(Fiction: Published in Kindle Magazine, May 2011 issue)
‘Didi, look!’ Babli’s excited voice broke upon Purabi’s reverie. ‘Isn’t that the coffee shop we were looking for? The one Anju Aunty mentioned? See, it’s got that funny round coffee cup on that board – just like the one we saw in Anju Aunty’s car.’
Purabi quit her depressing thoughts for a moment, and pushed the red cotton skirt back to the miscellany of fashion items splayed across the counter. She looked towards the little cafe in the middle of the mall. Babli’s finger was still pointing towards it.
Yes, there it was – Lotsa Coffee, the new coffee shop that had come up in place of the old Barista. She was amazed that she hadn’t spotted it and Babli had, even though Babli had never been to the mall before. It was small but swanky, Purabi had to concede, and even looked cozy without the college crowd marring the atmosphere at this hour. College crowds had begun to get on her nerves. Was that a sign of ageing too? The thought gave her goose bumps.
‘Didi?’ Babli’s voice jingled in her ear. ‘That’s the one, na, with that fat lady arguing with that man at the counter?’
Purabi joined her conspiratorial giggle and nodded. ‘Shh, you shouldn’t point at people like that, Babli! It’s rude.’
‘Oh, sorry, didi,’ said Babli in English, and quickly pulled her hand back.
‘It’s okay,’ Purabi gave her a reassuring smile. She would have to choose her cards carefully if she were to succeed in getting what she wanted. Her aunt Anju, and a few colleagues, had begun to reproach her too much for having a non-existent personal life. After much thought, she had decided to change all that.
And it would be fun if she did manage to accomplish what she had set out to do. It would change a life and, she, Purabi, would be the great patron, the champion. People needlessly bitched about her behind her back as an interfering busybody, even though she was always trying to help people around her – lost and powerless souls who had nobody to guide them in life. It was amazing how ungrateful most of them had been.
‘You just need to learn a few things, and then you’ll be a proper memsahib,’ she pinched Babli’s cheek.
‘Shall we move, didi?’ Babli threw her green-and-gold tassel back, pleased. ‘Why, aren’t you buying that red skirt?’
‘Why, didi? It’s so pretty. And it would suit you really well.’
‘Nah, let’s go.’ She took Babli’s hand and began to walk, rapidly now, towards the new cafeteria.
By the time they reached the venue, the fat lady had left, and it was only the two of them standing on the wooden floorboards, their faces lit by soft pedestal lamps that lent an old-world feel to the place. Babli stopped and leaned against a table tentatively, while Purabi marched ahead to the counter to place the order for both of them. Babli stared at Purabi’s Capris and stilettos, still awestruck.
‘Shall we?’ Purabi led the young girl away to a table for two at the corner. She carefully hung her leather bag on her chair as they sat down.
‘Wow, didi,’ Babli offered in English before proceeding in Hindi. ‘This shop is so beautiful! Thank you for bringing me here.’
Babli flitted and fluttered round the displays at the coffee shop, inhaling new aromas. The most commonplace things seemed to cast a spell on her, whether it was the lighting, the heavy chairs, the chequered tablecloth, or the cutlery. But then, Puabi realised, it must be all new and magnificent to her young maid. To someone who lived in a one-room hovel next to an open drain somewhere in the jhuggi-jhopdi colony that had illegally crept up behind the railway line, the mall and its chic shops were bound to feel divine.
‘There, have it,’ she said kindly, placing the cold coffee in front of Babli, whose eyes smiled at the treat. Today, Purabi was in a mood to indulge her. She needed this distraction. She had decided to give office thoughts a holiday.
‘Wow, didi, such a huge glass!’
Yes, and it costs one third her salary, Purabi couldn’t help thinking, as the thirsty girl washed down the contents in a single swig. Purabi, however, brooded over hers, staring and stirring at intervals.
People walked in and out of the shop all the time, but Babli’s companion barely took notice. Purabi was lost in her own maze, her eyelids heavy, and Babli felt content just sitting where she was.
‘Does this mall always remain so cool, didi?’
‘I guess so. They never switch the AC off as far as I know.’
‘And it’s open all days of the week?’
