‘I see her office papers lying around, I see bills of places they go to without telling us. They lie through their teeth about everything,’ said Maa.
Baba shook his head and his shoulders drooped, more disappointed than angry. As if he knew his anger now meant nothing. Not only had he lost to his son, he had lost his wife to hate too.
‘Did you notice those framed verses of the Quran she has put up everywhere?’ asked Maa.
Baba said, ‘It’s your son’s fault too. When was the last time he prayed at the temple you set up for him? Does he even light an incense stick?’
I stood there pretending I was to listening to my songs on the Walkman as Maa–Baba kept cursing their wretched luck.
‘Look at how sweet she is right now. She has cast a spell on my son. What do you think she would do to our grandchild?’ said Maa.
‘What about the prayers the child hears five times a day?’ asked Baba angrily. ‘What do you think she is trying to do?’
‘I won’t let her pray near my grandchild. You just see! This girl thinks too much of herself! Took our son away, turned him against us . . . How much more do you think I will suffer? No, enough, this girl will see what I can do. I will not be helpless. I will bring up the child, you see. She can do all her career stuff for all I care.’ Maa started to sob softly. ‘You just see what I do.’
‘Ei, hey,’ said Baba. ‘Talk softly and don’t do anything stupid. All that you have done for the past few months will go down the drain.’
‘I don’t know how much longer I can take this. How long can I pretend that everything is okay? That I love Anirban the same! I don’t! Which mother would? Why do you think Raghu is like this now? All because of that Anirban.’
Baba sighed deeply. ‘Don’t you think I feel like slapping him every day? Strutting around his wife everywhere.’
‘How much long—’
Maa started to weep softly. Baba held Maa and said, ‘Just wait till she delivers. Just a few more days. It’s either this or our son lets our grandchild grow up as a Musalman.’
‘Over my dead body. You see how I teach this girl a lesson once our grandchild is here,’ said Maa.
‘Hmmm . . .’ said Baba. ‘What about that other girl? Brahmi?’
‘She has left him,’ said Maa. ‘Thank god for that. She wasn’t even beautiful from what I hear, that shakchunni.’
Back in the room, I curled into a little ball when the pain became physical.
22 January 2000
I saw Brahmi today. It sounds innocuous if I put it like that. I waited for three mornings outside her office. It wasn’t a decision based on reason. It was what my body, my heart and my mind yearned for. I struggle for words to describe what it was like. Maybe a little like burning, like everything was on fire, and only she could quell it. It sounds silly I know but that’s the closest to how I felt.
Maa–Baba’s brilliant acting rankles me. Their sweet behaviour is a lie. They never had had a change of heart. If anything, their hearts had only rotted further. Their concern wasn’t how Dada will cope with a child, or how they’d lose their son if they didn’t accept him, they were driven by the fear that their grandchild might be a Nazia or an Abdul.
Everything is a lie.
I was outside her office to know if ‘Brahmi and I’ too were a lie. If she too had lied to me about how she felt about our love.
‘Raghu! What are you doing here?’
‘Why are you surprised to see me? I dropped in a message a few days ago. To call on a number.’
‘Oh yes, I have been meaning to call you but—’
‘But you’re too busy? Too much work? New friends? New boyfriend?’
‘Why are you being like that?’
‘If none of the things I just said are true then why haven’t you come to visit me?’
‘Do you want to have tea?’ she asked, her voice losing the fake happiness she had mustered to talk to me.
My fury only multiplied on our walk to the nearby tea vendor.
