The Age of Shiva (21 page)

“Now listen—” I began to say, but it was Sandhya's turn to put her fingers on my lips.

“Don't worry. Don't pay too much attention to what I say. I'm talking so foolishly just because of Hema's leaving.”

We slept under one sheet that night. It became quite chilly near morning, and I felt Sandhya get up to close the window. “I'm here, right next to you,” I murmured, when she got back under the sheet. “So you can go right back to sleep.”

She touched my forehead, as if to reassure herself, then traced her fingers down my cheek. “Your face is so cold,” she said. “You're not used to the Delhi weather anymore. Should I get us a blanket from the chest?”

“No, we'll just snuggle up.” I moved myself closer to her until my head was on her shoulder, just like Hema's was on Mataji's next to me. Sandhya unwound a part of her sari and covered my body with it. I pressed my face into her neck and felt her breasts, warm and comforting, against my own. “You'll just have to come back with me to Bombay,” I said.

We stayed there for a while. I felt drowsy, but also curiously aware, as if something pleasantly stimulating had been released into my bloodstream. I wondered how the sensation of my body must seem to her, how my head and face and bosom must feel against her body. Was she surprised like me by how closely we could nestle, how each contour had an outline to unfold against? Did she feel the swath on her belly where the cloth between us ran out, where the bareness of my midriff caressed her uncovered skin? I imagined the two of us still enfolded in the liquid warmth of her sari, staring at the sky together through the window of a train. The stars watching our passage to a distant household where we could forever be with each other again.

Sandhya kissed my forehead, then slid down to press her cheek against mine. “I wish the night could just go on,” she said.

SANDHYA KILLED HERSELF
three years later. Officially, everyone said it was an accident, that she must have not seen the train. “To live right next to the station and be so inexperienced crossing the tracks,” the stationmaster commiserated with the family on his condolence visit. It was true that Sandhya had just started delivering Arya his midday meal—she never had much reason to cross the railway lines before that. The empty tiffin box was found nearby in the grass, as if it was something precious, like an infant, that Sandhya had tried to save by throwing clear of the tracks.

When I first got the news, the impulse to rush to Delhi struck up within me like a physical spasm. Perhaps if I hurried, perhaps if I took a flight, I could still save her, there was still time. Dev's explanations that the body would have been already cremated, that I would be in no condition to see its mangled state anyway, did little to calm my irrational urges. It was only the arrival of Hema's letter that gave me a compelling reason to remain in Bombay.

Sandhya had been despondent for the past two years, Hema wrote, ever since Tony was born. When Hema's second son Rahul arrived the year after, it seemed to get worse. “Mataji said not to tell you, but there was a disappearance for an entire week last month. Luckily, Shilpa auntie spotted Sandhya bhabhi sitting on the steps of the Kalkaji temple—wrapped from head to toe in saffron and singing as if she were a sanyasin. She refused Auntie's attempts to get her to come back—Arya bhaiyya had to go fetch her himself.”

Sandhya was disoriented and quite starved when she returned, according to Hema, and claimed not to remember how she got to the temple. There had been briefer unexplained absences in the past, and it was to keep tabs on her that Arya had suggested the daily trips to his office at lunch. “I should have guessed something was really wrong, when she suddenly became so impatient to learn to write. She always talked about how you used to show her the letters of the alphabet on a slate. She said she wanted to send you a complete letter—she told me not to tell you, that it would be a surprise. I asked Arya bhaiyya several times if he found anything, but he said no, she didn't even leave a note behind.”

I realized I had to wait for the mail, to see if it might contain a missing message from Sandhya, composed to me before she died. Each morning, I dragged a chair to the balcony to sit until the postman trudged down the street with his khaki bag of mail. In the afternoons, once the sun had crossed over our building, I returned to wait for his second delivery.

