‘So should you.’
‘Taiji has gone to her mother’s. I had to cook. Were you worried?’ she asked.
‘Why would I be worried?’
‘Is that why you were outside for the last few days?’
‘I was absolutely not here. I hope you can sense the sarcasm in my voice.’
‘From a mile away,’ she said and asked me to wait till she dropped off the clothes. We found a secluded spot where her neighbours couldn’t spot us. ‘I called Vedant. He told me he might find me a job. I will leave this house and never look back!’ she said and clutched my hand.
‘Your parents? School?’
‘Mummy–Papa will have to understand. I will see when it comes to that,’ she said, eyes brimming with hope and recklessness.
‘Can’t you ask for money from them?’
‘Tauji–Taiji won’t allow it. If I ask for help, they will drag me by my hair back to the house. I don’t want to depend on them for my happiness. They should have helped me when there was still time,’ she said, and for the first time I noticed a tinge of disappointment in her voice for her parents whom I absolutely hated.
‘You have thought this through?’ I asked, my cowardice bubbling forth. Would I be willing to leave the security of a household—no matter how abusive—and venture out alone in the world? Find a job? Earn to eat, to survive, to stare at a future which is hardly so? Every class I had attended till now, every test I had taken had been geared towards success not survival. Jobs were a means to a career not sustenance. And here she was, talking in a language so brave that it was scary.
‘Hmmm.’
‘You’re frowning.’
‘You won’t be in school. You can’t expect me to be 100 per cent happy.’
‘But I will finally be able to leave this house.’
‘And that’s why I’m about 80 per cent happy. How’s this Vedant person? I want to meet him,’ I said.
She laughed and said, ‘What are you going to do exactly? Charge at him with a rod?’
‘This time I won’t miss.’
‘You’re sweet,’ she said. ‘Now go back home and start going to school. Both of us can’t be illiterate, can we?’
‘So has the school seen the last of you?’
‘Believe you me, it’s only you who will miss me.’
I came back home to find Maa–Baba shouting at each other, their voices carrying to the ground floor. I was asked to go to my room and I couldn’t make out what they were saying but it went on for an hour. Baba left for his tuition centre in the evening and Maa started packing her bags.
‘Maa? Where are you going?’
‘To see Dada. I can’t keep up with your Baba’s madness. If he wants to keep away from his son, it’s his choice, but I won’t!’
‘It was your choice too, Maa.’
‘But I’m a mother. How long does he expect me to stay away from him?’
‘So?’
‘I can’t stay away from my son,’ she said. ‘Get out of my way. I’m going to miss my train to Bangalore.’
I was sitting on a pile of Maa’s clothes, a little dazed to be honest, to see Maa’s quivering lips, trembling fingers, and her sudden change of heart.
She said, ‘What happened has happened. Your Dada broke our hearts but what kind of parents will we be if we don’t forgive him?’
