Custody (37 page)

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.

Every half-hour groups of ten were led by a teacher into the belly of the school.

Some social souls began talking. Where all have you applied? Where all have you heard from?

There were some who had received affirmative responses from other schools.

Then what are you doing here, ran the collective thought, spoiling our chances?

They wanted options, they felt it was their right.

Selfish, greedy parents, with their stupid precocious brats. This is the mentality that gives our country a bad name. No sense of the collective good, every man for himself.

But still all kept smiling, all kept asking, what questions were put to your child?, what answers expected?, hoping in the general accretion of information to glean a few nuggets that would help open the gates of a good school.

By the time Roohi was called, Ishita was a mass of anxiety. Her earlier confidence seemed misplaced.

‘Do your best, darling,’ she whispered into the child’s ear. ‘Good luck.’

The child barely acknowledged this as she left.

‘Oh don’t worry,’ said Raman for the millionth time.

What was the use of going on saying don’t worry? Couldn’t he see the kind of children gathered here, smart, bright, confident? Not that Roohi wasn’t all these things, but she was also indubitably shy.

Slowly they walked to the Nestlé kiosk. Ishita needed coffee to calm her nerves. Judging from the crowd, lots of people needed to calm their nerves and it took Raman a while to buy two cups. They sipped the hot frothy instant coffee, and while they were only halfway through they saw a teacher leading ten small children towards the auditorium, Roohi among them.

Ishita threw her coffee cup into the trash and darted towards the child.

‘How was it?’

‘Fine.’ The child’s face revealed nothing.

They smiled at her, grabbed her hands, started walking towards the car.

On their way home, Ishita asked, ‘What did they ask?’

‘My name.’

‘And?’

‘My mama’s name.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said Mama!’

‘Then?’

‘Papa’s name.’

‘And?’

‘I said Raman.’

So. She had not taken her name. Understandably she was confused. But the teachers would never realise why.

‘Beti, did they ask you any nursery rhymes?’ put in Raman. He knew Ishita had focused on nursery rhymes.

‘Yes.’

‘Which one?’

‘Any one I wanted.’

‘Which was that?’

‘Ring-a-ring-a-roses,

‘Pocket full of posies . . .’

‘Good girl!’ exclaimed Ishita.

Thank goodness the rest of the interview had gone well, thought Raman.

‘And – what else?’ continued Ishita.

‘They asked what “posies” was.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’

*

That night Raman spent a lot of time in close proximity to his wife’s angusih. ‘I am sure other children do not know the meaning of what they sing.’

She sniffled.

‘There is always VV.’

‘That’s what you think.’

There was a gloomy strain in Ishita that had burgeoned in these two months of applications and interviews. For his own sanity if nothing else, he hoped Roohi would find admission someplace.

‘Should I go and talk to Mother Superior at OSC? She was very fond of me.’

‘A convent is our last choice. Let’s wait and see first.’

But Ishita couldn’t go on trusting to Raman’s optimism. Among the thousands of children lining up for admission, there were many who were going to be stuck in mediocre schools through no fault of their own. And whatever Raman’s opinion of convents, he would be grateful to have her in OSC if other options failed. So unbeknownst to him she did visit her old school.

In OSC, Ishita’s talents had been rewarded steadily through the years. She had been class monitor, prefect, house captain, sports captain, vice-head girl. She knew Mother Superior would claim helplessness in the face of a mountain of applications, and to forestall that she related her own recent history. Deprived children at Jeevan, Raman the abandoned divorcee, Roohi the neglected child, her own love for the little girl.

When she walked out the gates it was with the feeling that Mother had been moved by her story. And in OSC at least Roohi would not be asked irrelevant questions such as the meaning of ‘posies’.

*

The admission procedures in VV were spread over a weekend, from morning to night.

An intelligent school, commented Raman. They know if they want both parents present they have to do their admissions on Saturday and Sunday.

Ishita, staring at the forms they were meant to fill out, said nothing. Eight pages of questions. One would think the child was applying to do a Ph.D., or enter the secret service, the list was so exhaustive.

She looked at the other parents in the brightly coloured kindergarten room. Every low chair was filled to overflowing with a bulky parental form. From the frowns she could tell they too were finding the questions difficult. Well, it was Raman’s second time round, he knew what kind of responses the school would approve of. It did say on top that the objective was to understand the child, there were no right or wrong answers. And she was born yesterday.

Raman was muttering –

Any siblings in the school?

Parents’ educational history?

Jobs?

Salary?

Child’s favourite food?

Favourite game?

Story?

Toy?

Bedtime?

The activities you do with your child?

What are your child’s likes and dislikes?

In one sentence, how would you describe your child?

What do you think is your child’s greatest weakness?

Greatest strength?

How much media entertainment do you allow your child?

Her favourite programmes?

What will you say if your child wants to buy a balloon?

An ice cream?

What will you say if your child wants a toy she has seen?

What will you tell your child when she asks you why you are smoking? (Do not say you do not smoke.)

At the smoking question Ishita rebelled. ‘Surely that is the reason many people don’t smoke, they don’t want to set a bad example. Do they want us to lie?’

That was the trouble with Ishita. Literal-mindedness did not cut it there. She would never make it in a multinational where they were always having to project scenarios and consider possible reactions.

Form filled, the three of them were called. One teacher engaged the parents’ attention, the other engaged Roohi at some distance.