Custody (27 page)

Something or the other was always in the Delhi air.

‘I suppose Roohi is not going to school either,’ he enquired sarcastically on the phone.

‘No, beta,’ said Mrs Sabharwal. ‘Only one day – two days.’

Shagun was not the only one to know that Mrs Sabharwal was a terrible liar.

Eventually he gave in, as his wife must have known he would.

Take your divorce and fuck you. But the children are mine. If you dare mess with them, you see what I will do.

Nandan was very pleased at this happy outcome. You are a lucky man, he informed his cousin – I wish others could have their affairs resolved as quickly. From start to finish not even two years.

XXII

Divorce by mutual consent was initiated. The couple appeared in court, swore that it was impossible for them to live together and that they were not acting under duress. Six months later, they would reiterate the same thing, upon which divorce would be granted. Shagun was to give up all ownership of their joint assets, all claims to maintenance, the legal guardianship of the children, only demanding visitation rights in the holidays.

‘I hope my generosity, my willingness to settle, give Raman an inkling of where I am coming from,’ Shagun said to her mother. ‘He needs to see we have common interests, despite the fact that I have left him. Estranged partners have to keep mutually acceptable goals in mind for the sake of the children. That is the way to handle divorce. Not all this ugly fighting business.’

‘Is this what Ashok thinks?’

‘Ashok feels equally responsible to my kids, Mama – you should know that by now. Look at all he did for Arjun. Obviously he wants them to be well adjusted. Our objectives are the same.’

‘And Roo?’

‘When the time comes he will attend to Roo. He doesn’t discriminate between them.’

‘I hope he continues so involved, beti. People change after marriage.’

‘If I didn’t have absolute faith in Ashok, I would not have given up everything for him. My children are his, he has said so a thousand times. You’ll see.’

Mrs Sabharwal could find nothing to say to all this reasoning. Increasingly she had become the person her daughter confided in, and the ebb and flow of information about divorce, custody and Ashok was almost more than she could bear. Nothing was clear in Shagun’s life, she didn’t even know in which direction to turn her prayers any more.

‘Ashok is already planning our holidays for when we are all together. He feels we need to bond together as a family. We will go somewhere, perhaps Bhutan, and maybe Arjun can get a few archery lessons. Ashok will no doubt arrange things down to the last detail, he is so used to multitasking, he does it even at home.’

‘I’m sure he does.’

June.

It was going to be Arjun’s first trip home after DPA. He had been away two months, his father thought, long enough for him to know whether he liked the school or not. And if he didn’t he would record that on tape and produce it as evidence in court in order to protect him.

For now, eager to restore the sense of family his son had lost through the desertion of the mother, Raman planned a Goa holiday that included his parents. He would pick his son up from Alaknanda and after a day of preparation they would leave. Roohi’s birthday would be celebrated on the beach – he bought some knick-knacks from Khan Market for a little party he planned there. It would be a surprise for her, different from anything she had ever experienced.

As the Goa Express left Nizamuddin Station Raman felt the nightmare of the past year easing with the gentle rocking of the train. This compartment contained what he loved most on earth, and as he looked at the four he thought it could have been worse. He could have lost a child, for instance, instead of a wife who, all said and done was replaceable. One arm tightened around Roohi sitting on his lap, the other stretched out to stroke Arjun’s hair. The boy was looking good, clearly it had benefited him to be away from the harmful atmosphere of his mother’s home. Right now he was laughing at a story his grandfather was recounting, a story of his father as a kid, one new to Raman himself.

Panjim. From the station they hired a Maruti van that would take them straight to Vagator. As they drove Arjun focused on the newness of the landscape. Initially he had resisted Goa, all he had wanted was to stay at home, eat, watch TV and sleep without a bell ringing in his ears every twenty minutes. Now he relished this first encounter with the sea.

Finally Vagator. The hotel was a long low white building, with rooms on three sides of a pool, criss-crossed by red-gravelled walkways flanked by overarching green palms. Raman had booked a villa with rooms upstairs and down, and how the children loved the novelty of the little internal staircase! The grandparents had never stayed in such luxury before, and if breakfast and dinner was not included they would probably have starved to save their son money.

