Married Woman (17 page)

Afterwards Aijaz cast a nostalgic look around, ‘I will miss this room‚’ he said.

‘I won’t‚’ said Pipee. ‘The landlord is an extortionist. This must be the smallest room in all of Delhi.’ In fact it was one of six tiny ones, built around a spiral staircase in the back spaces of one of the larger houses of Greater Kailash II.

‘Our love grew here‚’ pronounced Aijaz.

Pipee laughed, ‘Well it can flourish somewhere larger.’

‘Yes‚’ said Aijaz thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes I wish I had my own flat – but out of the house all day, teaching, travelling, theatre – being a paying guest was the most convenient thing.’

‘Soon both of us will have a proper home. I am sick of living in hostels and rented rooms. It’s been almost ten years, but now all of that is over.’

Pipee flung an arm out, the future glinting in her eyes. Aijaz smiled and kissed the waving arm.

‘You have to promise to spend more time with me‚’ went on Pipee. ‘I refuse to be a nagging wife. You have to promise and keep your promise, and never break it, without my saying a single word.’

‘Of course. Why do you think I am getting married?’

‘Sex every minute, seems like.’

‘You think one needs to get married for that?’ laughed Aijaz.

Pipee remained silent.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ But the number of women Aijaz had had bothered her sometimes.

‘I want to settle down, I want a home, I want you‚’ said Aijaz turning to Pipee impatiently again.

Pipee pushed him away, ‘Really Jazu, sometimes I think you just have one thing on your mind.’

Aijaz looked proud and manly. ‘Wait till we are living together – then you will really see.’

‘Yes, let’s see if marriage will cool your ardour.’

‘My ardour, as you put it, will never be cooled. And we must really start looking, it’s very difficult without a company lease, or months of rent in advance.’

‘I’ve a surprise for you.’

‘You’ve found a place!’

‘In a way.’

Aijaz looked wary. ‘What way?’

‘Now listen – listen properly—’

‘I’m listening, I’m listening.’

‘You know what Premlata said to her father, when he was going to marry her off? She said thirteen was under-age and against the law, and if necessary, she would call the police! Wasn’t that brave of her?’

‘Very. But what’s the connection?’

‘Our efforts are bearing fruit, that’s what. After three years of going to our centre at Salempuri, more children have reached literacy level, more girls are going to school, and
you wouldn’t believe how some of them have changed! They always worked hard, these girls, they cook, wash clothes, look after the cows, buffaloes, younger brothers and sisters, send them to school, help in the family business, they embroider, make envelopes, necklaces, sew sequins on, but are often made to feel worthless. But at the centre they develop self-confidence, look at Premlata! We want to open more centres.’

‘I still don’t see what that has to do with us‚’ repeated Aijaz patiently. He had heard Pipee about her work many times.

‘Since we are expanding, we are going to apply for permission from the home ministry for foreign funding. Then Ujjala will hire me a flat in lieu of a raise in pay. They know I’m getting married—’

‘I take it they don’t disapprove of me, no don’t tell me, our marriage is a strike for communal harmony.’

‘What’s wrong with their approval?’

‘Your mother hates me because I am Muslim. Your friends love me because I am Muslim, I don’t know which is worse.’

‘How does it matter? Look what they are doing for us, isn’t that nice of them?’

‘Very‚’ said Aijaz with reserve. ‘And I am sure they will extract their pound of flesh. Make you work ten times harder, demand your presence so much you will hardly be in your precious flat.’ There were times when he resented the women in Pipee’s life, especially Neeraj.

‘You don’t know how women operate. Just think, we will have enough space to have my mother visit us in Delhi during her holidays, and of course your family too.’

Aijaz yawned and turned away. Pipee tried to suppress her annoyance. Why was the man so unwilling to discuss his family?

‘Have you told them yet?’ she demanded.

‘I’ll tell them, I’ll tell them, what’s the hurry?’

‘They’re your family, I want to meet them, know them.’

‘You are so idealistic‚’ remarked Aijaz.

