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  By now they were turning into the apartment gates.

  ‘Children, next week I will come Friday six o’clock. And I love you, remember that.’

  They grunted.

  ‘It was nice at Nirula’s, nice playing all those games,’ went on Raman. The pleasures of the week should be bursting from their lips as soon as they saw their mother, even now standing at the gate, showing an eagerness to receive her children that she had never shown throughout their lives together. She must have been watching from inside, looking at the hands of the clock. A minute later than six, she would report his transgressions to the court.

  For the next few weeks life continued its unhappy way. Raman lived for the children’s visits, only to experience on Sunday night a loneliness even more intense now that they had come and gone. Thanks to medical vigilance his heart had become an organ protected against the strains of his emotional life. Such a pity, he thought, death would be preferable to this terrible agony, but wouldn’t that just suit her? His parents would suffer but she would get everything she wanted with no hassle. No, he would live, he would fight.

  Unfortunately the legal system didn’t allow for clean conflict. He had stopped phoning Nandan obsessively before each date. Anticipation and disappointment were inevitable, he must try and distance himself from the process.

  Possession was nine-tenths of the law. In the case of children it was the whole law. If only his conscience allowed him to kidnap his children, but despite repeated pleas, even begging, they never said they wanted to live with him. And because he still believed in the necessity of a mother’s love, he could not insist.

  Meanwhile Arjun was getting ready to depart for DPA.

  ‘If for any reason you don’t like it, or if somebody troubles you, phone me. I will come and get you. You don’t have to stay in this school, you know.’

  ‘It’s all right, Papa.’

  The week before he was to go he clung momentarily to his father. ‘Come and see me, Papa. Parents can visit Sundays.’

  At this voluntary statement of love and need, Raman grabbed his son, looked solemnly into his eyes and promised that wild horses wouldn’t keep him away. If it was allowed, he would come every weekend. And he would bring him lots and lots of goodies – institutional food could get boring.

  Arjun giggled. ‘Mama says the food at the Academy is healthy, even if it doesn’t taste very good.’

  ‘I can drive you down. See where my son is going to study?’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  Arjun’s way of saying no.

  XX

  April 1st.

  Mother and son left by the early morning Shatabdi. For the first two hours of the journey Arjun slept, his head sliding onto Shagun’s arm, his mouth falling open, a bit of drool wetting her kurta sleeve. His small tender face with the downy cheek looked so vulnerable that all Raman’s warnings rushed into the mother’s mind, making her writhe with anxiety. Just nerves, she reassured herself, how many times had she told Arjun that she would bring him back whenever he wanted to leave?

  What indeed was wrong with VV? Only that Arjun wouldn’t go, and Arjun wouldn’t go because she had walked out of her marriage. Because of that, he was leaving home, as determined a consequence as the turning of the wheels on the railway tracks.

  She tried to replace her uneasiness with Ashok’s conviction that boarding school would bring out her son’s leadership qualities and connect him to an old-boys network that would support him till he died. Besides, the admission process had allowed Ashok to grow warm towards Arjun, strengthening the fragile foundation of her new family.

  On the luggage rack above she could hear the locks making gentle clicking sounds against the metal rims of Arjun’s suitcase. In it was contained all that the school allowed its pupils, and compared to the comforts her son was used to, it did seem pitifully little.

  Dehradun, Cantonment Station, DPA.

  All was friendliness, invitation and welcome. There were people at the gate to help, indicating the way to the junior houses at the end of the main road, next to the science block. On seeing other boys, Arjun relaxed slightly. He didn’t mind that his mother helped him arrange his clothes and put away his stuff, other parents were doing the same. They met the housemaster and matron, were introduced to the linen-room bearers, shown the changing room and the three pegs that would be Arjun’s.

  Mother and son lunched in town, then hurried back for a meeting with the staff at four o’clock. The Principal started with a speech that spoke eloquently of the qualities of an Academy boy, words meant to calm the fears of parents, as well as inspire the children. Shagun could see the attention Arjun gave as he listened to the Principal recite some lines from a poem by Henry Newbolt.

  This is the word that year by year,

  While in her place the School is set,

  Every one of her sons must hear,

  And none that hears it dare forget.

  This they all with a joyful mind

  Bear through life like a torch in flame,

  And falling fling to the host behind –

  ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’

  Shagun was moved. Arjun would be the son of the school, just as Ashok had been, the bearer of a torch that would burn brightly all his life.

  Afterwards the senior staff was introduced, tea consumed, and reassurances delivered by the junior housemaster. At seven the matron ushered the parents briskly out, no lingering farewells, no indulgence of sentimental anxieties. For a dangerous moment, Shagun wished Raman was with her. She knew she would have dealt with the parting better if both of them had been involved.

  She hoped the matron would look after her son, but how would she ever know? Arjun was allowed only two five-minute phone calls a month. Write, write, she had said, and he had nodded, but what writing could one expect of a twelve-year-old?