Sometimes I glimpsed a woman from above with a red and perfectly straight line of sindhoor in her hair. Images of Sandhya would then swirl through my head. Here she was, shaking vermilion out onto the pooja platter, snipping hibiscus from the bush outside, waving incense sticks around Devi Ma. There she stood on Karva Chauth, balancing on the charpoy, as the sun turned the sky behind her red. I saw her emerging from her bath, her hair untied and dripping, her skin pungent from the nameless green soap Mataji bought in unwrapped blocks for the family. An herbal smell, a smell slightly oily, but nevertheless pleasant, that I still remembered from our last night, sleeping together on the floor. And with it, the moonlight in her hair, the contour of her breast, the soft heat of her belly as she snuggled with me. I imagined her practicing her vowels and consonants, drawing each loop of the
aa
and
ka
over and over again. Pulling out a piece of paper and putting the tip of the pencil in her mouth to moisten it, then beginning to carefully write out my name. Looking at her handiwork, deciding the strokes didn't look steady enough, taking a new sheet and starting again. I tried to make out the expression in her eyes—was that sadness, or love, or serenity in her face? But as the words slowly formed on the paper, I could read nothing beyond the letters in my name.

I kept up my vigil every day that week, then decided to extend it, just in case the letter had been delayed. April turned to May, the postman made his rounds twice a day, but what I was waiting for never came.

A
FTER SANDHYA, I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER AGAIN BE ABLE TO BEAR
the sight of Delhi. What took me back finally, was another wedding. During the very first year of her Ph.D program, Sharmila fell in love with a professor in her college.

She could not have picked a more unsuitable match. Dr. Munshi Afsar was not only eighteen years her senior, but also a Muslim. There were even indications, Roopa wrote (in the volley of missives she fired off from Madras), that unlike the qawwali connoisseurs it was Paji's hobby to befriend, this was someone who was a devout fundamentalist. That he prayed five times a day and donated most of his income to the mosque, that tucked away in some shady locality near the Red Fort was a secret household where he maintained not one but two former wives.

Biji was beside herself with fury. She put the blame squarely on Paji, for this, her worst nightmare. “If you keep bringing wolves into the house, encourage your daughter to play and eat with them, why be surprised now when one of their tribe carries her away? I'll never forgive this until my dying day.” Of course, the number of things for which she could never forgive Paji till she died was by then already too long to list.

In a way, Paji
was
to blame. “It was his beard that I couldn't resist,” Sharmila wrote in an embarrassingly overwrought letter she sent me together with her professor's photograph. After Roopa's allegations, I had been expecting the inflamed red eyes of a fanatic, the lecherous grin of a polygamist, but Dr. Afsar turned out to appear quite mild, even shy, his face somehow pulled back from his glasses as if he was trying to hide behind the lenses. Roopa, obviously, had allowed her imagination to get the better of her.

“Every time I went to his office, I was reminded of the beard Salman uncle had back in Rawalpindi,” Sharmila wrote. “The one you and Roopa took turns stroking each time he came to take Paji for qawwali. The one I was tempted to touch, but was always too scared. What I really want Munshi to do is dye it orange with mehndi like Salman uncle used to. Except now I'd caress it with my lips instead.”

For Paji, it was one thing to profess the secular outlook he had cultivated over the years, quite another to abide by it where his own daughter was concerned. He refused to give a blessing for the match. He was careful to never allude to Munshi being a Muslim, couching his objection in the age difference instead. As Sharmila's attitude hardened, so did his own, until the day came when he forbade her from continuing her contact. Which wasn't really practical, since in addition to being her sweetheart, Dr. Afsar was also the mentor for her thesis.

What broke through the impasse was the death of Paji's idol. Nehru's leadership had been under a cloud for more than a year and a half, ever since the humiliating 1962 Chinese attack. Our troops had been so poorly prepared that in the face of the massive invasion, some of them simply fled. Having displayed their might, the invaders quickly declared a cease-fire and left. Paji watched in dismay afterwards as newspapers pilloried Nehru for having trusted China as a friend. The HRM seized the opportunity to denounce the prime minister's secular ideas as well. Suddenly Nehru's seventy-plus years began to show. He survived a stroke in the first month of the year, but not the heart attack that burst his aorta in May. The ultimate insult was yet to come—instead of the secular funeral he had decreed, religious leaders forced an elaborate cremation with full Hindu rites to be held.

