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  ‘Are you telling me not to love her?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You are the best thing that could happen to her, we both know that.’

  ‘Then what are you saying?’

  ‘I don’t want your heart to break like mine did.’

  ‘It won’t, don’t worry.’

  Raman remained silent. If hearts were in one’s control . . .

  ‘Now you tell her. Tell her – oh, tell her something. If you need a med certificate, we can do that.’

  Med cert. That was what Shagun had used to wear him down when she stopped sending Roohi for the weekends. It would serve her right.

  ‘What illness?’

  ‘Measles? Chickenpox?’

  ‘Isn’t that a little extreme? Which doctor is going to say that?’

  ‘Can’t say the usual – diarrhoea, cough, cold, that sounds frivolous.’

  They sat wondering what illness to give Roohi, but in the end decided that school admission was something that any court would understand, no need to go in for overkill with an illness. Nobody would believe it.

  Issue number two.

  You will meet Arjun, said Raman.

  That was undeniable, but she was apprehensive. When Raman wrote letters to Arjun, she had taken to adding a few lines at the bottom, how much she was looking forward to seeing him, how much Roo talked of him, but complete silence met these offerings.

  Well, now they would meet. From her side, she would do everything to make the boy feel at home.

  ‘I hope he doesn’t hate me,’ she managed, ‘and think I have taken his mother’s place.’

  ‘One has to understand the psychology of the boy. It is natural.’

  ‘I understand psychology. I have also worked with disturbed children in Jeevan.’

  ‘Things will sort themselves out. Can’t put pressure – anyone will tell you it is counterproductive.’

  ‘Children have to be guided. If we trusted alone to time, then nobody would do anything about anything.’

  ‘Put yourself in the boy’s shoes, and everything will be fine. It is the first time he will be seeing another woman in his mother’s place.’

  ‘He must be used to such things. After all, he has been seeing another man in his father’s place for a while now.’

  Raman remained silent. In the darkness, Ishita could not see his face clearly. Afraid that she had hurt him, she drew closer and stroked his knee. His voice changed when he talked of his son’s visit. A bit of a drawl, trying to sound casual. Would the son bring the mother to mind? Many had described the similarity in their appearances.

  ‘He is adolescent, a delicate age. We have to be patient. You are so good with children, you will know how to handle him,’ he now said. ‘They are very close, always have been. Though how Arjun functions with her and the stepfather is a closed book to me.’

  Ishita clung to these soothing words. How can you want to have anything to do with a closed book? What is there to see in it? She herself was open. Her pages turned easily and her story was told in clear, transparent prose.

  XXVIII

  November 30th. The DPA buses would arrive at Nehru Stadium around two thirty.

  ‘Would you like us to come with you to fetch him?’ asked Ishita the night before.

  It was obvious she wanted Arjun to feel welcome, but perhaps it would be better to go alone. It would be the first time he would be meeting Ishita, he could prepare him in the car.

  He looked at his wife. Earnestness, sincerity, hope, tension, anxiety, a willingness to feel excluded, a readiness to fight for her rights, all this shone from her large intense eyes. Sometimes he thought that for her marriage was a series of tests she had to pass. Usually the times he did feel she was at ease were those in bed, when for hours nothing mattered but the pleasure they gave each other. Her ardour encouraged his own sexual passion. That gratitude gave him the patience to deal with everything else.

  As he stood around the Nehru Stadium parking lot, he went over his prepared sentences, that Arjun must know he had a father who would stand by him through thick and thin, but just as his mother had married again, so had he. Now his wife was waiting eagerly to meet him. As for Roohi, his baby sister, she was getting a big girl now. Ishita had been preparing her for the school entrance exams. He hoped she would get admission in VV – alma mater to both Raman and his son.

  Up and down he paced the parking lot, avoiding the groups of waiting people, clearly known to each other. He himself knew no one, no one knew him.

  The buses began to come. Parents crowd around each one. Hugging their sons, exclaiming over them, grabbing their bags, marching them to the car, palpably happy. Joy is where these children are.

  Arjun appeared. It took time for easiness to flow between them, so it was a little awkwardly that Raman started in the car, ‘Beta, I wrote to you about my marriage. Auntie is very keen to love you. You will give her a chance, no? She kept sending you messages at the bottom of my letters, but you never responded.’

  The boy grunted.

  ‘She has made delicious brownies for you. I told her you don’t like nuts in them.’

  ‘Why isn’t Roohi coming with me to Mama?’

  ‘I told you, beta, she has to go to a big school next year. That is the time of entrance tests and interviews. Each school gives a different date, and it goes on till January end. Maybe you don’t remember, but we had to do the same for you.’

  Arjun stared sullenly out of the window. This was not the homecoming Raman had imagined. He only had four weeks with the boy. ‘Anyway, this is not really your problem.’

  ‘Mama said to make sure she comes.’

  ‘Mama must have forgotten the problems with school admissions. You had better remind her.’

  The traffic noise was loud, it seemed every driver drove with one palm pressed to the horn. Acrid city fumes swept around them. Arjun coughed.

