The Gurkha's Daughter (7 page)

“Sleepover?” he asked.

“Um.” Supriya didn't bother looking up.

“Why didn't you ask me?”

“I am going to be late.” Supriya clutched her backpack and didn't look at him.

“We need to talk.”

“I am late.” She headed for the door.

“We don't talk at all these days. I persuaded your mother to allow you to continue swimming. I didn't even receive a thanks for that.”

“Maybe I will make you a card. And bake you a cake. And let the neighbors know you're the best father in the world.”

“You're raising your voice. It's loud enough for the tenants downstairs to hear you.”

“I can't whisper to you,” Supriya hissed. “Not when you're causing me to be late for school.”

“We'll talk about it later,” said Prabin, his voice suddenly soft. “I will be waiting for you. I'll be back from the store before you're back from school.”

Supriya betrayed no emotion. Within a second, she was gone.

Prabin didn't go to the bookstore that day. He wanted to be home when Supriya arrived. Khusboo returned from college and, sensing he wasn't in the best mood, asked him if he might want to join her for shopping. Prabin replied that he wanted to be left alone.

The wait for Supriya turned out to be longer than anticipated. She finally walked in at about four, her shirt untucked and her stockings rolled down.

“You're late,” Prabin said the moment she walked in.

A smirk greeted him.

“I told you I'd be waiting.”

“Wow! What an honor. The man of the house waits for my arrival.”

“When did you learn to speak that way, my dear?” Prabin was aware of his raised voice and tried compensating by being extra-polite.

“When you were away at the store,” said Supriya. And with a catch in the voice, she added, “You know, when you weren't there for me, you hypocrite.”

Prabin was silent. He wanted to know what the issue was.

“What have I done, Supriya?” he asked—sadly, softly—looking her in the eye. “We've become strangers here. I haven't spoken to you in days. Whatever happened to all the talks about school, the secrets, and your life? You tell me nothing these days.”

“And what do you tell me, Bua? You don't even sit on the same sofa as me.”

Prabin didn't know how to deflect the accusation. He thought of something to say, but his daughter didn't allow him.

“Ever since I had my period, you've become an entirely different person. You locked me in the room for seven days after. Mua told me I couldn't see the sun, that I couldn't see a man's face. All those days there, I cried. I cried because I felt guilty, because I thought I had committed a sin. I'd look at myself in the mirror and hate myself. I honestly thought I was an evil person, or that I had done something bad. My body hurt, and so did my thoughts. When I confided in a teacher at school, she said I might have been depressed. Seven days in a room, Bua.”

This wasn't his twelve-year-old girl speaking. The voice wasn't hers. His little girl was talking like a woman who had matured, gained perspective, and had realized her sex held a secondary place in her community. He had never brought her up that way. Man or woman, girl or boy—they were all equal, and that's what he had taught her. He was about to gently tell her that she did have Mua for company, but bawls now replaced Supriya's sobs, and she gave him no opportunity.

“Mua told me all about it—all about periods.” The sputters were back. “I knew about them. I've always known. I am smarter than anyone my age. Pooja kept it hidden from her parents for six months. I should have kept mine a secret from you people, too. Had I known I'd be imprisoned in my own room, I'd have never told her. I thought you'd understand at least. I thought you'd help me out. But you didn't. You are no different from
others. What an idiot I was to hope you'd one day show up and tell me I'd always be your little one.”

“There's nothing wrong with periods, Supriya. Everyone—every female—has them.”

“I know, you fool,” Supriya screamed, quiet sniffles punctuating her speech. “I know everyone has them. But you could have at least come into my room to talk. You could have said what you just said. You could have laughed about it. You could have made it normal. There I was, thinking it was the end of the world, and you . . . you didn't care at all. You didn't even pop your head into my room to say hello. And all along I thought you'd tell me Mua is a fool, and we'd go up to the terrace and laugh about it all. When even you treated me like I was an animal—no, worse than that—I really thought I had done something wrong. I hated myself. I hated you. I hated life. I'd get these pains in my stomach, not knowing where they came from. I'd feel woozy one minute and get cramps the next. I hate you.”