‘What fun to slip here when there’s no electricity at home! You must be here quite often with your friends?’
‘Friends?’ Purabi uttered the word as if pronouncing it for the first time in her life.
‘I don’t have any friends.’
‘Oh!’ Babli was stumped. ‘But, how can you not? You have everything!’
‘Munna chacha told me all about your office – the polished glass doors, the giant centre table, and vases with fresh flowers.’ Babli smiled, suddenly embarrassed. ‘He went to drop your tiffin box one day.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Purabi’s eyes narrowed unconsciously. The servants and their extended families!
Families always complicated matters. Who knew that better than her? She knew Babli was close to her chacha and her ma the most. She was constantly chattering about them even though it was she who had moulded the girl, really. Babli had been such an ignoramus when she came. She had taught her manners, and English phrases. She had taught her to wear a cooking apron when she cooked, and tie her hair neatly so that her oily locks wouldn’t stray into the wok. She had taught her to live like a human being. And yet, she rarely heard herself mentioned in any of Babli’s conversations with other people.
Purabi’s thoughts meandered to all the people in the world who could qualify as her friends. Her unpeopled life offered her just a fistful, and Marisha was perhaps the only one who came closest.
Strange? Not really. Purabi had never had the time. She had been too busy mountain-climbing. Of a different kind. The mountain of professional excellence. She had joined India’s largest publishing company as a junior editor, been promoted to senior editor, commissioning, and then managing editor, between a few blinks of the eye. Soon, she would be publishing manager. She could see it in that straight, dark line running deep across her palm. And she was barely thirty-five.
Marisha had been the only one who had adopted Purabi as a friend-philosopher-guide without question, right in class five. That stupid girl could never take any decision on her own! Once, Purabi had even had to coax her to run away from home to teach her Hitler mother a lesson. Really, her mother had no right to scold her daughter like that. So what if Marisha had flunked her Science exam because they had spent the week stealthily watching movies in her house?
Purabi had thought of suggesting a suicide attempt to her first – it would have been so much more enthralling – but then decided against it. What if something went wrong? Marisha was so dumb; you couldn’t expect her to do anything right! It might have made Purabi end up behind bars. What if they tried her for murder? There was too much risk.
Had it not been for Purabi’s supervision and watchfulness, Marisha would have been devoured by the wild wolves around long ago. Well, she was, eventually, wasn’t she? All because Purabi had got distracted and loosened the collar around her best friend’s neck for some weeks.
She had warned Marisha against Gaurav but, for the first time in her life, Marisha had gone against her advice and married the piddly store manager! So what if he worked for the biggest and best-known retail chain in town? He was still only a store manager, besides being such an opinionated fool! He never agreed with anything she said! And that, Purabi thought, was his most serious defect.
She was amazed that all their gang had actually turned up at Marisha’s wedding and rejoiced! Or that’s what she had been told. She never did go across. She couldn’t bear to be at the wedding after that silly girl had dumped her advice in the bin and married the wretch.
Initially, Marisha had made all the effort at re-connecting. After all, they’d been dubbed as Siamese Twins for a whole year at university. But Purabi was always busy: meetings, travel, conferences, book launches.
Marisha had found solace in three children instead and deleted her from her life. She always seemed quite joyful and contented, but Purabi knew it was only pretence. What else could it be? How could any woman be happy being a full-time housewife and mother? There was a whole career she had sacrificed for her stupid family life – as she called it – as if such a thing existed! It was a crude myth propagated by a bunch of indolent, conservative fools. The path to the top had no place for such fantasies.
There had been Vipul, of course – the devoted Vipul Pandit.
‘Mayank is getting a package of five lakhs, Sudeep is getting a package of seven. I’m not getting anything,’ she remembered him complaining morosely, his long jaw dropping almost to his chest. Only the names and the figures altered every time they met. The rest of the report stayed the same.
Vipul had been sweet though, she couldn’t deny. He was always the first one to notice her sparkling new eye shadow, new slacks, new boots – things she really wished other guys, who mattered, would notice. Vipul accompanied her to the doctor, offered to fetch her clothes from the local drycleaner, stood in long queues to buy her air tickets – regularly.
