KHUSHI by Jalebi Jane (EPISODE 053)
PRIOR TO LAST WEEK---when she learnt her marriage had been an elaborate masquerade---Anjali Raizada had been a stranger to duplicity. And today she had become the Mistress of Concealment. Before today, concealing her emotions had never been necessary because her feelings had always been reasonable, appropriate and wholesome. But no more. What Shyam had done was not destroy her, but catapult her to a place where nothing seemed worth doing. Except caring for Little Khushi. When she found herself parting from Little Khushi this afternoon, it had been necessary to smile and utter polite words---when all she wanted to do was crush the child in her arms and weep. It had felt like the final unbearable loss of the week.
Her Bhabhi turned from the front passenger seat to meet her eyes. "Little Khushi is a jewel, isn't she?"
Anjali replied, "priceless," and added, "like her namesake."
Anjali was convinced Khushi read minds. At first, she thought her talent was limited to her brother---Khushi met his unstated needs; heard his unspoken words---but in the past few days, she herself had been the recipient of Khushi's perceptive powers. Khushi would walk into the room exactly when Anjali needed comfort or say the exact thing Anjali needed to hear.
Even now she was saying. "You'll see her in a few days, Di."
"You'll see her sooner," Arnav remarked, his eyes focused on the road, but his words clearly directed at his wife.
The ordinary passing landscape outside the car window suggested to Anjali that the coming years would be as unremarkable. She would sleep in the downstairs bedroom next to Nani's room. In time, become a maiden aunt to Arnav and Akaash's children, with her own child absorbed into the Raizada brood. At school events, mothers would share their motherly concerns, but stop short when they ventured to the area of wifely matters. Men would not speak to her as they did to another man's wife, but nor would they see her as a woman worth having. She would be purposeless. Her mother and her grandmothers had groomed her to be a perfect wife and run a fine home; that was her only skill. And in truth, she had had no other ambition. Arnav had been the ambitious one in their family. She had just wanted to love and be loved.
They came to a red light. Her brother twisted to face her and asked, "are you ok, Di?"
The Mistress of Concealment gave her finest smile. "I'm fine, Chotte."
Soon they were moving again, smoothly with traffic. The years would slip by like this. Smooth and uneventful. Traffic lights would come in the shape of parties and weddings, when those unfamiliar with her tragedy would be told in hushed tones of how she had been cruelly played with. Time would blur the facts and details. They would tut-tut at the fate of a woman who had everything but nothing. And as gossip always demanded, they would end on a positive note: they would say how at least she had such a brother who could keep her and her child under his house and protection.
Anjali looked at her Chotte's eyes in the rear view mirror. They revealed tension. How much worry her life had unwittingly caused for her family? And this worry would never end. Anjali Raizada would now be a matter of concern to her family until she died.
A road block forced Arnav to select another route, and as he merged into that new lane, Anjali forced her mind to divert also. It would serve nobody---neither her family nor her child---to wallow in such thoughts. She who had always believed she had something to teach her brother, realized that her brother had taught her something: to exert oneself, to shape one's own destiny---to not give a damn about others!---was the way to a successful life. Maybe it was time for her to shift lanes.
"Bhabhi?" she called out to Khushi.
"Ji?" Khushi turned around.
"I'm coming to Lucknow with you tomorrow."
SISTERS, WE KNOW ARNAV well enough to know that he belonged to that unfortunate group of men who had no talent for varnishing and gilding their speech.
"Have you gone mad?" he asked his sister.
When the words came out both his wife and his sister were aghast. His wife, perhaps slightly less so, because Khushi was accustomed to being thought pagal---by him, especially.
Anjali replied in heated speech, "Yes! Yes, Chotte, I have gone mad---and I dare say I have a right to some madness at this juncture in my life."
"Di---" he began to explain.
"---I know what you are thinking. That I've become excessively attached to Little Khushi. So? What of it? She makes me feel like the kind of mother I wish to be, at a time when my own child feels like a---like a burden."
The word burden dropped from her lips and Arnav's heart sank with it. His eyes filled and blurred his vision; he had the presence of mind to slow the vehicle and pull off to the side of the road. Applying the hand brake, he turned around in the seat and reached for his sister's hand. Khushi had already climbed to the back seat and held Anjali's other hand.
Arnav met Khushi's eyes and she urged him to speak to his sister. But he could not. His throat would not have allowed it. How could he tell his sister that he kept forgetting she was pregnant?
"Di," Khushi spoke for him, "if it will help you to be spend some time away from Delhi, in Lucknow, with Little Khushi, then we support that."
Arnav squeezed his sister's hand to indicate agreement.
Anjali said, her eyes dry and tearless, "Everybody expects me to sit in my room and knit baby things and occasionally cry at my fate. But I'll go truly mad if I do that." And she added with a soft laugh, "Chotte, I'm going to Lucknow, not London---and I'm going with Bhabhi."
"And we'll all be together by the weekend!" Khushi added.
"Just be careful," Arnav managed to say, as he turned around to start the car. He wanted to caution his sister of greater dangers than simply her attachment to Little Khushi but he did not wish to be direct with her at this fragile moment---so he said nothing further. He met Khushi's eyes in the rear-view mirror, and said, "Miss Gupta, can you return to the front? I feel like a hired driver with you two at the back."
Khushi giggled and climbed back to the front. He fastened the seat belt across her torso, briefly touching the exposed curve of her waist. Her eyes met his. When he entered the flow of traffic again, she placed her hand on his thigh.
THE DINNER CONVERSATION at Raizada House that evening centred on the topic of Lucknow and all its many pleasures, culinary and otherwise. It was a discussion which Nani delighted in. And excelled at. Arnav had nothing to contribute. He loathed Lucknow; all pleasant memories of it had been destroyed, either by others or his own mind. Even though it had been the ground where Khushi had first tumbled into his life, he never thought of the city with anything joyful.
Khushi was expounding on the deliciousness of railway station coffee and he realized it was time to make his arrangements known. Before she became too deeply entrenched in her own designs. The decision to allow Khushi to go had been maneuvered out of his hands, but every other decision would bloody well be his!
"You will have to be satisfied--- with airport coffee, as you and Di are not going to travel by train with the others---you'll fly tomorrow afternoon," he said.
Khushi looked at him confused, but then smiled. "I've never flown!"
He cherished her delight in small things. He regretted he would miss sharing this with her.
"Chotte, have you informed the staff at Sheesh Mahal about the early arrival?" Nani asked.
He nodded. "They are expecting Khushi and Di tomorrow, and the rest of us on Friday."
"Wouldn't it be more convenient if we stay with the family until Friday?" Khushi asked.
"Convenient? For whom?" he asked.
"Since my purpose is to help them settle, I ought to be at the house," she clarified.
"The driver will take you back and forth daily. But you will sleep at Sheesh Mahal," he stated.
"But---" she began to speak, but was silenced by the look in his eyes. She lowered her gaze and said, "I see."
You see. At last.
By Jalebi Jane
CID
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Cricket
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
318