Cobalt Blue (6 page)

At four, Rashmi returns. In one hand, her purse. In the other a stuffed bag: groceries, ironed clothes, and a special treat for me. A hot vada-pao perhaps. But it's her face, her smile, that brightens up the room and the evening.

Then I make tea for her and we both stand in the balcony to drink it and chat. At six thirty, on her way to the gym, she drops me home.

Once, when I was giving her a head massage, I said, ‘If I were that kind of boy, I'd have married you.' She said, ‘Good grief. I don't think I would have married you. I could have lived with you for a week but after that I'd have had to return to my place here.' Then she rumpled my hair and said, ‘That's life: the guy I could really be friends with wants nothing to do with my kind.'

Rashmi's ways are her own. I didn't talk much about you; when I did, she changed the subject. So I made a conscious effort and stopped; and you vanished from our conversations. This made me aware of something else: of how friendship can offer surcease from noise.

At six thirty, on her way back to the gym, Rashmi drops me home. Aseem was still at the office; the parents were at Sharayu Maushi's home. I unlock the gate, then the front door, go in. At Rashmi's, it's possible to close a single door and lock out the world. In our home, even after you've closed the front door behind you, the world has many ways of sneaking back in. There's the back door, the side entrance. Facing the road, four windows. Five at the back. Many of the rooms don't have doors, just thresholds. No one can be alone here. Any number of people can be watching you at any given time: family, neighbours, the vegetable vendors passing by. Each of us must perform our joys and sorrows for all the rest because this house has a front door, a back door and a side entrance. And often, no doors between rooms.

On the door of a cupboard, you had stuck the photograph of your parents—who you had lost in an air crash. You didn't say much about them. I never saw you perform any of the rituals of ancestor worship. Your father had been a consultant to the Indian embassy in Paris; your mother a journalist. The French language flowed through your family, as the Hanuman stotra and the verses of Sant Ramdas did in other families. In their five-year Paris stint, they took you there, but only once. Your memories as an eight-year- old: the Eiffel tower by night, sunlight until eight in the evening, and a variety of exciting cheeses.

Perhaps it was because your father had always been abroad, but you spoke a little more about your mother. I liked listening to you talk about her.

You remembered her sitting at a table, spectacles perched on the top of her head, writing. As someone who put you into a papoose and took you to the market. As someone who munched popcorn with you as you watched English movies together.

When your father returned and took your mother's attention from you, you resented it. In your box of books, there were often two copies of the same novel, one with your father's name and one with your mother's.

My mother has no cupboard of her own. Alone at home as a child, I would investigate the secrets of each cupboard. One day, I chose the kitchen cupboard. I found a list of Aai's medicines, a bunch of Sharayu Maushi's letters written from Sangli, a few five-rupee and ten- rupee notes, a recipe for eggless cake torn from a magazine, a postal savings book . . . all redolent of naphthalene balls.

When I saw that your parents' photograph was missing from the cupboard, I knew for certain that you weren't going to return.

What did I know about your family? Your parents, that lawyer Mr Dixit who was in charge of your inheritance, your Seema Maushi who took you into her home for her own selfish motives, her perverted husband who made a plaything of your body when you were too innocent to know what was going on.

Then it occurs to me, you got no letters. If there were phone calls, they were from friends you'd made after coming to the city. No question about email, you didn't like email.

What happened to everyone else? College friends? Distant relatives? School buddies? A schoolteacher, even? An old family retainer? No one? What did you do with them?

What did you think you'd do to me?

You listened with empathy, with attentiveness. In the night, you'd help Abbas down the shutter and upend the chairs. You'd listen to him rant about the rising price of potatoes, the changes in customer behaviour, the difficulties his nephew was facing in America after September 11. You'd give Abbas your undivided attention, listening with your eyes, smiling, encouraging him to speak.

And no doubt, he would feel that it was all worthwhile, because there was someone at the end of the day, someone to listen and to smile.

