When Hari Met His Saali (29 page)

Stephan had been a true gentleman. He didn’t comment even once when all that shopping Tia had done in New York had invited excess luggage charges from the airline. He paid for it and now he had accompanied her to her apartment in the company car. Only then did he bid her goodbye.

‘Again, don’t do anything I wouldn’t,’ he said like an elder brother.

Agrhhh … not the brother-sister relationship!

But it was obvious that was how he saw his role in Tia’s life. And by this time, Tia had come down off her ‘fuck you, fuck you’ high horse.

‘Stephan, I truly want to thank you for being there and being supportive. Both of you and Clara as well. I shall hopefully have an opportunity in the future to be as good a friend to both of you,’ Tia said to him when he was leaving.

‘Now you sound like the heroine of one of those romcoms you like so much,’ he said smiling before he left.

The next morning

Tia made peace with Jenny and apologized to her.

‘I am just screwing up and apologizing to everyone these days, Jenny. I said some mean things to Hari and his parents.’

Jenny advised her to make peace with them.

‘Regardless of what happens between you and Hari, his parents don’t deserve to be treated like that by you. They are such good human beings.’

Tia agreed and was at Hari’s house by the afternoon. The house seemed quiet. Barry was already at the hospital and only the ladies of the house were there. They were understandably cold towards Tia.

She had apologized unconditionally and the elders were glad to forgive her. But then Tia asked where Simi and Hari were. Mary hesitated before telling her, but she set it up in such a way to lay it gradually on Tia.

‘Since Xavier’s condition was not improving and he may not recover, Barry and the other doctors felt that he should be amongst his people back home in India. There he could be better looked after and so his ashram was informed. One of Xavier’s managers, Mr. Ayyangar, flew in the next day and it was decided that he should be transferred …’

Tia was wondering what all of this had to do with Simi and Hari, but she didn’t know that Mary was letting her in on it slowly.

‘After that night when you … when the whole marriage certificate thing happened, the next day Simi went to see Xavier with Barry. She insisted on going. I went along with her and that poor girl … your sister, Simi, she begged and cried and emptied her heart out to Xavier, pleading with him to help Hari and you. She asked him to restore peace in our lives. She told him she felt responsible and guilty, but of course Xavier never … responded. He was in a coma.’

Hearing Mary recall Simi’s episode so emotionally made Tia’s eyes well up too.

‘Simi told Barry and me that she was going back to India with Xavier and Mr. Ayyangar. She had made up her mind. She left in spite of both of us trying to convince her otherwise. She did not even say goodbye to Hari. In fact she had us promise not to tell him. But the following day, we had to …’

‘Simi’s gone back to India?’ Now it hit Tia. ‘But her suitcases are here.’

‘She left them here. ‘There’s nothing important in there for me,” is what she said.’

‘And Hari?’ Tia asked.

‘When he heard that Simi had gone back to India, he … he went too.’

‘Went where?’

‘To India,’ Mary almost whispered. It was obvious she didn’t feel comfortable being the one always givingthe bad news to Tia.

‘When?’

‘Last night!’

Tia got up and put Simi’s suitcases into her car.

‘Hari must have some emergency work in Hyderabad!’ she said to herself.

Mary, who already had a son who had gone off his rocker, didn’t want Tia to lose her mind too.

‘Tia, Hari has not gone for work. He has gone because Simi is in India.’

‘
Accha
! OK then,’ Tia said simply.

‘All I want, all we want, is for you kids to be happy,’ Mary shouted as Tia was driving away.

Twenty days later

Hari was still in India. Tia had stopped visiting Mary. She had stopped doing anything and in fact, simply existed, like millions of others.

‘It’s not so bad; I am just a statistic now like millions of others. My life is not special and it’s OK,’ she would tell herself.

She would go to work and on her way home she would stop by at a local Ralph’s supermarket, pick-up a two-gallon tub of ice-cream, come home, change into a sweatshirt and sweatpants, flop down on her couch, put a movie into the player and watch it while eating the ice cream straight from the tub.

