Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (41 page)

The three days Neeraja was at Tella Meda, Charvi transformed from somber lady of the house to transcendental goddess. She talked about God and how he spoke with her; she talked about how she had healing powers; she talked about how she could see the future. No one seemed surprised by the change in her and accepted it as a special situation because Neeraja was there.

And Neeraja transformed from the weepy woman in the first-class compartment to a happy actress who had a wonderful family life.

The evening before she was to leave, Neeraja came to Kokila’s room while everyone was congregated in the TV room.

“You must think I’m a total fake,” Neeraja said sheepishly as soon as she stepped into Kokila’s room. She looked around and nodded uncomfortably. “It’s a nice room. My room is nicer, though.”

“We save the front rooms for guests,” Kokila said. “You can sit if you like.” She pointed to a wooden rocking chair she had acquired after she got Karthik.

“Am I waking him up?” Neeraja asked, looking at Karthik, who was fast asleep in Kokila’s bed. After Karthik had come to Tella Meda Kokila got rid of her old metal cot and bought a bigger wooden bed with a good mattress. It would have cost a fortune but the owner of the furniture shop gave her a discount because the bed had been returned by a customer and because he was a devotee of Charvi. The bed was big enough for Karthik and Kokila to sleep in, with plenty of room for Karthik to play in the bed when he woke up in the morning.

“No, he sleeps like a log. He plays hard all day and then collapses,” Kokila said.

“Is he starting school soon?” Neeraja asked.

Kokila nodded. “Next year. Nothing great here, you know, as it’s a small town, but it’s a good school and Sushila’s daughter Padma and Chetana’s daughter Meena are doing well there. They both want to become doctors.”

Neeraja wasn’t listening to her, Kokila realized. She was staring at the courtyard through the window.

“I don’t want anyone to know about my problems. I don’t know why I told you, but I hope you won’t tell anyone,” Neeraja said.

“Well some people at Tella Meda already know. I told them. I didn’t think you would be coming,” Kokila said defensively. “But whom else would I tell? And who would believe me?”
Especially after
your performance,
Kokila wanted to add.

Neeraja shifted uneasily. “I mean the magazines. I don’t want you to tell them what I told you about my past and my marriage. Look, I know I made a mistake in telling you too much. I should have kept my mouth shut but I was just so depressed and . . . Look, if you want some money, I can help. I—”

“I won’t tell any magazines anything,” Kokila said in disgust. “Now, if you could leave? I have a long day tomorrow.”

Neeraja nodded and bit her upper lip nervously. “I didn’t mean to insult you just now. I . . . I was planning to leave money for Tella Meda, but maybe I could just give it to you.”

“You don’t have to bribe me. I don’t have any interest in talking to magazines about your sordid little life,” Kokila said in exasperation. “You know what your problem is? You’ve forgotten how to be normal, just a regular person and not an actress.”

Neeraja smiled then. “Everyone is always acting, don’t ever forget that. Your Charvi is putting on a good act about being a goddess. See, we all do what we have to do to survive. Haven’t you ever acted and become someone else to get what you wanted?”

Kokila thought back and came up empty. “No,” she said triumphantly. “Unlike you and Charvi, I don’t need to act to survive. I have more honest means.”

“Living off charity? Is that what you’re calling honest?” Neeraja demanded softly. “You’re just as much a party to Charvi’s acting as she is because you live off her acting. Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or insult you or any of that. I like you. That’s why I told you those things in the train. I just want to leave some money. Can I do that?”

“It would be better if you gave it to Charvi,” Kokila said.

Neeraja then leaned down to kiss Karthik’s cheek. “He is beautiful. Maybe I should think about adopting too.”

“Maybe you should,” Kokila said, even though she was unable to imagine how a woman who appeared to be as selfish as Neeraja could ever give a big part of herself away to a child.

“I think I’ll come back here. Even though she acts a little, there is something inside her, isn’t there?” Neeraja said.

Kokila nodded. “Yes, there is. She has a good heart and above all that is most important.”

“Well, I should go. They have rented a VCR and a movie of mine,” Neeraja said with a gleam in her eye. “Even though I am growing old, I can watch the old movies and remember my youth. It’s like I can become young again. I love these videotapes and the VCR. I can watch my movies all the time, if I want.”

And she was chirpy again as she went to the TV room, excited about her movie.

Kokila left Karthik to sleep and joined the others to watch Neeraja become young again in a movie made a long time ago.

1991
21 May 1991
. Rajiv Gandhi, former Indian prime minster (1984–89), was assassinated by a suicide bomber. The assassination was rumored to be plotted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group.

Of Bombs
and
Bullets

T
hey killed him, they killed him,” Padma said as she came running from the TV room into the courtyard.

“Who died?” Chetana asked, bleary-eyed. She had just woken up and was nursing a cup of coffee.

“A bomb exploded and he’s dead,” Meena said as she came running as well.

“This is what comes of letting them watch too much TV,” Renuka said to Sushila. It was seven in the morning and the girls had made it a habit to watch the morning news while they ate breakfast before heading to school.

Puttamma was sweeping the courtyard and pointed a finger at Meena. “I heard too. Some LTTE people killed Rajiv Gandhi.”

“Killed him?” Kokila said in surprise. “How?”

“Rajiv Gandhi? Dead?” Chetana seemed to wake up a little.

“A bomb, they say,” Meena said. “A bomb went off and he’s dead. They are showing it on TV.”

Everyone rushed into the TV room and listened and watched the news in silence.

“Does this mean Doordarshan is going into mourning again?” Puttamma asked.

“At least ten days,” Padma said. “He was once PM.”

“True,” Meena said, and sighed. “Ah, well, maybe we can rent the VCR and watch some movies on Sunday. Amma?”

