Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories (16 page)

Suddenly Porus leans over and brushes her thighs. She starts and glares at him, but his eyes are fixed on the TV. She leans back as he absently fumbles around the sofa, quickly glances over and snatches a tissue from a tissue box on the seat next to hers. There is a nonchalance about the whole act, but Tanya is no fool to believe it. She sits upright on her seat and takes a long hard sip of her drink.

There's a movement to her right; Maneesh is standing at the doorway.

Tanya stands up erect.

What has he seen? What has he understood? How can she explain it all away?

‘Yes, beta?' she says evenly, trying to shake all guilt out of her voice.

Maneesh looks at her and says in his seven-year-old's innocent voice, ‘I have to go.'

Tanya murmurs a small prayer, thankful that her son is still blind to her mistakes. She glances at Porus, who is pretending to be wholly immersed in the match, and asks Maneesh, ‘Number one or number two?'

He holds up one finger.

She clears her throat and over the noise of the TV asks Porus where the washroom is. She follows his instructions, taking the first right, straight and then left, till she reaches two toilets—one Western style and one Indian style—separated by a single sink. She thrusts Maneesh onto the Indian one as there's no toilet paper in the other, and when he comes out she holds down the long flush chain till a trickle of water discharges.

Maneesh immediately runs back to Kaizad's room, wherever it is, and Tanya slowly walks towards the living room. There is an ad on TV, so Porus turns to her with his full attention, but doesn't say anything. Tanya knows that he is not going to play the host game, fill the space between them with pleasantries, ask dutiful questions about her health and hobbies. She takes her place on the sofa, not quite sure what to say. But the drink has made her light-headed so she asks, ‘Why did Dinaz and you separate?' America has taught her to be politically correct, so she doesn't use the word ‘divorce'.

He takes a cigarette from the packet and lights it up. Taking a puff he laughs through clenched teeth. ‘I cheated on her.' He continues speaking as if from some deep thought, ‘Dinu told me—tells me—that I'm such a cliché, cheating on her with her best friend. But she's forgiven both of us, of course, she's understanding, that way. People move on. In fact, just last night we were out celebrating her best friend's birthday—yes, still her best friend.'

From Kaizad's room there is a thud.

Tanya gets up and shouts, ‘Are you boys okay?'

‘Yes, Aunty,' says Kaizad.

‘Maneesh? Are you okay?' she asks.

‘Yes, Maa,' he says, and she remembers all the times that she's been afraid to let go of her son's hand in the fear that he'll step off the curb, fall off the bed, tumble down the stairs … disappear one day. He never has. He's still here. Yet, once, when Tanya had looked away for just five seconds, he'd fallen off a spinning merry-go-round and she'd watched him fly, his hands helpless in the air, his feet in a surprise backward kick, and everything moving in slow motion as her heart rose into her mouth. She reached him just as his head hit the ground, and gathered him in her arms, feeling his head for bumps, and running her fingers over his thin shoulders, his frail back, his hairless legs. ‘Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?' she asked. He looked up at her, eyes unfocused, a weak smile. Still she asked, ‘Who am I?' and he, all of four, with utmost sincerity said, ‘Maa?'

Above the sound of the videogame from Kaizad's room comes the sound of laughter.

‘Our sons seem to be getting along,' Porus says.

‘Yes, they are,' she quickly agrees.

Maybe it's the alcohol, Porus's openness with her, Tanya's betrayed life, this modern couple's unfulfilled love, her child's laugh from the other room, this old house that smells of mothballs and newspaper, but something that's been holding Tanya's life tightly in place, some sort of noose or rope, comes undone. She's breathing again.

‘Can I tell you something?' Porus leans over and asks. His breath smells of tobacco mixed with the grassy sourness of beer. This bold, imperfect stranger with straight, white teeth and a hooked nose emboldens Tanya's imagination. If he tells her that he finds her attractive, wants to kiss her, sleep with her, hug her … Tanya isn't sure that she'll say no. Just the thought of it is making her reckless—a feeling creeping out from behind all other feelings, scared to show itself after its prolonged dormancy. She's daydreamed about a similar scenario many times, in a different place with an unknown face, everything blurry save for her response—a righteous pious slap, loud enough to hide her soaring vanity. She doesn't know what she'll do now, but she knows that she will not slap Porus. If she yields, she warns herself not to feel guilty: it will be her prize for the armour of stoicism that she's built around herself for the sake of her marriage and her child.