A quick calculation would tell you that 1 gallon = 3.8 liters, and so a 2 gallon tub = 7.6 litres and that was how much ice cream she was consuming every night.

The girl who would barely have a hair out of place barely had one strand in place these days. She was bloated, puffy-eyed, un-manicured and most probably smelly. Her deodorant spray became her new friend. Her clothes were not neat, her nails were uneven and she had not waxed her arms or legs in two weeks. She had not looked at herself in the mirror in the mornings for days.

She needed two or three different alarms set at regular intervals to wake her up in the morning and would often find herself on the couch in the morning. The apartment was messy, the dishes were piled up in the sink and the milk in the refrigerator had gone bad.

One night, bored by her routine, Tia had poured wine into her ice cream, and then having eaten half of it, she added some banana, some pieces of apple and chocolate syrup to it. She liked this exotic-sounding, but in fact disgusting-tasting, concoction. She had woken up in the middle of the night and had vomited into the toilet bowl. She was exhausted trying to get it out of her body.

She felt her life was like a bicycle. Till the time it was speeding, hurtling someplace, the balance was there. But no sooner did it slow down, the balance wavered.

Oh mighty Tia. How easily have you crumbled!

It was a classic case of self-loathing and self-pity, but usually the person doing it is the last one to see it.

One evening she had just settled in on the couch and was watching a DVD when she stopped eating for a moment. She had to breathe laboriously now because she was so pumped up with sugar. She looked around her home. It had all the latest gadgets and appliances, top of the line upholstery, paintings on the walls … but there was so much sadness in the air. There were balls of crumpled tissues and discarded Chinese takeaway boxes on the floor. She bent down to pick them up, but lost the motivation and just said ‘Ah, fuck it!’, and then ventured back to eat her ice cream on the couch.

The doorbell surprised her and when she went to open the door a very jovial looking Mary,
Badi Mama
and
Nana
entered the apartment.

‘Hello, hello, hello!’
Badi Mama
pinched Tia’s cheeks as if she was three years old.

Since Nana was such a slow walker it took her seven minutes to get from the front door to the living room. By that time Mary and
Badi Mama
were already in the kitchen. They soon reappeared with wine glasses.

‘I have brought some
alu-gobhi paratha
mixture as well as
Badi Mama’s saag.
We’ll have some wine and then have a proper dinner, OK?’ Mary ordered Tia around as she took away her ice-cream tub and started picking up tissues from the floor.

‘It’s OK, leave it,’ Tia said lazily.

‘What leave it? This place is so messy.’
Nana
was panting as she finally sat down.

Badi Mama
had expertly uncorked the wine bottle — she was eighty-seven don’t forget — and had glasses in everyone’s hands before sitting down. She took a big gulp of her wine and smiled.

‘Aah! It’s a journey. Even a grape has to go from the vine on the farm to the place where it’s inspected, then crushed, filtered and whatnot before it becomes a fine wine.’

‘Why are you sitting here at home being depressed?’
Nana
asked.

‘What are you going to solve by locking yourself in your place and not doing anything?’ Mary chimed in.

‘Is this any way to live a life?’
Badi Mama
asked.

‘You are just wasting your own life, and for what?’ Mary said.

No sooner had Tia started sipping on her wine than the rapid-fire questions came hurtling towards her.

Don’t they ever give up or get tired? When I am their age, I am not going to give a fuck about anyone else.

But she didn’t tell them that.

‘What else can I do? It’s my fault I drove Hari away with my shenanigans.’

‘What shenani … ni …’
Badi Mama
couldn’t pronounce it. It made her false teeth come loose, but she finished her thought.

‘It’s nobody’s fault.’

‘Really, it’s nobody’s fault. This is life,’ Mary explained.

‘No, no. It IS my fault,’ said Tia. ‘Mary, you know, I haven’t been myself for so long that I don’t even know who I truly am. The past few weeks I have gone from being a mean woman to a sweet woman to a mean one again. I
have been selfish, self-centered and self-indulgent. In between all that, what I have not been is a normal, decent human being, which I think I am. And realizing that makes me scared. Makes me feel alone. I have hurt everyone, especially those whom I love and respect the most. I have become this horrid woman, Mary, and I don’t know how to undo it.’

