Chapter 64

60. Blow Your House In

[PAST]

Urmila Singh nee Thakur was made for greater things, she had believed it since she turned eleven. She did not sweep and swab the floors nor did she sweat in the kitchen. 

 So, when Karuna took it upon herself to initiate and educate her in household duties, Urmila refused to take interest.

‘I have never cooked before in my life,’ she said, frankly.

‘Never mind. I shall teach you. With time you shall be the master of the house, it will be better you start from now,’ Karuna remained firm. 

Karuna had since the very beginning be critical of Urmi’s ways - not coming out of the room till late hours of the day, not sparing the neighbors a glance, keeping her husband tied to her petticoat string. Urmi's ignorance only added to Karuna's distaste for the choice of a woman for her daughter-in-law.  Going to fairs and cinemas did not make a home. Sweat, blood, sacrifices, compromises were the founding stones of a flourishing house.

She was witness to the shameless open fawning of his son over his new bride and their wanton behavior. When Karuna had walked into their room - in broad daylight and when the door was ajar - to seek out the company of her son,  ‘Maa! Knock before entering!’ A worked-up and embarrassed Keshav had shouted. They had been sharing a moment which his mother had spoiled. After marriage, he had developed a selfish streak, and anyone who came between him and his adulation was his enemy.

‘I...the door was open… I...we always,’ Karuna had been hurt and embarrassed. It had been their ritual to spend some time together on Sundays. She had given him time and waited on him. A widowed woman, he was her world. The sun to her planet. At the outburst of his son, she had silently left to her room. 

She had also once been a newlywed but they had never been this wanton. She had never been the reason for causing embarrassment to the elders of the house. Neither had she distanced her husband from his mother. 

‘Here, today you will make something sweet,’ ordered Karuna.

‘I do not know any sweet dishes,’ Urmila said stubbornly.

‘Then learn. Your husband has a sweet tooth.’ And it escapes me how a bitter thing like you have him wound around your little finger, she curbed her tongue to word out such vicious feelings. Urmila was only beautiful, what else did her son see in this woman?

With much resentment, Urmila had to take up the responsibility of the kitchen. But she did it on her own terms. The radio sitting on the slab, tuned to Akashwani, she listened to songs on loud volume, while rolling out shapeless chapatis. As the chapatis cooked on the griddle, she would often make trips to the living room where a mirror hung; take a look at her face and be astonished at the sheer beauty of it.  Even a trail of sweat and exhaust of the cooking stove could not mar it. It was true what people said. Her beauty was unparalleled. Urmila Singh, you are made for better things! She would poke at her reflection. You have to touch the sky. She would double-tap the mirror. Do not let the exhaust fumes choke your dreams. Urmila! Urmila!! She would close her eyes to hear her name be on everyone’s lips.

By the time she would return to the kitchen, the chapatis often would burn themselves for the lack of attention.

Sometimes, she would put potatoes in the cooker and forget to put water in it.

‘Are you wanting to kill us?! The cooker would have blasted! Would have killed anyone who had the ill-luck of being present in the kitchen.’ Karuna was fed up with her lacking ways. 

Sometimes Urmi would put milk on the stove and forget about it as she painted her nails or was lost in romantic novels. She would cook too much on days and without any compunction threw away the extras. 

‘Your father hasn’t gifted Kamdhenu cow in dowry that you waste resources like this! A scooter we demanded that also could not give. Miser! Don’t we know what people talk about him behind his back? Has amassed so much wealth but when it came to his daughter...he had nothing to offer! We were duped so badly. He did away with his good for nothing daughter without having to shell out anything.’

The words were certainly unpleasant to the ears on which it fell. Even though Urmila had no love lost for her parents, but Karuna bringing them up or disparaging them, she felt a deep hatred bubble up for the woman who was her mother-in-law. ‘You have no right to insult my parents!’

When Keshav returned he found their room bathing in darkness, a heap of a woman by the window. Switching on the light, he found his wife’s head resting against the railings of the window, and looking out somberly. 

‘What is it?’ He asked, coming to sit next to her.

She finally revealed the reason for her sadness after a long hour of cajoling. Burying her lovely face in his chest, she listed out the injustices of his mother against herself.

‘Do not pay heed to Maa. She’s prone to speak rudely. But I assure you she doesn’t mean it.’

‘Doesn’t mean it?’ Urmila jumped out from his embrace. ‘She means every word. She knows to strike where it hurts the most!’

‘Then be large-hearted and forgive her. She’s our elder and orthodox in her ways.’

‘This is the problem with you. You always shy away from standing up for me. Are you even a man if you cannot stand for your wife?’

Provoked and incensed, he stormed off to his mother, ‘Why do you taunt her about dowry and her parents?’

After Keshav’s father had passed away, Karuna and Keshav had become close. It was them against the world. They took each other’s care, see each other’s needs. Even got into friendly banters and tiff. Keshav also for years had claimed to never marry because he wanted no one to come in between them. He had made promises of forever being loyal to her. For Karuna to witness the shifting of loyalties so soon, was unbearable. 

Ojha’s wife had always been warning her to be careful. A beautiful daughter-in-law was the most dangerous commodity one could bring into their household. At that time Karuna had thought that Ojha-in was being jealous. 

Burning jealousy coursed through Karuna’s veins. The shifting of dynamics was happening too soon for her to adjust to it. Her eyes trembling with tears, she hissed, ‘Take your wife and make her sit on your head. Dare I say a  word against her! Do whatever you both want to do. I will not speak in your matters,’ and locked herself in her room.

When her son did not come to apologize and woo her into giving up her anger at all, she realized she had lost her hold over her son. And that too because of that undeserving woman.

