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‘We wanted to be sure, Mummy. She thought you might mind if we did not tell you at once, but I said no, you wouldn’t–’

‘She thought, you thought – Uff, when did you find out? Are you sure?’ At this moment she could waste no time on offence.

Raju smiled. ‘Yes, Mummy, very sure. Today the report came.’

‘Does her mother know?’

So quickly it was clear the answer was planned, Raju said, ‘Of course not. You are the first to know.’

Sona was silent for a minute. ‘Beta, Pooja is very lucky. For you I had to sacrifice ten years –’

‘I know, Mummy, I know,’ interrupted Raju impatiently.

Sona’s lip trembled. ‘I hope you never experience the pain of having a son rebuff you the minute he is married.’

‘I think you should show a little consideration for Mummy,’ put in Nisha.

Sona turned to scold her daughter. ‘Let it be, Nisha, what do any of us matter?’

Raju left without another word.

In the following months, the fuss around the mother-to-be increased, as Pooja developed health problems. She bled, there was fear she might miscarry. She needed special care, special treatment, special love, and complete bed rest for three months. Raju, in the time-honoured tradition of the family, left the care of his wife completely to his mother. For Sona the future lay in that belly, and the desire in her eyes was blatant as she looked at Pooja. Pooja, feeling sick, weak, and frightened, looked needily back. For three months Sona did not leave her daughter-in-law’s side. Pooja’s mother, who visited every day, loudly praised the care her daughter was receiving. In the evening the whole family drank their tea around the pregnant woman’s bed so that she would not feel needlessly excluded from family life.

Pooja was seven months pregnant before the doctor declared the baby safely anchored inside her body. Gentle exercise, pleasant surroundings, and a relaxed mind were now recommended.

‘Yes, she must go out with Raju,’ said Yashpal. ‘This daughter-in-law of mine needs to look happier. I want to see her smile.’

Raju was sent home early to take Pooja out. It was late February – the weather still pleasant, and in all the public gardens flowers were blooming. Lodi Gardens, Budh Jayanti Park, India Gate, Nehru Park, Children’s Park, Humayun’s Tomb were places where couples could roam about holding hands, murmuring softly to each other.

Yashpal showed himself unaware of this aspect when he urged his daughter to accompany them. ‘You also need to get out in the open air.’

To Raju, ‘Take your sister.’

Pooja reacts badly to this suggestion, but she cannot contradict her father-in-law. She wants to be alone with her husband, she wants to thicken his slightly diluted attention to previous consistencies. The car is rife with tension.

Raju drives with one hand so that he can hold Pooja’s hand with the other. Nisha in the back seat is not considered senior enough to warrant the restraint of passion.

‘How are you feeling?’ asks Nisha. Whatever the exchange, her colleagues tomorrow are going to be privy to it. They know all about wicked sisters-in-law, they will contribute their own stories. Nisha will feel she is not alone in a world peopled by relatives of dubious value.

‘All right.’

‘What does the doctor say?’

‘Mummyji knows.’

‘Tell her,’ said Raju. ‘She is going to be a bua soon.’

‘I’m tired. You tell her.’

Nisha is not enlightened.

‘Why don’t you go along the next time Pooja goes to the doctor?’ suggests Raju instead.

Nisha refuses to reply. She stares moodily out of the window of the car, the car Raju got in his dowry, the car that allows Pooja to act so possessively.

They are going to India Gate. The lawns are crowded, and they stroll at a leisurely pace next to sluggish pond waters. The sun sets splendidly behind Rashtrapati Bhavan, and they end their walk at an ice-cream vendor’s.

‘Nisha, have?’ asks Raju, after Pooja has been served.

‘No, I don’t want.’

‘Take, take,’ urged Raju. ‘I know you like choc-bar.’ He turns towards the vendor, while Pooja looks on with cold, cold eyes, and a mouth that twists upwards; Pooja-smile.

‘No, no, really,’ protests Nisha gratefully.

‘Why are you forcing the poor thing? Let her be, if she doesn’t want it,’ comments Pooja sweetly, jabbing at her own pink and green nutty, creamy slice of ice-cream with a thin wooden spoon.

‘Do you want a cassata like hers?’

‘No, no, it’s all right. You two go ahead.’

‘Nisha, please, how can we have, and you not?’

‘I’m sure it is not difficult,’ says Nisha, the devil inside her totally out of control.