‘It must be nice to have so many people belonging to you.’

‘It’s a total pain in the ass. You can deal with one person’s expectations, but here there is the whole community.’

‘So?’

‘So they all take my father’s side. He has never accepted my theatre activities. If his eldest son wanted to be a lecturer, the least he could do was help with the mango orchards in Shahjehanpur during the summer, instead of getting involved in some silly drama-shama. It doesn’t even pay, which makes it that much harder to understand.’

‘We can both help with the orchards from time to time‚’ said Pipee enthusiastically and ignorantly.

‘That’s not all. They wanted me to marry my cousin Azra. My mother was especially keen since she had brought Azra up after my aunt died. I suppose they were trying to make sure I eventually returned. They don’t understand my life, they don’t realise I have no time for all this fuss.’

‘I am sure they will hate me‚’ said Pipee in a small voice.

‘We’ll take it as it comes. Why worry now?’

It took six months for the grant to come through. The accommodation they ended up with belonged to Neeraj’s sister’s husband settled in the States. He had bought a flat in Vasant Kunj as an investment, and was now looking for a reliable tenant (i.e. one who would leave when asked). Neeraj convinced him that Ujjala and Pipee were what he was looking for.

It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen with built-in closed shelves, a dining area at right angles from the sitting area. Outside the sitting-dining there was one big balcony, outside the bedrooms there were two smaller ones.

‘I’m going to have a potted garden here‚’ said Pipee, stretching out her arms to the hot white sky above the verandah. ‘I’m going to have everything. I can’t wait to show it to my mother.’

‘Look at all the space! How clever you are, darling‚’ exclaimed Aijaz, putting his hands under her shirt, and unhooking her bra as she walked about.

‘Well it was really Neeraj. She always manages to find solutions to problems.’

‘I prefer to think it was you.’

‘Are you jealous?’ laughed Pipee. ‘You shouldn’t be, she loves you.’

‘She hardly knows me.’

‘I talk to her sometimes.’

‘About us?’ Aijaz looked appalled.

‘One can’t be talking of work all the time‚’ temporised Pipee, and then to change the subject, ‘Oh, I never told you, we will also have a phone, think how nice that will be.’

‘We could have got that on our own.’

‘We would have had to wait years.’

‘I have connections too, you know, I could have got us a phone. Now stop moving.’

‘Jazu, do you ever think of anything else?’ murmured Pipee, as she so frequently had to.

‘No‚’ said Aijaz pinning her against the wall, seriously this time.

It was in September 1988 that the marriage between Aijaz Akhtar Khan and Pipeelika Trivedi was solemnised in Tees Hazari. The bride and groom paid for their own wedding, the whole thing came to five hundred rupees. No relatives were present from either side, a colleague of Aijaz’s and Neeraj acted as witnesses, while the theatre crowd, a few of Aijaz’s colleagues, and the staff of Ujjala, later gathered at Karim’s to complete the celebratory aspects.

Pipee had arranged her work so that she would be free the two weeks of Aijaz’s autumn break. They were going to Shiksha Kendra, and as Mrs Trivedi’s winter holidays started in mid October, they would all come back together.

‘I think we will avoid my grandparents, they needn’t really know we are coming. Besides they are very orthodox, and
will fuss like mad over the Mozzie issue.’

‘I can pretend to be a Hindu if you wish.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it, why should you? You are not a pariah, after all.’

‘It’s not a question of pariah, what difference does it make? Old people need to be treated carefully.’

Pipee needed only a second to realise the possible personal application of this remark. ‘Will your family look upon me as a pariah? Shouldn’t we visit them so that they get to know me?’

‘No, let’s give them time to get used to it first‚’ said Aijaz. ‘Besides your mother is coming back with us, and we can’t complicate matters.’

‘If your mother came too, they could be company for each other‚’ said Pipee, showing how little she knew of the science of in-laws.

‘Another time.’

‘You have to travel quite a bit to this school of yours, Pip‚’ said Aijaz on the second day of their train ride to Bangalore.