All those thoughts, which must have been building up inside Tia, suddenly came pouring out.

‘It is my fault, I take responsibility and I am ready to live like this all my life,’ Tia said dejectedly.

‘Bullshit!’
Badi Mama
loudly declared. ‘All these big words and over analyzing. What has happened, huh? What? Why are you crying like a weak woman …?’
Badi Mama
, it should be said, was already on her third glass of wine and was inching towards the edge of her chair due to the adrenaline … and yeah, was just getting started, now that she had everyone’s attention.

‘Let me tell you a little story. I got married in 1947. On one side India had just won its freedom, people were celebrating; and on the other side, I had lost mine. There I was with my husband whom I had not seen, whose face even I had not seen. Not even during my wedding night. But what did I do? For the next sixty-five years I loved that man like no one could have, and when he died he had only one name on his lips — mine! I set up my family with him in a small village called Pabana. The population there at the time was ninety … ninety! Not even one hundred, but n i n e t y. For the first twenty-five years I did not even remove my
ghungat.
I only saw the world around me through it but still I worked like a man on the farm. No one could herd buffalos like I used to, not even my husband. I taught myself to read and write, had a bunch of kids, sent them to school, taught them culture and values, right and wrong. I taught them that life is nothing without love and respect. Even though I had myself never been outside of my own village, I even sent them to America to study further, because they wanted to. And I attended each and every relative’s celebration. Happy or otherwise. Even their funerals. And all with my head held high and a smile on my face. And now look at me — the woman who would draw water from a well every morning so that no one in the house would go thirsty all day, and who would drink milk straight from the buffalo — look at me now, enjoying retirement in America, drinking wine. That is called a life well-lived!’

Everyone was stunned. Jaws were on the floor, especially Tia’s.Even Mary and her mother,
Nana
, were touched. It was not just the content of her story, but also the way she had narrated it, with such passion and pride, that made it stick.

Just a quiet ‘Wow’ escaped Tia’s mouth.

Suddenly, as if someone had lifted a veil from her mind, life looked different from a new perspective. She had clarity.

Badi Mama
had leaned back and was catching her breath. Mary got up and poured her some more wine.

‘Last one, OK?’ she told her affectionately.

Badi Mama
nodded like a schoolgirl.

‘Look, what she is trying to say is that all these things we do, and we all do — buy things, plan things, want things — they are all fine, but life is made up of relationships, of love, and care, and thought and giving up …’ Mary was trying to close the pitch, when
Nana
also added her two cents.

‘Giving up and not giving up!’
Nana
said pumping her fist in the air.

‘That’s right, and not giving up. And to know when to not give up,’ Mary said, sitting next to Tia.

‘What do you mean?’ Tia asked, genuinely wanting to know.

‘That means if you love Hari, go and get him!’ Mary said firmly. Tia looked at
Badi Mama
and
Nana
, they both nodded.

They must have planned this.

Tia couldn’t believe how effortlessly they had brought her out of her depression. These were no ordinary ladies.

‘You mean, I go to …?’ Tia asked, now with a smile on her face.

‘At least go and find out,’ Nana said.

‘If it is meant to be, he will come back to you,’
Badi Mama
told her.

‘And of course he will, if you truly love him!’ Mary said, finishing the pitch.

Oh, I gotta learn how to pitch from these women. It started so innocently and it ended with such an impact.

Tia was so impressed by the delivery of their message.

‘Now let’s eat. I am hungry,’
Badi Mama
said finally, just as she used to say it back in the day after her ploughing and planting seeds on the farm was done.

Tia got up onto her feet and hugged them one by one.

When they left Mary looked content — she had done a mother’s job. There was one last piece of advice.

‘You know how many sacrifices I made in my life? Hundreds! You know how many I remember today? None. Learn to let go! Go for happiness, even sometimes for someone else’s happiness. Go with that mindset!’

