The Two Krishnas (29 page)

Sonali had begun resenting her mother. Powerless herself, she grew up to hate her mother’s piety, her sense of duty, her impotency against fate. She began to blame her mother for submitting to her father’s treatment, for her unceasing devotion even as she crouched under the fists befalling her. Towards the end, Sonali had even taken to treating her mother with cruelty, calling her names, shouting back at her at the smallest of things so that she was reduced to a mere servant in her own house, serving two masters instead of one.

When her mother finally passed away, Sonali was filled with grief and remorse. But she had also learned vital lessons firsthand: that beauty was a currency in itself and compensated for many personal shortcomings owing to our astonishing appetite for aesthetic perfection. Barring that, one must have wealth, which in so many ways could also secure beauty. Only the truly unfortunate were born into an absence of both.

Young Sonali also learned that gods did not exist, or if they did, they didn’t care. Where was Laxmi, goddess of prosperity, when her grandfather had fallen short of a dowry and Jaya had been carted off like a hump to live with a tyrant who would never let her forget it? And where were the gods when Ravinder had lain with the prostitutes of Bhiwandi only to come home and beat Jaya limp so that Jaya was only grateful that like other brides she hadn’t been doused in kerosene and set ablaze in a locked kitchen? What was Lord Krishna up to then? Still spooling out swathes of cotton to a distressed Draupadi?

After Jaya’s death, Ravinder practically forgot that he had a daughter. He stayed out all night, even losing, at some point, the job he revered at the studio. Meanwhile, instead of feeling grief for having mistreated his wife, perhaps causing her death, he bereaved his own broken fate, cursing Jaya now for defecting on him and leaving him to fend for an unruly daughter who had inherited none of his own good looks and all of her mother’s unsightliness.

So he was relieved when her maternal aunt took Sonali in when she was about the age her mother had been when they had married. Here, her snooty cousin Manisha never once let Sonali forget her burdensome position as an extra mouth to feed. But Sonali bit her tongue and got back at her in more surreptitious ways, like whisking globs of mucus into Manisha’s pot of turmeric cream, then watching her cake the cream onto her face each night so she could obtain that treasured bridal glow.

Sonali attended Davar’s College at Fountain where she learned typing and shorthand among other hopefuls, even some who clearly considered themselves better than the institution and those in it. She watched these girls more particularly, eyeing their luxurious manes of dark hair, their revealing, modern fashion, their painted
filmi
faces, and how they looked at others disdainfully from under the tips of their noses.

Then she met Sanjay Patel, quite by chance, and everything changed. A visiting NRI from America, Sanjay was a wiry, soft-spoken man with oily, slicked-back hair who had been sent to recruit other promising engineers and skilled workers from a country that was slowly becoming a goldmine for the West. No longer seen as just indentured laborers like in the eighteenth and nineteen century, this stream now consisted of doctors, engineers and scientists and Sanjay was sent as an emissary of the better life waiting for hardworking Indians in America.

Having lost both parents in a freak accident which had killed them on the spot when driving to visit Indian friends in San Jose, Sanjay, only twenty then, grew lonely without any siblings to share his grief with. By the time he was thirty, he had managed to build a lucrative career, almost as if to compensate for all the love he had been robbed of.

Someone or the other had invited Sanjay to a matinee of
Dil Apna Preet Parayi
, where Sonali was also present with the only rich friend she had at Davar’s, a rather unpopular, overweight, dark-skinned girl called Rachna who made overt passes at any man she spotted. Rachna was known to plug her fingers straight into her mouth, let out a piercing whistle, and say things that made even grown men blush:
“Arre, jata hain tu kahan, Ranjhe? Teri Heer to idhar par hai!”
Where are you going, Romeo? Your Juliet is waiting here for you.

As the lights dimmed and an orphaned Meena Kumari fell for Raj Kumar’s Dr. Sushil character, Sonali, for the very first time, found herself being looked at with desire by the man sitting one person down from her. She was suddenly glad she had worn her fitted parrot green blouse with white flowers embroidered at the neckline, black pants, and had left her hair loose with just a emerald rhinestone pin on one side.