But she couldn’t talk to him. All he had ever read in his life was account books and tax documents.
‘Let’s go to watch Macbeth at Siri Fort today. It a brilliant play,’ she would say.
‘Er … can we go for a Hindi film instead? I’ll fall asleep in the theatre like last time, and then you’ll be mad at me all over again.’
And he could be so rude at times. Once he had come home and left without even waiting for her to finish a phone call! All right, so she had invited him at twelve and he was bang on time. But she was discussing Freud and Victorian literature with Kartikay on the phone (and he was a prospective boyfriend!). So Vipul sat pretending to read a sports magazine. Serious discussions do take time, everyone knows, so what if it was two-thirty by the time she finished? And then Vipul left mumbling a barely audible goodbye before she could even hang up! His fault, not hers – obviously. Why couldn’t he wait for another five minutes if he had waited so long anyway? Nerd.
‘Did he propose you?’ Vipul had enquired on the phone an hour later.
‘You mean – propose to you – don’t you?’
‘No, actually, he didn’t,’ she had sighed, and poured out her woes to his reluctant but relieved ears.
Two years later she had turned down Vipul’s marriage proposal, and he had gone and got himself a wife from the States – on the rebound. An ugly young thing. Her thighs would have put a rhino to shame, thought Purabi in disgust. Fine; so Vipul was a dumb ass. But what was wrong with Rajesh, Shiva, and Biswas? Or even Joy? – throwing admiring glances at that clumsy little pachyderm?
And Vipul was devoted to her like a spaniel! That meant he had never really loved Purabi in the first place! She felt vindicated. Only sometimes she missed him.
Then there had been Priyamvada for a while – Priyamvada, who had tugged at her motherly emotions like no one else before. She used to be a junior editor on her team some years ago. Priyamvada had knelt before her like an apprentice, and Purabi had taken her under her wing – even invited her to stay over at times.
It used to be a popular belief in office that everybody revered Priyamvada’s husband. There was a considerable age difference between husband and wife and really, Priyamvada was quite a child. She believed Rahul was earning enough for both of them to live comfortably, and she was working simply for pleasure – wandering about aimlessly, un-ambitiously. Mad child!
Of course Purabi had showed Rahul his place! She had to. Nobody else would have ever had the guts. She had always known he couldn’t be as grand and upright as people thought him to be. He was ruining Priyamvada’s chances to make a career for herself completely by encouraging her dreaminess!
‘How can a good editor like you sacrifice a career for a silly husband?’ Purabi said to her pupil. ‘Every woman has a husband! How many have a career? Look at me! Didn’t I sacrifice my marriage for my career? You have to make a choice. You must make a choice. Would you like to live in his shadow forever, or build an independent identity for yourself? I chose autonomy over Shantanu – and see where I am today.’
‘But Purabi di,’ Priyamvada looked timidly at her proud face. ‘We – we want to have a child now,’ she confessed guiltily. ‘Rahul will complete fifteen years at his company soon, and he’ll be promoted. We’re sure of that. I – we –’
‘Tchah!’ Purabi raised her hand to interject. ‘Priyam, Priyam, Priyam! A child will seal your fate for good! Then you’ll never be a senior editor, or a publishing manager – ever! Think! Would you ever find the time? Never! Look at me!’
‘Your choice, Priyam.’ Purabi shrugged and haughtily walked away.
People whispered behind Purabi’s back that she had ruined Priyamvada’s life. She insisted it wasn’t true. Well, all right, she had been the one who had encouraged Priyamvada initially. The girl had been desperate for her approval. But Purabi refused to admit that she had goaded the juvenile editor to divorce her husband in the process, though she had always hinted that serious sacrifices were inevitable. It was unfair that people should blame her for the mess Priyamvada had made of her life subsequently. She had misunderstood completely.
‘…Vijay and Sheela would love this.’ Purabi suddenly registered Babli’s voice again.
‘If I brought my brother and sisters here, didi, they would go mad with excitement,’ Babli chuckled. ‘They’d love this place … and this coffee. None of us has ever had coffee before, you know. Our family believes in tea – kadak chai. I have to wake up at four-thirty in the morning to make it for everybody. After that there’s no water.’ She wiggled her thumb. ‘The taps are dry by five.’