  By nine o’clock she was lying on her train berth, trying to ignore the smell of urine that seeped in from the corridor, praying for Arjun, promising God all manner of things if only her son kept well. That was all she wanted from life, that and a divorce.

  Ashok would be back by the time she came home. They would have the house to themselves; she would go to pick up Roohi from her mother’s next morning. As she bathed away the grime of her journey he would enter the bathroom to watch her drying herself, and then he would open the perfume bottle, take out the glass stopper and begin touching her in all the places that needed scenting. As he touched her she would look down to check on the burgeoning swelling, slide her hands around his waist, teasing him by not immediately opening the knot that held up his pyjamas. It amused her to see how long he could stand to be teased, never more than a few minutes, while where she was concerned, he could resist gratifying her for hours, making her beg and plead till she thought she would go out of her mind with desire. Not fair, she shook her head involuntarily. This time he would be the supplicant. She could sense her power over him growing stronger, and often she waited impatiently for the moment in bed, so that her hungry heart could feed on such straightforward proof.

  She felt guilty for dreaming of sex on Arjun’s first night away from home. Had Raman been with her, her thoughts would have been forcefully confined to their son, he would have talked obsessively of him, would have worried so irritatingly that there would have been no rest from weary reflections, certainly no room for amour. That was a word Ashok had taught her, amour, amore, he said, and now she said them too.

  *

  April 1st evening. The children have all changed into white kurta pyjamas and at seven thirty are seated in the junior section of the dining room. The new students are asked to stand, welcome to DPA. Everybody clapped.

  ‘Let me tell you what to expect,’ started a concerned senior.

  The boys looked nervous.

  ‘You will be given punishments: you will have to wash our clothes, clean our toilets, you will have to give us your phone chits; if anybody hears you complaining, the first time you will b
e slapped, the second time you will be beaten with hockey sticks. For starters, every morning at five thirty, you will have to run around the field.’

  Everybody cheered and laughed.

  All this was to toughen their character. Day boys were woefully ignorant, they thought school was just studies, but their Academy was so much more than that. As they would see.

  Titters.

  When they grew up they would be grateful and thank their seniors.

  ‘New boys, say thank you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ muttered some.

  ‘Louder, we can’t hear you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ they shouted.

  And then the whole school chorused, ‘April Fool!’

  The new boys grinned, they had known the seniors could not be serious, they had not been taken in, not for a minute. They were also playing along by saying thank you.

  For the first time in his life Arjun was with only boys. The information they demanded of each other was cursory: where are you from, which school did you go to? All their attention was on how to manage in these unfamiliar surroundings.

  That night, as Arjun lay in bed, he could hear crying from the boy on his left. The sound made him uncomfortable, thank goodness he didn’t feel like that. He turned over and pulled his sheet over his head to muffle the noise.

  The next day was filled with books, classes, the mysteries of the timetable and the condescension of monitors appointed to show new students around. The senior boys were enviable in their assurance. One day they too would be like them, one day.

  Five days later, the mid-term break. None of the new children wanted the scheduled trip to the mountains. They had just gotten used to the many bells that guided them through the day, the early rising, the toilet queues, the quick bed-making and clothes-folding, morning milk and morning PT, just begun to figure out what was where, who was who, and what to wear when.

  ‘Why do we have to go?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We have been to the mountains, Sir,’ they chorused in collective protest, never alone, always several, as they learned the security that came from groups.

  They had to go because trekking was an Academy tradition – and wait and see, they wouldn’t want to come back. Their destination was Dak Pathar. Into the bus and away up the winding roads. Some boys were quietly sick out of the windows and hoped no one would notice. Four hours later they were deposited at the gates of the Garwahl Mandal Vikas Nigam guest house.

  The school cooks were with them, along with sacks of provisions. One hour later, they sat on rocks, beneath the fragrant rustle of pine trees, eating off steel plates, caressed by the coolness of the sun.

  Archery, a short trek, and a campfire took them to night. Arjun looked at his fellow students by the light of the flames; these would be his companions for the next six years. His home seemed achingly distant.

  Faint sobs could be heard. He cast a covert glance at the housemaster, wasn’t he going to do anything? But the master was strumming a guitar, he wanted to know what songs the boys knew. After ‘Hotel California’, ‘We Shall Overcome’, and old Kishore Kumar songs, the three teachers started talking. Their new school devoted itself to developing leaders and responsible citizens. Missing home was natural – it would be strange if they didn’t feel strange (weak giggles). Hundreds went through initial homesickness – why, said the housemaster, he remembered a boy who threatened to kill himself if he couldn’t go back. That boy went on to become his house captain, his name was up on the boards. They might not believe him but one day it would be the holidays that would seem long. As the words flowed the snivels became less audible, and maybe the housemaster was not so unobservant after all.

  Each succeeding day was better than the one before. They woke by five, and by six the thirty children had begun their trek. One day it was to a dry river bed, on another to a village, a picnic spot the third, with tiffins of butter sandwiches and cutlets. Everything they did was together, and thus they formed the ties they needed to survive.