Tia nodded ‘I promise.’

Tia had a long chat with Stephan and she was brutally honest with him. She told him that she was deceiving herself that everything would be fine and was just mindlessly working while she still needed closure in her personal life. She told him she was going to India for a considerable time.

Stephan, as always, was very accommodating. Before lunch, they had worked out a makeshift plan so that the New York job wouldn’t be hindered.

‘And don’t worry about a thing here. You’ll always have a job at this firm, and you’ll always have me and Clara as friends no matter what.’

Tia had gone to the Malibu Hindu temple with Mary. She had not visited the temple in ages. It was nestled in the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains in the city of Calabasas. It was a temple of Venkateswara — a God worshipped mostly in South India.

‘They say whatever you ask for with a clean and genuine heart, God always gives you,’ Mary told her.

Then she saw Tia close her eyes and join her hands in a silent prayer. No one knew what she asked for that day. Tia did not know it at the time, but her relationship with South India had just begun.

She was going to land in Mumbai and then take a flight to Nagpur. She was excited to see Hari and Simi at her home. All through the long flight she was in an upbeat mood. Although she was a little apprehensive, shameful in fact, about seeing her mother after six years, she was also looking forward to mending things with her. It would be nice to have her Simi and Hari together to resolve this thing once and for all. She had a clear agenda and a clear plan.

She was prepared for the possibility that Hari would never be brought back from Simi. He was probably too far gone having spent so much time with her. She was also aware of the fact that Hari’s affection has started working on Simi. She was a simple girl who had probably never had a guy like Hari fall in love with her like he pretended to. Or really had.

She was ready for any eventuality.

I am going for happiness, even if it is someone else’s!

In India

When Tia was about to reach her home in Nagpur, memories from her childhood and early life came flooding back. She could have told you she had forgotten it all, put it behind her, but now she found herself identifying which shop used to be there, which one got replaced, which neighbor lived where, what place she used to play in the evenings, what streets she would ride her bicycle, where she and Simi would play hide-n-seek and how her mother would shout for them from the window.

‘Tia, Simi, streetlights are on. Come back in.’

And she would scream back, from wherever she was ‘In half an hour, Mummy!’

Now she was standing in front of the same window. The building, her building, the flat, the grill on that window, it all looked so old, so weathered. She had resisted calling either Hari or Simi, or her mother to let them know she was coming. She wanted to surprise them.

Her hand was trembling when she pressed the doorbell. It was late at night, and she heard her mother’s voice.

‘
Kaun hai itni raat
?’ she heard her say, asking who it was so late at night.

She wanted to say ‘Tia, your daughter!’ but she didn’t. A moment later her mother opened the door and Tia saw her.

Oh my God. She has gotten so old.

The tears were rushing down her cheeks.

‘I don’t want anything!’ Her mother thought it was some sales girl trying to sell her something, but when she saw the face, the hair, the height, the eyes, the tears …

‘Tia?’ Her mother began shaking at the sight of her eldest daughter standing at her door after all these years.

They hugged like there was no history between at all, that everything was just a happy memory.

Tia dragged her several suitcases inside.

‘What have you all got?’ her mother asked, referring to the six suitcases she had lugged with her.

‘Three of those are Simi’s, two are mine and one is for Hari. Fresh clothes.’ Tia had answered.

Tia didn’t see either Simi or Hari at home.

Her mother was so shocked and surprised to see Tia she didn’t really know what to say.

‘Chai?’
she asked Tia.

‘I’ll make it!’ Tia said and went into the kitchen. Her mother noticed Tia looking at the bad condition of the house.

‘Simi and me are planning major renovations before the new year. Everything will be like new … the sugar is there, the
chaipatti
is …’ Mrs Galhotra was masking her happiness as well as her awkwardness by talking.

‘I know, Mummy. They have always been in the same place,’ Tia smiled at her. She had so much to make up to her.

‘With
adrak, na
?’ she asked her mother, recalling that she liked her tea with ginger in it. Her mother nodded.