Purabi tried to remember the last time she had woken up at four-thirty in the morning to do something. She realised she never had except perhaps to catch early morning flights for seminars etcetera, or for a second round of sex with Shantanu during one of those rare, wild holidays together. Who could get up at that hour in the morning for housework?
That was what that woman, her mom-in-law, had expected her to do too – wake up at five every morning to take the milk. An educated elite like her, holding seminars on the Simone de Bouvoirs of the world, reduced to a prototype soap opera protagonist in her own house!
Shantanu…. Purabi winced again. She had tried to explain so much… but Shantanu had stood by his mom. He wanted Purabi to take over some responsibilities from her – as he called it. Rubbish! He was wrong. Both of them were wrong. It wasn’t sharing the burden. It was sheer imposition! Granted his mother was an old woman. So what? Didn’t everybody get old sometime? Age couldn’t be cited as an excuse for everything! Why couldn’t they get more servants? Six were certainly not enough for the three of them.
But then Shantanu had put his foot down, and an earthquake had resulted. She had finally decided he was a jealous lout – jealous of his wife and her achievements, jealous of her gorgeousness and magnetism. And she had walked out. She couldn’t sacrifice her freedom and career for a scoundrel who pretended to be an intellectual! All his success as a novelist was a sham!
Purabi’s thoughts strayed away from the mall for a while. When the walls around her came into focus again a few minutes later, Babli was sitting with her empty tumbler, staring thinkingly at her.
‘What happened?’ Purabi found her voice again. ‘Would you like another round?’
Babli’s face lit up. But she wasn’t impolite. ‘Do you want to have another cup, didi?’
‘I’ll have one if you will.’
‘Didi!’ Babli was excited again. ‘Shall I place the order this time? Tell me what you want. I’ll have the same.’
Purabi nodded. ‘Okay, get me a latte.’
‘Latte.’ Purabi repeated slowly, and Babli pronounced it, amidst giggles, after her.
‘Didi,’ she said grinning again as Purabi handed her the change, ‘Nobody can say I work in your house. Your salwar-kurta makes me look like any other girl here, doesn’t it?’
Purabi studied her maid. Yes, the Rajasthani salwar-kurta looked good on her. For an instant she regretted having given it away. She could have worn it for a year more perhaps. But she always felt like that the moment Babli or her mother appeared in her hand-me-downs. A couple of stitches here, a corner hemmed there, a button re-stitched or replaced, a T-shirt dyed – and all her clothes were as good as new again in their hands … the clothes she so whimsically discarded at the minutest sign of defect.
Babli did look like any other girl in the mall in those clothes, slippers, and neat tresses – if a tad unsophisticated. Purabi was tempted to take her to the parlour on the second floor. Then she abandoned the idea. That would be overdoing things. Besides, she didn’t have the energy. What had prompted her to bring Babli to this mall with her in the first place?
Of course she knew the answer well. Had she not brought Babli along, she would have had to come alone. All alone. And she didn’t enjoy coming here alone now. She didn’t enjoy going anywhere alone any more. Sitting with her books, files, coloured pens, and laptop in her big, empty house, she had only had Babli for company for sometime now. And the girl had become more than a mere maid.
Nobody made friends in office anyway. In any case, female-dominated departments like hers could barely escape the soubriquets male colleagues so callously thrust upon them – a shark pool; a snake pit!
Initially, all that role-playing had been an amusing exercise: matching fake smiles with fake necklaces, and false frowns that went well with the frock for the evening. She had enjoyed those bland kisses that vanished in the air with the perfume even before they touched a cheek, and pseudo-singsong voices venturing, ‘Cottage?’ as the women’s eyes scrutinised each other’s earlobes.
Of late, it had become a strenuous task. The adrenalin didn’t rush the way it used to once. She had surprisingly morphed into a home bird. Shantanu would never believe it...
Babli was there for her morning and evening. And that lone human voice responding cheerfully to her call every time, every day, was comforting. Sometimes she found excuses to call her, just to reassure herself. That uneducated girl from the slums meant more than the whole industry with its literati-glitterati put together now.
