Page 22 of All Our Evenings

Ganesh handed the bundle of grass to the priest. I held out my hand, alongside my father, for the priest to tie blades of grass around our ring fingers, offer blades of grass to the departed.

After the priest left, I was told to put the rice cakes near the trees, for the crows to take away. Ganesh stood up when I walked towards him, waited until I placed the rice cakes near the roots of the hibiscus tree.

“Stay for lunch,” I said.

Though my mother had made it a point to take Priya and leave before even the priest arrived, in the kitchen she’d cooked and left a hot lunch; just like she sent for the special dried grass Ganesh brought us. She’d also left a covered bowl full of the round jaggery frites made only on the day of remembrance. My mother did all this for me, so I could have this experience.

Ganesh and I sat on the kitchen stoop together, eating the sweet treats and saying nothing at all. What a good day that was, with the sky a clear pale blue, sifted here and there with white rolls of clouds, the sounds of songbirds and crows, the garden tap dripping away.

“Did you see your stepmother again?” Ganesh asked. “She’s such a nice lady.”

He was the first and only person to address her as such. Of course they never married, because my mother would never divorce my father, but that’s who Gita Miss was, whether or not the society said so. My stepmother. I told Ganesh no, I hadn’t seen her. There was no reason for me to lie, and perhaps if Ganesh hadn’t referred to her as my stepmother I would’ve told him that I saw her at the bus stop that day and followed her home. For some strange reason, she was at our neighborhood bus stop near the lending library. She was changing buses, I realized; she might have missed the one that went to her apartment, or maybe the route was canceled that day. She looked so frightened to find herself in our neighborhood, carrying the heavy bags of groceries. I stayed in the library, to avoid her the discomfort of being seen by me, but when she got on the bus, I’d gotten on too.

Ganesh was saying something, but I didn’t hear him. “Do you want to come?” he said.

“Where?” I asked.

“Ruhee and I are going.”

I didn’t like that: Ruhee and I. What an irritating phrase. There was no Ruhee and I. The only reason they know each other at all was me. I said, “Where?”

“We’ll see.”

Though I had absolutely nothing to do, and was already planning my route around the neighborhood to avoid the time my mother would arrive home with Priya, I said, “What time?”

“What time? What big plans have you got? I’ll pull up to your gate and beep the horn. You’ll come.” With that he left.

As I waited for them on my stoop, I wondered how far their plans to have sex in the Red House had come.

That whole summer, I can’t think of a single day we weren’t together. At least a few hours together if not the full day. Ruhee had continued to go to her ‘math tutor’s’ and we hung out at the Red House instead. It used to be that Ruhee and I spoke to one another, recalled funny events from our childhood, or chatted about Priya or her school or my school, and Ganesh, who had no way to contribute in these topics, was the listener-in. But now, even those who knew Ganesh only in passing at the gymkhana would tease him, yelling, “There goes Tiger!” or make growling or hooting noises when we left the grounds, and he’d respond with, “Shut it!” looking equal parts pleased and annoyed. The noises or the Tiger comments weren’t meant for me, of course. It wasn’t a wonder they knew something was going on between him and Ruhee; people were always watching for these things.

Back then, love suicides were all the rage. It was the transitional decade between strict arranged marriage culture and love marriage culture; if the parents don’t agree, you’d make a pact to die together. Sometimes, falling in love was enough reason to make the death pact, without needing to ask the parents at all. Because love suicides were common, love stories were also common; in fact, the more improbable the better, because it didn’t make sense to go to all that trouble for a probable love story. Improbable ones had the ring of believability. Take Gita Miss and my father, for instance; wasn’t that improbable?

Stepmother. How easily Ganesh had said it.

On the day I followed her home from the bus stand, Gita Miss had stuck out. This wasn’t the neighborhood for dresses that bared one’s ankles, gauzy blouses; really anything abutting western clothing stuck out. By the time I made it through the rear entrance of the bus, taking care not to be seen by Gita Miss, I was comfortably obscured by the throng of people between the ladies section in the front and the gents section in the back. I wasn’t carrying any money, but I knew the conductor wouldn’t have time to reach me. She was standing, holding two heavy jute bags of groceries, her delicate wrists straining with the weight. She was being too polite, not nudging the women around her to make room for her bags. At her stop, I got off before she did.

For a few yards, I trailed her. The idlers and loafers sitting on the pavement, variously smoking or shooting the breeze, turned their heads to look her up and down.

