Custody Page 29

  ‘Do you mean your marriage, Papa?’

  ‘Yes, and that Roohi has found a mother in her. I must ask you to respect that.’

  ‘Mama is our mother.’

  ‘But she left and Roo is too young to be without a mother. For better or for worse,’ he went on carefully, ‘she considers Ishita in that role. Ishita too dotes on her. It is best not to upset the apple cart,’ he went on, laughing lightly, ‘you do know what that means, don’t you?’

  Arjun shook his head.

  ‘Let things be the way they are. You don’t really see Roo when you are not here, but after she came from America she was very disturbed. She kept wetting her bed. And she told some strange story about three little piggies and a big bad wolf, a story that was repeated to her on the plane. For some reason this seemed to have frightened her.’

  ‘What a baby.’

  ‘I got quite worried. Did something bad happen there – something your mother might not be aware of?’

  ‘Nothing. We had this game – that we were living in a house like the three little piggies – it was in a cabin by the lake, you know, Papa – anyway, she made it very difficult when Mama told her that the holiday was over. So we told her we had to go because the big bad wolf was coming to blow the place down. And cook us and eat us,’ added Arjun with relish.

  ‘She is still too young to distinguish reality from fairy tales, beta. After you left for school she really broke down.’

  ‘It was Mama in America she didn’t want to leave. You should have heard her crying and saying I want to stay, I want to stay. I didn’t tell you – I knew you would be upset.’

  ‘Beta, it is disturbing for children to be shunted around like this. You are older, you understand, but she doesn’t.’

  ‘Mama explained and explained. I was there.’

  ‘Don’t forget how young she is.’

  ‘What’ll happen to the apple cart the next time we go?’

  Raman could not bring himself to answer. There was a willingness to wound in Arjun that was new to Raman. What had happened to his son? He had obviously been primed during his last trip to his mother. He looked at the face, so like Shagun’s, opaque as hers had been towards the end.

  For the initial meeting with the grandparents Raman arranged a family lunch at Sagar. In the restaurant there would be so much going on that any tension would be dissipated in the eating and drinking.

  When they arrived they found Mr and Mrs Kaushik already waiting for them in the crowded room, seated next to the window on the second floor of this food mansion.

  ‘Beta!’ they exclaimed. ‘How are you? We have missed you so much, you never wrote to us, hanh? You forgot us, did you?’

  For the millionth time in his life Raman wished his parents were not so tactless. Even Ishita flinched.

  ‘School keeps children very busy,’ she said quickly.

  ‘So busy that you forget your father, forget everybody?’

  The waiter bustled up. They ordered multiple combinations of dosa, idli and vada.

  Raman used the time waiting for the food to sink into depression. Gone was the sense of father and son that he had experienced in Agra, lost in transit from the two of them to the six of them.

  The grandparents continued to ask Arjun questions which Raman tried to answer so that the boy’s surliness was not noticeable. The food came, distractions occurred, they ate, they drank, they paid, then made their way down, pushing through people charging up the narrow staircase, and finally started on their separate ways home. Mr and Mrs Kaushik found it odd that they were not invited to spend the rest of the day with their son, but things had changed, they told themselves in the car, Raman would call them over when he thought it best. At least they got to see a lot of their granddaughter.

  The tension continued during the remainder of Arjun’s visit. Ishita looked as though each second was torture. She wanted Raman to understand her position, and not blame her later for anything. She was trying, if only he knew how hard. Four weeks were not much she realilsed, but Arjun was making trouble between Roohi and herself.

  ‘You are imagining things.’

  ‘No, I am not. He just stays in his room the whole time you are away, or he calls Roohi to him and shuts the door. What am I to think? And she only calls me Mama when he is not there.’

  He is just a child, thought Raman, but he said nothing, merely continued going out with his son. Those were the best times when they were alone, and he tried to create these situations as much as possible. They saw a film at Priya, ate potato skins and pizza at TGIF, wandered around the shopping complex before returning home. They didn’t talk much. Raman said, ‘I love you, son, you are my own flesh and blood, I want you always to remember that.’ Arjun said ‘I know,’ thus gratifying his father. Raman was not about to spoil any outing with the parental strictures that Ishita so wanted. There is a time and a place for everything.

  *

  For the first time Ishita began to think it had been a bad idea to give up her job with Jeevan. It meant that in times of stress there was never any relief from the torment. And wasn’t it better to devote oneself to many children than to obsess about one little girl?

  Yet it had seemed the obvious course. How could she allow herself to miss precious months of Roo’s rearing, when so much had already gone wrong in the child’s life? In both their lives?

  She sighed as she returned to the papers in front of her, pushing other things out of her mind. There was plenty of time to spend on the phone, asking the mothers she knew about school interviews, because Raman was usually with his son. She tried not to look directly at him when he came back to their room, she hated his air of dreamy self-consciousness, almost as though he were in love with the boy.

  Be calm, she told herself, think of your husband, think of his health.

  She often thought of his health – so much easier when the man was not in front of her.