I can't remember you ever sitting down to talk to Baba or Aseem like that. But from time to time, you'd chat with Aai. One day, I came home from college to find the door ajar and no one inside the house. I followed the sound of voices into the backyard. Through the kitchen window, I could see Aai weeding with a trowel and you holding a bunch of curry leaves. Aai was talking away, words running on, ideas flowing into each other.

That night, I asked you, Were you really paying attention? Or was that your listening face?' You did not answer. Instead, you recounted how Malti Aatya had been cured of rheumatism thanks to a godman's prasad; how Anuja and I had no religion left in us; of the two young women Aseem had checked out as prospective brides. You told me how coriander and chillies had to be planted separately, how oddly Tulsi was behaving in the night-time soap, and then you added, ‘It's not just my ears but my mind that is engaged as well. In a couple of years, your name will be added to the list in the marriage bureau. So be ready.'

I had no idea how to get ready. I was sure that your parents would have told you about such matters. Mine would rather die.

I had often wanted to say to Arindam: you can't just go back into history to collect proof. You have to find evidence from ancient times that we're normal. If you can't find references to our kind in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata or the Bible, who's going to listen to us? At least, we could ask why Lakshmana had felt the need to leave his wife and children behind and follow Rama into the wilderness.

One rainy night, you were listening to me and Arindam talking. Your back was wet with the rain coming through the open window. A few drops fell into the beer mugs too. The drumming of the rain on the roof was loud enough for me to have to tell Arindam to speak up a bit.

‘Every important political change has happened because of a movement. That's the critical element, Tanay. We have to organize. We have to fight injustice constitutionally,' he said with the fervour of a revolutionary.

‘But what would this movement's agenda be? Our own independent newspapers, our pubs, our theatre, our this, our that? We can't make a break from the rest of the world and demand equality on our own terms. We don't seem different in any way from the Establishment.'

I was weighing my words as I spoke but it was clear that Arindam wasn't getting it. He kept trying to interrupt but I kept raising my voice and pressing on with what I was saying. I looked at you, you raised your eyebrows, quietly amused. But your face also showed pride in my stance. And I thought, at least I'm getting through to somebody. I came and sat by you. The rain wet my back too.

It was only when the rain stopped and the smell of the raat rani came pouring into the room that Arindam got up to leave. He shook your hand and said, ‘You don't talk much?' You just laughed. I knew that Arindam would take your silence to mean consent. Aai, wiping her hands on her sari, would look at you, sitting there with the curry leaves in your hand and think, ‘He's so much better than my son. At least he doesn't argue.' Abbas would think whatever the problems he was confronted with, at least there was someone to listen, to smile, and he would be calmed.

As usual, the police handed over the city to the goons, for a period of ten days. Aseem was late returning from work. Baba was afraid that the crowds would swell and so he put the idol into its salver and carried it into every room of the house. Earlier, he would go into the tower room as well. This time he didn't. Every year he went barefoot to the immersion; this time, he put on his slippers. I carried a dabba in which there were slices of banana meant for general distribution. Aai brought up the rear with a bag in which there were two faces of Gauri, a stone representing the virgin goddess Hartalika and the flowers that had been offered to the deity and then discarded. As we walked away, my father turned around thrice to show the idol our home.

The ghat had been lit with halogen lamps for the immersion. Little aartis were being performed on either side of the steps. Baba gave the idol to a couple of damp young men whose bodies smelled of moss. We watched as they bore him off.

As we were climbing the steps, Nadkarni Kaka was bringing his Ganpati down for immersion. With him was Nadkarni Kaku, their three daughters and sixteen girls from the hostel. They were singing filmi aartis. I left the parents with them and came home, picking my way through the dirt and the crowds.

The house was quiet. The previous days had turned it into a bazaar with women, aartis, noise, offerings, haldi-kunku, all competing for attention. Now that the immersion had happened, the house seemed to sigh with relief. I decided that it was the last time I would go to immerse the idol. Aai and Baba could do it themselves, if they wished.