‘To please me.’

‘Arre, she doesn’t want it. Why are you insisting?’ snaps Pooja.

‘She does want it.’ He tilts Nisha’s face, puts the melting bar against her lips. Sticky white syrup drips down the stick. Nisha opens her mouth. Pooja goes and sits in the car.

That evening sounds of crying came from the bedroom. ‘She’s tired and needs to rest,’ said Raju by way of explanation as he ate dinner without his wife.

‘What is all this tamasha?’ said Sona. ‘She must eat, or the baby will suffer. Doesn’t your wife have any sense?’

‘Mummy, let it be,’ said Raju impatiently. ‘You don’t have to fuss so much.’

Sona didn’t know whether to be pleased because of the criticism, or distressed because of the baby.

Raju finished, got up, took some food on a plate to the room.

‘What happened?’ Sona asked her daughter.

‘Raju bought me an ice-cream,’ said Nisha meaningfully, preparing herself for a satisfying conversation.

‘Some women become like this when they are pregnant,’ remarked Sona carefully. ‘And your father wants peace in the house.’

‘My daughter and daughter-in-law have to learn to live together,’ said Yashpal. Around him conflict usually became subterranean.

‘Why send me with them if a little thing is so important?’ was all Nisha said. She felt betrayed. Her mother was not on her side any longer. Pooja could do anything, Raju could do anything, and she would find excuses, all for the love of her son and his baby.

The next day Pooja went to her mother’s house. In the evening Raju went to get his pregnant wife back. His mother had already warned him that in pregnancy women get very moody. Pooja cried when she saw him, she was sorry she had left the way she did, she didn’t want to upset Mummyji more by her tears so the best thing was to leave. She was very sorry, what must they think of her at home, but she felt unwell all the time, she couldn’t bear it.

Yes, yes, said the harassed Raju, now could they go back?

Pooja twined her arms seductively around his neck, and pressed her belly firmly against his crotch. There is no escape from that belly: its contents and its owner are irrevocably his. There is no escape, and perhaps, as he felt her soft, full body clinging to him, he did not want one.

Nisha had helped her mother by hating Pooja, but now her mother had acquired an interest in the girl from which she was excluded. After the baby’s birth, she supposed there would be another battle of possession, claim, and counter-claim, though even that state would not last – neither the hate nor the love was permanent. Where did that leave her? She couldn’t build a life with these brittle materials. She had the school from eightthirty to twelve-thirty, another flimsy thing. She wanted something more, more, more. The men were occupied from morning to night. She needed an equally absorbing occupation. There must be other things in the world.

Meanwhile, on the pregnancy front it is time for the godh bharaiye. Presents for the unborn child, presents for the new mother. The pundit hired for the occasion droned on, while Pooja sat before gods arranged on a fresh white sheet on the floor. Her belly is prominent, the puja ends with the thick folds of a new Banarsi sari draped around her shoulders. Then family lunch, which Pooja cannot attend, no, no, you lie down, lie down, you will be tired, and Nisha, take this food to her, so she can rest and eat at the same time. Go quickly, Pooja’s mother is watching.

‘Let her watch.’

‘Do you want a tight slap?’

Nisha went.

Six weeks later a baby girl is born. But Pooja’s karma is so good that even this did not dull her lustre: never mind, there are many years ahead, the boy to come will have a sister. And thank God she isn’t a mangli. Sona promptly tied black threads around the baby’s wrist and ankle, and every day put a black kaajal mark on her forehead. With so much black no evil eye would dare light on the little creature.

The letter taken out for the baby’s name was ‘sh’. Pooja favoured Shuchi, and coaxed the family into agreeing.

At the naming ceremony one section of the drawing room was used to display the presents, the bulk of them from Pooja’s family. There were embroidered sheets and pillowcases in pastels, soft toys, imported musical mobiles, feeding bottles, sterilising kits, a fancy foreign stroller, fancy baby carry bags, silk saris for the new mother, the new grandmother, the new aunt, any number of baby frocks, sweaters, and underclothes. A glowing Pooja and the baby sat in front of the pundit during the long puja in the shamiana erected in the park, while the guests ate, drank, and commented on the presents, the fair skin of the new-born, and whether she most resembled Nisha as a baby (Sona’s claim, backed by photographs) or Pooja (her mother’s claim, also backed by photographs).