The more she saw her son doting on that despicable woman, the harder her heart was set against Urmi. She would find opportunities to pick out her shortcomings, humiliating her parents, railing against her to her neighbors, especially to the kindred soul Mrs.Ojha. 

Urmila had no friends in the neighborhood. None of them deserved to be. Mostly she was indifferent to her neighbors. But one family she hated with a vengeance was the Ojha family.

Mr.Ojha, she was revolted by the way his eyes moved over her body or the way he watched her covertly when Keshav was not looking. The fact that he made lewd jokes and no one called him out for it was a surprise.

‘Keshav you struck a lottery. Then there are likes of me. Father tied us to any moving, breathing pole, he found suitable. Bhabi Ji, do you have a sister? Would she be interested in marrying a father of two sons?’ He would guffaw. Mrs.Ojha burning with embarrassment and indignance would join him in his laughter. ‘Yes, yes, Urmila, do you have any sister?’

‘Even if I had, interspecies marriage isn’t allowed, I think.’

Ojha’s sons were even worse. One was a toddler and wailed at the worst hours spoiling the neighborhood's peace. And the older had the penchant of breaking all Urmi’s favorite decorative pieces. Or slipping dainty spoons into his pocket whenever he came over dinner. One moment he would be playing in the verandah, the other moment he would be in her bedroom, unboxing her makeup items, breaking off her lipstick, squeezing out her fairness creams, and dabbing it on his face, rubbing the rest on the floor. By the time she would reach her room following the wafting fragrance of the toiletries, it was all gone.

The worst was him climbing windows and urinating from there. He would even call her to show his shooting capabilities.

To tolerate so much and then find the mother of the child cooped up in a corner, with Karuna, both the women slandering her. 

And she was supposed to cook for this family!

She was livid to find her mother-in-law betray her so.

Why should she break her back when no one cared for her?

Another day, as usual, she ignored the two women and walked to the kitchen to drain the cooked rice. She was not careful and some of the boiling hot rice water spilled on her hand.

‘Aaaah,’ she screamed in pain.

No one came. She walked to them and put her hand under their noses.

‘‘Oh. Just this? This is very normal. You screamed as if the sky fell over you!’ Mrs.Ojha was critical. So they heard and still did not come. `We encounter such cuts and burns every day.’

Karuna nodded. ‘Yes, it’s nothing.’ 

They left, leaving a struggling-with-her-burn Urmi alone in the room.

Would they care if I drop down and die now? 

It was not a small burn for her. It represented that she was an outsider and had no ally. That daughter in the word daughter-in-law was a huge lie!

Urmila, unconsciously, stored this incident in the back of her mind. She would be fooled into thinking that she has forgotten about it but it will come to the fore at every new injustice doled out by Karuna would rise and pile up against many such others. Festering and growing to a huge amount.

Usually, she loved herself too much to torture herself, but she was appalled at their indifference that day. 

Resentment and anger burnt her being as she left her burn, untendered.

When Keshav came, it was him, who bandaged her hand. Held her to himself, his arms around her waist. Speaking sweet- nothing in her ears.

‘You will have to tame your anger. Stop unleashing it on yourself.’

She moved out from his arm and continued to sit by the window. Angry at the world. At her parents to have married her off. At her husband who wasn’t what she wanted. Couldn’t he be a richer, suaver version of his own self? I used to dream so much, now all of my friends, sisters, and cousins are at a better place than mine.

‘Urmi, come on the bed. Lie down, it’s late.’

‘Urmi, you won’t listen to me? Let them not care for you, but you know you have my love.’

When she refused to say a word, even after his repeated addresses, he crooned a song in the darkness of the room;  in his tone-deaf voice, 

Yeh Mera Deewanapan Hai…

Ya Mohabbat Ka Suroor

Tun Na Pehchane Toh Hai Yeh

Teri Nazron Ka Kusoor….

Dil Ko Teri Hi Tamanna

Dil Ko Tujhse Hi hai Pyaar

Chahe Tu Aaye Na Aaye

Hum Karenge Intezaar…’

She first laughed - a peal of laughter would always bubble up in her throat whenever she heard him sing - and then crossing the room, she demanded, ‘Scoot’

He opened his arms and she laid claim to her rightful position.

‘I hate the Ojhas. He’s an advocate but is so pathetic.’ She said.

‘Hmm,’ he did not contradict her. She was a person who did not like many people.

‘The Ojha’s wife. She reminds me of a kindergarten poem.’

‘Hmm?’ His eyes were drooping close.

'Little pig little pig won't  you let me come in?”

“Oh, not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.”

“Little pig little pig if you don't let me in!”

“I’ll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!”

‘What does it mean?’ Keshav asked.

‘A greedy wolf is waiting outside to blow the house that the pigs are trying to make. So that he can devour them. So the third pig makes a house of bricks and refuses to be lured in. In fact, when the wolf comes down the chimney, the pig lights water on the fireplace, boiling the beast to death! I am telling you this Ojha woman thinks she is unbeatable but will be boiled someday.’

`The image of you being a little pig and her a wolf doesn’t look convincing.’

‘You mean to say I suit the role of a cunning, preying wolf.’ He was like others too.

‘Shouldn’t it be, blow your house down instead of in?’ Keshav instead focused on the syntax of the sentence. 

‘In because the wolf was trying to sneak into the house?’

‘Oh. Phrasal verbs are confusing. I had learned so many of them when I was preparing for competitive exams. But I would always forget.’

‘I don’t find them confusing at all.’

‘I should have come across you earlier. I would have gotten a government job. English was my Achilles heel.’

‘Well, it would have been an inconvenience. My miser father would have never been able to afford a Sarkari damad.’

[MEMBERSONLY]