Indian Maidens Bust Loose, page 32
“But we know she wasn’t lost in the flood,” said the man. “She was seen by some after the waters receded.”
“What’s her name?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Chikki.”
Naani slapped her cheeks, jumped up and rushed to her room.
The couple looked alarmed. I assured them Naani was perfectly sane, and there was a reason for her behavior. The reason appeared, looking sleepy, a hand in Naani’s.
“Chikki?” said the woman.
Chikki’s eyes popped open. “Amma?”
The reunion brought tears to everyone’s eyes.
“We think we know who abducted Chikki,” I told the parents, once the hugging had leveled off, and the story of finding Chikki had been told. “We caught a rickshaw driver and a woman trying to take her again.”
“Ugly people, with bad teeth,” said Naani.
“Sunitha and Rajiv!” exclaimed the man. “I was right! Sunitha was my wife’s brother’s maid, and her husband Rajiv drove a rickshaw.”
“They disappeared after the flood,” explained the woman, “and it was only after we learned they were not among the victims that we connected them to Chikki being missing and began trying to find them. We came close, but they always slipped away.”
“We needed luck, and that’s why we came to see the cow.”
That explained Chikki’s lack of Gujarati and Hindi. Her abductors had been nomadic, probably arriving in Ahmedabad recently.
“I have the rickshaw plate number,” said Naani. “You can find them now.”
The man drove his fist into his hand. I had a feeling the Chikki-snatching couple would soon have fewer bad teeth.
“No one could understand Chikki,” I explained, “so it was hard to find out much about her.”
The man and woman laughed. “We have trouble, too,” said the man. “Telugu is my first language, Bengali is my wife’s. Chikki’s playmate next door to our home spoke Oriya, and the maid talked to her in Nepali, just to keep in practice. Chikki speaks some of all.” He made a mixing motion with his hand.
That sounded like what I was getting from life—a lot of talk and not much understanding.
Chikki’s parents told of their search for their daughter, and how they had pretty much lost everything. The man had been fired from his job for taking too much time off. The woman was a nurse, and so wasn’t paid well.
Naani assured them they could find better-paying jobs in Ahmedabad and that she would make room for them until they found a place. She sounded selfless, but I knew she didn’t want to say goodbye to Chikki. What had Damini’s horoscope for Naani said? An act of kindness will bring years of joy? Possibly that would happen. I couldn’t blame Naani for wanting it. Now that having Chikki around was no longer a danger to the family—or what was left of it—I could see her as a pretty, well-behaved little girl, and I couldn’t hope for more than to someday have a daughter like her.
The couple, along with Chikki, departed to pick up their suitcases, leaving Naani and me to reflect on the small miracle we had just witnessed.
“Kamadhenu makes some magic,” said Naani.
“Happy magic.” It occurred to me that the same thing could be said for the old photos in the basement, or the chief officer’s choice of off-duty recreation, or the cousins’ purchase of a wrist watch. Each thing led to something else, and so forth, until something big happened. But I had to admit that Chikki’s happy ending had a fairy tale quality that was special. I would have given just about anything to be the subject of such an ending.
Chapter 42
Future Shock
Naani and I had just finished clearing the table when Ma came down the stairs, looking like a woman with a mission.
She stopped to eye my outfit, but said nothing. Then off she went, humming a tune and leaving me to wonder what was next.
Having nothing better to do, I stepped out into the front yard. It bore scars from serving as a one-cow stockyard, but was at least empty and quiet. And a little sad. It had served as the site of a miracle, and now it was nothing but a small patch of neglected ground. Its moment of greatness had passed. I realized that my contribution to the miraculous event—an act of blackmail and some liters of urine—was also receding into the past. To be replaced by what?
The minutes passed, my mind doing nothing in particular with them, then a car came down the street and stopped in front of the house. A young man and woman got out and started up the pathway. I recognized the man as Ashok, the thwarted suitor, but the woman...could it be? It was my own sister, all but unrecognizable in tasteful clothing and minus glasses. And with makeup!
