The Age of Shiva (28 page)

We never make it. About halfway on the walk there, we encounter a cluster of people on Marine Drive. Some are milling around on the pavement, others stand on the parapet, still others watch from vantage points atop the concrete tetrapods shoring up the land. Dev pulls us through the people to see what they are gesturing at. An enormous Ganesh idol, twice as large as life size, reclines faceup on the tetrapods down by the water. The two right arms have broken off, the lower extremities dissolved, but otherwise the statue appears remarkably intact, with the conch still in its lower left hand. A look of serenity graces its face, as if oblivious to the people around or the waves breaking at its base, it is completely engrossed in contemplating the sky. A small bird perches on the belly, equally absorbed in its rumination of the sea. The bird pays no heed when someone tries to shoo it away.

Nobody seems to know how the idol could have got there. “It must have been lying here since dawn, it must have floated in overnight,” an onlooker says. “Clay is too heavy, it can't float,” someone counters. “Even if it could, how did it reach so high?” “Not to mention so far from the beach where it was immersed.”

“This is Ganesh we're talking about,” a young man in a loincloth says. “Remember, he can do whatever he wants.”

People are even more divided about the meaning behind this sighting. A good omen, some claim, that Ganpati has returned to bless the land a second time. Others are so disturbed by the unsuccessful immersion that they clamber down to the statue, braving the waves to try and pry it loose. You strain to join them, so Dev raises you on his shoulders to afford you a better look. Between waves, somebody attempts to lift the statue by one of its remaining arms—the clay is so wet that it crumbles off.

A volley of large waves come crashing over the idol, and water surges up through the tetrapods. The wind whips the spray all the way to where we stand. More waves churn in, like warnings from the sea to stand back as it pulls out all the stops in its high-tide display. The last few people trying to set Ganesh free retreat to the safety of the parapet. “He's coming loose!” someone shouts. Sure enough, the statue, no longer encumbered by its arm, has begun to rock and shift. The bird teeters on the belly, trying to ignore this change in circumstance, then calls it a day and flies off. Another wave envelops the idol, and then the sea seems to lift it up. Ganesh rotates lazily, his head still gazing upwards, his eyes still focused at infinity, his trunk furled neatly above his mouth. For a moment, he rests on the last of the tetrapods, then begins his seaward journey. “Ganpati baba maurya,” the crowd calls out—someone throws petals, but they flutter back in the wind. The women all cover their heads with their dupattas—feeling self-conscious, I join in. “He's going home, finally—look how buoyant he is.” Ganpati does appear to be floating through the waves, like a graceful swimmer doing the backstroke—perhaps it is a miracle after all.

For some reason, melancholy, not happiness, engulfs me as I gaze at the departing statue. I try to cheer myself up, to tell myself that Ganpati is returning home, that he will venture far into the ocean and even seek out the goddess who lives in the sea. But I can't seem to shake off the feeling of loss. All the bereavements in life—I think of my unborn child, of Sandhya, and even her baby Ganesh brother. Whom am I destined to lose in the future?—I hold my breath to stop myself from completing the thought. I tighten my grip on your arm as you stand between Dev and me, shouting “Ganpati baba maurya.”

“Don't think like that, Didi,” Sandhya tells me, whispering into my ear. “It's an auspicious occasion, be happy like everyone else here.” Her presence wafts around me, I smell the herbal green soap she uses on her skin. “It's a day to mark the passage of time. All three of you will return here to marvel at how much Ashvin's grown year after year.” Ganpati rises above the water, the sun glinting off the edge of his golden crown, and the crowd cheers.

But it is my premonition that is right, Sandhya's optimism is misplaced. We will never see Ganesh immersed into the Arabian Sea again, not the three of us together, you, Dev, and I.

P
AJI FILLED HIS LETTERS WITH DRAMATIC ACCOUNTS OF THE COZINESS HE
was supposedly developing with Indira Gandhi. First the invitations to her garden, then the talks indoors, then breakfast one day, lunch another, until he had garlanded himself with the mantle of someone in her innermost circle. “Good breeding always shows,” he enthused in one letter, going on ingratiatingly about her poise, her elegance, her appreciation for beauty. “Such a remarkable person—she could have been a poet if she hadn't become prime minister.”

In another letter, Paji boasted of inviting Indira to come visit them at home for dinner. “Your mother, can you believe it, asked Sharmila to help her prepare a list of questions on the economy. Instead of worrying about cleaning the house or planning the food, Mrs. Home Minister of Darya Ganj wanted to demand an explanation on how the country is run. Thank God Indiraji couldn't come, otherwise I would have never lived down the shame.” Paji had started attaching a respectful “ji” to Indira's name, ever since the possibility of his standing in an election had been suggested.

That December, when Indira called a surprise midterm election for February 1971, Paji was all agog. “They're trying to decide which constituency should be mine—whether they'd like me to run from a district near Patna, or some spot in Himachal Pradesh.” It soon became clear, however, that the Congress Party would extend no such invitation—they had earmarked the sizable donation extracted from Paji to fund someone else's campaign. Paji hid his disappointment well, making it sound as if he had personally advised the party to get someone more experienced, for the greater good. “All these supposed freedom fighters like Morarji Desai, showing their true colors by jumping into bed with the HRM. When they chant for Indiraji's removal with
Indira hatao
, we should shout back,
Garibi hatao
—Remove poverty—instead.”