As soon as I got back, Anuja fled on the bike. I began to climb the stairs to the tower room. It seemed still and quiet too. A golden light filtered through the windows and on to the terrace. A thumri by Iqbal Bano floated in the air. Everything seemed to be in its place. The rolls of canvas, the CDs in their racks, the photographs on the wall. In the middle of the room, there was an earthen bowl filled with kevda flowers. I heard the sound of the shower and then it was turned off. You came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around your hips, your hair wet. You smiled and your lips, still moist from the shower, seemed cold to me. I remained where I was, in a chair in the corner. You sat down on a mat and began to cut your toenails with great care. Then you anointed yourself with a sweet-smelling moisturizer. You took out an ironed shirt and a crisp pair of shorts and laid them out on the bed. You took off the towel and threw it in the direction of the bathroom, from which the last wisps of steam were still escaping.

You took a fresh canvas and placed it on the easel. You selected a brush. Then you turned to the bed and put on the clothes. Next, the curtains at the window facing the ladies' hostel—you drew them back. Then you sat down quietly in front of me.

You had nowhere to go. No one was coming to see you. And I had watched this ritual sringara as if it had been a short film, made specially for me. I could not remember a time when I had paid such attention to my own body.

You got up and came to sit by me, bringing a bouquet of aromas with you. I wanted nothing more than to have you sit by me. After a while, you got up, picked up the brush and incised the canvas with a single blue streak. Then you came and laid your head in my lap and fell into a deep sleep.

Now that the rains were over, Baba wanted to clean up the gutters on the roof. He was going to climb a ladder and he needed me to hold it in place. And as I stood there, I heard Rashmi's car come to a halt outside the house. She took a box out of the back of the car and walked purposefully into the house. Before I could call out or say anything, she began to climb the stairs to the tower room. I called her name, loud enough to get past the headphones on her ears, but she paid me no heed. Baba called out a warning; he didn't want my attention wandering from the task at hand.

Rashmi had been wanting to meet you. She waited for me to introduce us but in vain. ‘One day, I'll just show up and meet him,' she warned me. That you should show a similar interest in meeting someone seemed impossible; but you were both the kind who did as you pleased.

For the longest time, I had wondered if I should tell Rashmi about us. I couldn't even persuade myself that what we had was really happening so how could I tell anyone else about it? Sometimes, I'd find the words hovering on my lips when I was strolling around the campus with her. Or when she asked questions like, ‘Why do you wear these crumpled clothes?' or ‘Why do you always have to run home?' or ‘There's a secret smile playing around your lips. What's up?' Once, without warning, I put my head in her lap and said that I knew that she knew that I had something I wanted to tell her. She said, ‘Whatever.'

Finally it happened without premeditation. One day, I got to rehearsals early. The College Recreation Hall was empty and I sprawled on a bench waiting for everyone to show up. And then I realized I could smell you on my body. I got up, went to the library, called Rashmi out and told her everything, as we stood together at the door.

The ground was too slippery for me to let go of the ladder and run after Rashmi. She shouldn't have gone up without a warning. Who knew what state you might be in?

‘Rashmi's here,' I said to Baba, but his mind was in the gutters and his only concern was to sprinkle me with dirty water. He heard nothing and, for the next fifteen minutes, I kept twisting my neck to peer up at the tower room. And then, at last, Baba came down the ladder. He got to the last step and said, ‘Dash it, I've left the stick broom up there.'

‘Never mind,' I said. ‘You use it only to clean those gutters.'

‘No, no, hold on tight.'

When he was finally done, I raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I could hear both of you laughing.

At least you were fully dressed.

When you got your board exam results, the school was full of parents and children. Uncomfortable, you slipped away. You were the only one who had come alone to get his results. For the next six or seven months, you were always close to tears, tears that would not fall.

You began what you described as your accomplished solitude from that day. This term—accomplished solitude—struck me deeply. And it slowly began to dawn on you that you did not need people around you when you were painting or reading, when you were watching a film with deep concentration, or when you sat down to eat, chewing every mouthful and savouring every flavour. You made loneliness easy on yourself.