With the death of his hero, something seemed to die in Paji as well. He sent me a long, rambling letter, filled with gloom and sorrow at the passing of India's golden age, at the end of hope and happiness and perhaps democracy itself. “Just wait a few months and see—these same scavengers who are vying with each other to praise him in the newspapers will soon be clawing and nipping away at his legacy. There's no one left to lead us into the future, nobody to uphold the ideals under which this country was born.”

Perhaps it was this demoralized state of his that made him agree to Sharmila's Hindu-Muslim match. Or perhaps it was simply a sentimental response, a melodramatic tribute, to keep Nehru's ideal of secularism alive. Paji promised he would be there in person with Biji to see Sharmila wed.

When I first glimpsed Paji standing on the railway platform, he appeared unchanged from four years ago. His hair was still black, his mustache neatly trimmed, his bearing that of a colonel's, even though he had never been a military man. But then he started walking towards me, and I noticed how he moved more slowly and deliberately now, as if debating the necessity of each step. The idealism that shone in his eyes had faded, replaced by a milkiness that dated him even more than his sixty years. “Welcome home,” he said, not only to me but also to Dev, and his words seemed free of guile, sincere. I almost wished that Dev would try to touch my father's feet again—it would have been reassuring to verify that one could get a rise out of Paji still.

We drove to Darya Ganj—Dev had wanted to be in Nizamuddin, but had changed his mind when he heard that Roopa was coming and would be staying with my parents as well. Biji was waiting for us all alone—she told me she was so angry with Paji that she had stopped accompanying him anywhere. Rage seemed to suit her well—enlivening her eyes with a healthy glisten, invigorating her cheeks with a wholesome flush. Her entire body appeared limber and well-exercised, as if she had been performing calisthenics in preparation for battle. “I don't even know how I will face the neighbors, much less my friends after this. If your Paji thinks I'm going to give my blessing by attending this travesty, this mockery of a wedding ceremony, he's mistaken.”

But attend she did, not only in a red wedding sari but even with lipstick on her mouth, for perhaps only the second time in her life. Munshi's family was boycotting the occasion, so it wasn't clear whom she was trying to impress. The “travesty” itself took only a few minutes, it was the hour-long wait for the couples before us that seemed interminable. Munshi had suggested the idea of marrying in court—a wise one, since it preempted the fight bound to ensue over whether to have a Hindu or a Muslim ceremony. We almost got thrown out though, when Roopa's twins Dilip and Shobha decided to mount the benches—a constable appeared from inside the courtrooms to quiet them down.

They were cute, these children—they even managed to twist the expression on Biji's lipstick-covered mouth from a fume into a smile. What shocked me was how even Paji enjoyed their antics. He let them climb all over him and swing from his neck, calling them his darlings, kissing their foreheads. Where was his antipathy, his proscription against children now? How could he have performed such an about-face after insisting that I scrape out my womb?

We were finally called into the small chamber outside which we had been waiting. The clerk dipped the nib of his pen into a pot of ink before handing it first to Munshi, then Sharmila. Once they had signed, he picked up the register to examine what they had written, as if searching for an error that would allow him to annul the contract. Then, gauging our status by the clothes we were wearing, he decided on English as the language in which to recite his memorized pronouncement. “You are now becoming husband and wife,” he said, and waited until Paji had tipped him two rupees before handing over the certificate. “I am congratulating,” he added grudgingly, and nodded his head.

THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING,
when Sharmila and Munshi had left for their honeymoon in Kashmir, I found myself alone at home with Paji. Roopa had taken Biji and the twins to shop, and Dev had gone to Nizamuddin. I heard Paji rummaging around in his office, so I went upstairs. Even though it was the beginning of August, the air conditioner, to my surprise, was not turned on.

Paji was adjusting the plaque on the wall behind his desk. The inscription was his favorite quote by Nehru, and I still remembered the shop in Chandni Chowk where Roopa and I had accompanied him to have it engraved so many years ago.
“The spectacle of what is called religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to sweep clean of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and the preservation of vested interests.”
The quote had been so long that the engraver had run out of space the first time he tried, and had had to start over with a fresh plaque.

Paji gave it one final swipe with his cloth, then turned around. “Do you think our new prime minister, this Shastri person, would ever be troubled by such sentiments? All he seems to care about is shoving his beloved Hindi down the throat of the south.” He sighed. “I suppose I should be thankful—my new son-in-law doesn't seem too religious, it could have been much worse.”