Supriya cried for a long time. She'd stop for a while, awaken some memory from her week-long lockdown and start to sob. Prabin wanted to go to her, hold her in his arms and run his hands down her hair, but he couldn't. He also wanted to cry but knew, for his daughter's sake, he shouldn't.

“I am sorry, Supriya. I wish I had known what you went through. See, I am a man, after all. I don't know so much. But that's no excuse. I was a fool to think you'd be all right in that room for seven days. I think it's a stupid tradition, I do, but Mua thinks it's important. Had I known it would be this difficult on you, I'd never have allowed her to go through with it. I am sorry, Supriya, please understand how sorry I am.”

“Bua.” She was walking toward her room, her voice breaking into sobs again.

“Yes?” he asked hopefully. He walked toward her. He was going to hug her no matter what. It had been too long.

“I'll never forgive you for this,” she said, her voice a tremor, as she closed the door.

Khusboo didn't like the decision, and she made no effort to hide it.

“A beauty pageant?” she said. “What will people say? I've tried my best to talk to her, but why would she listen to me? There might even be a swimsuit round. And this is just a regional competition. Regional competitions are cheap; they hardly have the same prestige as Ms. India.”

“She's a beauty, our daughter,” Prabin said without looking away from the game of solitaire on the screen.

The crow's nest had been hooked up with a computer and the Internet just a few months ago despite Khusboo's repeated insistence that the study was a better choice. Prabin had argued that working on the computer while watching the town from high up was more inspiring, and when she saw he wouldn't have had it any other way, she relented. Supriya didn't have an opinion because she was already away in college in Kolkata and only used her laptop.

“Doesn't mean she has to prove it to the world by participating in a beauty contest,” Khusboo retorted. “My parents are illiterate, and so is your mother. Think of what they will say when they find out our Supriya is parading around half naked in a swimsuit.”

“We aren't even sure if there will be a swimsuit competition, Khusboo, and even if there is, you need to grow with the times. Let her do what she wants. It might be good for her—think of the exposure she will receive.”

“Of course, she convinced you. You think everything she does is okay. One of these days, she'll elope, and you'll think that's okay, too.”

“Why not? She can tell us if she wants to get married to someone. Why would she elope? We aren't Rais, you know.”

“And if she marries a Rai?”

“Let her. Times have changed, Khusboo. Let her marry whom she chooses.”

“No one from my side of the family has married a non-Brahmin—just one
Jaisi
. That's it. And we can't allow our daughter to marry anyone but a Brahmin. All your grandiose plans of caste equality do not apply to your daughter. And this isn't an illiterate woman speaking. I teach about problems inter-caste marriages cause. I have seen them in front of my eyes. The
Matwalis
, they dip their thumb in alcohol and have their newborn babies suck on it. Imagine that being done to your grandson.”

“Horrifying,” Prabin said. Solitaire required too little concentration to blank his wife out completely.

“Not serious at all, as always. She's eighteen. Most girls in our family get married around twenty-three. We want to make sure she's not serious with anyone.”

“So she cannot be serious with boys and just date, then? Is that what you're trying to say?”

“Shut up. You have stopped respecting the
janaai.
You make fun of it like it isn't a sacred thread anymore. Didn't you also tell the driver you've stopped wearing it? At least don't advertise it to anyone. It's insulting. If a Brahmin stops wearing it, the Chettris will, too.”

“All right, I'll wear the
janaai
tomorrow. And I don't mind if my daughter gets married to a non-Brahmin. Rai, Tamang, Limbu, Tibetan—I am okay with them all.”

“Ah, you must be looking forward to having grandchildren with pig-like noses.”

“At least they won't have hawk-like noses that start from the top of their heads.” He added: “Like you do.”