When she took a bath it felt strange. She felt guilty that she had not one but two bathrooms — lavish ones — in her L.A. apartment, and you could barely stand up in this one. But at the same time this tiny one had a comforting familiarity; the old geyser, the ancient oval plastic shaving mirror, the broken tap that had each individual part in different shades of rust because it was never replaced in its entirety, the classic low-legged plastic stool. Everything was just like she remembered. Their bathroom never really evolved since her childhood. It was all familiar and yet strange to her.

She finally stopped thinking and had her bath. It was one of the most soothing baths she had taken in a long time.

That night, Tia and her mother talked all night and for the first time not like two adult women, which is how they had always communicated, but like a mother and a daughter.

Tia had resisted asking her about Simi and Hari right away, but her mother told her.

‘One day, just like you did, Simi showed up out of the blue from America. She was in bad shape, wouldn’t talk much, would go to sleep crying. I knew something had gone terribly wrong in America, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t push her. But, two days later, she told me everything; you, Hari, the engagement, the magician, all the fights and arguments, everything. I felt so unequipped to help her. But something had changed in that girl, she had grown up. She decided to go and help Xavier recover so that she could fix things. She blamed herself for the whole thing.’ Her mother wiped her tears as she told Tia what had happened.

Tia held steady, she wanted to feel everybody’s pain and only then, she figured, could she do something to soothe it.

‘Next morning she went to Pondicherry to Xavier’s ashram and that same
night, Hari showed up. He was in worse shape than Simi; weak, bearded, barely eating or talking; he just sat here all night. Since I knew why he was here, I told him about Xavier’s ashram. Next morning he also left for Pondicherry. Both of them have been there for the last twelve days.’

Her mother had finished talking, or had she?

‘Do you know what you have done?’she asked Tia after a short pause. ‘Simi told me how you treated her in America. Why, Tia, why so much hatred?’

Tia took a deep breath. She would need all the courage in the world to have a discussion about that.

‘
Dekho
, Mummy, I am not speaking from a place of anger or hatred now, OK, but you remember how many miscarriages you had after you had Simi?’

‘You remember those?’ Her mother was caught off guard.

‘Of course I do, Mummy. The last one you had, before your doctor told you no more, was when I was seven years old — old enough to understand that you and Papa wanted a boy, a son, desperately. You and Papa would argue and talk about it at night, whispering, but I knew. I felt that you were not happy with Simi and me. I felt like we had let you down somehow. I also felt like I had to do something about it and you know Mummy, today I understand, I have been trying to do just that all my life. I had been trying to be a boy, a man, a son; A son for you and Papa, and a brother for Simi. All my life, Mummy!’ She poured her heart out.

A lot of her behavior would certainly support her theory and her mother knew it, but it was difficult to hear it, or to accept it.

‘We never wanted you to be a boy, Tia, or a son to us. We wanted you to be you. Yes, there were family pressures to have a son, as you know my mother had me and your
Mausi
, both daughters … and … and everyone around us wanted us to keep trying one more time, one more time …’ Her mother went back into the days.

‘Mummy, can you imagine how I felt? Did you not know when you saw me getting into fights with boys at school or wearing jeans, pants, and cutting my hair short?’ Tia asked as she moved next to her mother.

‘I … I … never. I mean all girls go through that phase … I am so sorry, Tia …’ Her mother broke down.

‘Mummy, I am not angry any more, but unknowingly I carried that resentment in my heart for a number of years. I thought that you regretted having me!’ Tia also started crying, although it was more of an emotional reaction to seeing her mother cry.

‘Being born a girl was not in my control. I felt helpless, I felt as if I didn’t
have any say in it, so whatever I could control since then, I had been doing just that, and … and … it is exhausting, Mummy. It is tiring. I felt you did not love me!’ Tia said as her mother took her head and laid it on her shoulder.

‘Don’t say that,
beta.
We loved you and we loved Simi like no other parent. I am so proud of you — you have no idea. At such a young age, you have achieved so much and your Papa, God bless his soul wherever he is, is also proud of you. I guarantee you that …’ She sat back so that Tia could see her face, see wanted her to see that she was telling the truth.