I never found out if Paji had really coined the “Remove poverty” phrase as he seemed to claim in his letter, or if he'd heard it from someone else. The juggernaut of
Garibi hatao
swept through the country, resonating with city dwellers and farmers, Hindus and Muslims, the poor and the middle class (but not, of course, the rich). It obliterated the HRM and the rest of the coalition that had tried to bring Indira down, handing her a victory so complete that she now had enough seats to even amend the constitution at will.

On the evening of the victory announcement, we watched the revelers in the street, as they danced and set off fireworks and distributed sweets. The sense of jubilation became so infectious that I found myself doing the twist with you on the balcony. Down below, all traffic had come to a standstill, halted by a spontaneous rally that had taken over the road. “The mother of the nation,” a voice cried out. “Indira Gandhi,” the crowd responded. “The keeper of our destiny.” “Indira Gandhi.” We looked down at a man wielding a megaphone—behind him swirled a giant portrait of Indira sprouting enough weapon-bearing arms to rival Durga. “She'll return us to prosperity,” he shouted. “Indira Gandhi,” came the chant from the crowd.

As it turned out, that night marked the end of our prosperity, not the beginning. We were going to bed when Dev revealed to me that he had lost his job.

IT WASN'T EXACTLY ACCURATE,
the way Dev phrased it—he wasn't let go or fired, but had stalked off after a fight. One of the music director duos who had kept promising to let Dev sing had decided to give the opportunity to someone else. Enraged, Dev told them to set up the recording for their new golden boy themselves. It took a week for his pride to run its course, a week he spent sitting at Auntie's all day. By the time he was ready to apologize, Vasant, the studio owner, refused to speak with him, sending out his secretary to say they'd hired someone else.

Although I immediately felt the grip of anxiety, Dev remained quite relaxed. “Where are they going to find someone who knows the ins and outs of the place, who can pull together a recording like I do every day? Wait another week or so and Vasant himself will be crawling up to me with an apology. That'll be the time to inform him he's not going to get me back without a raise.”

The week turned into a fortnight, then two, and yet Dev didn't seem too concerned. “Don't worry,” he said. “It's not like there's only one recording studio in the whole of Bombay.”

But there might as well have been, because Vasant spread rumors all over the city—how Dev picked a fight with Kalyanji and took a swing at Laxmikant, how he spat at new singers coming into the studio and cursed at the high priestess Lata Mangeshkar herself. For all practical purposes, this finished Dev's career in the music industry—he found himself blacklisted everywhere. “Why not go to Vasant, plead with him to at least clear the air?” I suggested, a step Dev refused to take.

He spent his days at home, as if on an extended vacation, with the living room sofa his hotel. Room service for breakfast, when I fried him an egg, followed by a leisurely bath and perhaps the newspaper, then room service again for lunch, and then a nap. He woke up in time for the two-thirty listeners' choice program, asking me to turn up the radio for his favorites. In the evenings, he took some money from my purse to go to Auntie's, returning only when he could barely find his way back.

Each time I raised the question of our dwindling finances, he looked at me, offended, as if I had breached some rule of etiquette. “So hard I've worked all these years. At least don't deny me this temporary rest. Besides, didn't Paji say he might help?”

As a side effect of all this rest (to which his body was perhaps unaccustomed), a host of ailments soon afflicted him. His neck got stiff, his gallbladder hurt, he massaged his kidneys daily to relieve the pressure in them. He stopped eating onions because they upset his stomach, coconut and yogurt gave him “the chill.” He spent hours in bed doing exercises to straighten his spine—it became a form of entertainment for him. He went to the doctor every third or fourth day, returning with bottles of chalky pink suspensions the compounder had mixed.

But for you, he would have sunk into a complete state of torpor. You got into the same holiday spirit as your daddy, jumping on him while he napped, riding him like a horse around the room. He neighed when you pulled his hair, galloped when you tweaked his ears, and threw you off each time you dug your elbows into his back. Soon, he began taking you on walks downstairs, dropping you off and picking you up from school. In the evenings, you sat and played cards with him, and shared his tea and snack. You announced you wanted to wash up with Daddy every morning, even though ever since turning five, you had insisted on bathing without my help. I stood outside, listening to the two of you laugh and shriek—much more than I remembered when we played the bucket game.

Was it wrong of me to begrudge Dev this idyllic existence? Churlish to nurture the resentment in my breast? It wasn't jealousy, I told myself—I just worried like any mother would, about all the time you spent together day after day. What if your father's influence proved harmful? What if you ended up like him? Your only ambition to sleep ten hours each day and make it to Auntie's for your drink?

I tried to compensate whenever I could. Each time Dev started his ritual of soda and ice, I lured you to the kitchen to have hot puris fried in oil. I took over from Dev whenever he toweled you dry, or combed your hair, or pared your nails. I insisted on taking you to school some mornings, despite Dev's assurances that he didn't mind. When he folded sheets of papers into boats, I taught you how to construct more elaborately folded planes. I bribed you with Fruitee bars, and bought you icy cola drinks—the more I tried, though, the more you attached yourself to him.

