9. NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE
It was a miserable Geet who rode away into the darkness. Fortunate were those who had chosen to quit the streets and go home for this girl was on a rampage; she was fighting a losing battle--with herself.
"Yes, I know. I'm being a regular bitch!" She iterated aloud as her scooter swerved dangerously toward the edge of the street. She recovered in the nick of time. Had she not, a few hundred famished sewer rats would have had the pleasure of a surprise feast.
"I'm a callous, insensitive, unyielding, merciless, pig-headed, vile bitch! A black spot on mankind!" she blistered. "Why didn't my heart melt at the sight of his dejected face? Why didn't I shed tears? Maybe that's going a little too far...but still!"
She breezed through a red light. "But there wasn't any other way. It had to be done. The thread of connection that had begun to take shape had to be snapped, however harsh it may seem."
But least was I prepared for the effect it would have on me, she mused, driving straight into a deep muddy puddle, effectively bringing the vehicle to a spluttering halt.
"Where the hell am I?" She muttered to herself, looking around apprehensively as an eerie silence enveloped her.
The street was deserted... Well, not really"if she took into account the numerous nondescript mounds of flesh splattering the sidewalk; those of innumerable homeless humans and their beasts who took their chances against the elements every day.
One of them stirred, appearing to find her of some interest, hence propelling her into instantaneous action. Miserable wretches! she thought.
The engine finally coughed, then engaged with a steady purr. She pushed ahead. Soon her desperate eyes lit on a familiar landmark"Nirula's. Home wasn't far.
She fell to brooding again, her mind still a quagmire of activity. The turn of events had left her completely rattled. She hadn't presumed Maan (being the MCP he was) would come pleading to her door, especially after becoming victim of such a humiliating farce. Nor had she expected him to be so beguilingly nave in worldly matters. Deepika was simply the pits as far as she was concerned.
Yet Geet had chosen not to stay with him. The only reason for her appearance today was to buy him some time. A relationship like theirs was bound to fail. It was Deepika he had proposed to wed, not her. She had just been a stand-in, as he'd said. A role that could have been played equally well by any other girl. There was nothing special or unique about her.
A fresh wave of moisture adrift down her cheeks was disposed of with a swift rub from the back of her hand. He'll be fine. He has a loving family and they'll find him a bride who suits him perfectly.
With that notion, Geet made her way back to her lonesome abode.
But to dispatch Maan from her mind wasn't an easy task.
Pausing outside her apartment, she stared at the spot where she'd discovered him earlier that day trying to put on an act of nonchalance, and she couldn't prevent a smile. He'd reminded her of a puppy who had lost his master"hazel eyes forlorn yet full of hope.
"Stop perseverating, Geet!" she chided herself. "Maan isn't a puppy, nor are you his savior! He's a grown man highly capable of taking care of himself!"
But am I?
Refusing to pursue the thought, she threw open the door.
It was pitch black inside, but Geet didn't turn on the lights. Instead she chose to find her way about in the dark"an exercise she often indulged in when returning home late. An attempt to hone her instincts, to sharpen her brain...a vital skill for any woman, especially one who'd chosen to spend her life alone. Alone! What a depressing thought!
She walked into the bedroom and turned on the bedside lamp. Her head drooping like a wilted flower, she sunk down on the hand woven dhurrie on the side of the bed; a rare impetuous fling with luxury, but the bright splash of color failed to lift her spirits. The solitude of the apartment which in the past had afforded welcome solace from the hue and cry of her daily routine, now seemed to aggravate her sense of isolation and despair. What did the future hold? Would she ever find someone she'd want to share her life with every day? Or would she perish alone? Would she ever find love and have a family of her own? None of the omens appeared to portend such a likelihood.
This is terrible! I'm being made to pay dearly for my one impulsive error for which I've no one to blame but myself. And I'm calling the poor guy nave? She rolled over in bed, in a desperate attempt to get comfortable...