It was true, Prabin admitted to himself, when Khusboo finally left him alone, that he didn't care so much about what caste his future son-in-law belonged to. He wasn't aware of how
his friends' and brothers' marriages worked, but he knew his marriage wasn't a resounding success. He didn't hate his wife or love her. He belonged to a generation that didn't talk about issues like love and romance openly, although he was sure everyone thought about them. He and his wife were used to each other. Like the bamboo chair in the crow's nest he was sitting on, his wife was a part of the house, and in that extension, a part of him. He felt for her when her back problems bothered her, but he felt for the servant, too, when the old man coughed all night long.

Khusboo and he didn't sleep together—she slept on a mattress on the floor to help reduce her backache—and intimacy now was an awkward topic. Sometimes Prabin wondered how he would be affected if his wife died or, worse, if she left him, and concluded his life wouldn't change so much after all. With Khusboo's going to college before he woke up and his leaving for the store for ten-hour shifts before she returned, they didn't even spend much time together. And he liked it that way; he suspected she felt the same way. On the rare occasions they were home at the same time, like Sundays and holidays, they kept conversation to a minimum, their common platform being their daughter.

If this is what an arranged marriage felt like—dull, constricting, suffocating—he didn't wish it on his daughter. He wanted his daughter to live, something he felt he hadn't done fully, to experience life with a partner as hungry for life as she was, to travel, to see the world, to be deeply in love . . .

His thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing. It was Supriya.

“What did she say?” she asked.

“Not very happy,” he sing-sang. “Not very happy.”

“I knew it. What exactly did she say?”

“Family. Swimsuit. People.”

“There may not even be a swimwear round. Trust her to make it dramatic. Where's she now?”

“Don't know. I am upstairs.”

“Think you can persuade her to come around?”

“She'll be fine. Don't worry about it.”

“And you, are you all right with it?” Her voice changed.

He detected the apprehension. “Totally.”

“Okay, your answer came too fast. Are you absolutely okay with it?”

“I am. Believe me, I am.”

“Even the swimwear?”

“I'd much rather there not be a swimwear round, but I don't think it's an issue.”

“Will you come see me compete?”

“I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

“Even if Mua doesn't come?”

“Don't worry, she will come.”

“To be honest, I'll be happy if one of you is here. It'd be an added bonus if both of you came.”

“We'll both be there.”

“All right, then, see you soon. Text me if she says anything too funny or nasty.”

“She said you'd elope if I continued allowing you to do what you want.”

“Why would I elope? I'll proudly march the man I will marry to the house in full view of the entire Gangtok bazaar.”

“Just what I told her. Even the Laal Bazaar?”

“As well as Battis Mile. Okay, no minutes, got to go. Bye. Don't tell her I asked you anything.”

“Goodnight.”

He was beaming when he hung up.

Supriya called him two days later to declare she was not going to compete after all. She said she had to choose between
rehearsing for the competition or going to Europe on an educational tour, and because Europe was a childhood dream, she chose the latter. Prabin asked his daughter, paying little heed to the glare coming from his wife's direction, if she could do Europe some other time, but Supriya said she couldn't wait. And, besides, she could always participate in the pageant next year.

“Tell Mua I didn't do it because of the mandatory swimsuit round,” she said. “How could I do that to my family? Dissolve its respect in mud, you know.”

“I will. She's here actually. Speak to her.”

He handed the phone to Khusboo.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Khusboo said, victoriously taking it all in. “Well, thank you. Thanks. Good. Yes, I know. No one can talk now. And you can begin eating, too. Europe? Will that be expensive? Okay, okay, okay, oh, your savings? No, no, I will ask Bua if we can finance you. You don't need to touch the money you've been saving since four. All right, bye.”

Khusboo placed the receiver back on the cradle.

“She probably didn't get selected.” She maliciously smiled. “She thinks I am a fool—like I'll believe she didn't take part for me. And what a nice gateway for the Europe trip—no one asks her a thing about it.”