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‘She is too spoilt. The accident has made her feel she can do anything she likes,’ commented the aunt sagaciously.

‘But does that mean she should turn him against me – me, his own mother, who gave him birth from this flesh and blood?’ Sona beat her chest. ‘Whose milk he drank for two years – two whole years?’

Nisha stared at her mother’s heavy breasts, straining through their tight casing. Her whole chest was breast, soft, warm, attention-compelling, playing hide and seek through the thin covering sari and the low-necked blouse.

‘I know, Didi,’ said Rupa. ‘Remember our Nisha used to also drink milk when Raju was nursing as a baby. You wanted to be a baby again, han?’ and here she pinched Nisha’s cheek.

So, thought Nisha, staring as her mother’s sari finally slipped and lost the game, they had satisfied their hungers at the same time. Their salivas had probably mixed as their mouths closed over dark nipples, their hands touched as they stroked the soft, spongy fountains.

At one time so close, now she was the cast-off. He was married, his smooth, dark skin glowing, his wife’s presence adding to its lustre. And she? She was diseased, tainted, ugly. Who would look at her, marry her, give her a home, and make her theirs? To think that at one time she had been compared to Suriya! The actress’s star shone on, while there was nothing left for her except this bed, this mother, this aunt. Her mind felt slow and sluggish.

‘Masi, can’t I help you with your business?’

An idle question, which received an idle rejection. ‘Arre, with your education what will you do with pickles, messing your hands with oil and chillies? Besides, it will aggravate your skin.’

True, it might, but she needed to do something. She couldn’t bear living like this.

Her mother, unable to vary the familiar refrain, said, ‘When you marry you can do anything your husband permits.’

Six o’clock one morning. Summer was leaving reluctantly as usual. Pyare Lal and Yashpal were returning from their walk, when Yashpal glimpsed his daughter drooping on the park bench outside their house. Her back was hunched, in her lap her dupatta was bundled over what he guessed were jasmine flowers from a nearby bush. He gestured to his brother to go inside, opened the park gate, and sat next to her. She looked at him, he could see the wet lashes, the damp face, the reddened rims of her eyes.

He stroked her back. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to be by myself.’

This alarmed him. ‘Why? Has anyone said anything?’

‘No. Like that only. I wanted to be alone.’

Yashpal did not know what to make of this. She showed him her hoard. ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I came out before the other women had a chance to strip the bush.’

He absently lifted one of the small white flowers to his nose when she slapped his hand. ‘For puja, Papaji, you can’t dirty it by smelling.’

‘Surely you can spare one from your prayers?’ he tried to joke.

A small smile. ‘All right, Papaji, just one, for you.’

‘Why couldn’t you sleep?’

She looked away. ‘Just like that.’

He stroked her back again.

She hesitated, knowing how hard her father took things, but they were alone and the hand on her back was persuasive. ‘I don’t know why, but sometimes I feel I will go mad sitting inside the house.’

The father’s own heart grew heavy. This was exactly what he had been afraid of, a younger sister-in-law would make his daughter feel bad. According to Babaji it would be a while before the girl married.

‘If only you could take me with you, Papaji,’ she pleaded in a rush. ‘I have seen girls working in shops. Why should it be only Ajay, Vijay and Raju? There must be something I too can do.’

Yashpal had no ready reply. Retailing was strictly men’s business, talking to strangers, cajoling customers, showing them wares, negotiating with buyers, travelling – where would Nisha fit in? She was right, there were shops selling readymade in Karol Bagh that employed girls in the ladies’ section, but how could the daughter of the owner stand along with them for eight long hours?

‘Let me see, beti, let me think,’ he said, as he pulled her by the hand to take her into the house.

All day he thought of her problem. In this matter he saw no point in consulting anybody. His brother would be neither tender nor empathetic. His wife would bemoan her fate. Rupa could only think of pickles, Sushila would suggest sewing and knitting as suitable to her condition. Perhaps when Raju had a child, her thwarted maternal longings would be able to find expression, but there might be a struggle with the mother.

What could a girl do? She wanted to leave the house, she needed a time pass that would be pleasant and easy in a place where no undesirable elements could take advantage of her.

