Married Woman (9 page)

‘Of course we will have a son, and if we don’t we needn’t stop at two.’

Astha silently took the oil bottle from him and closed it.

‘Is the water ready?’

His wife hastily tested the water in the bath-set crammed into a corner of the bedroom. ‘Yes‚’ she said.

The father gently lowered his daughter into the water, while the mother stood ready with the shampoo, rubber toy, and soft towel.

After the bath Astha called the servant to mop the floor and throw out the water while she hung the towel, disposed of the oil, comb, powder, toy, dirty diaper and night clothes. She then settled down to nurse the baby while Hemant went on discussing their house and their future.

‘Hemant?’ said Astha after a while.

‘Yes?’ replied Hemant engrossed in the soft feet and tiny legs of his child.

‘I thought these things didn’t matter to you. What if we don’t have a boy?’

‘Of course they don’t matter to me. I was so pleased Anu was a girl. But that doesn’t mean we should not try for a boy. I am the only son.’

‘It is not in our hands, at least not in mine. It is the man’s chromosome that decides the sex, and with two sisters in your family, it may be a girl. I have read about these things.’

‘You are always reading‚’ said Hemant coldly.

‘I am sorry. Does it bother you?’

‘It fills your head with unnecessary ideas. Let us first not have a son and then we will see. Keep it simple. All right?’

Astha looked dissatisfied but could think of nothing to say.

In the family she had married into Astha had ample opportunity to witness how the business of building a house and planning for retirement should be gone about. Papaji’s ministry’s housing society, Papaji’s rank, Papaji’s draw had achieved for them 633 square yards in Vasant Vihar. And for the next ten years the family watched in amazement, satisfaction, and smugness the rate at which their initial investment of twenty thousand rupees multiplied five hundred times over.

Astha’s marriage entitled her to the same emotions. This is what my parents hoped would happen to them, she thought wistfully every time the latest price of their plot was discussed, and it was discussed many times.

Vasant Vihar too was once wilderness, home to rabbits, peacocks and deer, but by the late seventies almost a third of it was under construction, a boom which the Vadera family now joined.

For the plans Papaji contacted the chief architect of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, who enjoyed the same secretary level status he did. A senior teacher of the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture was recommended, drawings were made, their relative living convenience minutely examined.

The house was going to be double storied, the ground floor for Hemant and Astha, the one above for Papaji and Mummy. Each floor would have a drawing-dining, kitchen, two bedrooms with attached baths, and a small study to double as a guest room. In the centre, overlooking a patch of lawn running on the side of the house, would be an open informal area where the family could congregate. There would be one large verandah beyond the drawing-dining, and small balconies outside the bedrooms. On the roof would be the servant’s quarters.

A puja was done at the site, and the building started. Steel and cement could only be obtained on quotas, and construction on
the house lasted nearly two years, despite Papaji’s contacts, as thirty tons of rolled steel bars and thousands of bags of cement were released in dribs and drabs by the concerned ministry.

Periodically Hemant and Papaji would go shopping along with the contractor. To GB Road for cast iron and galvanised iron pipes, toilets, taps, stainless steel and ceramic sinks, wall tiles and marble chips; to Bhagirath Palace for mild steel conduit pipes, electrical cables for light and power, switch boxes, switches, fans, hinges, door locks and door handles; to Paharganj for wood and plywood; and last of all to Kotla for glass and paint, Snowcem for the outside, oil bound distemper for the inside, lime wash for the ceilings.

Two to three times a week Hemant visited the site, he was a junior officer, and he didn’t have the pressures Papaji did. Sometimes Astha accompanied him, audience to Hemant’s sense of himself as the child of fortune. ‘This – this‚’ he said waving his hand at their plot, ‘this is worth over a crore today.’

‘A crore?’ breathed Astha. ‘So much.’ And she warmed with the pleasure of being part of a family that was in tune with the ways of the world. Now and for ever she would be looked after.

To avoid death duties, the five Vaderas were registered as co-owners, with a letter of intention signed amongst them as to future rights. Hemant was to get the ground floor; Seema, who had contributed dollars towards the construction, was to get the first floor; and Sangeeta, who had contributed nothing, was to get the terrace, which allowed a built up area of 25 per cent. Should either of the sisters wish to sell they had to give their brother first offer.

After the house was built, it was given on rent to an embassy, at over a hundred times the rate they paid for their Lodhi Colony government accommodation. Astha’s mother listened to the details of the increase in the family finances with glistening eyes, sighing heavily, blessing her daughter, remembering her departed husband, a very simple man, with no sense of this world.

The two-year excitement and absorption of building a house over, Hemant began to get bored. On his way home from work he took to frequenting the club where, swimming, playing tennis or drinking, he met men like himself.