We were coming up on a bullock cart parked on the street corner where Gita Miss would turn, to head down the smaller road to her apartment building. I recognized the cart driver; he’d come to my house once, to haul away old newspapers and metal scrap my mother was sending to the junk dealer. As she approached, the driver lifted up the loose robe covering the bottom half of his body. He leered and grinned when Gita Miss averted her face.

I was sorry that happened to her. As I approached him, he dropped the robe and covered himself again, giggling like a boy, as though what he committed was only a small mischief. Perhaps he recognized me. The revolting leer on his face, it was the same when he came to my house, only I didn’t notice, because his manner was also marked by subservience. Standing in our yard, a hand outstretched to accept the coins my mother was giving him.

I wished Gita Miss dressed more like my mother; it would have covered up her beauty and allowed her safe passage. I registered this observation for the very first time, watching her upright form bearing the heavy weights, valorously ignoring the cart driver. The road turned left, and I somehow lost sight of Gita Miss behind a group of vegetable sellers. I doubled back to the main road and cut through the railway tracks. I couldn’t understand why Gita Miss didn’t take an autorickshaw, why she was using public transport and walking on that awful road; it would cost sixty rupees or less from the supermarket, the price of a Hero fountain pen; she used to have a forest-green one filled with red ink. Good effort, Arjun. Double check your grammar next time! 8/10.

I climbed over her apartment building’s compound wall on the rear side and just about managed to arrive at her gate moments before her. I’d scraped my elbow on the wall and carried the stinging sensation as I waved at her. Though I was clearly in her view she did not really see me. I kept waving and said, “Gita Miss, hello.”

Then she saw me. Puzzlement, then delight. “Arjun,” she exclaimed. “What a nice surprise!”

She put the bags down, touched my cheek and smiled with pleasure. I picked up her jute bags and she let me without resisting. Her palms were red and sore. I walked ahead of her and she immediately saw my bleeding elbow. I said it didn’t hurt. It really didn’t. I don’t even remember where I got it. All the way up in the lift, she was preoccupied by my scraped-up elbow. She pulled open the lift gate before it came to a complete stop on the fifth floor. We went down the corridor and she fished for keys in her handbag. The lock went into the door, unlike the old-fashioned padlock we used at my house; a brass Godrej one that brought to mind my front yard, hibiscus flowers drying in the sun, colorless wiggling earthworms. When we went in, Gita Miss forgot to take the key out of the door, so I put down the grocery bags and took the key out. It didn’t even have a key chain, just the thin steel ring that came with it. She brought out a neatly organized first-aid box and dabbled Savlon on my elbow, telling me that Savlon didn’t sting while Dettol did; how they bothered the children with the awful Dettol at school. Standing so close to her, it wasn’t as if Gita Miss had become less beautiful because of her familiarity. In fact it was the opposite. There was an alarming goodness on her face that made her more beautiful. Alarming, precipitous goodness that was also somehow maternal. I felt like hugging her. I told her she was a good teacher, and she looked up at me and smiled.

When I returned to my own house, I was surprised to find the living room occupied. My mother was hosting tea. With a jolt I realized she was hosting the other teachers from my school. On the teapoy were empty cups, snack plates with crumbs, empty cold pastry boxes. She was so animated and so happy looking that she did not notice me. I went into my room but kept my ears trained toward the main door. After some time it was shut, the gate rattling and creaking as the guests exited. My mother putting the teacups in the sink, taking the tea pan off the stove, banging the sieve against the garbage pail. In a moment I realized that I was still holding the key I’d taken out of Gita Miss’ door. I upturned my pen holder and hid it at the bottom. Somehow I felt happy, cheerful, enjoying the smell of the Savlon that was dabbed on my elbow. It was nice to be taken care of like that.

There were the love suicides, and then there were the love failures; when only the boy kills himself, and the girl doesn’t. It didn’t mean she agreed or disagreed, only that the boy loved the girl so much he had to prove it with death―winning―he had to be the winner by dying. Obviously there was resentment towards the survivor, not only for causing the death but also for not dying themselves. We did not take death seriously, everyone had to die someday. There were acid attacks, on girls, for spurning a boy, perhaps resolutely with no room for trying again. Of course it was not accepted or encouraged, but to a degree it was understood, in the manner of how vengeance was understood. Zanjeer―shackles―the shackles of vengeance.

Anyway, that was the environment we grew up in. Death and love and acid. One day, I remember, Ruhee and I were walking towards the Red House, going to meet Ganesh there, and an autorickshaw pulled up behind us. Just in time, I heard the boys chanting the word ‘maar.’

Maar, Maar.