No God in Sight (7 page)

I sit back with relief, the kind I haven’t known in years. I mumble ‘thank you.’ Sophiya nods and lowers her gaze.

Ten minutes later all three troop out, with Sophiya’s parents promising to notify us of their decision in a few days. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Even before she has left our flat I have sworn to myself: if Sophiya says no, I will remain a bachelor forever.

‘Please, God, please let them not say no,’ mom grumbles while clearing the coffee table.

Yes, God,
I look at the ceiling dreamily,
please, yes.

Now all Hamida wanted was to be Rafiq’s fourth wife.

She had, of course, planned on being his first wife. But, during summer, when Hamida returned to Ahmednagar after a week at her uncle’s home in Jalgaon, she found that Rafiq had married his aunt’s daughter.

They met a day later at their secret spot in the park. Rafiq fell at Hamida’s feet and swore he couldn’t help getting married, his father had forced him, and he had had no opportunity to mention his prior—albeit unofficial and unknown—commitment to Hamida. Hamida shrugged sportingly. They kissed for seven minutes. Later, when they stood hugging against an abandoned tonga, Hamida said, ‘Tell your father about us, Rafiq. I don’t mind, I can be your second wife, but tell him you want to marry me.’

‘Okay,’ Rafiq said, and they kissed till it became dark.

*

Several weeks later, Rafiq went to Delhi to collect payments for his father’s business. He was supposed to return in a week. He took three. And when he came back to Ahmednagar, it was with his second wife—another cousin—this time his mother’s brother’s daughter. Hamida insisted on a meeting the same evening. An anxious and harried Rafiq arrived an hour late. ‘Circumstances were such that…’

‘What? What were the circumstances?’ Hamida demanded to know.

‘They caught me kissing her and forced me to marry her.’

‘Oh, I wish I too was your cousin,’ Hamida said wistfully. ‘Tell your father about us, Rafiq. I don’t mind, I can be your third wife even, but at least now tell your father to marry us.’

‘I will, I will,’ Rafiq said, but he didn’t have time to kiss; he had to hurry home to pacify his first wife.

Two months later, when Rafiq came and said, ‘Bad news,’ Hamida didn’t even flinch. It was her twenty-first birthday; she had brought a piece of chocolate halwa for Rafiq. Hamida dropped the sweet and squatted on the ground as Rafiq said he didn’t want to,
he didn’t,
but was being forced to marry his sister-in-law’s sister whose parents had been killed in a riot.

‘You have turned my life into a shoddy joke,’ Hamida whispered.

Rafiq didn’t hear her, though, and continued, ‘Number one took it quite well this time; but I think number two is waiting to throw a tantrum at some choice moment. Wives, I tell you!’

Now all Hamida wanted was to be Rafiq’s fourth wife. There was, however, a problem: Rafiq couldn’t afford a fourth wife. Not unless she came with money enough for herself and at least two others. ‘My parents are paupers!’ Hamida cried. But Rafiq, who had started to look a decade older than his age of twenty-four, said there was nothing he could do. Much as he wanted to marry Hamida, money, and the shortage thereof, was too malignant a reality to be obscured by love.

Now all Hamida wanted was money. Short of working hard and prostitution, she thought of all the ways that could bring her immediate and immense wealth. She recalled that her friend, Sophiya, who lived behind the bakery, had been to Mumbai a few days ago to see a rich boy.

Hamida rushed to Sophiya’s house. She called Sophiya out and asked, ‘Listen, you are marrying that boy from Mumbai or no?’

‘I’ve not decided as yet,’ Sophiya said.

‘Okay, but decide quickly. If you are not interested, better give me the matchmaker’s number.’

Sophiya was amazed. ‘But, Hamida, that boy is handicapped. You yourself said you’d rather remain a spinster than marry someone with polio.’

‘I know, I know, but…’ Hamida told her friend her entire story.

By the time Hamida was finished, Sophiya was ready to vomit. ‘So, basically, after I divorce that cripple, I will take his money and come back and marry Rafiq. Good, no?’ Hamida beamed at her own cleverness.

It was at that moment, paralyzed by her friend’s grin, that Sophiya decided—enough, no more dithering, she would marry Munaf, the polio-ridden boy from Mumbai. If for no other reason than to save him from women like Hamida.

And to protect herself from men like Rafiq.

Their wedding was a stupendous success!