This won't do! I need to get a grip, find my focus, get back to my life where there's no place for men or family! I'm a single woman and thus will I remain. "Yes!" she concluded, closing her eyes with a determined nod.
But sleep receded too far away from reach.
Family isn't really a bad idea, particularly one like Maan's, she mused. Even his mother, who resembles a consummate bully at the outset, seemed to harbor a softer side. It'll be fun to parry wits with her for sure. Geet smiled.
And then..., the very image she had been struggling so hard to fend away; that of the teasing gleam in Maan's eyes that made her heart skip a beat before leaping ahead into a mad dash. What did they mean to communicate? A mutually shared daring secret?
"No! Stop it, Geet! You can't go on like this! You just can't!" She sat up with a wretched cry, her body drenched in sticky sweat. Despite it being a muggy night, she had cocooned herself in oppressive folds of the cotton sheet"a flimsy defense against the hordes of voracious airborne parasites that migrated inside, who regardless of her dedicated and indefatigable application of much touted repellents she routinely squandered half her paltry income on, seemed to find her flesh particularly irresistible.
"Now who am I trying to fool?" she laughed wryly before getting out of bed and padding to the bathroom where she doused her face with cold water.
Oftentimes, the restless psyche is driven to find comfort in a favorite distraction and so was Geet's. But the consolation was tepid at best. She soon found that out while slowly flicking through the slides of the most recent photo essay she had done on the street children of Delhi, which she had submitted to Landscape a few weeks ago. She had yet to hear from them. It was the most ambitious and difficult venture she'd undertaken, and dangerous, too. Investigative journalism for a lone woman is not child's play, especially when she's trying to ferret out the merciless exploiters of innocence who operate in underground networks as convoluted and ruthless as any drug cartel. Fortunately she had the sense to reign in her enthusiasm in time or would have paid a dear price for her curiosity.
"It'd have been a different matter altogether if I was working with some kind of back up; I'd have dragged each and every one of those sniveling bas***ds to court and put them behind bars forever. No! Cowards like them don't deserve the dignity of a trial, they should be lynched in public, each one of them!" She said so with vehemence enough to upset her still full cup of cocoa all over the laptop keyboard.
With a horrified scream, she scrambled to salvage the precious device, when her eyes fell on the date on the desktop calendar.
A chilling dread settled into her bones. It was that time of year again.
She'd been trying to ignore it like she did every year, hoping if she did so long enough, it'd just recede and drop out of sight. But no, it always came back"all the pain and hurt she had worked so hard to erase"back in stark Technicolor and with uncanny precision.
Her gaze shifted to her reflection in the large poster frame that hung over her bed and she cursed the day she was born.
***
It was monsoon in the desert"a time to rejoice and celebrate. The local populace had been parched of good tidings however transient they may be. It was that time of the year when evanescent showers brought temporary relief from the hundred plus degrees of scorching heat. A time when Lord Shiva danced the tandav in the heavens and peacocks strutted proud and arrogant on the ground.
It was a time of hope"when the desiccated wells glistened with more than a hint of moisture, so the perennially suffering women of the villages could cut a mile or two off their daily treks for water.
And... It was also a time to rejoice twice over, because almost twenty-three years ago to this day, the Rathod household had welcomed their first and only girl child.
But the celebrations didn't last long.
Geet almost believed in the stories she concocted. They did vary from time to time, albeit slightly. Her most favored was the one she had narrated today"that she was an orphan and didn't really have much in the form of family. For her, the term felt alien. From what she had seen, family meant unconditional love, trust and support. No member would ever be considered an obligation nor would he or she ever be subject to intentional harm or used as a pawn on a chessboard for another's personal gains.
There was once a time when Geet felt she had a real family, when she had felt loved. That had been long ago when her mother was still alive. She passed when Geet was perhaps five or six, but she didn't recall the circumstances exactly. However, she did remember her mother"her beautiful, wonderful mother. Her revolutionary, trend-setting, modern woman mother. The one who had rebelled against the tradition of parda and refused to restrict herself to the zanana quarters. Indeed, after the death of her in-laws, she had taken it upon herself to abolish the practice altogether, even daring to converse freely with the male guests who visited the house. She was the mother whom Geet's father had fallen hopelessly in love with and who's only daughter's birth had been celebrated like royalty.