‘I probably shouldn't,' Porus adds and leans back. Now she
really
wants to know.

She looks at him coyly, chin slightly tilted, lips curved in an alluring smile, eyes soft, inviting intimacy—a look she used on so many admirers in college, earning her the nickname ‘flirt'. Her practice went to waste on Aditya after the first few months of marriage; it's coming back so easily now.

‘Come on, Porus. I won't tell anyone.'

‘I know you won't. You've lived in the great USA. Our silly lives must seem trivial to you.' If only he knew. ‘But you really can't tell anyone.'

‘I won't,' she says, and knows she will not.

‘Well, it's not really my secret, it's Dinu's too.' He plays nervously with his belt buckle. ‘You see, we are not married. I mean we were never married, everyone just assumes we were because of Kaizu. We were dating in college, and our parents tried to arrange a wedding, especially after she became pregnant, but somehow it didn't happen. So, obviously we are not divorced either, but we go around pretending we are because that's better than giving our relationship and our child no name. But you can't tell anyone. No one knows this, not even Kaizu.'

Tanya is disappointed: so Porus is not attracted to her and doesn't want to take advantage of this smoke-filled room where no one will know what transpired between two slightly tipsy adults. What's worse is how adult Dinaz and Porus's unconventional life seems—an unmarried couple parenting a child, moving past betrayal, and befriending each other's lovers, whereas she has passed from her parents to a husband to a son to a mother-in-law. It has never belonged to her, this life she has, and no lapse, even momentarily, has been allowed to breach the wall of conformity that she's built around it.

It's not their life that is silly, as Porus believes, but hers.

For she hasn't even moved to India to be a good wife but to show Maneesh the sacrifices that a man must make for his mother. For one day he will be a man, she will be old, he will have another woman in his life, and if Tanya needs him—and she
will
need him—he will remember what she had done for his father, what a son does for his ailing mother, what a wife does for a husband, and he
will
come.

Tanya's life stands in front of her in a straight line: her mother-in-law will die, Aditya will be promoted, they will buy a bigger apartment in a building with a pool, Maneesh will go back to the USA for college, he will marry a girl of his choice, Tanya will become a grandmother, Aditya—seven years her senior—will die, Maneesh will come to take care of her, she will die, he will move to a bigger apartment in a building with a pool
and
a Jacuzzi.

This cannot be, Tanya thinks. This straight line standing cockily before her needs to be smudged. She has to stop being a coward and make mistakes, openly. She leans forward, towards Porus. She will kiss him. He will be surprised, might push her away, but he's a man, unmarried, unmoored, free to be with anyone. He will yield, kiss her back and after that she will let him do what he wants to her. She doesn't care if anyone sees or knows any more.

She licks her lips, thrusts out her breasts and turns to face him.

There's a crash.

Her foot has hit the Bacardi Breezer bottle and its fizzy liquid spills all over the cream tiles. A large, ugly blue blot spreads on the white rug underneath her feet.

What a klutz I am, she thinks, always doing this, always destroying things.

‘I am so sorry. I didn't realize the bottle was near my foot,' she says frantically, reaching for the tissue box on the sofa. It's empty. She digs her hands into her purse for some Kleenex and finds three packets.

‘It's okay,' Porus murmurs, standing up. ‘It's not your fault that this place doesn't have a coffee table.'

‘I've ruined it, I've ruined it all,' she says, bending over the rug, dabbing furiously, filling up the tissues with her guilt.

Porus is beside her; their faces centimetres apart. He says, ‘Relax, dikra.'

She doesn't stop dabbing, reaching with her other hand for another packet of Kleenex.

‘Relax!' Porus says sternly, as if talking to his son. He places one hand over her hand, stopping her from throwing away the tissues like unfulfilled promises. With his other hand he grabs her chin and turns her face towards his. She sees his lips moving, pink and lined with dark edges. ‘Baap re! Relax, Tanya! It's an old rug. Nothing to worry about. Dinu was going to throw it out anyway.'