  ‘Not like the air in Dehradun, huh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s the one good thing about living away from Delhi. The air you breathe is clean.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are any of your new friends from Delhi? You can call them over.’

  ‘Nah.’

  By now they were reaching home. Raman thought of all the other children in all the other cars who would be tracing familiar landmarks, chattering happily to their parents about what they had done in school. Did Arjun reserve that kind of greeting for his mother? His heart felt heavy as he told his son of the films in town and the things he had planned they do together.

  At the sound of the horn, Ishita looks out of the window. The chowkidar unlatches the gate, the car draws into the little driveway. The door opens, and a thirteen-year-old boy gets out. Black hair falls over a white forehead. Later she will observe that the lips and cheeks are pink. The face is long and narrow, the eyes large, lashes thick. His teeth are slightly crooked.

  She hurries to open the door. Roohi follows, skipping. Raman takes the boy’s bag and says, ‘Beta, this is Ishita Auntie.’

  Ishita steps towards him, smiling, smiling. ‘How was your trip?’ she asks.

  ‘Well, beta?’ says the father.

  ‘Fine,’ he reluctantly replies.

  ‘Would you like something to eat? I have kept lunch for you.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Eat something, you must be hungry,’ added Raman.

  ‘We ate on the way.’

  ‘Are you sure? I thought the buses were coming straight.’

  He shook his head, went to his room and shut the door.

  Raman holds Ishita’s hand. ‘Give him time.’

  ‘He is very handsome,’ she responds carefully.

  ‘Takes after his mother.’

  ‘I gathered that.’

  Raman looks at her. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Of course. Now let’s hope he eats dinner. It’s chicken tikka.’

  ‘How long can he not eat? He is bound to feel hungry.’

  They step on egg
shells the rest of the day. Arjun eats his dinner, doing everybody a favour, but is sparing of his words.

  Next day. Roohi stood next to her brother’s bed, and poked him. ‘Bhaiyya, get up, get up. Look what I made for you.’

  A greeting card under the tutelage of the hopeful, putative mother. Welcome home, Bhaiyya. And three figures were drawn. Father, mother, sister.

  The boy opened one eye and took the paper.

  ‘Who’s that?’ He jabbed a finger at the female standing in the middle.

  Roohi fell silent.

  ‘Huh – who’s that?’

  Still she said nothing.

  ‘Looks like Auntie,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  ‘Who?’

  She giggled. ‘Auntie.’

  ‘Clever girl.’

  That pleased Roohi. ‘Play with me, Bhaiyya, I have got some new games.’

  He opened his quilt. ‘Come.’

  She dived into the warmth and wriggled close to her brother. He shifted an infinitesimal bit to make room for her. They lay there, neither saying anything.

  Raman could hear Ishita in the kitchen. He made his way to the children’s room, and the two heads together filled him with the strong sentiments parents experience at such a sight. Hope for the future, bonding that goes beyond the father and mother, a connection that no divorce can sever. Raman went to fetch his camera, this scene needed to be recorded to buoy him in his downcast moments.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Ishita, coming to announce breakfast. Yesterday was bad, but she would leave no stone unturned to make today better. She had especially made puri-aloo, the boy might appreciate that after months of hostel food.

  ‘See how sweet they look.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Arjun and Roohi. Just peep from the door – they are lying in bed together, I am going to take a picture.’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ smiled Ishita.

  At that moment Arjun was murmuring to his sister, ‘Do you remember Mama?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Not the auntie living with you in this house. Mama in America.’

  Again she nodded.

  ‘She loves you very much. Now don’t you forget that. She is your real mother, no matter what anyone says. All right?’

  Roohi lay still.

  ‘You saw her six months ago. Remember the big lake? Remember the cabin next to it? And the canoe which you were too scared to get into? Remember?’ he repeated impatiently. He must have the dumbest sister in the world.

  She nodded.

  Arjun drew a long breath.

  Roohi got up.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Su-su.’

  ‘Come back then.’

  She ran out of the room as her father was coming. ‘Where are you going, beta? Come, let’s take a photo of you and Bhaiyya together.’

  ‘Su-su.’

  ‘Come back quickly.’

  ‘Roohi!’ Ishita follows her, helps her onto the pot. Roohi does not always remember to wash her hands, but this morning she concentrates on her tasks seriously. The child is adaptable, thinks the mother, she tries to please. She seems a little withdrawn, it must be the brother coming – well, they all had to get used to things, that was life.

  ‘It must be nice, no, seeing Arjun after all this time?’

  Roohi nodded. The safest thing to do in practically all circumstances was to nod.

  ‘Is anything the matter?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What was Arjun telling you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Roohi had not yet learned to lie. Ishita wiped her hands, put the lid of the pot down, sat on it and took the child in her arms. ‘I love you, my precious. You are the best thing that has happened to me. Now you will remember that, won’t you?’

  The head under her chin bobbed.

  ‘Doesn’t matter who was here before me. We are fated to be mother and daughter, you and I. It is our karma that joins us.’

  ‘What’s karma?’

  ‘Destiny. Nobody can change it. Yes, another woman gave you birth, yes, you saw her in America, but now you are with me. Let people say what they like. OK, darling?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I am the person who looks after you, sees to your food, makes sure you do your homework, buys you pretty things, who will never leave you, no matter what.’