They were a new breed, these men. Their fathers had opted for the security and prestige of the civil services, but the sons wanted challenge and money. Educated abroad, their idealism had been exercised in their choice to return to India, now they wanted tangible returns for that sacrifice. Certainly Hemant did. He decided to try his hand at business.

‘Isn’t it terribly risky?’ asked Astha nervously. ‘Business is full of bribes and corruption, headache and uncertainty.’

‘ Az, this is the thinking of the past. Maybe a government job was all right for our parents, they wanted to serve their country after Independence. And perhaps it once was the place where you could make a difference, but no longer. The inertia, red tape and small-mindedness kills you. Now people sit on their asses and push files around all day. As an entrepreneur you can see the result of what you are doing. And it generates work.’

‘But we are comfortably off, you have a secure position, your work is not demanding. Even now, we spend so little time together, what will it be like with longer hours?’

‘I miss you too‚’ said Hemant absently. ‘But I am not starting the business immediately. I can get a loan more easily if I am at the bank, and the company, my dear, will be registered in your name.’

‘And what will I be doing?’ inquired Astha.

‘Making TVs.’

‘TVs? What market is there for TVs? All you get are rubbishy programmes, like
Krishi
Darshan,
Chitrahaar,
and half an old black and white Hindi movie on Saturday with the other half on Sunday.’

‘You wait, Az, TVs are the thing of the future. In developed countries, TV has taken over the culture, and here too, when
colour comes to India… ’ He paused and, stirred by his vision of the future, put his arm around his wife.

His wife had less imagination. ‘What will happen?’ she asked.

‘Do you know how much profit margin there is on a colour TV?’

‘No, I don’t know, and what’s the point, there is no colour, even if we do make the sets.’

‘You wait and see.’

Well, thought Astha, at least we have the security of the house if anything goes wrong.

Hemant applied for a plot of land with the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation, and he was allotted one in the ambitiously called ‘Electronic City’ of Noida, Sector 16. For this as yet undeveloped piece of property he had to pay nine lakhs in installments, with ten per cent down payment. His connections in his bank made applying for a loan easy, a few trips to Lucknow, and the loan was routed through the Noida branch. He registered his wife’s unit as a small-scale industry, something that Papaji’s position in the commerce ministry facilitated.

Along with other erstwhile factory owners, Hemant waited for Noida to develop, in the meantime hiring a factory. He made his parents board members, and started his unit with a thousand black and white TVs a month. They had the standard 20-inch screen, sold at 1,850 rupees a set, with a profit margin of 20 per cent.

All this took a year to accomplish. Hemant now left the house every morning at seven to first visit the factory, and then make the long drive to Parliament Street. ‘My family comes first‚’ he would say, as he juggled factory, bank and home.

Astha watched Hemant in his new avatar and felt moved by his grasp of the rules of getting on, by his ability to exploit situations rather than be defeated by them. Because he was her husband this meant that she too would not fall between the wide cracks of the world like her parents had done.

Somewhere along the way Hemant’s attitude to Astha changed. She told herself it was only slightly, but it oppressed her. Occasionally she tried addressing this directly.

‘Hemant, why is it that we never talk anymore?’

‘We talk all the time.’

‘About the business, the house, or Anuradha. Not about ourselves. Like we did before.’

‘Grow up, Az, one can’t be courting for ever.’

‘Is it courting to be interested in the other person? Their feelings?’

‘Why are you so childish? I work hard all day, and when I come home I want to relax. If you are feeling something, tell me. I have no time for all these games.’

‘I want to be close to you, have a better relationship—’ faltered Astha, knowing she had lost the argument before she had been able to define its parameters.

‘There is nothing wrong with our relationship.’

‘Are you saying there is something wrong with me?’

‘You said it, not I.’

‘But I’m not happy, so how can you …’ She bit back words that might seem to indicate some insensitivity on his part.

‘You think too much, that is the trouble.’

Astha stared at him nonplussed. ‘I love you‚’ she said lamely, but she meant something else.

‘I know, baby, I know‚’ said Hemant, drawing her to himself, caressing her. ‘Maybe we should go out together more? Would you like that?’

‘What about Anu? I don’t like leaving her with Mummy so much. She looks after her when I am at school as it is.’

‘We’ll take her, you are the one with all the scruples. Come on, darling.’ He slipped his hand under her sari, undid the first two hooks of her blouse and slid his hand over her breasts.

‘Poor little things‚’ he cooed, ‘Have I been neglecting them?’

‘It’s not that‚’ murmured Astha.

‘Cheer up, baby. Make it nice for me to be with you.’

Baby. That is how he liked her. The look on his face became focused as he pulled her sari palla away and yanked at the rest of the hooks on her blouse, drawing it down from her shoulders and arms. Now he would bury his face in her breasts, pressing them against himself from either side, suck on her nipples, and they could both be babies together.