Munaf’s parents had spent so much money decorating the marriage hall and there was such a variety of things to eat, that everybody was asking, ‘Who’s the caterer? Who’s the caterer?’ (No, not me. The caterer was Lucky Hotel.) Then everybody asked, ‘Who’s the decorator? Who’s the decorator?’ (Again, not me.) And
then
I heard two women gossiping, and one of them asked, ‘By the way, who’s the matchmaker?’

Who else? Me! Jeyna-bi!

I was hard to miss in my fluorescent orange burkha.

When I went up on stage to wish the wedded pair, Munaf’s father widened his eyes and remarked, ‘Jeyna-bi, wherever I look I am only seeing you this evening. What’s the plan, haanh?’

‘Allaaaah!’ I squealed, and buried my face in his wife’s arm. Munaf’s father is such a naughty boy, I tell you!

As I was descending the stage, two women and a man
were awaiting me at the bottom of the steps. I stopped and inhaled deeply before plunging headlong into all those people clamoring for Jeyna-bi, Jeyna-bi, Jeyna-bi. They formed a line behind me. Our procession marched toward the buffet section. One by one parents would come up, shove their marriageable child in my face, and tell me everything about him or her since birth.

At one point the father of a divorced optician said, ‘Jeyna-bi, just look behind you!’

What? There was nothing.

‘Don’t you see?’ the man cried. ‘Your line is longer than the line at the stage!’

I strained my eyes. No, it wasn’t. There was no one behind me.

‘You’ve grown old, Jeyna-bi, get your eyes checked. I’m telling you, your line is longer,’ the optician’s father gushed as he steered his son in my path. ‘Meet my Tahir. Just look at him and tell me honestly: can you make out he’s divorced?’

I wiped my tears. My line longer than the stage line? Allah-be-thanked! It may have been Munaf and Sophiya’s wedding but this was turning out to be one of the grandest nights of my life!

I became overexcited as usual. When I reached the buffet table, I got carried away like always and had two-two three-three helpings of all the dishes on offer.

Really, at weddings I need someone to accompany me. I
need someone to dig their nails into my arm and hiss,
Go slow on the free food, understand?

So I ate and ate and ate, because there was no one to tell me to stop.

Halfway through dessert, I felt a spicy burp rearing its head. I pushed back my chair. ‘Oohh maa…’ I groaned. I loosened my shalwar. I began contorting my torso—front to back, left to right. Other guests saw me thrashing about and came forward to help. I motioned everybody to step back, give me space, I was only trying to burp! But one idiot woman panicked—she removed her leather chappal and pressed it on my face. She thought I was having a fit!

That was it.

‘Jeyna-bi vomited! Jeyna-bi vomited!’

‘Big deal. She always does.’

Tch, I don’t know how it happened. They had to carry me to the bathroom. The stuff was all over my burkha. Swear-to-Allah, I try my best to control. But every time I just…I go nuts.

On returning from the bathroom, I pulled my veil down like the shutter of a shop and hid in a corner for the rest of the evening.

‘Jeyna-bi?’ a woman tried to raise my veil.

There was only one woman who would dare to lift Jeyna-bi’s veil. One very obnoxious woman. ‘Go away, Yasmin-bai,’
I said.

She squatted between my legs and peered up my veil. ‘I heard you vomited? Feeling better now?’

I shut my veil tight. ‘Go away, I don’t want to talk to anyone.’

‘Ya Ali!’ Yasmin-bai said. ‘See no, just like a child!’ She sat down beside me. Then she started her usual nonsense: ‘Seen someone for my Nawaz?’

Allah! First that optician’s father flattering me with lies, then that puke bath, and now this idiot lady droning in my ear: ‘I beg you, Jeyna-bi, find a girl for my son. Please, Jeyna-bi, I am only asking for a simple girl, not some princess, just someone who knows how to handle money. I will feed her good-good things…’

‘SHUT UP!’ I flung back my veil.

Yasmin-bai clutched her chest.

‘Are you
retarded
?’ I screamed. ‘Where will the couple sleep in your one-room flat? Under the bed?’

Yasmin-bai looked down like an admonished girl.

I went for the jugular. ‘Don’t think I don’t know! I keep an eye on everyone. Your Nawaz is a number-one bum. Doesn’t do any work, doesn’t come for any functions. How will he feed his wife? He’ll make his wife
work?’

Yasmin-bai shook her head; she started to say something.

But I was finished with that stupid wedding, and I was
finished with Yasmin-bai.

‘Forgive me.’ I stood up. ‘I may be a gluttonous matchmaker, but I don’t deliberately shove girls in the fire! Before opening your mouth so wide you should have at least checked to see if you have the teeth! Khuda-haafiz!’