  On the night before they left, the housemaster dressed up as a ghost, terrifying the boys so much that they slept two to a bed. It provided all the conversation on the return journey, who had been scared and who not, who was lying about who was scared and who not, and who had been foolish enough to believe in the existence of ghosts.

  Back in Dehradun, they found the five days away had changed everything. Already each child was more of an Academy boy, with memories of home drifting beneath the impressions of school and the mid-term.

  XXI

  ‘Beta, is Arjun nicely settled? I am so worried about him all night I cannot sleep.’

  It was 6.05 on Friday evening. Roohi had just departed with Raman.

  Shagun looked at her mother with despair. If there was anything that allowed her to sleep, she didn’t know what it was. Probably her old life with Raman, everything safe, dull and boring.

  ‘If Raman would leave him alone, he would be settled. Imagine, he went all the way to Dehradun to see him. Naturally Arjun didn’t like that.’

  ‘Why didn’t Arjun like that? He is his father.’

  ‘Mama! Sometimes I think you deliberately misunderstand the situation. Ashok went with us to Dehradun the first time, Arjun was introduced as his son. They allowed us to register Arjun’s name so late because Ashok is an old boy, and he was school captain. They put Arjun into Shivalik House because it is Ashok’s old house. They even allowed Arjun to not officially pass class VI because they were so understanding about the situation at home. And then Raman comes and says I am the father. How does that look?’

  It looked as bad and as messy as her daughter’s life was.

  ‘Poor boy,’ she said now.

  ‘Exactly. Poor boy.’

  ‘Did Arjun tell you all this?’

  ‘More or less. I had to drag it out of him when I went to meet him. Raman came, he was not prepared, someone asked who was that?, he said, my father, then they asked who was the other man with your mother last month?, not that children care, but he didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘I told him, write to Papa suggesting it is difficult to meet in school, you will meet him during the holidays. I told him, if I say anything, he will file an application accusing me of contempt of court. Judge Mathur said the father has to have visitation rights.’

  ‘Did he write to his father?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. People have such ugly minds, they will all say I am trying to influence Arjun. Raman might even produce the letter in court.’

  ‘But has Raman gone again?’

  ‘How should I know? It is not as though we talk.’

  Mrs Sabharwal was getting increasingly upset. She got up to put the food on the table, unfolding her legs from the takht, groping for her chappals.

  Shagun stared at her mother’s feet. The nail polish was chipping – why couldn’t she be more careful? She was young enough – unlike other grandmothers she knew. In the old days, when she came to visit, she and her mother used to go to the beauty parlour in the Godavari Housing Society across the road, in what had once been a garage. Every homeowner in the complex had converted this valuable space into boutiques, tailoring establishments or offices, while their cars jostled around on the inner lanes.

  ‘When did you last have a pedicure?’

  The mother slid her feet under her sari. She knew how particular her daughter was about grooming.

  ‘If I am not with you, you are going to neglect yourself?’

  ‘With all this happening you want me to think of pedicures?’

  ‘Even your hair is looking terrible. All white and patchy at the back.’

  ‘What to do? If I go there, they will ask me about you. What can I say?’

  ‘You lie. What business is it of Mrs Mehra’s anyway? People love to pry into the lives of others, I have noticed that. My ex-in-laws were the worst. Thank goodness I will never have to see them again.’

  ‘Don’t say things like th
at – they are the children’s grandparents. I wouldn’t like it, if I couldn’t see my two sweet little babas.’

  This brought the children back into the conversation, which put Shagun in a ferociously bad mood and forced her mother’s speedy exit into the kitchen.

  Next Friday, 6.05, Shagun approached her mother, a look of determined reconciliation on her face. Mrs Sabharwal had spent a wretched week, sleeping badly. How Shagun was sleeping, she could only guess. The sleek gleam on her, the roseate look, the satisfaction that seeped from every pore gave her to understand the nature of the happiness her daughter kept talking about. There were even times when she had to avert her gaze from the girl’s face, what was on it was all too palpable.

  ‘Now Mama, you know I hate quarrelling with you.’

  ‘I know, beta, I know,’ said the mother uneasily.

  ‘Give me some tea, because I have news and I want to tell it to you nicely.’

  This so alarmed Mrs Sabharwal she could barely add leaves to the pot, barely notice the chocolate pastries that Shagun now laid onto a plate, or the muduku she put into a bowl, bought for her from the stall outside Sagar in Defence Colony.

  ‘You shouldn’t buy so much for me, beti,’ she said mechanically.

  ‘Let me, Mama. Who knows what the future will bring, or for how long I can do it?’

  ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘Ashok has finally got his posting to the US.’

  ‘The US! What about all the cases? The children? The divorce petition?’

  ‘He was offered this post a year ago, and instead of accepting it, he chose to spend his time in airports, travelling to all the major centres in India, and of course there was that groundwater crisis that made it worse. How can I go on allowing him to be so dislocated?’ said Shagun by way of explanation.