Everybody was charmed by everything. Mornings and evenings were spent at the beach, playing, walking along the shore, the rolling water and crashing waves imparting joy to all. Raman wondered sadly why he had waited to lose his wife to take this kind of holiday, but there had never been any time. Now every moment with his family was precious, and he went to sleep each night thanking God for his children, and for the medical intervention that meant he was still alive to enjoy them.

The highs lasted all the way back to Delhi. Even the train being late didn’t matter so much, thought Raman, when they were together. His mother told Roohi stories from the Mahabharata, and he saw that Arjun was listening too. After all, his name was from the Mahabharata: how come neither he nor Shagun had ever told their son about the Pandava Arjun? Too busy, that’s why, and not enough time with grandparents.

Unfortunately Goa had also liberated the grandparents’ tongues. They were mindful of their son’s interests, and in that connection thought it vital to know what was going on in the boy’s head. They couldn’t trust Raman to give the child an adequate idea of his sufferings.

Now they seized this opportunity. What was school like?, didn’t he miss his father?, his father loved him so much, kept thinking of him all the time, had been so eager about the Dehradun trip, remember, beta, when he came to see you. We all wanted to come, but your father said no, that might be too much for you, would it have been too much, beta? Do other grandparents visit?

Raman said, ‘Leave him alone,’ but the grandparents knew nothing of child psychology, they were willing to allow their curiosity all the room it needed to flourish.

‘Does your mother write to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘From where?’

‘Different places.’

‘What does she say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘She must say
something.’

‘How are you? That’s what she says.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing.
Why don’t you ask her?’

Later they told themselves that the boy had become very proud, very stand-offish.

Eventually Raman became firm enough for the questions to stop, while Arjun grew wary of his grandparents.

Back in Delhi, the boy was at his most eloquent when confronted with Roohi. ‘You are so stupid, you don’t understand anything’ was the burden of his song.

It hurt Raman, this dismissal of the little sister. Who else did these children have but each other?

‘Be nice to Roo, she could hardly wait for you to come,’ he repeated to the boy’s scowl, and a repetition of how retarded she was. ‘You have to be tolerant, she is still very young,’ but the baiting continued.

Arjun had behaved so well in Goa; was it something about this house or the memory of his mother that triggered such aggression? He could think of no other explanation.

At night when Roohi was asleep, and things were peaceful, father and son watched the Cricket World Cup, the event that was to have brought Raman and Shagun closer. Now they discussed the likelihood of India’s winning, went through the A and B team rankings, discussed players, their scores, their merits.

‘Do you miss your mother?’ Raman once asked.

‘No.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, son – only don’t say you don’t know when you do.’

‘She keeps travelling, Papa, how should I know where she is?’ The child had begun to whine and Raman told himself never to ask about his mother again. The secret desire to be assured of her unhappiness was a sign of weakness, besides which it was really none of his business.

The only topic of conversation Arjun was enthusiastic about was school. In a mere two months he had become a proper Academy boy. Won’t you like to go back to VV, beta? the father had tried asking, but the answer was such a clear no that Raman had to reconcile himself to DPA being Arjun’s school.

All too soon the children’s time with their father was over. Shagun phoned: please pack Roohi’s things and drop the children at my mother’s place.

How convenient it was to have her mother as a postbox.

Gloomily he drove them to Alaknanda. With Roohi at least things would change after the divorce, but the separation from Arjun would continue now that he was in boarding school.

‘Bye, beta, write once you reach Dehradun. Remember to phone. I will come to visit you, all right? Papa loves you, beta.’

‘It’s all right, Papa,’ said Arjun, by which mysterious statement Raman could imagine anything he chose.

*

Over the summer the nation flexes its muscles as it goes to war with Pakistan.

Everybody is glued to the TV. Patriotic feelings run high.

Kargil becomes a household word.

