Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories (26 page)

Meenu knew then that Pramod's wealth, his immense property, this lovely terrace, was all hers. This feeling was reaffirmed the next morning when Sheeba called on Meenu's mobile phone, breaking the agency's no-calling rule, to congratulate her. ‘Your client has extended his contract for three more months. And he's paying even more this time. You've made the agency rich, and yourself even richer, I'm sure.' Her slightly bitter sign-off made Meenu realize just how significant all this was.

Ninety days and ninety nights were all Meenu needed for her life to change. Once Birju saw what Meenu had been able to get for them both, he'd leave that Pinky woman. They'd install a swing on the terrace for their child to play on and a giant flat screen TV in the living room, where they'd watch Sallu Bhai's movies. Every day they would eat chapatti filled with ghee and shakkar, and she'd buy Birju one of those iPods that all the rich people had.

It was going to be first class!

~

It was a sticky night. The moon was the colour of jaundice and the stars flashed like worn-out headlights. Meenu was unable to sleep, watching Pramod curled in bed, his features slack, snoring. All of a sudden she heard the sound of footsteps. Meenu saw a shadow outside their bedroom window. She sat up in fright. Someone was on their terrace. The intruder must have climbed up the two floors using the pipe. Meenu shook Pramod but he didn't wake up, comatose from the vast number of pills he'd started taking. When she removed Pramod's hand, it slumped limply against her waist. Meenu crept outside to the living room to get her mobile phone. She would call the police. But what was the number? 111? 100? 911? When she leaned forward to pick up the phone, her eyes fell on a figure dressed in black standing behind the terrace's sliding door. Meenu screamed.

In the moonlight a familiar face was revealed. Birju. It was Birju!

What a relief! And what joy!

She was seeing her husband after what—four, five months? And he'd come all the way from Byculla to see her; perhaps he missed her.

‘What's wrong?' Pramod shouted from the room, his voice sounding frail and distant, still sleepy.

‘Nothing is wrong,' she shouted back. ‘I saw a big … cockroach. Go back to sleep.'

Meenu walked out to the terrace. She smiled at her husband; he didn't smile back.

‘I'm so happy to see you,' she said. ‘How I've missed you. Munna has missed you too.' She patted her stomach. Even in the darkness, Birju looked pale, lean, much like Pramod. He didn't say anything, just stared at her.

She continued, ‘You must be missing me too, I know. But you really shouldn't have come here. I'll lose my job if they find out that I gave you my client's address.'

Birju didn't reply and for a moment Meenu wondered if she was hallucinating, perhaps dreaming that he was here. But no, he was blinking furiously, his eyes bloodshot.

‘Are you okay?' she asked him, becoming concerned.

‘No, I am not okay,' Birju said, his voice heavy and raspy. ‘There's no money left at home. I called that Sheeba woman for an advance but she said that I'll have to wait for another two months.'

So he was here only to get money. Meenu tried to hide her disappointment. ‘You know I don't get paid till the end of my duty, Birju,' she said slowly. ‘And you told me that you were going to find another job.'

‘Job?' he snarled. ‘Nandu's men have told everyone that I'm useless, that I steal money and sleep with the women employees. No one wants to hire me.'

So he was probably still with that Pinky woman.

‘But what can I do? I only have the little cash I took when I left home,' Meenu said.

‘Liar—' he spat on the ground. ‘You live like a princess in this big house, eating like the bloody pig you've become, while your husband starves. Have you no shame?'

‘Don't say that. I am doing all this for us only, for Munna and you,' she pleaded. ‘I really have nothing or you know I would've given it to you.'

‘Bring me money from that big house then. I'm sure your lover can spare some change.'

‘He doesn't give me cash, you know that. I don't even know where he keeps it.'

Meenu saw a shadow behind Pramod's bedroom curtain. She ducked behind a large rubber plant and pulled Birju behind her. ‘You have to leave. I have to go back inside or everything will get ruined. I'll ask Sheeba to send you an advance.'

Birju pushed Meenu on her chest.

‘I'll ask Sheeba to send you an advance,' he mocked. ‘What a mem you've become. You think it's your lover's agency that they'll give you whatever you want? I want some money now.'

