‘I’m sorry. Did I say too much? I will not. You can go. I’m sorry to have stopped you.’
‘. . .’
‘I just wanted to tell you that I will be there if you need me.’
‘. . .’
‘Unlike you who just walked away.’
‘. . .’
‘Of course, you have your reasons.’
‘. . .’
‘And you don’t need me. You have your brother to take care of you.’
‘. . .’
‘Bye. I love you. I’m sorry. I will just go now.’
She reached out for my hand and hugged me. We cried in tandem for a bit, which was liberating. Then she left without a promise of when she would be back to see me again. I couldn’t bring myself to ask that one thing that was gnawing my insides—why does she lie to people about her parents?
11 December 1999
I don’t want to be a whiner but eight days have passed and I haven’t seen her or talked to her. How difficult can it be to pick up the phone at a PCO and call? If his brother spends so lavishly, I’m sure he can pay for a few odd phone calls. What if she has found someone among the people whom she called ‘we’? Or am I thinking too much?
That one time Maa went to Madras for a teaching assignment, Maa–Baba used to talk just once for a few minutes every week. Dada and I have heard the stories scores of times, especially when the telephone bills are high.
‘What’s there to talk about every day?’ Baba used to scoff. ‘Maa and I used to get two minutes a week! So we chose to say things that were really important.’
This isn’t much different. Just because local calls are cheap, and technology is where it is today, I can’t afford to be spoilt.
So I’ve decided that starting today, I will try to be more interested in things Sahil has to say about coding or hacking or whatever he does with the PowerBook, and be more involved in the fights Rishab and Arundhati often find themselves in.
Charity begins at home, and so keeping that in mind, I volunteered to take Boudi for a scan at the nursing home. Dada was suitably impressed when he found out.
I wasn’t allowed inside the scan room but later they showed me images of the baby who had grown to the size of a hardcover novel.
‘During the scan, they make you listen to the heartbeat as well,’ said Boudi. ‘It beats faster than ours.’
‘Don’t you feel betrayed? The least a child you helped bring into this world can do is match your heartbeat.’
‘You’re missing her that much, haan?’ asked Boudi.
‘Wouldn’t you miss your—hopefully—daughter when she is no longer inside you? From where you’re responsible for everything about her, where when she suffers you suffers, to when suddenly strangers who don’t know the pain you and your child jointly suffered mollycoddle her, love her, and she finds comfort in their arms, laughter and smiles, her memories of your womb a distant past? Won’t you miss her then?’
‘That’s a really strange but deep analogy,’ said Boudi slowly.
‘I’m as surprised as you are.’
When I came back, Maa–Baba had a thousand questions about the visit. Dada had put a temporary ban on Maa–Baba visiting the nursing home with Boudi for their appalling behaviour in front of the doctor, after the doctor called Maa–Baba out on their blatantly superstitious beliefs regarding Boudi’s pregnancy. They had fought with the doctor, called her incompetent, and the nursing home a fraudulent institution.
13 December 1999
Just like that time Maa–Baba had spent apart, another intermittent call came from Brahmi today. She called from the office landline and the call lasted less than three minutes. But three minutes is a lot I have heard Maa–Baba say, and you really can say the most important things to each other in those three minutes. And even though I didn’t know when or whether she would call at all, I had prepared what I could say in those three minutes. Things that mattered, things we would remember telling each other years later.
I could have told her how Maa–Baba were furious to know that Boudi had chosen to travel to Bangalore for a day on work. How Maa had blocked the door and screamed, ‘No, you won’t go! You’re not putting my grandchild at risk. I don’t care what the doctor says. She’s a fraud!’