But my Nawaz has started working! Instead of taunting me and
my
big mouth, if that Jeyna-bi had kept hers shut, I would have told her that my son has finally started working! Yes, okay, I know, like all young men even my Nawaz went through a little idle patch.

But then, last week, he returned home one afternoon and announced, ‘Ammi, I’ve found work.’ (The three sweetest words a son can tell his widowed mother; and also,
Ammi, I’m getting married.
Soon, soon, I’m sure—as soon as that Jeyna-bi obliges.)

‘I’ll need abbu’s sherwanis,’ my son said. ‘We still have them, right? Those two black sherwanis abbu wore?’

‘What?’ I screeched. ‘You namakool!’ I seized Nawaz by his collar. ‘Just get out!’ I dragged him to the door. ‘You just get out of this house your abbu bought with honest money! In this respectable Medina, I will not allow you to make even one corrupt aana!’

‘Ammi, stop it, leave me! Have you gone mad? I just asked for abbu’s sherwanis!’

‘You think I don’t know? Haanh? You think I don’t know who wears sherwanis in this day and age? No, Nawaz…’ I snapped my fingers. ‘Out, just get out! Go be a politician elsewhere!’

‘You think I am becoming a politician? Are you mad? Do I look mad to you?’

‘You are not becoming a politician?’ I let go of my son’s collar.

‘Of course not, ammi!’ Nawaz adjusted his shirt. ‘I am not
that
depraved!’

‘Haash!’ The day suddenly went from morose Moharram to festive Eid. ‘God bless you, beta.’

I bent under the bed for the trunk; from it, I fished out the bundled remains of my dead husband’s material life and unwrapped the two black coats. Nawaz grabbed one and put it against his body, craning his neck out to see. ‘Damn, too long, looks more like a dress than a sherwani.’

Pretending like I couldn’t care less, I asked, ‘So what you going to do wearing this fancy dress? What job you got, haanh?’

‘You won’t understand,’ Nawaz said. ‘I’m going to try this on.’ He barged off to the balcony. In this one-room-per-flat colony, everybody changes on their balcony. We bare ourselves to the outside world so the ones who matter inside
won’t see us exposed.

When Nawaz returned, I could see the sherwani was loose—too long and roomy. He doesn’t have the appetite or vigor of his father who lived big, spoke loudly, and walked with long strides. As if to compensate for his dead father’s excesses, Nawaz moves around suspiciously, eats like a miser, and speaks in measured tones.

‘Don’t alter them, please; this is all I have of your father,’ I begged, when Nawaz said he would put these precious garments under the local tailor’s scissors.

He looked at me like I was his biggest enemy, ‘You’re right, ammi. I mustn’t alter these sherwanis. I
want
to look like a joker.’

I smiled, perplexed by the disgust on my son’s face.

That was that. From that day on, Nawaz dresses up in his father’s finery every morning: the unaltered sherwani, the bunching pajamas, and a dark-brown embroidered skullcap. Then he gathers a pile of faded books and leaves.

If only I knew how to read, or if I had a daughter-in-law whom I could conspire with, I would know what my Nawaz was up to.

One day I will turn red.

Not like Bengal.

Literally!

One day the red tinge of kattha will spread from my fingernails to my palms, arms, neck, chest, legs, penis, toes. Everything will be a healthy bloody red. Serves me right for selling paan. Such an addictive thing. It is as if the colony’s women specifically give birth to sons so that when they grow up they can hang around my booth all day like weaklings craving daily—sometimes hourly—fixes of my green, aromatic, enfolded bundles of bliss. And I always pack a sucker punch. Whether they like it or not, I finger a solid coating of white lime on the betel leaf to make my customers’ tongues burn and their brains buzz. With a thrill like that for just two bucks, who wouldn’t want more and more every boring day?

Men form cheap habits so they can be happy quickly, any time, anywhere. Women, they want jewelry and a nice
house and expensive visits to their parents’ homes—nothing your local tobacconist can deliver. So women remain sad, and are further angered by the easy happiness their menfolk have perpetual access to.

But I am not without scruples. If you are a youth from a good family, I will sell you nothing. You can walk a kilometre to some other immoral paanwallah for all I care and stuff your body with useless flavors. What I sell is injurious to health. I will have no share in destroying someone if he isn’t already flawed. Like that boy from B3-2 building. Nawaz. Seen him growing up, I have. Since last week he has started packing two sweet paans every morning.