I looked at the box of papers lying open on Paji's desk. “Old report cards—Roopa's and yours and Sharmila's—I wish I hadn't thrown away the Rawalpindi ones when we fled. Now that you've all gone, it's only these memories that are left.” He sighed again, then picked up the top sheet. “Hindi forty-one percent, English thirty-eight percent, science forty percent…that's Sharmila in the seventh standard—who would've thought she would ever get this far?” He chuckled. “I always thought Roopa would be the one to do well.”

“But she did, didn't she? Look at the grandchildren she's given you.”

“They're adorable, aren't they? Do you know what they call me? Paji the Great.” This time, his chuckle turned into a full-fledged laugh. I stood there mutely, and finally he seemed to notice my unsmiling expression. His mirth faded, and he grimaced, as if something unpleasant from breakfast had just repeated on him. “I know what you're thinking, Meera, and believe me, I had no idea, believe me, I'm ashamed. The number of times I've wished you'd been surer, strong enough not to be swayed. If there was anything I could do to turn back time…” He stopped and stared meekly at the floor, his eyes growing milky once more.

“Why would you want to turn back time, Paji? I've graduated from college, haven't I? Not as illustriously as Sharmila, but surely you must be satisfied?”

“Meera, I never—”

“And look, no babies, either—look how scrupulously clean I've managed to keep my womb. It's your son-in-law who's made sure, of course. By myself, I probably couldn't have been trusted, but he's been exemplary in following your advice every night. And now that I've fulfilled all your conditions, surely you will be bestowing on me your permission to procreate?”

“You know I didn't mean it that way.”

“Perhaps I should get it in writing from you, perhaps you can mail me a certificate. Or better still, mail it to Dev.” I stared hard at my father, then turned around and walked away.

I DIDN'T WANT TO WAIT
for Roopa to return with Biji and the twins, so I decided to go to Nizamuddin. I had not accompanied Dev there in the morning because I hadn't wanted to encounter Arya (it was a day of avoiding people). Now that it was after lunchtime, I could safely say hello to Mataji without running into him. Over the past few years, I had received bits of news about my brother-in-law from Hema—how he had thrown himself into the work of the HRM, how his hair had turned prematurely gray, how despite all of Mataji's attempts, he had stubbornly refused to remarry. “If not for himself, at least he should think of the family,” Hema complained. “He's the eldest son, so it's up to him to carry on the Arora name. When God has given him this second chance, who is he to refuse it?”

Sandhya,
I had written back angrily. It was
she
, not God, who had given Arya the opportunity to marry again.

Mataji was lying on a charpoy in the courtyard and staring at the wall when I came in. It took me a moment to realize that her hair was almost completely white—she had stopped dyeing it. She looked at me startled, as if I was an intruder she didn't recognize, then pulled me to her bosom and started weeping. “First you, then Hema, then Sandhya—nobody told me it would be this difficult.” Her face looked curiously smaller, as if her teeth had all been pulled out, causing her cheeks to slump in.

Sandhya's presence hung over everything, strong and sweet and claustrophobic. It trailed me as I followed Mataji into the bedroom. “Arya doesn't come in here anymore, says he can't any longer,” Mataji said. “After all these years, Babuji and I are the ones sleeping in this room.” I looked at the talais on which Dev and I used to lie, rolled up and stacked neatly against the far wall. For an instant, I could almost feel Sandhya breathing in one corner.

Suddenly I had to leave, before I was completely overwhelmed by the air inside. “Where's Babuji?” I asked. “I should say hello to him as well.”

“At the station, where else? Ever since he retired, he just sits on a bench and watches the trains go by. Dev's probably with him, too.” Mataji shook her head. “Day after day, Arya remains at work, and Hema almost never drops in. I wish I had someplace to go as well—somewhere else to while away the hours of my day.”

Babuji was not on the station platform—the watchman told me he was taking a nap inside. I decided not to wake him. I debated whether to go back to the house and wait for Dev, who must be still visiting his brother, or return to Darya Ganj by myself.