“Vinita?”
“Mrs. Vinita Sharma,” corrected Vinita, holding out her rings for inspection.
“But when?”
“Yesterday. I’m sorry you weren’t there, but there wasn’t much of a ceremony, anyway.”
“Just the bare bones,” said Ashok, looking adoringly at Vinita. They both laughed.
I gathered the wedding night had gone well, with no formula solving needed. “So your secret romance paid off. Just like in Love in the Shadows.”
“Probably not as dramatic,” said Vinita. “But very nice. I have a job, too, at the company where Ashok works. I start next week.” Then, with a sly smile, “Connections, you know.”
“Congratulations on all counts.”
Vinita’s smile changed to a look of concern. “But what about you, Nisha? What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I’ll finally get into journalism.”
“Of course you will. Nothing stopping you now.” Vinita looked warily at the house. “Is Ma inside?”
“No. She just left to go somewhere.”
“Good,” said Vinita. “I want to tell Naani.”
They went inside and I sat down on the step. Was there no end to new developments? It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that India and Pakistan had made peace and were becoming one nation again. It would have surprised me to learn that any new event benefited me. If charged, I would have had to plead guilty to self-pity.
Vinita and Ashok left after making me promise to visit them as soon as they were settled in their own flat. Naani and I watched them drive away.
“Nice-nice ending,” she said.
“Yes, very nice.” I was perfectly sincere, but Vinita’s success did little to cheer me. I decided to move the rest of my things back to my room, as a form of work therapy.
I was struggling up the stairs with the last load when Naani called to me. Ma had returned with a new hairdo, a fancy salwar kameez in place of the sari, and a rickshaw full of purchases. Naani and I helped her tote the bags inside.
“New things for all days,” said Ma, as we dumped the items on the dining table.
I thought Ma would have got a washing machine before splurging on clothes, but perhaps I was witnessing the new, transformed, “what about me?” Ma. Certainly the happier Ma.
With everyone seemingly content, I began thinking about getting my own life in order. Obstacles had been removed, so surely I could make some progress. No reason that I could see to delay the process. But Ma had other plans for the day.
“We have to go somewhere,” she said.
“Move, you mean?”
“No, we just go somewhere to see someone.”
That was pretty vague, but I couldn’t get more information out of her. She was quite insistent, so I agreed. It would be nice to get out of the house. Just as we stepped outside, I thought of something. I rushed back down to the basement, snatched up the romance album, and stuffed it into a large handbag. I rejoined Ma, and we went out to hail a rickshaw.
We traveled for a minute in silence, then Ma spoke.
“Funny how you wait a long time, no hope, much regret about the wrong choice, and then the circle is made.”
“Things come full circle?”
“Yes. Funny also, how the cow business brings someone from long time ago.”
The connection was lost on me, but it was obviously important to Ma.
“Just who are we going to see?”
Ma didn’t answer immediately, and when she did, she was looking out the rickshaw’s side opening. “Your father.”
“Not Papa.”
“No.”
“Oh.” That took a minute to absorb. Then the pieces fell into place. Yesterday, when Ma had dressed up and rushed outside, it was because she had seen her former lover, True Papa.
I couldn’t imagine how they managed to conduct a reunion under False Papa’s eyes, but they must have been good actors. Or was it a reunion? Yes, it had to be, for I didn’t think Ma would have been so sullen for all those years had there been someone besides Papa in her life. I wished I had been quicker to catch on and find out who he was. At least what he looked like.
“Tell me about him,” I said.
Ma shook her head. “You meet him soon enough.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I was sure about one thing. Ahead on the right side of the street was what I was looking for. “I need to stop here.”
Ma looked surprised. “Here?”
“Just for a minute.”