‘And it was not your father who kept insisting on trying, it was me, I too felt the same way as you,
beta
, now that I think back to my childhood, I also felt the same rejection from my parents, but it never occurred to me that you would also feel like that. In fact, your Papa would tell me “to hell with other people, we have two wonderful daughters and one day they’ll make us proud” but it was me who didn’t listen. Your Papa loved you so much, he searched and searched and came up with names for you two — Tia and Simi. They might be common now, but back then, over twenty years ago,
Tia & Simi
were very modern and unique names. He wanted the best for you. It … was … me who was lacking. I … I …’ her mother couldn’t finish what she wanted to say but whatever she had said was enough for Tia. She was satisfied.

‘Mummy, I didn’t bring it up to make you feel guilty, or to lay blame on you or anyone.’

‘Things were different back then,
beta.
’

‘I know, and I wanted to share it with you because I want you to know that I don’t feel like that any more. I know where you were coming from and even understand you putting your body through so much pain and anguish, but I want you to know today, I have no complaints, Mummy, and I love you. And I am sorry I behaved with you with so much anger.’ Tia hugged her mother like she had never hugged her before.

There is freedom in purity and simplicity.

A mother’s hug — so simple and basic — is indescribable.

‘I love you too,
beta
, I always have.’

‘I feel much better now, Tia. All these years I did not understand why you had become so
khadus!
’

Her mother’s favorite word was
‘khadus’
which meant scrooge or stingy person and here she was referring to Tia’s inability to be affectionate. It lightened up the mood.

‘Like mother, like daughter,’ Tia joked, to which her mother playfully hit her on her shoulders.

‘You too think I am
khadus
?’

‘A little bit!’ Tia said with a squint in her eyes.

‘Well, I am not any more. And I know why you are here. I know you want to go to Pondicherry too.’ Her mother got up to go into the kitchen.

Tia followed, and just like Simi use to do, she hugged her mother from behind.

‘Nope. I am not going to Pondicherry, at least not for a few days. I want to spend some time with you. Also, I want them both to have some freedom before I go there and piss on them!’

‘Of course,
beta
, why wouldn’t people want daughters? Especially when they bring so much drama into one’s life!’ her mother replied, now with a squint in her eyes.

‘Oh no, my mother has grown a sense of humor,’ Tia laughed.

‘Move, I am going to cook for you.’

And so it went on for the next few days. The mother and her ‘other’ daughter became best of friends again. The first night when Tia laid her bed on the floor in the living room, her mother joked that she was not used to sleeping on the floor and she should take the bed, but Tia wouldn’t listen.

‘If Simi can do this, so can I,’ she said.

But, when her mother woke up in the morning, Tia was sprawled next to her on the bed. Just how she used to sleep when she was a little girl.

Tia would make morning tea and lunch for her mother, even watch ‘stupendously regressive bullshit’ TV shows with her.

Her mother would say ‘We Indians are simple. We like these
rona-dhona
shows. We are like this only
!
’

Tia would make her mother go for an evening walk and would accompany her. She met her neighbors — some of whom might be gossiping about her behind her back, she knew, but they were all friendly in her presence. She would laugh about it
‘truly, we are like this only!’

There was a sudden increase in the number of bikers — college guys on bikes — doing the rounds outside her building.

‘The boys of Nagpur have whiffed the presence of a Nagpuri girl who lives in America and is now in this building,’ her friend Nalini would say.

Is this how, being rowdy, they plan to impress me? By being rowdy?

Truly, the boys of Nagpur didn’t know Tia.

Tia liked the pace of the city. It was so relaxed. People were in no hurry to come or go anywhere, at any time. All she had here was time and more time. She liked the fact that not everything and everyone was measured by virtue of their work. People were not as judgmental. It was OK to be a middle class housewife. It was acceptable and respectable. It was OK to take a nap after
lunch, in the middle of the day, even on a weekday. There was no race. There was no need to prove anything to anyone. Generally, people were much more content and less hassled than in Los Angeles.