As he was staring at the street outside, the doorman let in a neighbour, acquaintance, customer, the Principal and owner of Play-Way, two streets down from their house. With her was her daughter. Beaming, they hurried up to greet him.

‘She is getting married,’ announced the Principal. ‘In a few weeks we will come to your house with the wedding invitations. In the meantime, we thought for Bridal this is the best place?’

‘This is your shop,’ said Yashpal, recognising the question as a plea for discounts. He picked up the interconnecting phone. ‘Raju will look after you’ – i.e. the discounts would be taken care of.

The Play-way Principal smiled.

Yashpal asked when the marriage would take place, the Principal said soon, in fact this was her daughter’s last day of work. Yashpal said he didn’t know beti was working; oh yes, replied the Principal, she was one of Play-Way’s best teachers, the little ones were really going to miss her.

Fifteen minutes later Nisha’s immediate future was decided. She would take the daughter’s place at school. Every way Yashpal looked at it, this solution to Nisha’s problems seemed ideal. The hours would not be long, the work undemanding. The girl was fond of children (like every girl). True, the pay was negligible (but she was not working for money and there would be neither expense nor time involved in transport). The nursery school was a five-minute walk away, and a benevolent eye would be kept on Nisha. The Principal was a neighbour, which counted for much in the give and take of life.

Yashpal discussed the matter with his family that night. ‘It will be a good time pass,’ he said anxiously, looking at his daughter’s face.

‘I do not want to be a teacher,’ said Nisha sullenly. She had imagined a more exciting outside job. She knew the school her father was talking of, next lane but one, a house with a board saying Play-Way plastered on the second-storey balcony. A few desultory slides, swings, and jungle gyms were crammed together on the concrete behind the front gate. Every morning and noon, the number of rickshaws outside the place marked it as a well-attended nursery.

Yashpal tried to point out the advantages. ‘Beti, it is right here. If you do not like it you can leave, but while we are doing treatment for your skin, you need to occupy yourself. Sitting at home is not good, you yourself feel.’

When she married she could leave her job, reassured Sona, which of course was understood by everybody.

‘You can start next week,’ went on Yashpal gently, ‘the Monday after karva chauth. The Principal is a very nice, motherly lady, you will have no difficulty, give it a try, nobody is forcing you, but …’

It was difficult for him to go on. The women of the house had never worked. Not one. And here he was sending his beloved daughter out into the world because she did not have her own home to occupy herself with. His face crumpled.

Alarmed, Nisha quickly comforted him. ‘Papaji, I will do whatever you want me to.’

‘It’s just a time pass, beti, just a time pass.’

‘Yes, Papaji, I understand.’

October 25 was Pooja’s first karva chauth as a married woman.

‘Now don’t give her anything very fancy. Time enough for that later on,’ advised Rupa.

‘My Raju’s wife,’ said Sona, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I have to give. A mother’s feelings will always be the same, no matter what her child does.’

‘Am I saying don’t give? I’m just saying don’t give too much. I know you. Left to yourself, you will part with the whole house.’

‘I only hope she appreciates it.’ Here tears began to fall.

‘Please, Mummy, don’t be like this,’ said Nisha, throwing her arms around her mother’s neck. ‘You can take my jewellery. I don’t want it.’

‘Listen to your niece,’ said Sona to Rupa. ‘I wish everybody had a heart like hers.’

‘Yes, yes. Now show what you are going to give.’

Sona got up heavily from her bed, and went to the cupboard in the corner of the room. Fiddling with the key ring at her waist, she selected the long steel Godrej key, and unlocking the doors pulled them forcefully as they shuddered away from their stuck position.

She delved beneath a pile of silk saris, took out a key knotted in one of Yashpal’s handkerchiefs, and unlocked one of the two steel drawers inside. Stretching her hand to the very back, she extracted a little tin box and returned to the bed, sighing and looking sad, while Nisha and Rupa watched in silence. She gazed inside the tin for a long time, then picked out two heavy gold kadhas in an old-fashioned lattice design, set with precious stones.