‘It’s the best school in India‚’ said Pipee proudly.

‘And like all shrines, difficult to reach‚’ replied Aijaz looking deadpan.

Pipee smiled in the way Aijaz loved to see, the corners of her mouth turned in, the deepening dimples. She pinched his side several times in the crowded second class compartment. ‘You’ll see‚’ she said loftily, ‘I will say no more.’

‘Promise?’

This time Pipee pinched him so hard, he cried out, and everybody looked at them with curiosity and disapproval. Young, alone and enjoying themselves.

In Bangalore they took a bus to Madanapalle. ‘From there we will take a taxi‚’ said Pipee. ‘It is sixteen kilometres.’

As they drove away in the taxi towards Shiksha Kendra, Pipee grew thoughtful, the dimples and the smile went.

‘Why so quiet, dearest?’ asked Aijaz, ‘I’m not used to it.’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Come on, tell me.’

‘It was in school that I first fell in love, and now I am coming here on my honeymoon. I feel strange when I think about it, that’s all.’

‘Your first love! You never told me.’

‘There was nothing to tell.’

Aijaz ignored this. ‘Who was he?’ he went on.

‘She.’

‘She?’

‘Her name was Samira.’

‘You were in love with a woman?’

‘Woman? Hardly that. Schoolgirl really. She was only seventeen.’

‘That’s not so young. In my village girls marry at sixteen, how old were you?’

‘Well Shiksha Kendra is not Shahjehanpur‚’ said Pipee a little coldly. ‘And what does it matter how old I was? It was so long ago I do not remember.’

‘Did your mother know?’

‘What was there to know? We were schoolgirls‚’ said Pipee withdrawing from the conversation.

‘Where is she now?’

‘She married‚’ said Pipee shortly. ‘We lost touch after college.’

Aijaz fell silent. Pipee was so unlike her usual self that he didn’t know what to think. It must have been like those crushes that girls had on filmstars or their teachers. She was young and inexperienced and imagined her feelings to be love.

He looked sideways at her, she was still looking remote. Did she think he was narrow minded enough to disapprove of a schoolgirl crush, he who knew of the strong ties that existed between women in the zenana? He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t feel sad, Pip. I am here. After all this is our honeymoon.’

Pipee smiled at him and thought there were some things that could not be shared, no matter how understanding the other person. All said and done she was lucky to have found him. So many of her acquaintances were still struggling, looking for love and companionship, rejecting arranged marriages, only to experience a series of heartbreaks on their own.

At the gates of Shiksha Kendra, Pipee stopped and paid the taxi. ‘I want to walk‚’ she said to Aijaz. ‘I want you to see it slowly, take it all in.’

The path leading inside was wide with thin trees lining the way, shady, green. ‘The school planted these‚’ said Pipee gesturing around her. ‘This is a drought area, even now the leaves are drooping.’

Aijaz looked carefully and could see that indeed the leaves were drooping. ‘They have their own dairy, bakery, their own gardens, fruit trees, imli trees, mango trees, which they lease out‚’ continued Pipee.

‘U-huh‚’ said Aijaz.

‘We were not allowed to touch any of the fruit because it wasn’t the school’s.’

‘But of course you did.’

‘Of course.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘They will be eating now‚’ said Pipee looking at her watch, ‘It’s one.’ And she started to walk faster, though laden with bags, afraid to miss her mother in the dining hall, anticipating the surprise and pleasure on her face.

The din in the dining hall was deafening, though Pipee didn’t seem to notice. Aijaz hung back as she scanned the rows of tables and benches.

‘There she is‚’ she said, making unerringly towards a particular back.

Her husband remained in the doorway watching the reunion.

Later in Mrs Trivedi’s two rooms in Peacock House. ‘Mama, don’t you like Aijaz? Isn’t he all I promised?’

‘Very much beta‚’ said the mother. ‘He is your husband after all.’

‘Let’s show him where I grew up‚’ Pipee went on.