Ma told the driver to stop. I got out of the rickshaw and crossed the street. There, in front of me, was the dump where we had found Chikki. A cow stood off to one side, watching me. I took the romance album out of the handbag and opened it to a particularly ugly quartet of suitors. “Goodbye, Papa. To you and all your suitor picks.” I leafed through to Sachin’s photo. “Goodbye, Sachin. I hope your boat sinks.”
I closed the album and flung it with all my might. It sailed high and far, landing in the center of the dump. The cow ambled slowly toward it.
“A goodbye?” said Ma, when I returned to the rickshaw.
“Yes.”
Twenty minutes later we were riding the elevator in a hotel. Goodbye was about to be replaced with hello. I would soon be having a conversation with my real father, in that capacity. I was more than a little nervous.
The elevator doors opened and we headed down a hall.
“So many years,” said Ma. “But I am not old, no?”
“No, you aren’t.”
“The hotel was Milind’s idea. Near where he works. And not uncomfortable.”
I assumed she meant the setting, not the furniture. Neutral ground.
Ma stopped in front of a door and rang the bell. I heard cushioned footsteps and felt my heart climb into my throat. Then the door opened, and there stood...Mr. Rathod!
“Hello, Nisha,” he said.
I turned to Ma. “This is Ashni’s father!”
“Yes.”
“Please come in,” said Mr. Rathod. “We have so much to talk about.”
Ma and I entered, taking our places on a settee, while Mr. Rathod chose a chair. I suddenly realized the feeling of familiarity I had experienced when I saw Mr. Rathod during my visit to the bookstore wasn’t due just to a father and daughter similarity. It was the photo in the basement, the two couples. The same Milind. “All this time I’ve been going to your bookstore...”
“No, no,” said Mr. Rathod. “After my wife died, a little over two years back, I moved here from Mumbai and opened my bookstore. I didn’t know Meena was in Ahmedabad.”
“And I don’t know he is here, either,” said Ma. “Not until the other day.”
“Yes. Imagine my surprise when I find the newspaper picture.”
Imagine my surprise at discovering my long-standing Papa assumption was wrong. I realized this was like Captain’s Return, middle-aged version, without the pirates. Perhaps not a good fit, but I welcomed any association I could hold onto.
Mr. Rathod smiled at me. “This must be a big surprise for you, Nisha. A shock, maybe.”
“I’m past the shock now, I think. Mostly. Some, at least.”
“Good. We won’t try to explain...defend the past, but you can ask any questions.”
I felt as if I knew too much already, a feeling I was certain I shared with Papa. Ex-Papa. In different circumstances, there were dozens of standard questions one asked about family, education, employment, but none of these seemed to fit. And yet, as I confronted my real father, a question did form in my mind. I blurted it out. “Why did you just leave?”
Mr. Rathod looked uncomfortable.
“Milind wanted me to go with him, but I was afraid,” said Ma. “I was married, and him too, and you knew my father. So we make the decision to go the separate ways. Before there is more trouble. My big mistake.”
I understood what Naani had meant by spilling the soup twice. She had simply stood by while Pravin married Ma off to Papa. Then Ma had either turned to her when she became pregnant by Milind, or had been found out somehow, and had received the wrong advice. That was Naani’s guilt and Ma’s regret.
“It was a matter of destroying two marriages or to stay apart,” said Mr. Rathod. “Had I stayed near, I would be watching you come into the world and grow, but never saying one word to you. I could not, you know. Better I should not be in your life.”
“Only now you are.”
Mr. Rathod smiled. “Things change. Better late than not at all?”
I didn’t know. I tried to imagine how I would feel the next time I met Ashni, as half-sister. “Does Ashni know?”
“No, not yet.”
“We must tell her,” said Ma.
“Yes, of course, but maybe when she and Nisha are spending more time together.”
I supposed there would be an awkward moment when we confronted each other in our new roles, but I looked forward to getting to know Ashni better.