Though several of the memories were vague, Geet fiercely held on to them. She wove them together with whimsical threads of affection and kept them securely locked away within an area of her brain from where she could retrieve them at will. For they conveyed to her that her birth wasn't an accident, that somebody had wanted her and loved her; treasured her existence.
But just as the joy of the monsoon rains was fleeting, so were those moments of happiness.
Her mother succumbed to a sudden unknown illness right after she welcomed her eldest daughter-in-law home. And with her death, Geet's family fell apart. Her grief stricken father, blaming his only daughter for his loss (she being the natural target), banished her from his sight. Then a short while thereafter, having resorted to drown his sorrows in bottles of bourbon, he too perished.
Thus of her family, all that remained were those who considered her an unnecessary accessory, a mistake, and a weakling. Except perhaps her beloved brother, Yuvraj, (second out of a total of four) who had left home for the city to train to be a teacher, and then decided to stay there.
"Because city life agrees better with me," he told her.
But she had believed it to be otherwise"he wished to shield his young family from his prejudiced and overbearing clan who routinely sneered at his progressive ways. So, it came as no minor surprise when just before her thirteenth birthday, Geet found herself handed over to his care and dispatched to the city as well. Perhaps, her brothers thought it a better option than keeping her in a small town where her adolescent beauty and uncharacteristic streak of defiance made her a dangerous liability to have around.
As a consequence, she received an excellent education unlike the usual lot for most women in her community and she also grew independent, thereby essentially banning herself from the traditional marriage market.
Geet had just begun to believe the ties were permanently severed when a couple of years ago she received a summons to attend the anniversary of her mother's death. "Let us forgive and forget," she had been told and she had acquiesced gladly"after all, blood is thicker than water, isn't it?
Sadly it isn't, particularly if you are a lowly woman born in a misogynist society.
If mother was alive, she would never have allowed this to happen. But she isn't. I'm all alone.
Geet blinked away her tears. "But alone doesn't mean helpless, does it?" she said aloud to herself. Think, Geet, think!
There was only one way out; perhaps a desperate move but she didn't see any other way.
***
The following morning, after whiling away as much time as he could in bed, Maan joined the rest of the brood at breakfast. It was probably best to face the situation head-on, as dodging it would only land him in a worse pickle than he was in.
He'd barely taken a seat at the table when the interrogation began"his mother had never suffered from jet lag. "Where is my bahu, Maan?"
"Still sleeping?" His Aunt Rashmi piped in with a knowing wink.
"No, she isn't," he said.
"Then perhaps she is getting ready; I can go and help," Rima suggested, starting up from her seat.
It seemed to Maan like she had adopted Geet as her younger sibling already. "You won't find her in the room, sis."
An immediate uproar of anxious and scandalous whispers along the dining table was heard among those gathered.
"Then where is she?" his mother asked.
Maan looked her straight in the eye; it was important he did. "She had to leave on an assignment."
"Assignment? What assignment? Isn't she supposed to be a teacher of some sort and shouldn't she be on vacation?"
"Geet also happens to be a much sought after photojournalist," Maan said, his brain racing as the falsehoods came pouring out. "She had signed up for a few projects a while ago that she's obligated to fulfill. The wedding was planned in haste." That much he knew was true. "She got a call last night. I wanted to go with her but..."
"What? Unplanned wedding? I don't believe it! What is going on, Maan?" Shobha said rising from her seat.
"Mom, listen..." he protested.
Then for the first time in his life, his phone rang and miraculously saved him from further discussion and embarrassing himself.
"It's her!" He shouted in genuine excitement. "She wants me to come right away. Got to go!" He was out the door in a flash.
tbc
Kumkum Bhagya
Debate Mansion
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