Collection drives for our brave soldiers take place in every colony of the city.

Companies donate, NGOs donate, schools and colleges donate, politicians and civil servants donate.

Certain very old people whisper their desire to see the country united as it was in their youth, before Independence and Partition snatched it all away.

Parks and roads are named after martyred soldiers. Five hundred and twenty-two of them have lost their lives around the mountains near Kargil in Ladakh.

Indian cricketers visit the wounded in hospitals, movie stars turn up at railway stations, singers and actors give charity shows.

In July 1999, India declares victory, the Pakistanis have been pushed back to the Line of Control.

India increases its defence spending.

Ordinary life resumes.

So far as The Brand was concerned, it was a good time to have the nation distracted. After the groundwater fiasco, it was the turn of bottled water. Some samples had been found to contain
E. coli.
More NGO reports. These reports must have been instigated by Indian manufacturers who hate our presence here, said Ashok, but for once they have picked their moment badly.

Shagun could see how much dealing with problem after problem was beginning to tire him, and how much he really wanted to leave. In that sense her divorce could not be better timed.

With Arjun back in school and Roohi with her mother Raman felt lost. It was useless confiding in his parents, they thought cursing Shagun was the way to make him feel better. With an empty heart and an empty house, the office was the place that seemed most natural to him. Anyway, he had to compensate for his time away from The Brand.

A new regional requirement from Hong Kong demanded his full attention. He had to work out an assessment of how India was doing based on six months of figures from thirteen different Asian countries. The data he had to deal with was considerable, and he spent hours and hours in office, relishing the freedom of being so involved in fruit drink analysis that there was no room for anything else. He began to use the nearby guest house to shower, eat and sleep. What was the point in going home anyway?

By the time he left the building it was dark and the traffic noise had dulled to more bearable levels. His mind was full of numbers and the story they told. He flexed his hands as he walked and moved his shoulders. His neck felt stiff – he knew he should take more breaks from the computer, but once he started it was hard to stop. He was reminded of his time at the IIM. Days of intense work, snatches of sleep and food, and the hope that all this would lead to a gilded future. And in terms of money and prestige it had.

But he was still the home-grown produce, still Mang-oh! compared to the international bestselling drink.

A few more weeks and the second divorce petition would be signed. He would be married no longer, a phase of his life over. Soon he would have to figure out what his world looked like with Shagun inexorably out of it. Till now, absent or present, she had dominated the scene.

*

In September, a month before the final signing, Mrs Sabharwal made her daughter take her to Tirupathi. Here she offered prayers, here she paid for fifty Brahmins to be fed, here she gave a donation of a thousand rupees.

‘I don’t think we need worry so much, Mama,’ said Shagun. ‘Raman is not the type to agree to divorce one day and refuse the next.’

‘He is not the Raman you knew, beti. Cold, hostile, angry – I feel he is now all these things. His mother may influence him, anything can happen.’

‘Well, if he reneges on the agreement, he will never see Roohi. Or as little as I can help it. Arjun too. The boy is old enough to be asked his opinion – and in front of the judge he can say, I do not want to meet my father. What will he do?’

‘I hope it doesn’t come to that. He loves the children, whatever his faults as a husband.’

(That Raman Kaushik had many faults as a husband was now the party line, and Mrs Sabharwal obediently echoed it.)

Shagun stared at her mother, this woman of mean intelligence. ‘Well, he’s not doing me any favours by being a caring father. I am giving him an opportunity to look after them, let’s see if he takes it.’

Mrs Sabharwal in turn stared at Shagun. Nothing good could come of a mother giving up her children, but to continue to live with Ashok without marriage would in the long run be even worse.

Now that the end was near, Shagun allowed herself to fantasise about being Ashok’s wife. To have that happiness legitimised! She only had to look around her to see divorcing couples, fighting over money and custody, forced to spend their lives in courtrooms, till the children were grown up, the money spent, and any chance of other relationships gone. Her freedom was miraculously around the corner, seducing her with its nearness.