Meenu looked over at the house in fear. ‘Don't shout, Birju. He's not deaf. You really shouldn't have come here.'

‘I'll walk into the house and slit your old man's throat if you don't give me something.'

‘Birju, don't talk like that. He locks everything before going to sleep.' It was true. ‘I really have nothing to give you,' she said, in tears now.

‘What's this, then?' Birju asked, holding up the thin gold chain around her throat. ‘And this?' He clutched her wrist tightly and looked at Chandralikha's kada. ‘My God, you have a treasure in your hand, while you pretend to be poor.'

‘It's not mine,' she whimpered.

Birju chuckled. His brown teeth glistened malevolently in the dark night. ‘Not yours? Then you shouldn't be wearing it,' he snarled and wringed the kada off Meenu's wrist.

‘Don't,' Meenu cried out loudly. ‘Pramod will find out and throw me out on the streets. All my hard work will be wasted. We'll get nothing. Please. I beg you.'

Birju pushed Meenu again, hard this time. She fell against a money plant and grabbed its trellis to break her fall. She spun around and shouted, ‘Stop, Birju!' but he had vanished into the night.

~

The next morning, Pramod didn't get up from his bed. Meenu—who hadn't slept the entire night—bathed and wore a full-sleeved brocade salwar-kameez. It kept her wrist hidden. She went to the bed, put Pramod's head on her lap and asked him, ‘What's wrong, jaan?' He just stared at Meenu, not saying anything. His face looked withdrawn and old, like he'd aged a thousand years. What did he know?

But he didn't mention last night's disturbance or the missing bangle.

Meenu was so relieved that she remained teary-eyed the whole day, fussing over him like he was a child. But he wouldn't eat, not even accepting juice. The day passed in silence. At night he didn't put his arms around her, but lay in a corner of the bed, completely still, his body moving only when seized with coughing.

By the following week, there were bloody sores on Pramod's neck, his arms and chest. He was wasting away, not moving from the bed, except to use the bathroom for which Meenu had to help him up.

The nurse continued to come every day, but her visits now lasted for hours and on some days she stayed till almost midnight.

One day as the nurse was leaving she addressed Meenu for the first time. ‘Very soon Sir will not be able to move at all. You will have to change his sheets every two or three hours. Give his medicine on time. And keep the room temperature on medium.'

‘What's wrong with him?' Meenu asked.

The nurse looked sharply at Meenu and said, ‘Shouldn't you know that?'

When the nurse left Pramod beckoned Meenu to his bedside.

‘I will be gone in a day or two,' he said.

Genuine hot tears rolled down Meenu's cheeks.

‘No, you will not,' she said. ‘Not when your Chand is here.'

He gave her a small sad smile.

‘I am going to my Chand.'

‘No, don't say that.' Meenu stared at him and couldn't help but ask, ‘What are you dying of?'

He smiled weakly.

‘Please tell me, I beg you.'

He bent his forefinger and signalled for her to come forward. She leaned into his face as he whispered, ‘Heartbreak.'

She giggled then, standing up pertly. ‘No one dies of heartbreak.'

‘I am, twice over,' he said, grimly. Then he looked at her and added, ‘But I don't want to leave the way my Chand did.'

‘What do you mean?'

He grabbed Meenu's empty wrist and held it with all his remaining strength. ‘I mean that I didn't tell my Chand the truth on her deathbed, but I want you to tell me yours.'

Meenu's wrist burnt in his grip as if he'd thrown boiling water on it. Pushing a strand of hair behind her ears, she said, ‘What are you talking about? I have nothing to tell.'

‘Are you sure?' he asked, his eyes piercing hers.

She could tell him the truth, Meenu realized. Pramod would understand. He would.

‘I—' she began. But what if he didn't? She'd been wrong about men before, and she could be wrong now. There was too much at stake.

‘Would Chand ever lie to you?' Meenu replied instead, batting her eyelashes. She laughed then, a high-pitched sound that echoed thinly in the silent room.

Pramod studied her quietly for a minute.

And then he too laughed, sickly, weakly, and his teeth showed, yellow and nauseating. ‘So you prefer to serve in hell than to reign in heaven?' he asked.