I sat there while Ma and Mr. Rathod talked about a future that was obviously going to be shared. I wondered what he would think when the old Ma returned. Then I realized the old Ma was probably a thing of the past. The old Vinita, too, most likely. They had escaped their cages and were free. So was I, even if I hadn’t yet acted on it. I could go to work at the Times, and while that affected my future, I was still the old me. How would I change? Would I change? I didn’t know. In spite of my new-found freedom, I felt fixed in place, like a big stone that didn’t know how to roll.
Finally it was time to go. Mr. Rathod smiled at me again—like a father, I supposed—and wished me well. Ma and I stepped into the elevator and descended.
We arrived home to find Naani standing in the front yard, talking to Bharti. I knew Naani would say nothing about our family’s disintegration, but I also knew the whole society had witnessed ex-Papa’s departure. Gita, with her sources spread far and wide, would eventually ferret out all the details. That would put me on the same gossip level as Vinita, Unwed Mother. Did it really matter? My current reputation would fit nicely in a garbage dump anyway, right next to a rotten melon or a dead rat.
I was about to follow Ma into the house when Rini arrived on her moped. I knew I could trust her to remain silent. We went into the backyard so I could bring her up to date in private.
The sun had broken through the clouds and steam was rising from the yard. Everything seemed fresh—if one ignored the lingering aroma of cow—and the neem tree glowed in the light. I thought of Damini and decided one could do worse than to have a tree as a friend. An anchor in an uncertain world, something one could come back to, many years later. Well, not if it was the sort of tree used for firewood. Rini and I sat down on the new bench.
“So what’s happened since we last talked?” she asked.
“Some things.”
“Don’t tease me. I know something important has happened from the way Naani was acting.”
“Chikki’s parents showed up.”
“Out of the blue?”
“They followed a magic cow.”
“Why does that somehow seem normal?”
“And Papa’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Left, I mean.” I filled Rini in on all the details, watching her jaw drop further with each chapter in the saga of my family’s destruction and my partial salvation.
When I had finished, Rini shook her head slowly. “Wouldn’t a bomb in the basement have been simpler?”
“Actually, there were explosions of a sort. The funny thing is, I don’t think anyone is unhappy, outside of the poor departed Maruti. Ma certainly isn’t.”
“And Naani seemed almost bubbly.”
“Ten percent of the cow money and she got rid of Papa,” I explained.
“Jump for joy,” said Rini. “How did your father...ex-father, take it? Not that I care greatly.”
“I imagine Papa is angry, which is understandable, but money from the cow should fix that in a day or two. Of course Vinita is walking on air.”
“Girl least likely to marry. Certainly shows how wrong we can be, doesn’t it?”
“That’s half of it. Vinita has also cut off from Ma.”
Rini frowned. “But if she was prepared to be an orphan, you’d think this business wouldn’t have bothered her.”
“It was Ma’s hypocrisy that did it,” I explained. “Constantly guarding us against temptation, when all along she had given in.”
“Parents are by nature hypocritical, but admittedly that was extreme.” Rini paused, looking thoughtful. “Odd, but I feel jealous. My family is nice, but very dull. The biggest crisis I can remember was when Ma put Papa’s dry-clean-only jacket in the wash.”
“Amateurs.”
Rini laughed, then became serious. “I have some news of my own.”
“Which is?”
“A man transferred in from the Mumbai office and we get along very well.”
“Ah, romance. You didn’t tell me.”
“Sometimes such things don’t go as planned. It’s not wise to count your mangoes before they’re ripe.”
I was the last person to need to be told that. Rini laughed at my expression, and I laughed with her. “So, are hennaed feet just around the corner?”
“I think we’ll take things slower than tradition dictates.”
“A boyfriend!”
“Not all the people in other countries can be wrong.”
“A lot of them are.”
“Well, I’m a big girl now.” She stood to leave. “I’ve got to run. Keep me posted about earth-shaking events.”