Separated from Sanjay only by a popcorn-chomping Rachna, who couldn’t eat fast enough to finish the samosas she had stashed away under her seat and carelessly wiped her hands on her bright yellow cotton dress every now and then, Sonali encouraged him with a smile in the dark room. He must have caught the glint of her teeth because right then he looked away and Sonali had wondered if, like a fool, she had smiled too hard and scared him away.

Half way through the film, Rachna farted and then looked around angrily at others. But everyone knew it was Rachna, it was always Rachna, and one of their friends, a lanky outspoken guy called Salim said, “
Tch, tum bhi kya, Rachna
…” and was greeted by a volley of blows from an indignant Rachna. “How dare you! Salim, I say how dare you!” That’s when Sonali looked over and saw Sanjay smiling directly at her.

It was after the film, its romantic melodies fresh in everyone’s minds, and when Rachna had rushed to the bathroom, grasping her cramping stomach, that Sanjay picked up the courage to ask Sonali out. That was when she knew that truly there was someone out there for everyone. She didn’t need Rachna’s money. What good had it done Rachna, that uncouth cow? Someone had finally made her feel like those other women with the black manes, immaculately painted faces and pert noses. She considered her suitor right there and then. Sanjay didn’t look like a strong man but he was financially sound. He was not good looking but he seemed kind.

This man didn’t think of her as plain or ugly, or look like he would ever dare raise a hand to her. From his wiry glasses, he could barely look at her without breaking into a smile and shyly averting his eyes. Unlike those who may imitate the relationships of their parents in a misguided attempt to correct past wrongs, she would trade up, let Sanjay be her ticket out of Mumbai, taking her a lot further than shorthand and typing ever would.

For their first date, she skipped classes and they went to the Prince of Wales Museum. Even though she was a Mumbayite, she had never set foot in the museum and was impressed when they looked at the collection of miniature paintings and bas-reliefs from the nearby Elephanta Caves, and a worldly Sanjay commented on their history as if he had discovered the relics himself.

When they met again, she suggested Malabar Hill where they walked in the lazy afternoon through the Hanging Gardens, over acres of lush greenery laid out over a series of reservoirs that supplied water to the entire city. Here, as they walked past the topiary, she made the mistake of asking him about his work, something she was not terribly interested in, and Sanjay, a normally subdued person, became remarkably excited.

“The world is shrinking, Sonali,” he said, gesticulating in the air. “They say the world is round but, no, wait, you’ll see it’s quite flat after all.”

She tried to pay attention but underneath it was all too complex and boring and she was only able to tune into it mildly, feigning interest because it was all coming from her future husband, her savior in that charming broken Hindi.

“India is slowly becoming a major player in the world, Sonali,” he continued, his black eyes shining behind the glasses. “You know, we are some of the most intelligent people in the world today. But look, they’re all sitting around like
gobis
in the market. You know why?”

Sonali gave an almost imperceptible grunt and Sanjay accepted this as a prompting. “No infrastructure,” he said, shaking his head and clucking his tongue. “But now, all sorts of advancements are being made. We’re taking over the world, Sonali!”

Somewhere between Sanjay buying her a peacock feather from a little boy who spoke several foreign languages fluently, drinking in panoramic views of Bombay and Chowpatty, and taking pictures in the “Old Woman’s Shoe,” the walk turned into a nervous yet determined proposal from Sanjay. Of course she had already known her answer then—why, she had been praying for this—but still Sonali asked for some time to consider it. He was staying for six more weeks with Rachna’s relatives, and she calculated correctly that she would have enough time to respond favorably, with dignity.

One afternoon, they shopped along the famous Colaba Causeway, along a strand of little stores and pavement stalls selling everything from shoes and handicrafts to clothing and trinkets. Sanjay spoilt her by buying her a pair of leather
chappals
and a lilac-colored shawl of blossoming
mogra
flowers. He had acted like a typical foreigner, embarrassed of bargaining, and she had jumped in, advising him that not to do so was actually an insult to the merchants. They savored chai and samosas at the Leopold Café, peppered with white travelers, the kind Sonali hoped she would be surrounded with one day.