  The child pushed her head further into Ishita’s chest.

  ‘Let’s go and tell Arjun that, shall we? Perhaps he doesn’t know there are two kinds of mothers. The ones who give birth to babies, and then forget about them, and the other ones who look after the babies for the rest of their lives.’

  In the bedroom Raman was sitting on Arjun’s bed, his hand on the boy’s back, occasionally reaching out to stroke his hair. ‘I have missed you so much, beta. You have no idea.’

  The boy smiled absently.

  ‘I keep wondering how you are. You hardly write to me, and then such short letters.’

  ‘There is nothing much to say. Just studies and games.’

  ‘Still I worry about you. As it is, there is hardly any contact between us.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  Raman looked at Arjun, saw his ex-wife’s face, thought of the measly four weeks he was going to have with his son before he departed and sighed. Whatever it was, he was destined to always feel pain, and an anxious tortured love that put him in hell over one or the other of his children.

  What was taking Roohi so long?

  The child came, Ishita stood by while Raman fussed with the camera. ‘It’s good the camera will put a date on the picture,’ said Ishita. ‘It is Arjun’s first day home.’

  ‘Yes,’ beamed the father.

  The photo taken, brother and sister sitting together on the bed. They are both smiling, but their bodies don’t touch. The morning bed scene suggestive of love and closeness was no longer there to capture.

  At the breakfast table. Raman sees how carefully Ishita piles Arjun’s plate with puri pickle and potato, how she asks him what his favourite foods are so that she can cook them, how the effort she is making is palpable to the meanest intelligence, and how Arjun’s intelligence is anything but mean.

  ‘You eat, you eat, enough feeding of us all,’ he tells her.

  Towards the end, when all is done, she thinks carefully before she says, ‘Beta, I am like Roohi’s mother. I hope to be your mother too, at least your mother in this house.’

  ‘We can discuss all that later, Ish,’ said Raman.

  ‘Of course we can. Only I thought best to get things clear in the beginning. After all, Roohi has to live here with us – she shouldn’t feel confused.’

  Arjun glared at his sister, who was making potato gravy dots around her plate.

  ‘Don’t play with your food, beta,’ said Ishita. Roohi paid no attention. Ordinarily Ishita would have let this go, but this moment was not ordinary. Raman was not backing her claims as he should.

  ‘Beta,’ she repeated, ‘don’t play with your food.’

  ‘Let her be,’ said Raman.

  Ishita rose, gathered the plates that normally the maid gathered, and let her husband know through thin, tightened lips, through unnecessary clattering of spoon on china, that things were going to go badly unless he did something. He got up to follow her.

  ‘Arjun is just a child. It’s difficult for him too, you have to remember that.’

  Yes, he was just a child. And her husband was just his father, unable to see that children too might have scheming minds. Her face grew tight. ‘At least remember how hard I am trying to make this work. And I won’t have him disturbing Roo.’

  Raman clicked his tongue in exasperation. ‘Don’t you go behaving irrationally now. I have enough on my hands as it is.’ It was the harshest thing he had ever said to her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly.

  He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Give it time. Not ev
en one day has passed.’

  ‘You might have to say something to him … It must be hard on him to see me in his mother’s place, but he has to understand this situation was not of your making. He must see we are together in this.’

  ‘If necessary, I will. Trust me, can’t you?’

  A few days later Raman decided to take Arjun to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Ishita thought it was a wonderful idea, father and son need to be alone together, she said looking at him lovingly, and he thought what a good girl Ishita was, if anything it was his fault that she was in such an impossible situation.

  Raman wanted no harsh note to disturb his interaction with Arjun. He booked a package of two nights, three days in the Maurya Sheraton. He was sure the child stayed in some pretty fancy places with Shagun and Ashok. Well, he could give him fancy as well. He read up the history of Fatehpur Sikri and the Taj to place the monuments they saw in a historical context, to fill in conversational gaps with educational fragments.

  For three days father and son bonded, away from the distractions of sister-baiting and relative-hating. Arjun was now more willing to talk about the things he did at Shivalik House, the tricks they played on the teachers, the house matches, the six-or-seven-kilometre trek they had taken over Diwali weekend. Raman was careful not to ask many questions, he found that irritated his son.

  Arjun clearly loved being in Agra. ‘Do we have to go home?’ he asked, on the evening of the third day, but yes, they had to go.

  ‘Your sister will be very disappointed. She has been so looking forward to her elder brother’s visit. When is he coming? When is he coming? A dozen times a day. And Daadi and Daada too. When is he coming? You are only with me for four weeks, after all.’

  Arjun had nothing to say to any of this.

  The sister and grandparents might have been clamouring for Arjun’s presence, but Raman was saddened that this didn’t really matter to his son. The only person he showed any preference for was himself.

  Once home he insisted till Raman’s hand ached that they play RollerCoaster Tycoon and Age of Empires to the exclusion of all else.

  As they stared at the screen Raman used the opportunity to try and establish some mutual understanding.

  ‘Things have changed at home, beta.’