‘No, she doesn’t. She’s happy wherever she is. She has found new friends and a new family. She doesn’t need your benevolence any more. Her past is in the past.’
‘Raghu—’
‘Please, Maa! You don’t know how they are. They swung a bat on my face, knocked out a tooth, threatened that they would make me disappear. That’s the kind of people they are.’
Her Tauji–Taiji stood up to leave.
‘We didn’t come here to be sounded off by yourbadtameez, ill-mannered, boy,’ he grumbled.
‘We are sorry,’ said Baba. ‘We don’t know what’s got into him.’
‘We thought you would understand us,’ said her Taiji. ‘After all your son had run away too.’
Maa–Baba looked like they had been slapped.
‘She’s not coming home,’ I said. ‘If you want to keep up pretences, she can visit your house along with Vedant and me every two weeks for the society to see that the relationship still exists.’
They stared at me, nodded reluctantly, and left. The door hadn’t even closed when Baba griped, ‘The next time you embarrass us like this in front of guests, I’m going to smack you in the face. They didn’t do anything wrong by hitting a girl like her.’
Maa added softly, ‘Ask him about the condom.’
I turned and left, furious at Maa–Baba’s endorsement of her Tauji–Taiji’s behaviour. Later that night, I dreamt of Boudi’s delivery and the newborn girl and Maa–Baba’s hovering faces over the crib. Only that they looked like Brahmi’s Tauji–Taiji. I woke up and now I can only hear myself say what I said to them. ‘She doesn’t need you. She has a new family. She has new friends.’
24 December 1999
She was leaning on her scooter, the helmet still on her head. That’s how I found her. I felt like Maa. Tears dammed against the cornea, angry tears, tears that make you want to stride over and slap the person for going missing. How long can a person go missing for a relationship to be considered null and void? One month? Two months? Or is it an indefinite time? I’m asking because I need to know. If Brahmi goes missing for three years and comes back equally in love, what should be the ideal course of action? Of course, there will be some anger, frustration, arguments and counterarguments, but in the end all’s well that ends well? Because time is relative, it stretches and contracts, and right now every day I spend staring at the phone is longer than a millennium.
But of course, till the time I was walking up to her scooter, the tears were in control and I was smiling because she was still my most favourite person in the world. She parked her scooter and ran towards me. She lunged at me and wrapped her arms around me in a desperate embrace. I thought she was taller and heavier.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered continuously in my ear till all my grouses washed away.
She drove us to Naivedyam, a south Indian restaurant, a fifteen-minute drive away, and insisted I order a lot of food. It was the treat of her first salary. While I ate she played around with her food, nibbling around the edges. I filled her in on the details of Boudi’s pregnancy, about Maa–Baba’s growing fear that Dada–Boudi will do something to harm the child, and Maa’s spying on Boudi to see if she’s still talking to her parents. She nodded most of the time, interested but not engaged. She had nothing to say, nothing to add. She was barely even there. So I turned the conversation to her.
‘What about your friends? Did you make any?’
‘I haven’t had the time,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t paying Vedant so I was doing all the housework after office.’
‘There’s something I wanted to tell you. About your Tauji—’
‘I met them. They told me what they said.’
‘You met them? Why?’ I asked.
‘To pay them.’
‘Pay them what? Last respects?’
‘Don’t be like that, Raghu. I gave them half my salary.’
I felt sucker-punched. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘They’ve brought me up, fed me, clothed me and sent me to a school. This is the least I could do.’
‘The least you could do was to report them to the police. Paying them half your salary is stupid.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Can I ask you about—’