‘Didi, one of your wedding pairs!’ exclaimed her sister.

‘I know,’ said Sona.

Sona’s melancholy submerged the three as they held the bangles, turning them over, admiring the traditional workmanship and the fine settings of the gems.

On the evening of the karva chauth fast, Pooja wore her bridal lehnga with a gold tissue odhni covering her head. A large pearl and ruby nose ring replaced her everyday stud, and was attached to her hair by a gold chain to help support the weight. Her face was flushed red and pink with make-up. Mehndi patterns darkened her hands, green and red glass bangles, bought by Sona, tinkled on her arms. At the beginning of each row were the thick gold kadhas her mother-in-law had presented to her.

With all the coverings her scar was invisible. Nisha felt like pulling her odhni off, shining a torch on the burnt, corrugated skin, so everybody could see its ugliness, pathetically highlighted by foundation and bridal wear.

She could feel Pooja’s glance on her as they took turns bathing the little god figure in milk. She, in her turn, would be thinking she was repulsive, and she would be right. Now at least her mother should excuse her from this fast. It hadn’t got her a husband, had it? Her younger brother had married before her, that is what it had got her.

When Nisha knew Suresh, the hitherto mindlessly done fast had acquired meaning. She offered him her karva chauth hunger, her discipline through the day, her prayers as she looked at the rising moon. The redness of her mehndi was a source of anxiety – was it dark enough, would her mother-in-law love her?

Now nothing made sense. Mechanically she tied eight grains of wheat in her dupatta, and listened to her mother tell the ancient story. She would begin work the following day. Her job would be the object of devotion rather than a husband.

Next morning at eight Nisha and her father walked down the two and a half lanes to Play-Way, skirting small piles of garbage on the way. Her father had brought her two new suits, one to wear on karva chauth, and one to wear on the first day of school. Yesterday she had worn the peach, today it was the turn of the lavender. The soft mul-mul flapped down the length of her arms, concealing the discoloured skin.

‘I have never taught, Papaji,’ remarked Nisha. ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’

‘Principal Madam will tell you what to do, beti. They are only small little babies and it is just for four hours. You teach them some alphabet, tell them stories, let them draw. Anyone can do this.’

The school had sixty children aged two to four; two classes, Lower Nursery, Upper Nursery, with two sections each, spanning a six-month age difference. ‘At this stage even six months is very important,’ explained the Principal, as they sat in her office, agreeing with everything she said.

Nisha was given the three-year-olds; being used to school, they wouldn’t cry. In addition to teaching letters and numbers (it was more or less as her father had said), she had to make sure they made it to the bathroom in time, ate their tiffins, and didn’t fight. In the break she stood outside and made sure nobody’s fingers got pinched under the rockers, nobody fell off the slide or jungle gym, and everybody got a turn.

As the weeks progressed, Nisha found teaching gave structure to her days, the same structure that school and college had given. Although, contrary to her father’s expectations, she found the four hours spent with pre-schoolers monotonous, she experienced the pleasure of being with colleagues who didn’t know her problems. They didn’t know she had once been as beautiful as Suriya, they didn’t consider her old or unfortunate, they had no knowledge of her mangli status, and their interest in her marriage was purely academic.

In fact they found her young and charming, petted her, spoilt her, and treated her like the baby amongst them. When she complained about the students she had to tutor in the rudiments of ABC so they would pass school entrance exams, they were united in supposing her job a stop-gap measure till better things came along.

XXII

Infants

The marriage was seven months old when Raju came home from the shop, stood at the kitchen door, and announced that Pooja was pregnant.

Sona looked up from the floor where she was slicing green chillies and potatoes, her sari palla disarrayed, her breasts squashed and protruding against her knees, hair slipping from a loosely tied knot.

Nisha was boiling a milky water mixture for tea. A baby, there was going to be a baby in the house. She felt so angry and upset she could barely see – other people could go on with their lives, having babies, while all she could do was teach the children they produced. When was her life going to begin?

‘How long?’ demanded the mother.

‘Two months.’

‘Two months and you kept it a secret? I thought so – I thought so – she has that look on her face, and she has been picking at her food …’