Purabi began digging into her doughnut. She watched Babli standing against the glass case next to the counter, looking at the jars of coffee beans with great interest.
‘Coffee beans,’ she explained to her when Babli returned to her seat. ‘Used to make coffee.’
Babli gave her a warm smile. ‘Didi, I’m certainly going to come here again. With my brothers and sisters. Certainly before my wedding.’
‘Wedding?’ Purabi uttered unsteadily as something went thud within. ‘What wedding?’
‘Oh, you couldn’t have forgotten it, di. My wedding of course! I told you, na, my parents have been looking for a boy for sometime. They found one. His name’s Laxman, and he works in a factory. And he goes to college too. The wedding’s in December.’
‘Babli! Come on! You can’t let your parents do this to you! You’re barely … what … fifteen?’
A fizz of laughter flooded the shop. ‘I’m eighteen, didi,’ Babli declared with pride.
‘Nah, can’t be. You don’t even look fifteen!’
‘Well, I am,’ said Babli. ‘Our family’s like that. A family of miniatures. Nobody looks their real age.’
Again, it was true. When Babita, Babli’s mother, had come to work for her some years ago, Purabi had been shocked to hear that she was married and had six children!
‘Why aren’t you married, didi?’ Babli asked her suddenly. ‘I think you should have a very handsome husband.’
Purabi turned to her sharply, but found only an innocent question mark upon the girl’s face.
‘I was married,’ she said quietly.
Babli looked confused. ‘Married?’
‘I – I divorced my husband.’ Purabi felt annoyed at the effort it had taken her to utter those words in front of the little chit.
‘Divorced!’ Babli squealed in dismay. ‘It happens in some big, rich families, no? We watch it on TV in our neighbours’ houses – all those women from high-class. My mother cries, and my chachi cries, and my maami also. In our colony, men beat women, and sometimes leave them after marriage. But that’s not divorce, is it didi? Why did you divorce your husband, didi?’
Purabi was quiet. She sighed at the young girl’s naive curiosity and imprudent questions – questions that had no prêt-à-porter answers.
‘Marriage is a union of two minds – remember that. It’s not just about the society sanctioning sex. There must be equality in marriage – equality between man and woman. When you get married, believe in your own power. Never let the man take the upper hand; never let your in-laws rule your world; never bend your knees –’
Babli’s face, tinted with silent laughter, suddenly caught her eye.
‘He calls me “madam ji”, didi,’ Babli laughed. ‘“Madam ji, will you have ice cream?”, “Madam ji, will you come with me for a movie?” And my saasu-ma teases me too. She calls me “Missej Laxman”.’
Purabi stared at her servant girl – at her make-up free face, the second-hand clothes, radiant eyes, and blissful smile. A thousand random, haphazard questions bobbed up, floated around for a while, and disappeared within her.
As she raised her eyes again, she caught her image in the mirror opposite – slender figure, a fancy black top, stone necklace, bags under pencilled eyes from too much liquor. Had her skin begun to sag a bit too? Was that a wrinkle over the right brow?
‘Come, Babli,’ Purabi settled herself back on the chair with new enthusiasm, and patted her young companion’s hand affectionately again. She reached for her handbag, rummaged around inside, pulled out her lighter, and lit a cigarette avoiding the manager’s eye. ‘Let’s have another latte,’ she said with a charismatic smile. ‘How would you like to spend the rest of your life as a memsahib? Ever thought about it? Imagine. You could live as my daughter, in my house…’
‘Eh … how can that be? I don’t understand, di –’ Babli murmured diffidently.
‘Ah, come on. I’m not saying you have to be my daughter, but you could pretend to be, couldn’t you? Just for a few days? It would be our game. Everybody would be jealous of you – your siblings, your friends. Of course your mother would visit you as often as she wants to. Maybe every day? What do you say, hmm?’ She winked, and a warm smile appeared on her painted lips. ‘It would give me some pleasure. Haven’t I been a good friend to you? Think. You could come here every day; be your own boss. If you like, I’m willing to take you under my wing ...’
