A Sister's Promise (17 page)

Love,
he thinks.
It transforms you, and it also binds you in chains . . .

‘You yearned to escape. To be free. Have you? Are you?’

The colour leaves his mother’s face like light leaving the sky during a rainstorm, ‘Son, I
. . .
’ She gulps, a tremor passing through her.

‘I’m sorry, mum,’ Raj blurts, surprising himself. Much as he’s resented the remote mother he’s known all his life, Raj is waking up to the realization that he doesn’t like seeing his mother like this either, undone, open to hurt. Hearing her story has gone some way in making Raj feel more forgiving towards her. The heated anger that a mere word from her could trigger is not so quick to flare anymore. What he feels instead, as he looks at the woman beside him—a woman who’s always been a vexing enigma but who is now gradually revealing herself to be a person he thinks he might be able to relate to—is sadness that circumstances have forced the precocious, fun-loving girl he’s been hearing about, to become this remote woman.

His mother gathers herself together. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she says. ‘You’ve made me think. You’re very astute, son.’

He swells from the unexpected compliment, and turns away to look out the window to hide the flush that is taking his face captive.

‘This talking to you, telling you about the past is helping me to see myself clearly, scrutinise the girl I was from a distance. I wish I could pluck her out of the past, shake some sense into her and then insert her back in again.’ A pause, then, ‘You have your whole life ahead of you, son, waiting to be moulded into shape. Mine has settled into the groove of the mistakes I’ve made, the holes I mindlessly dug and fell into . . . ’

Raj turns away from his perusal through the window of the candyfloss clouds stretched as far as the eye can see, disappearing into a cerise gilded horizon and looks at his mother. Her eyes sparkle and glitter with their jewellery of tears.

His distant mother finally doing him the honour of treating him like an adult. This more than makes up for the slap, he thinks.

‘You asked if I am free, Raj. Ah . . . I’m beginning to realize that I’ve bound myself in chains tighter than any the villagers could have conceived, and locked myself in a prison of my own making.’ She swallows and anxiety settles over her features—a shadow of pain, as sinister as a masked intruder poised to strike, ‘I’m hoping . . . I’m hoping that by seeing my sister again, and meeting Kushi, I will finally be free . . . ’

Why am I not enough? Why wasn’t I the one who set you free?
Raj thinks going back to the window, his earlier good mood dissipating faster than the clouds shifting beneath their plane as his mother continues with her story.

PUJA—CUSP

GOSSIP ANTENNAE

Second PUC (Pre-University Course) Exam Results for Puja Ramesh, Age 18

Kannada 45/100

English 65/100

Maths 33/100 F

Physics 26/100 F

Chemistry 32/100 F

Biology 30/100 F

We regret to inform you that Puja Ramesh has failed the second year Pre-University Course examination. If she wishes to continue her studies and apply for a place at college, she needs to retake her exams.

Puja barely glances at her report card as she rushes down to the shops where he waits for her, the leader of the motorcycle gang, and the handsomest man in the entire town of Dhoompur.

But that evening, he is not there, revving his bike as he usually does.

She gives up the pretence they have maintained of not being aware of each other until the street empties of gossipy students, busybody doyennes and bored, out-of-work men with nothing better to do than to create trouble by spreading malicious rumours, and approaches his friends.

‘Where is he? Is he ill?’ Puja grills his friends but they are evasive, their faces going red as carrot halwa when she interrogates them. They mumble something incoherent while furiously concentrating on drawing circles in the mud with their feet and she finally gives up, stomping off in a huff.

The trek home seems to take forever. Puja is annoyed with herself for caring so much, for not being able to get rid of the salty bulge of disappointment lodged in her throat. She hates not knowing where he is and with whom.

Am I that easy to give up?

Then there is the added disappointment of the report card. She was expecting it, of course, but how to show it to her parents, especially in light of Sharda’s prodigious achievement? Sharda, who is well on her way to becoming a doctor, and almost three quarters of the way through her medical degree.

Puja has been expecting their parents, especially their ma, to be getting a little anxious by now about marrying Sharda off, but curiously, there has been no mention of marriage. With their ma being so traditional, Puja is surprised that the subject of Sharda’s marriage and Puja’s in due course, has not been raised.

At times, Puja wonders if Ma and Sharda are keeping something from her. But she cannot be bothered to push to find out. If it is important, they’ll tell her. Sharda has said something obscure about ‘fortune favouring the hardworking’, she and Ma have lectured Puja about her reputation every so often as usual, but there has been nothing else. At least this means the pressure is off Puja. Ma cannot nag
her
about marriage until Sharda has been married off. And Puja is grateful for this reprieve. It gives her time to plan her future, to run away with him, as he has suggested so many times, although they haven’t planned anything concrete yet.

But where is he this evening?

As Puja nears home, she sees a flash of metal, glinting silvery gold in the sunshine. Is that what she thinks it is? Her heart beating a loud tattoo in her chest, she quickens her steps, until she is almost running, and then comes to a panting stop beside the machine parked by the fields leading down to her hut. She glides her hands down the shining chassis, the one that only she has been allowed to ride; the one he keeps so spotless, making sure that one of the many servants in his house wipe it clean of dust every morning, or so he has told her.

‘I make them polish it until I can see my face in every part of it,’ he has said, proudly.