And then came the day I realized what I was up against. It started with you frisking around on the bed with your father while I tried to put up the curtains leading to the living room. Dev had come up with the brilliant idea of taking them down the night before to wrap them around you and Daddy as saris. Suddenly the two of you began wrestling—first on the bed, then on the floor. “I'm Superman,” Dev said. “I'm King Kong,” you countered, trying to catch your father in a scissor hold. Dev always took care to use only a fraction of his strength when he tumbled with you—today, he allowed you to wrap your legs around him and pin him down. I'm not sure what happened next, but your body came crashing into the chair on which I stood, knocking it out from under me and dumping me on the floor. The rod bent in the middle, the curtain ripped in two, and a few of its rings clattered across the room.

“What kind of hooliganism is this?” I cried out. “Do you think this is a wrestling pit?”

Neither you nor Dev responded—you stared silently at each other. I threw the piece of torn curtain at your father in anger and struck the ground with my fist. “Answer me,” I shouted. “Is this how one behaves at home?”

To my amazement, the two of you, still looking at each other, started giggling. Dev picked up the curtain fragment and swished it at you, and you fell over backwards in laughter. He wrapped it over his head as he had yesterday, pretending it was the edge of a sari. He got to his feet and started dancing, the curtain rings sounding against his forehead like the chimes of a tambourine. You sprang up from the floor, clapped your hands in elation, then began to dance as well.
“My love has got me a sari from Bikaneer,”
Dev sang, tearing off a piece of the cloth for you and draping it over your head.

I stood there, overcome by the unreality of the situation. The fun you and Dev seemed to be having—what should I do—join in as well? Then I remembered the ruined rod, the destroyed curtain, the mocking of my words. I strode to where you were dancing and ripped the fragment off your head.

It had the desired effect. You clutched at your bare head, shocked. Dev stopped his song in mid-sentence.

“This is all very well,” I said, managing to strike an even tone. “But there's only dal in the house, and Ashvin's school fees are due. You're wrong if you think wrestling and dancing makes you a good enough father. Why don't you get a job, instead of spending your life being a fool?”

I watched with satisfaction as Dev's face crumpled. He turned to face the wall, the curtain still dangling ridiculously from his head. The rings jingled a little as he took several deep breaths. When he turned around again, I saw he had managed to make his eyes wet.

“What sad and sensitive tears. I'm sure they'll impress Ashvin. Perhaps you should save them in a vial and pull them out each time he asks why you're still unemployed.”

Dev staggered out of the room. You looked at me, wide-eyed. “I'm sorry,” I said, as I held out my hand. “Mummy and Daddy might fight, but we still love you.” Instead of coming to me, you retreated, turning around and running through the door, as if I might try to harm you.

For a while, I just stood there silently, still holding the cloth from your head. Then I righted the upturned chair and ferreted out the curtain rings that had rolled under the bed. At the door to the other room, I stopped, immobilized by what I saw. Dev sat on the sofa, his eyes closed, his neck craned like an expectant pet. You knelt in his lap, holding his face in your palms, leaning up to kiss the tears off his shaggy dog head.

PERHAPS IF I HAD BEEN NOBLER
, perhaps if I had been less wronged, I could have been more generous, reacted with equanimity. But understand, Ashvin, your father was also my husband, the man who had robbed me of my firstborn, the man who was preparing to again usurp my claim. You were the sum total of my life's accomplishments, the reason for my existence—there could be no question of giving in. Never before had I seen you framed so clearly as through that doorway—you were the prize in a contest I had to win.

You must realize I didn't want to be cruel, that evening, or in the days and nights that followed. I was preoccupied, strategizing, wondering how I would fight to retain what was mine. I knew you sensed my remoteness—the way you whimpered, the way you followed me around to engage me, the way you clung to me in apology. It was not you but your father, remember, towards whom my disaffection was directed.

The bamboo house vision, where I could gradually realign your affections, was, I decided, too fraught with risk. Instead, I began to imagine a future without Dev. I confided this idea to Zaida to gauge her reaction. “Perhaps I'll run away with Ashvin, bring him up in a small unknown town somewhere. I'll start working again, not mention it even to Paji—we'll subsist on what I can make.”

To my surprise, she was aghast. “He's lost his job—how can you think of abandoning him at a time like this? Just think of how selfish it would look, just think of what people would say.” I tried to argue that Dev had never been a good provider, that he lacked drive, that I could no longer bear his drinking—an activity that surely expressed his dissatisfaction with me, his disappointment in life. But Zaida only scoffed at this. “Did you see the ganga yesterday, with her bruised eye and her split lip? At least your Dev mellows when he's drunk, it's not like alcohol is a fuel that propels his fist. And look at Mrs. Dugal, sitting there unperturbed as her husband downs peg after peg. He tends to drool when he's drunk, so she carries a handkerchief in her purse to dab off the spit. Your Dev might be out of work and have his bad habits, but he's still a good father, you have to admit.”