Meenu didn't reply. She stood by Pramod's bedside and waited for whatever had to come next.

SHAITANS

Shortly after waking up, Jamie realizes his bag has been stolen.

‘These bloody Indians,' he exclaims, getting up so fast from his hard bed that he has to lean against the wall till his head stops reeling. He feels an urgent itch on his forearm and looks down to see a large welt emerging. Is it possible to get malaria immediately after recovering from it?

Don't let the bite distract you, he tells himself, knowing that he has to deal with the more pressing matter of finding his passport, money and clothes so he can get back home to San Diego. He walks to the ashram's seva office.

‘I came to this meditation course to find peace, you know?' he tells Olga, refusing to sit on the wooden chair she offers him. The peeling wall behind Olga has a laminated sign stating the code of discipline for the ashram's residents. He clicks his tongue angrily on reading the second rule: abstinence from stealing.

‘It's ridiculous. I flew a thousand miles in search of spirituality, stayed in silence for ten fucking days, recovered from a life-threatening disease and then lost everything.' His voice sounds strained against the quiet of the ashram and he wishes he hadn't said fuck.

Olga replies in an even tone, ‘You have any, how to say, suspect?'

Jamie looks at Olga. He knows she's volunteered at the ashram for a long time, but she is white—from Croatia, but white. She'll understand what he's going to say: ‘It could be any of these Indians. In the name of spirituality these people give big smiles and say the sweetest things, but turn your back and they take your buck. I can't believe these—' he can't think of something vicious enough to say ‘—shaitans.' It's a word he's heard the local residents sometimes whisper during the evening discourse.

Olga continues in her accent, stretching her vowels as he's seen her stretching her thighs during yoga. ‘Maybe you think of person who could do this type of thing?'

Jamie remembers the little boy who cleans his room every day. He'd seen the boy on his first day in India, when he came straight from Mumbai airport to this ashram in Nashik, filled with possibility and hope. He entered his room, with its plywood bed and doorless bamboo cupboard, and saw a boy sweeping under the bed with a broom. The boy could have been six or ten—Jamie could never pinpoint an Indian's age—and he smiled timidly when Jamie offered him a tip.

‘No, Sahib,' he said in impeccable English. ‘I want to honour your presence in this ashram by performing this simple duty for free.'

How Jamie smiled back, taking a mental snapshot of that moment, marvelling at the wisdom of a mere child, vindicated in his impulsive journey to this unknown land. His own childhood seemed shameful, for all he remembered doing was drinking Mountain Dew and eating Twizzlers. And even his adult life was spent in futility, chasing eyeballs and ratings as a TV sales executive. Empty things, really. He wished he had his camera to capture the boy, that moment, but the lady at the ashram's reception office, who told him to call her Mata, had locked away his Canon camera, along with his Seiko watch and his bag containing money, credit cards, a travel guidebook and passport. Mata allowed him to take only three pairs of clothes of the ten he had, and a hundred rupees in change.

But this happiness—of which he was so certain that day—didn't last, his mood shifting once the Noble Silence course began. The silence that he was supposed to maintain for ten days grew vines around his swirling mind within the first hour. Guruji's taped voice during the evening discourse warned this would happen, residents would suffer heightened emotions, but expecting to feel a certain way was not the same as actually feeling it.

Jamie was told that he could speak only once a day, only to his evening teacher and only to ask one pertinent question. This also unnerved him for he was unable to divide his life into blocks and pick one block that was more relevant than the others. He waited instead for something, a word or an emotion, to carry him to the meaning of his life. Nothing happened.

In the focused environment of the ashram, with its sincere and serious residents, Jamie realized the disappointing truth: he couldn't live his life in anything but its superficiality. By sitting under the dome of a big white meditation room, his mind could not go on a journey to self-discovery and gather some elusive form of wisdom.

One afternoon, finding the peace grating on his agitated nerves, Jamie left the honeycomb-shaped cell where he was supposed to be meditating alone and went up to his room. Upon entering, he saw the boy, the cleaner, rummaging through his cupboard. The boy didn't hear Jamie's fury build up behind him, engrossed as he was in his task. It was when Jamie put his hand on his shoulder that the boy was startled.