  Raman, seeing her marking school prospectuses, was grateful. She is a good girl, he thought, he didn’t know of anyone else who would be capable of this kind of devotion in these circumstances. She hadn’t even demanded his participation, knowing how preoccupied he was.

  He offered some non-Arjun thoughts. ‘I keep telling you she has a very good chance in VV, my old school, you know.’

  ‘I know. But I found out that children of alumni do not get any extra weightage. They said if they started doing that, they would never have room for anybody else.’

  ‘We didn’t have a problem with Arjun.’

  ‘Things are tougher now.’

  ‘When are the interviews?’

  ‘Gandhi Smriti and Kriloskar this month, Modern and VV in early January, after that Springdales, Our Saviour Convent—’

  ‘I don’t want a convent,’ said Raman.

  ‘We may have no choice. It’s the school I went to, that might increase her chances, so I thought it better to fill in the forms.’

  ‘Are you saying no school will take her?’

  ‘I am saying we cannot be sure of anything.’ She did not look up as she said this. On her lap was a manila folder, scattered around were passport-size pictures of Roohi – he didn’t even know when she had got them taken. In these few months she had already become indispensable. Because of her Roohi was happy and being looked after as children should be looked after. If there was a little trouble now, it would blow over.

  ‘Do you need help in filling out the forms?’

  ‘Most of it is already done. But if I do, I will ask you.’

  There was a slight distance in her voice.

  ‘But do you have all her injection records and everything?’

  ‘I got them from the paediatrician.’

  ‘And her blood type?’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘Her likes and dislikes? Those too?’

  She smiled. ‘Those too.’

  ‘The child couldn’t be in better hands.’

  ‘Let’s hope the teachers who interview us think so too.
’

  He was glad it was admission time. That was enough to keep any concerned mother occupied for months. He edged closer and put his hand under her hair. He loved her neck, it reminded him of a little girl’s.

  She pretended not to notice.

  He slid her dupatta off her shoulders and threw it on the bed. ‘So stupid, hiding your breasts from your husband,’ he said as his hand wandered.

  ‘You are not the only man in the world, you know.’

  ‘But I am the only man in this room.’

  She giggled. ‘So you want me to do a striptease for you?’

  ‘Why not? It would be nice.’

  ‘Well, I am not going to.’ She pulled her dupatta towards her.

  Again he tugged it away. ‘Don’t do a striptease, but there is no need to wear this ridiculous garment. It hardly ever does what it is supposed to do.’

  He threw the dupatta across one shoulder, and mimicked a mincing girl. ‘See, this is how fashionable people wear their dupattas – or like this’ – wrapping it around his neck – ‘or like this’ – some more neck-twisting.

  Ishita was now openly laughing. Encouraged, Raman went on, ‘And madam, if you won’t do a striptease for me, I will do one for you.’

  Off came the shirt, down came the trousers, and now there was just the underwear and his dick peeping through the opening. Ta-da, crooned Raman, suggestively jerking his hips in Ishita’s direction.

  She looked wildly at the door – it was unlocked, the overhead lights brightly lit the room. Locks in place, folder pushed hurriedly into a drawer, only the night light on, Raman slid down his underwear to display a large erection. Until she took her own clothes off, this organ was going to remain exposed.

  You take them off then, she said, her face glowing, laughing at the erection that was now visible under the thin flapping material of the dupatta, tiny sequins flashing coyly as they caught the sparse reflection of the embedded light next to the bathroom door.

  And there she was naked at his feet, drawing him into her mouth, caressing his thighs with her fingers, gripping him more ferociously as her excitement grew. He dragged her to the bed, where they continued indulging themselves.

  In the morning Raman thought he had been unduly pessimistic. Things would work out. He had said this to himself before, but now the conviction was greater.

  Ishita thought to herself, he is just a child, if he is loyal to his mother, that is quite natural. It is stupid of me to mind, I have Roohi, I should be content with that.

  Just before he left, Arjun cornered his sister.

  ‘I am going tomorrow.’

  She stared blankly at him.

  He sat near her and showed her something in his cupped hand. It was a small passport-size photograph of Shagun.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Mama.’

  ‘Don’t forget her. All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘She doesn’t live here any more. She is in the States where I am going now. If you weren’t so stupid you would also be coming.’

  He had called her stupid so many times she was almost used to it.

  Arjun felt proud that he had ended his visit on the same note with which he had started it. He had not succumbed to the enemy. He touched the photograph lying crumpled in his pocket. It was his talisman. From time to time he looked at it, knowing that the eyes that smiled from the glossy paper were always ready to smile at him in exactly the same way. In two days’ time she would receive him at JFK Airport, waiting at the barricade, embracing him so tightly his breath would stop. Later on he would tell her all she wanted to know about Roohi. Then back to DPA where the home scene mattered not at all.

  *

  Was it wrong to feel such relief at the departure of a child? Wrong or not, Ishita hid her feelings. To reveal anything remotely truthful was to invite blame and censure.

  ‘You must be missing Arjun,’ said everybody, even her own parents. ‘With two children in the house there is so much life.’

