, realize the folly of her ways and apologize for the treatment that’s been meted out. Either way, she has to do something because their behaviour is tellingly hypocritical. Because if they hated their sons so much then why were they still obsessing over Dada’s marriage?
Today both of them hovered nervously around the telephone expecting a call. An hour later the phone rang and Maa put it on loudspeaker.
‘Mr Chatterjee! We were waiting for your call. How are you?’
An old, cracked voice answered from the other side, ‘I’m good, I’m good. I studied your son and daughter-in-law’skundlis. I am afraid I have some bad news.’
‘What?’ asked Baba.
The man sighed on the other end. ‘Anirban will have a troublesome marriage. I don’t see it lasting long. You can do a puja to remedy it but the girl—’
Maa cheered up and interrupted. ‘Anything else?’
‘I don’t know if I should tell you,’ the old man croaked with the air of an oracle.
‘Please tell us,’ said Baba.
‘I see another problem.’
‘What kind of problem?’ asked Maa.
‘If they choose to have a child, it might not survive the first two years,’ the man said. ‘You couldn’t give me the exact time of birth of the girl so I could be wrong.’
Maa–Baba asked me to leave the room.
Later Maa came to my room to give out a single-line instruction.
‘Ask Dada not to bring a child into this world.’
17 July 1999
Maa is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I’m not saying that because I’m her son. Even till a couple of years back she used to be mistaken for Dada’s gorgeous elder sister. Both Dada and I used to be proud and embarrassed about that. In PTA meetings, not only was Maa the most beautiful mother, she was also always the smartest, her confidence and poise unmatched. Her spoken English and Hindi, between which she switches comfortably, is better than mine or Dada’s.
But today morning, she looked like a ghost, her skin pale, fingers gangly and her hair sparse. She sat beside the landline, waiting for it to ring. It was Maa’s birthday today. Every year, no matter how hard I tried, it was Dada who wished her first. I peeped out from my room for half an hour, hopelessly willing the landline to ring. For a large part of the past few weeks, Maa–Baba kept the phone unhooked to avoid Dada’s calls, who called us often despite Baba’s reprimands.
The phone didn’t ring.