Gopi,
Puja whispers his name, hoarding it in her mouth like a delicious treat. She looks in the wing mirror and tidies her hair, pushing stray wisps behind her ears, catching a lingering whiff of him, motor oil and lemon, as she bends down to check her reflection.

How come he is here?

Puja skips down the fields to her house, her mood suddenly very much improved, breathing in the fragranced early evening air, tasting guavas and hope. Has he decided to tell her parents about his feelings for her, ask for her hand in marriage? But he’s never spoken of marriage, only of running away from the village. And why tell her parents before discussing it with her?

Did he gather up the courage to confess his feelings for Puja to his father and perhaps his father made him come here, talk to her parents? She knows how afraid Gopi is of his father, the landlord. He has been so careful about keeping their relationship under wraps, even more so than her. He is worried about being found out—his father is very strict, he says, and will confiscate his bike if he gets wind of any mischief.

So why is Gopi here now, blatantly advertising their friendship to the whole world, if she is right in assuming that Gopi has come to visit her? And if he hasn’t come to see her, then
why
has he come?

There is nothing here but fields. The little hut she shares with her parents and sister is slap bang in the middle of nowhere, unlike his huge mansion by the beach . . . oh well, she’ll find out soon enough.

She is past the clump of guava trees, and almost upon the hut. She hears loud voices, and laughter. Da is home and so also, it appears, from the booming, sonorous tones, is the landlord, Gopi’s father. She’s met the landlord at their school feast days; he is always invited to distribute the prizes. She pictures the big, surly man with his bald head and his impressive moustache. Did he sit pillion on Gopi’s bike, in
her
place? Why is
he
here?

Puja pulls her salwar down, brushing off the dust accrued from the walk home and bounces into the house, abruptly grinding to a stunned halt as she takes in the scene before her.

Sharda is all decked up and sitting next to Gopi. She is wearing a sari Puja has never seen before, a beautiful garnet and gold affair, and Puja realises, her shuddering heart slowly catching up with her brain, that it is a new one bought for this occasion with money her parents can ill afford. Hasn’t she heard her parents and sister worrying time and time again about how to make ends meet? So why spend money they don’t have on a new sari for Sharda, when Puja has begged and begged for new clothes but has had to make do with Sharda’s drab hand-me-downs which her ma alters, letting down the hems and tightening the waist as Puja is both taller and thinner than Sharda.

Sharda is wearing flowers in her hair and kumkum on her forehead, all of Ma’s jewellery twinkles on her neck and glitters on her arms. She is not wearing her spectacles. She is the picture of a blushing bride.

Gopi is unrecognisable in a lungi and white shirt, a far cry from the checked shirt and trousers that make up his daily uniform. His gaze meets Puja’s once briefly before it drops onto his lap, his face going red as his mates’, and he squirms uncomfortably on the mat beside her sister.

Da and Ma are laughing the laugh they reserve for visitors and Sharda is coy. Her bangle-laden hands join demurely on her lap.

There is another mat on the floor heaving with laddoos and bondas, bhajis and pedas. Ma has gone all out it seems. The air is heady with excitement and with the smell of fried onions, condensed milk and spices. The landlord is stretched out on the only bench like a snake undulating dreamily after having swallowed a human.

‘What is going on here?’ Puja asks and her voice is sharp with shock.

‘Puja,’ Ma says in a voice as false as a wig, ‘the landlord has asked for your sister’s hand in marriage to his son.’

No!
Puja’s dumbfounded brain screams in the confines of her head.
No, no, no!

But, with gargantuan effort, she tries to keep her smile in place and says, charming as ever, looking right at the landlord, her voice steady and not trembling, not even a tiny bit, ‘Why can’t I marry your son instead?’

And everyone, with the exception of Gopi, who still refuses to meet her gaze, bursts out laughing even though Puja is not joking, even though she is crying inside, her lovesick heart a big bottomless cavern, wet and saturated in tears.

The day after his betrothal to her sister, Gopi, as always, waits for Puja outside the shops, and when she walks past, he has the gall to offer her a tentative smile, as if nothing has happened, as if their world has not just shifted on its axis leaning heavily towards her short, squat, bespectacled sister. She ignores him and walks down the road, looking straight ahead.

Instead of keeping pace on the opposite side of the road, as he usually does in order to avoid scandal, he catches up with her.

‘Puja,’ he calls, in a prayer-like chant that gives her name the meaning it is ordained.

She walks on, pretending he isn’t there.

He speeds up and stops right in front of her, blocking her path.

‘Fancy a ride?’ he asks, his voice slightly breathless.

Puja lifts her hand, and with all her strength, slaps him right across his arrogant, thoughtless cheek.

There is silence. The tinkle of bicycle bells, the honk of the lone, overstuffed, on-its-last-legs rickshaw ferrying schoolchildren home, the chatter of youth, the song of the boatmen, and the laughter of the fisherwomen, pauses in the ringing aftermath. Mouths are agape, welcoming receptacles for swirling particles of grime and inebriated insects drunk on nectar and sunshine. The bitter, woozy smell of shock pervades the dust-bruised air.

Puja’s hand smarts and she holds it a bit away from her so it doesn’t brush her salwar as she walks away, her head held high. Gopi is the handsomest, coolest boy in all of Dhoompur. The other boys look up to him. And to him, appearances matter.