“We’ll talk about Sunday later on,” Chetana said as she turned the television off. “Why don’t you both go out and wait for your rickshaw?”

Padma and Meena shared a rickshaw with another girl their age, Ramya, who lived down the street. Since Padma and Meena were doing well in school, a lot of parents overlooked the fact that they lived in Tella Meda and allowed their children to associate with them in the hopes that some of Padma’s and Meena’s intelligence would rub off on their kids as well.

The rickshaw picked them up at 7:30 AM and got them to school ten minutes before the morning assembly began at eight. And then the rickshaw brought them home by 4:20 PM. If they were even five minutes late coming home from school, Sushila would start pacing the road watching for them. Chetana tried to tell Sushila that she worried too much but Sushila shut her up by making an oblique remark about Chetana’s bad parenting skills.

The television was left turned on almost all day as news about Rajiv Gandhi’s death came pouring in.

“Poor wife of his. First they killed his brother, then his mother, and now him,” Charvi said sadly as she sat with the others in the TV room. “Tonight we will have a special
bhajan
and pray that his wife and children have peace and his spirit meets with his mother’s.”

“You think his wife will go back to Italy now?” Shanthi wondered. “Why would she stay in India?”

“Because of her children,” Sushila said. “Her children are Indian and so what if she is Italian? Sonia Gandhi looks Indian enough to me.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Chetana said. “Look at how pale her skin is!”

“Your skin would also be pale if your husband just died,” Puttamma said.

“My husband did die and my skin never went that pale,” Chetana snapped at her.

“Hush, we’re trying to listen to the news,” Meena and Padma both cried out in unison.

Bhanu, who was now five months pregnant, came to Tella Meda every morning after Babu left for the photo studio and went back in the evening when it was time for him to come home. She started crying as she watched images of Rajiv Gandhi’s wife, Sonia Gandhi, wearing dark glasses on TV.

“The poor woman,” she wailed. “What would I do if someone killed Babu? Oh, Amma, those poor children have no father now.”

“But they have lots of money,” Chetana said, uncomfortable with Bhanu being quite so emotional. Ever since she got pregnant Bhanu had softened considerably and Chetana couldn’t stand that she cried all the time.

“What good is money if your husband is dead?” Renuka said.

“I’d rather have money than a husband,” Chetana said, and sighed. “Now I have neither.”

Soon details about the bombing started to filter in. A woman named Dhanu, whose photograph was shown constantly on TV, had been the human bomb that detonated next to Rajiv Gandhi.

“She touched his feet and then as he was lifting her up she turned the bomb on,” Padma explained during dinner. “Her severed head is what they used to identify her.”

“And all the pictures we see,” Meena said, “those are taken of her severed head.”

“We’re eating, Padma, Meena,” Sushila admonished. “Talking of bombs and bullets and severed heads . . . what has this world come to?”

“It is bad times, Sushila Amma,” and Narayan Garu, who rarely spoke. “But I must say I support the LTTE on this matter. If Rajiv Gandhi had become PM again the Sri Lankan Tamils would suffer more.”

It wasn’t that Narayan Garu was talking that was the most shocking, it was that he held political opinions. He was the only male left in Tella Meda besides Karthik. He stayed in his room most of the day and puttered around the garden with Puttamma’s son, Balaji, who was the official Tella Meda gardener. He was a conscientious boy and seemed to have a lot of patience with Narayan Garu, who at eighty was getting crankier about the garden.

“The LTTE is a terrorist organization,” Meena said immediately. She had been reading the newspaper and watching the news regularly, and she and Padma had discussed the matter at length.

“What do you know about anything?” Chetana said. The girls were all of twelve years old and they talked as if they knew everything.
But what does that Narayan Garu know either, the old man? He
should just shut up and eat his food,
she thought as she watched Meena and Padma glare at Narayan Garu mutinously.

“They are not terrorists,” Narayan Garu said, his voice actually rising. “Wait here.”

He washed his hands in his half-eaten plate and went toward his room.

“Meena, he’s an old man, don’t agitate him,” Chetana said.

“I think the girls should be allowed to voice their opinion,” Sushila countered. “It’s good for them to have opinions. So tell me, Padma, what is this LTTE all about?”

Padma cleared her throat as if getting ready for an oral exam. “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were founded in 1975 to win the freedom of the Sri Lankan Tamils from the Sri Lankan government. The organization was started because Tamils started to feel that they needed to use nonpeaceful measures to gain independence from Sri Lanka.”

Meena cleared her throat next and got ready to impart the rest of what they knew about the LTTE.

When she had gone to school, they never came back knowing so much about the world around them, Kokila thought. And then she looked at Karthik, who was playing with a piece of ladyfinger on his plate, and wondered how much more he would know than she did.

“Their leader is a man called Velupillai Prabhakaran and they say he has died
several
times. He’s a difficult man to kill and people have tried very hard but he keeps surviving,” Meena said. “Our social studies teacher told us that because Rajiv Gandhi sent Indian peacekeeping forces to Jaffna when he was prime minister, the LTTE is angry with him. They were probably afraid that he would become PM again, and why wouldn’t he considering how badly VP Singh has done? That’s why LTTE killed him.”

Narayan Garu came back with several pamphlets in his hands. “Here, see this,” he said, and put them down in front of Meena and Padma, who were sitting next to each other. “This is what Rajiv Gandhi did to the Sri Lankan Tamils.”

Meena and Padma both glanced at the pamphlets and nodded in tandem. “These look like propaganda pamphlets. The LTTE are known to use brainwashing techniques to recruit new members for their organization.”

“These pamphlets tell the truth,” Narayan Garu said, and spit flew from his mouth as he spoke. “Charvi, tell them, you know.”

Charvi looked up from her food, surprised that someone was talking to her.