He looks into her eyes with an intensity that makes Tanya understand why Dinaz stayed with him with or without marriage. She feels his passion, his power, his longing. He is going to kiss her now. There isn't a better moment, a better opportunity. She shuts her eyes in anticipation, squeezing all other thoughts out of her head so that she can savour the delight she's already feeling.

Nothing happens.

She flutters open her eyes, confused, and searches for him. He is on his feet, his drink in his hand, ice clinking in the glass, watching TV. The players in black are running towards each other, their hands in the air, clapping, victorious.

Without turning Porus says, ‘Tanya, I rigorously follow the saying—you probably know it—Don't eat from a used plate.'

Tanya starts. Is she nothing more than a used plate to Porus? Her appeal as a woman reduced because she's married and hence ‘used' by another man?

Porus bends down, carelessly rolls the rug and tosses it in a corner, discarded.

He is referring to the rug as the ‘used plate', Tanya realizes. Of course.

But she gets up and straightens herself. There are tears filling her eyes. She turns towards Kaizad's room and screams, ‘Maneesh! Maneesh! We are leaving. Come out. Now!'

‘Now?' Maneesh shouts.

‘No way,' she hears Kaizad say, his voice cracking as if on the verge of adolescence.

‘Etlo badlai gayoch?' Porus says, turning towards her with a look of helpless confusion. ‘Why are you leaving? You just came. The boys are having fun. I thought we were too.'

Tanya looks at Porus, sweet lovable Porus, the breaker of hearts, the mark of her misplaced intentions, the sign of her dying youth. She pats her hair into place, picks up her big purse, and heads for the front door, where she waits for Maneesh, alone.

How early the sun had risen that day. How fast the elephant had walked. How quickly the rhino had gone out of sight and become a part of the yellowing day, the green foliage—its message forever lost, no sign that it had ever existed.

CLIP AND CANE

Gyan hears the payal on Parvati's right ankle tinkle as she climbs the steps to the chawl's third floor, walks past his kholi and stops outside her door. A plastic bag rustles as she sets it down on the hard cement floor. The wooden chair creaks when she lifts it up.

After a long pause she enquires, ‘Who tried to fix my chair?'

Why is her voice not pleased?

There can be no one else in the veranda at this time of the hot day, so she's obviously asking Dhoopwali Mai, who must be sitting in her usual spot next to the clothesline, under the sun.

But Dhoopwali Mai doesn't reply. Gyan imagines her hand running through her hair, white and serpentine owing to her age, and drenched in coconut oil that the chawl women complain stains their drying clothes.

‘Chaa!' Parvati continues. ‘It looks worse than before. Such shoddy work.'

‘Andha kya jaane aurat ka swaad,' Dhoopwali Mai says in a sly, slithering voice.

Gyan stands up in surprise. How could he have not sensed Dhoopwali Mai watching him—motionless and soundless—as he mended the broken chair?

‘The one who's always in or always out?' Parvati asks.

Gyan wills the Mai to silence, but—‘Gyan na jaane aangan tedha'—it's too late.

He hears Parvati's footsteps cross the veranda, and moves to the back of his kholi, which he imagines is dark and an ideal hideout. The curtain at his doorway swishes. Parvati is standing inside his kholi, for the very first time. He has nothing to welcome her with.

She stops, as if taken aback. ‘Is this a house or a factory?'

He doesn't know. This room is filled with cane chairs and his precious tools: needles, chisel, pegs, glue and nails. The only thing he calls his own is the straw mat that he sits on, a thin mattress that he sleeps on, and some hand-me-down clothes from his roommate Sunder. And though Gyan likes the lingering smell of bachelorhood in his house-cum-factory, now he wishes that he'd made this place more homely, hung up a poster or two, if only of those busty women liked by other men.

‘There isn't even a statue of Ganeshji here. Don't you believe in God?' Parvati continues.

Gyan has never understood the intense faith of damaged people. But his first meeting with Parvati must go well, so he replies, ‘I find it difficult to believe in something that I can't see.'

‘Then you don't believe in anything,' Parvati says, her voice strong and insistent.