  What was it about a child that you were supposed to miss no matter what he/she had done to you? Even with children there had to be some kind of reciprocal love. If things had been the least bit congenial with Arjun she would gladly have joined the general chorus of how terrible it was that brother and sister, father and son had to be separated. But his malevolent influence lingered in the things Roohi said, starting from the day of his departure.

  It was Saturday. Raman was busy with extra work in office and nap time found Ishita curled around Roohi in bed. She felt an immense weariness, as though she had run a hundred-mile race every day for the past month.

  Roohi stirred, Ishita pressed closer to her. The child opened her eyes, Ishita gazed at her intently. ‘How’s my little girl?’

  ‘Are you sure you are my mother?’

  She recognised Arjun’s voice behind the sweet, sleepy bewildered tones. At that moment she could just murder him, murder him in cold blood, and not regret the years spent in prison.

  ‘Who else?’ she asked.

  The girl lifted her frock to her mouth and chewed it.

  ‘What I mean to say is that once you did have another mother but she ran away. When that happened, I married your papa. Mamas and papas live together, isn’t that so?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘When your birth mother divorced your father, he chose me to look after you. That is our karma. Remember I told you?’

  ‘What’s divorce?’

  ‘The opposite of marriage.’

  ‘What’s marriage?’

  ‘Marriage is when two people decide to live together for ever. Should they change their minds they go to court and get their marriage cancelled. Finished. Divorced. They become strangers, sometimes they never see each other again.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Your mother decided she loved another man. She wanted to marry him and live in America. You saw him when you were there, no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But she couldn’t take the children with her. Children belong to their papas. So she left both of you here.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Well, in a manner of speaking. I married your papa because I love both of you – I will never, never leave you.’

  Here Ishita allowed herself a sob. Roohi heard her and began to cry as well. They clung to each other for a while, before Ishita dried the child’s tears. ‘Come, darling, let’s get your milk.’

  ‘Mama, can I watch cartoons?’

  ‘All right, sweetheart.’

  If Roohi had only known, she could have asked for the moon and the stars, and Ishita would have tried to put them in her lap.

  XIX

  The first rejection came while Arjun was still with them. In mid-December they received a curt letter, telling them that their daughter would not be called for interview at the Gandhi Smriti School.

  ‘You should have pulled some strings,’ said Ishita, staring in despair at the form letter in which the box Ineligible for Interview had been ticked.

  ‘What strings could I pull?’

  ‘Surely there is a string you know. People on the governing body?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then find someone who does.’

  ‘Ish, you are going mad. Listen to what you are saying. Approach people to approach people I don’t know. As though this is going to help.’

  ‘Something has to help. Or somebody.’

  ‘It’s not the end of the world. There are other schools.

  We never worried like this for Arjun.’

  ‘Times have changed.’

  ‘Not that much, all right?’

  He looked a bit ferocious and she had to retreat.

  Two weeks later massive earthquakes hit Northern India. Thirty thousand died. Ishita collected bundles of old clothes and bedding from the house and drove to Swarg Nivas, to deposit them in the society office. The Brand donated money, medicines, drinking water and juices. ‘It’s our corporate sense of responsibility,’ said
Raman. ‘We know how to give back.’

  Ishita hoped that the good they were doing would be reflected in the ease with which Roohi would gain admission into one of the preferred schools of the city.

  So far as the next interview, at Kirloskar International, was concerned, Raman did make sure they were called. A school belonging to a business conglomerate, it was easier for him to find a contact on the board.

  ‘Sathe says he is doing this as a special favour to me.’

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ said Ishita, as she put her arms around her weary husband and kissed him.

  ‘Hey, don’t thank me. She is also my daughter, you know.’

  His wife giggled at the compliment.

  Since Arjun was with them, she made it a point to announce the date of the interview, information to be conveyed to the mother so that she would know Roohi was not travelling for bona fide reasons.

  ‘There is no need to do all this,’ said Raman. ‘We can’t really make messengers out of the children.’

  ‘Who will tell her, then? Will she trust anything you say? At least her son she will believe.’

  ‘My son too, Ish.’

  ‘That’s what I meant.’

  Arjun departed before the Kirloskar interview, which heartened Ishita, though as the date approached, Raman had to warn her. ‘They only have twenty-five seats, and they are very strict about not exceeding their limit. Not even if the prime minister asks.’

  ‘Her chances are good. I have been preparing her.’

  ‘Just don’t get your hopes up.’

  He always saw the dark side. Why shouldn’t Roohi be one of twenty-five, rather than one of the many rejects?

  Their slot was fixed for January 15th, 3.30 p.m.

  Ishita’s sanguinity knew a check. ‘That’s her nap time, she’s never at her best in the afternoon. Maybe they are doing this only in order to disqualify her.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. How else will they fit so many in? They are interviewing two hundred children a day.’

  On the appointed date they collected in the school along with many others. Along the paths bordering the auditorium were stalls with hot and cold drinks. Student volunteers took down their names, then escorted them inside, where they were solicitously seated according to their appointed times in rows. Their helpfulness filled every parent in the hall with lust. This was what they wanted for their child, this, this, this.