‘No, Rishab is here,’ she said and giggled.
‘I needed to talk to you. It’s im—’
‘Raghu? Rishab, my boyfriend, is here.’
‘So?’
‘So! You have to go! I will talk to you later!’ she said with a laugh and closed the door. I could hear her and her boyfriend, the boy I’d helped her meet, laugh from behind the door. I didn’t even want to think about what was happening behind the door. Disappointed, I walked back to my room and wrote a long letter to Brahmi, not knowing how it would reach her. After a point, I realized the futility of it and tore it. She’s gone. She doesn’t care. Had she cared she would have called and explained her absence. Sometimes in the nights, I just put the phone receiver to my ear and pretend she’s on the other side. I don’t talk, obviously. I’m not a lunatic. But I imagine what it would be like to talk to her like that again. I miss her with every fibre of my being, no matter how much I try not to.
Today both Bhattacharya Uncle and Mittal Uncle were at home, telling Baba how inter-religion and inter-caste marriages are the ruin of mankind.
Mittal Uncle said, ‘Do you think what’s written in the ancient books is all dung? No? It means something. That’s why the child in your daughter-in-law’s stomach is giving so many problems. It’s unholy.’
Bhattacharya Uncle was milder. ‘Every race is different,’ he said.
Later I was asked to fetch a mixer-grinder from Didimaa’s house. I had planned a quick in and out but Mama wasn’t home and I had to wait for him to come back. Didimaa welcomed me with a laugh that chilled me to my bones. She smelt my despair and kept asking me if the ruin of the Gangulys had come yet. She asked me to make her tea. I pretended to not hear her. The angrier she became the more it gladdened me.
I held on to my silence till she suddenly screamed, ‘Yes! Yes! Laugh at the old woman! Why wouldn’t you! Be happy, Raghu, celebrate, eat mangsho and paesh, because a dark time is upon you! A very dark time! You two brothers will never be happy. Never!’
I turned to look at her. Her glare bore into me.
‘Ah! I’m right!’ she continued in her evil prophetic tone. ‘The brothers will never reconcile. Only death, only death will make you brothers again. Now, the kid looks at me! And why not? He’s scared now. He’s shaking in his bones. And why shouldn’t he? There’s a life at stake.’
I wondered who had told her about the scare a couple of days ago.
‘Not to the child,’ Didimaa screamed, waving her bony fingers at me. ‘But to your Dada! What did you brothers think? Both of you will love and have a fulfilling life after how your Maa and you boys treated your Didimaa? No, no! I cursed you and your brother long back! Didn’t your Maa tell you? I told that petni that both her sons will fall in love and die young! Both! And see, that’s what happening . . . your elder brother married death itself! And you’re going the same way. Falling in love, destroying yourself! Who can turn fate?’
‘Fuck off, Didimaa,’ I said.
I knew she didn’t know what I had just said and maybe that’s why I said it.
‘Asking me to keep my mouth shut? Sure! Do that! But no one can stop what’s happening. The beginning of your end is nigh. The girl in your life and the woman in his will take both of you to your graves! So go! Fall in love! And end the Ganguly bloodline once and for all! It’s fate!’ said Didimaa and started to scream and laugh.
I couldn’t take it any more so I left. Had I stayed I would have smacked Didimaa. But now as I am writing this, her voice rings loudly in my ears.
6 January 2000
When I woke up, I found Dada smoking next to me on the balcony.
‘You have been out for two hours,’ he told me. ‘Should we go inside?’
I nodded groggily.
Dada and I sat silently in front of each other for the good part of an hour. He didn’t want an explanation for my ludicrous behaviour, which to him probably wasn’t absurd at all. I had seen him during the time he thought his story had met with an untimely end and if anything he looked way worse than I do.
To cheer me up, or at least fill up my time, Dada–Boudi took me out to eat to Gola in Connaught Place. For the most part, they spoke, joked, laughed and hoped I would join in but I had nothing to say. Their smiles and their happiness irritated me.
‘I don’t want to talk in clichés,’ said Boudi. ‘But at least you can be happy that you felt something strong, something real. Not a lot of people can claim that now, can they?’
‘I don’t see how that’s reassuring.’
Dada slapped my back and said, ‘A few years down the line when you get over her, I will ask Zubeida to set you up with one of her cousins.’
‘Preferably someone who’s as religious as she is,’ I said.
‘Maa will be so happy,’ said Boudi and laughed. ‘She will love us!’
And then we all cracked up.