Later at Juhu beach, Sonali and Sanjay enjoyed masala Cokes and
vadapav.
Sonali ate crudely and with relish and it was only when she noticed Sanjay was looking at her, albeit with an adoring look in his eyes, that she stopped eating altogether, almost throwing her plate away. But here she also realized that for the first time in her life she felt comfortable enough to let her guard down in front of someone.

By the time they were being driven home in the taxi along Marine Drive, the strand of lights famously knows as the “Queen’s necklace” had come alive. She put her hand gently on his. “If you want me, darling, then we must leave together. I cannot wait for you to come back. It’s not that I don’t trust you to but that I don’t know if I can bear to be separated,” she said, balling her fist at her heart, “And there is also the matter of that Chaurasi boy.”

“What Chaurasi boy!”

“Oh,” she said, feigning turmoil. “They’ve been trying to marry us…”

So Sonali Desai shed her name, her life, like soiled clothing, and preferring, unlike girls her own age, to opt for a simple civil ceremony instead of a pompous wedding, embraced the future with gusto. No
mandaps
, no Sanskrit-chanting priests, and no dowries, only a glittering diamond ring around her finger, first class tickets to America, and the adoring eyes of a man who she knew would love her as much as her father had detested her mother.

* * *

“No
lassi?
None?” Sonali almost shrieked in Pooja’s living room. “Oh, but you always have some!”

“Rahul isn’t around this weekend. He’s really the one that drinks it,” Pooja said, relieved and secretly grateful for the spontaneous visit. Americans didn’t believe in just dropping by unannounced; it violated too many of their notions about space and propriety. It was something she missed terribly about home. “But don’t worry, I can make some for you. Or what about some fresh
nimbu pani
instead?”

Sonali cleared her throat as if fearing a possible infection and frowned, knowing with some delight that the expression would not translate accurately in light of her latest jabs from Dr. Goldstein.
“Hanh, hanh,
okay, I’ll try some. I don’t want to be difficult. Bring it, bring it,” she said, flapping her hand in the air, displeased at having to resign herself to something other than her first choice. Her eyes darted around surreptitiously, trying to educe guarded secrets from the walls.

“Sit, sit. You’ll like it,” Pooja said consolingly, as if to a child. “I made it with some baking soda, you’ll see,” she winked, letting her in on a secret.

Sonali plunked down on the sofa, crushing the decorative silk pillows and their resident strutting peacocks under her, and launched into a grievance about some precious handbag she had lost. Pooja went into the kitchen and, retrieving a full glass pitcher of
nimbu pani
from the refrigerator, poured some into a freshly washed highball glass, allowing one of the decorative lime slices to fall in over the bobbing ice. Over the sound of Sonali’s litany, she considered just how desperate and lonely she must be to be able to extrude pleasure from her company. Strangely, it was only in Rahul’s extended absence that she could allow herself to agree with his disapproval of their neighbor. The life she had woken up to resembled an empty house more than ever, her only formal protector gone on some impractical business assignment, her son spending the weekend with his best friend, and all of her still here. She quickly inspected the simmering pot and, lowering the flame some more so the flames barely licked its black underbelly, returned to the living room with the glass and a serviette, sweeping her thoughts of self-pity aside.

“…of course, you know, I’m glad I could get a completely new style but what really bothers me is just how immoral people can be.
Chors!
I believe people don’t get away with such things, you know? It always comes back to them. Oh, and the nostalgic value I have for it!” she clicked her tongue wistfully, as if she had lost an heirloom.

Pooja handed over the glass to her and was about to ask what kind of nostalgia some designer handbag could possibly hold for her when Sonali suddenly switched topics, remembering something more vital to her existence, the famous monogram of her purse erased from her ticking mind temporarily. “Away? Did you say Rahul is away for the weekend? Why? What for? Where did he go?”