Nisha was fascinated by the baby, but since it was Pooja’s, she was reticent with her affection. On weekends she watched from a distance as her mother oiled her in the sun in the veranda, while Pooja sat near by. Up and down Sona gently massaged the little limbs, bunching them then letting go, to the baby’s laughter. One such occasion Nisha stretched out her hand to stroke the fine, soft, black hair. The infant’s head turned towards her touch, she looked at her aunt, and opened her mouth. Nisha’s heart tightened.
S
he reached out to dip her fingers in the oil.

‘I think the water is now ready, Mummy,’ said Pooja at that very moment, wrapping Shuchi hastily in her towel with the attached cape. As she got up, the strings of the charpai sagged, the bowl overturned, and the remaining oil spread slowly, dripping yellow and viscous through the rope mesh on to the floor.

‘Don’t worry, Mummy, I’ll send the ayah to clean it,’ said Pooja.

Nisha stared at the retreating back, the baby’s face small, white, and bobbing, the little round eyes staring over her mother’s shoulder.

A few such incidents and it was apparent Pooja did not want Nisha to touch the baby.

She confronted her mother one weekend morning when her aunt was there. ‘Is this true or not?’

‘Try and understand. Young mothers have all kinds of fears.’

‘Now I am an untouchable?’

‘For you everything is drama,’ snapped the mother.

‘The doctor says her condition is not contagious,’ observed Rupa.

‘I know, but you know how new mothers are.’

‘She is the child’s own real aunt, in the very same house. This should not be allowed to happen.’

‘Let the baby get a little older,’ justified Sona. ‘The girl had so many problems when she was pregnant, she is very protective.’

‘Still, this is not the way to behave. You also had difficulties, you were not like this.’

Nisha could have enlightened her aunt as to Pooja’s Divide and Rule policy, could have described the subtle discrimination continually exercised between herself and her mother, but she chose to cry instead. It was easier, and she could not be blamed for anything she said.

‘Arre, what is this?’ The aunt stroked her niece’s arm, gently rubbing her hand up and down the dry skin.

‘Why are you touching me? You may get infected,’ hiccupped the niece.

Silence fell as Pooja appeared. ‘Here, Mummy, I have to get her bottle,’ she said, putting the bright-eyed bundle on to the grandmother’s lap. ‘I sent the ayah to buy oranges, and she is taking two hours. Never here when you want her.’

‘Why does she have another ayah with so many women to help?’ demanded Rupa behind Pooja’s back.

‘That girl needs a servant with every step she takes. Besides, this ayah massages my feet and presses my back when it hurts,’ said Sona indulgently, also disappearing towards the kitchen.

‘You see, Masi,’ said Nisha the minute her mother was out of earshot, ‘there is no place for me in this house. If it is only marriage that will get me out, then marry me off to anybody, I don’t care.’

‘Arre, Nishu, is this any way to talk?’

‘Which prince are they waiting for? Or have I to remain here for ever?’ cried Nisha. Her aunt’s presence made her want to scream, shout, pull her hair, and enact the drama her mother was always disapproving of.

‘Don’t attract evil by speaking so badly about your future,’ coaxed the aunt.

‘I am fed up, Masi. I will go to an ashram and devote myself to homeless widows.’

Her aunt looked astonished. The poor girl had lost her mind.

‘Don’t think I am just talking. I can’t stay here. Every time I see Pooja, I feel like itching. You want me to spend my whole life tearing my skin to pieces?’

‘Beti, for this reason only your father made you get a job.’

‘That is only four hours. What about the other twenty? Should I kill myself and make everybody happy? I am telling you, I refuse to stay here like this.’

The aunt made soothing noises, and Nisha knew her message would soon reach the whole family. She judged it would take till evening.

Dinner over, Yashpal approached his daughter. Usually after eating they all watched TV, even more mesmerising since the advent of Star. But Nisha, sequestered in the tiny veranda, refused to be part of that night’s ritual.

‘Why aren’t you with the others?’ he asked.

‘I don’t feel like.’

Her father sighed. Nisha looked down. From the light of the drawing room she could see his broad, brown feet in chappals.

‘What is it you want, beti?’ he asked.

‘I want to leave this house. There is nothing for me here.’

‘You know that is not possible till you marry.’

‘Why? I can go to an ashram. At least there I can live with dignity and respect.’