Then their voices fell silent.
I couldn’t take their depraved fantasies and their evil machinations against Boudi so I left to see Brahmi. I don’t know what happened in my absence but Boudi went into labour early. When I reached home, it was Arundhati who told me of it and Bhattacharya Uncle drove me to the hospital. It wasn’t as much a hospital but a ramshackle nursing home. Boudi was still under sedatives when I got to the hospital; the operation had been a long one. I saw Maa–Baba cradling a little boy to whom I was suddenly an uncle. It might be totally in my head but the boy looked like Dada from his baby pictures. When I held him I felt a rush of dopamine, a happiness I had only felt with Brahmi. I might have even cried a little. Then they took the baby and put him in a little crib. Maa–Baba stared at the crib and sobbed in happiness. They named the baby Anirban. I rushed to see Brahmi to give her the news. She hugged me, kissed me twice on my cheek, and told me how happy she was for me.
‘Is he cute?’
And for long, we talked about the baby. I didn’t know a minute with the baby could have given me an hour of material to talk about. I left Brahmi to see Anirban Jr again. Boudi was still under the effect of sedatives and the baby was in the crib next to her.
Maa–Baba spent the entire night in the hospital—I kept going to and fro, between Brahmi and Anirban Jr—after which Baba and I went home to get a change of clothes for Boudi. But once we were home, Baba packed not one change but almost all of Boudi’s clothes into a suitcase.
‘You don’t have to come to the hospital with me right now,’ he said. ‘We will come home with the baby.’
I nodded. When Baba left I went to see Brahmi, who expressed her desire to see the baby as well. ‘Soon,’ I told her. Sometime between all the baby talk, we would fall silent. We were both aware that the clock had started to tick. But neither of us mentioned it today. Today was a happy day. Till . . .
Baba had lied through his teeth. He came back home alone and without the suitcase. There was no Maa, there was no baby.
‘Where’s Boudi? Where’s Anirban?’
‘Maa’s taken Anirban away. Boudi is not going to be living here.’
Baba told me, as dispassionately as he could, that they couldn’t have allowed the boy to be raised by her, not after all that she had done. So they paid for her bills and left her there. Baba told me as if he was being benevolent, ‘We have also deposited enough money in her account to last years.’
‘For now, Maa has taken the child and gone to a relative’s and Zubeida won’t see the baby till she agrees to what we want.’
‘Which relative?’ I asked. ‘What do you want? How the hell could you—’
It was answered by a resounding slap.
‘You will go to jail for this,’ I shouted.
‘No, we won’t!’ Baba shouted back.
I tried to leave the house but I had forgotten how strong Baba is. He dragged me to my room and locked me inside.
‘WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?’ I shouted, my heart thumping out of my chest, disbelief and anger washing over me. How could Maa–Baba do this? What could they possibly want from Boudi? What kind of a monster rips a baby out of a new mother’s arms? And for what! FOR WHAT! What family am I born into? How damaged are they? I banged the door to no avail, screaming till I lost my voice. I heard the bell ring a few times so I knew my voice had reached out to the Bhattacharyas and the Mittals. But Baba drove them away. Brahmi must be waiting for me.
Boudi must be waiting for me.
Crushed, I slumped against the door. That’s when I heard a slight knocking from the other side of the door. It was Arundhati. I asked Arundhati to reach out to Brahmi, tell her about my house arrest. I skipped the details which would have made her uncomfortable. She, in turn, called Rishab who drove to Dada’s house and told Brahmi that I wouldn’t be coming any time soon. Rishab passed on the news to Arundhati, and questions of why I was locked up in my room, why was Brahmi was living in a squalid, wrecked apartment, and what the hell exactly was going on. I didn’t have the strength or the inclination to say anything so I crawled away from the wall, into a little ball, and felt like dying.
I’m waiting for Baba to open the door.
21 March 2000
Boudi was at the door today. She bawled and cried. I am still locked inside but I could hear every word that was being said outside. Like I had imagined, Boudi threatened Baba and Bhattacharya Uncle, who had been enlisted to Maa–Baba’s cause, with legal action. She couldn’t form complete sentences. She would break down after every word. I now know what Maa–Baba had wanted from Boudi.
Baba gave Boudi a simple choice: rethink her faith, and they would be happy to let her back into their lives, to be a mother, to be their daughter-in-law, live with them as their own. Baba promised—in what was his grandest speech of all time—that she would be loved and cared for, everything that has happened will be relegated to a forgotten drawer, and they would start a new life together.
Baba wasn’t just words. He had papers drawn up that said Boudi and Boudi alone, if and when she changes her religion, would be the sole heir to all that the Gangulys owned. Maa–Baba had put their money where their mouth was, they had committed their madness to paper, and they were convinced about going through with it. Baba broke down twice, like men do, while saying all that he had to say. In his endless impassioned speech he told Boudi that they never blamed her, only her religion and that unholy alliance, which has brought destruction to the Gangulys, and they can’t let that affect their grandson, there was too much at stake. He invoked his love and despair for his dead son, swore on Dada’s memories, and told Boudi that they would love her more than they love themselves. Boudi had cried profusely all through . . . muttering Anirban’s name again and again and again. The voices died down after a while. Boudi had gone.
In the afternoon, Baba unlatched the door to my room. When I walked out, Baba was surprised to see the bat in one hand, and a bag in the other. He came close and I swung. When the bat was in the air, in those few seconds, I realized I felt nothing for Maa–Baba. I hadn’t pulled back on my swing, all my familial love had drained out, nothing pulled me back. I was hitting a stranger, or an enemy. Pure, distilled hatred. The tie had snapped. There was no metaphorical umbilical cord between me and them.
I caught his arm. He staggered out of the way.
‘What will Maa think?’ he shouted.
‘I don’t care what you think!’ I shouted back. ‘Give Boudi her baby back. He is her son!’
‘We don’t care! He is our grandchild, he is Anirban’s son and she’s getting no one! NOT UNLESS SHE AGREES TO WHAT WE SAY!’ shouted Baba. ‘If you want to leave, you can leave! Go, do it! You haven’t made us proud. Don’t think we don’t know that you were there in his marriage to this . . . girl! GO! GO, wherever you want to go.’
