Elephants with Headlights, page 8
Siddharth wasn’t hearing this exactly, but he was witnessing it as an internal dialogue, as if it were his own, and his ears were itching as he strained to eavesdrop on the thoughts.
‘What’s wrong with your mother?’ Siddharth asked.
‘She’s been very sick, sahib, she hasn’t been able to eat since she caught typhoid.’ Siddharth could ‘read’ that his driver didn’t know quite how to take this inquisition. He’d spent the past eight years pretending that the only family in the world was his master’s, and here he was answering questions about the mother he hardly dared think about during duty hours.
‘Why haven’t you told us?’
Again Siddharth could hear his driver’s thoughts. But how could I explain to you that it’s my fault – if I’d gone back up to the hills and brought down the statue of our goddess and bathed her at Hardwar then none of this would have happened, but I just didn’t have the time …
Siddharth’s ears were itching so violently that he could hardly hear the driver using actual words to say, ‘I didn’t want to bother you.’
‘Do one thing. Take this car and drive up and see her and do all the work you have to do in Hardwar. Take your time – I’ll drive myself in the Maruti until you get back.’
The driver got such a shock that he had to turn his head to make sure there wasn’t a jinn in his master’s place talking this nonsense, and as he did the car swerved to the left and nearly knocked over an entire wedding band who were waking up after an afternoon siesta by the roadside. How on earth could he take the Mercedes to the village? Was Siddharth sahib out of his mind?
‘If you prefer the Maruti, take that only,’ Siddharth replied. ‘You’ll feel more comfortable.’
Siddharth witnessed everything. His driver couldn’t believe his luck. If this was the boon for his eight years of service, then it was all the reward he could ever want. He would be able to kiss his three children after two years. He would see his wife again, too, and she would hide behind her palla and ignore him at first, but he would wait until the children went to sleep in the bed next to theirs. He would stay awake with her and sink into her quietly under the sheet to the sound of the single fan that would soften the sound of their happiness.
‘You must promise that you will go and see her … your mother, that is. And you must go today, or I won’t let you have the car.’
What difference does it make if I go tomorrow? I’ve sent every rupee I can but she still doesn’t get better.
It wasn’t the joy of the reunion that remained in Siddharth’s heart, it was this heaviness of helplessness – something so fundamental, so inevitable, so burdensome that he couldn’t dislodge the sadness for the rest of the day as he felt himself missing a woman he’d never known as if he were missing his own mother; as if she had gone, forever out of his life.
MARRIAGE COUNSELLING
‘WHY ON EARTH did you tell Mae about Chandini?’ Neel asked his mother.
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell her is the more appropriate question,’ Tota replied, clearly feeling no reason to defend herself.
‘Well, she’s really furious with me now.’
Tota didn’t seem to mind Mae being furious, but put on a show of caring, regardless. ‘You’d better explain it to her, then.’
‘I did. But how can I expect her to understand?’
Somewhere, in some grey cells in her cranium that controlled the universe, Tota must have had a feeling that she could still stop Mae and Neel’s marriage from going ahead – even though the invitations had gone out, even though the bride-to-be already lived under their roof. However, Tota must have also known that she would have to make some concessions should the nuptials become as real as she feared. It was a problem, and as with most problems, Tota decided to throw money at it. Her solution was a trip to the family jeweller, Bhole Nath, who sold her a ruby and diamond ring, which she casually passed over to Mae the following morning.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ Mae replied, but she couldn’t quite get it onto her finger.
‘Your finger’s a little fat,’ Tota said.
‘Mummy, Mae’s hardly fat! The ring’s tight, that’s all. I can take her to get it loosened.’
Mae put the ring back in its case, the breakfast arrived and the discussion about future heirlooms was replaced with the morning papers. There were two items of interest in the news demanding attention that morning. The first was a headline, ‘Why Australians Hate Us’, in Frontline Magazine. The second was an obscure article that Mae discovered in The Times of India about a woman in Jaipur who ran classes for young girls in ‘mother-in-law management’.
The papers rustled at the dining table over burji and toast, pomegranate juice and lukewarm tea.
Why Australians Hate Us
After a series of attacks that seemed specifically aimed at Indians, we sent two journalists out to Sydney to discover exactly why Australians hate us.
‘Why do you think these Australians hate us?’ Tota asked, looking directly at Mae. ‘Are we so detestable?’ It was a rhetorical question but Neel rose to the challenge nonetheless.
‘Nobody hates anybody. They must have been short of stories this week.’
Tota tutt-tutted loudly as she sank deeper into the article. ‘Is it even safe for you to return?’ The question was clearly not directed at the lovely blonde Mae, who would of course have to return, the sooner the better. ‘What terrible people they are –’ and this seemed to be directed at Mae – ‘how could they even think about doing such horrible things to Indians? They’re animals!’
‘Mummy, we’re not all animals.’
‘Are you calling yourself Australian now? You want to be like them?’ She opened her eyes wider than usual when she flung her gaze at Neel – eyes that looked the same as her son’s, only less innocent.
‘We must call Uncle Arjun immediately to make sure he’s okay,’ Tota continued.
‘Last time you were worried his house had burned down – do you remember, Mama? Just because you heard there were bushfires outside Sydney.’
‘But all it takes is one incident.’
One incident was usually all it took for anything brittle to snap. Mae could feel this incident looming as she reached out for some spare pages of The Times of India, where she found an article about workshops in ‘mother-in-law management’.
Does your mother-in-law recast your personality? Does she then feed this alternative picture of you to her son? Does she make you feel insecure about your husband’s love? Does she try and come between the two of you with an inappropriate sense of timing?
Mae looked up, taking no notice of Tota now, simply trying to apply her X-ray vision to her lover to try and see his heart, hidden as it was under his shirt and his seductive, albeit hairy, brown chest. Did he love her any less now that Australians were supposedly culling Indian students in the streets? She moved her gaze to his eyes, tried to catch a reflection of herself in them. They were fiery and agitated – perhaps a healthy sign of defiance? But on the other hand … he did have his mother’s eyes.
‘I wish you’d gone and studied in England or America.’ Tota sighed. ‘I would have felt far less tension about this … this whole business of you staying over there.’
‘Is it far to Jaipur?’ Mae asked.
‘It’s four hours from here,’ Tota replied. ‘You can travel on your own as a foreigner and nobody, absolutely, will try and kill you like they do in Australia.’
She had no intention of travelling on her own. Did it say anywhere that partners were required to attend the counselling sessions? What was the point training only herself how to manage her mother-in-law? Surely Neel would have to learn to tame his mother – to stand up to her and protect his wife-to-be – or at least to teach his mother to stop spitting chillis in her direction. Mae continued her investigation.
Should you learn how to take it or should you learn how to leave?
The question came as a thunderbolt, because in that moment they seemed like life’s only two options.
Love me, love my mother, or our love must split in two, and my mother will take her rightful share.
No, no, no, there would have to be a better solution. She could steal Neel from Tota, who would then be forced to surrender because she would never follow them to Terra Australis, where the locals skinned evil mothers and skewered their heads over slow camp fires and sizzling she-oaks.
Hah!
She looked at Tota, whose eyes seemed to trail over the blood on the page of her magazine, seizing upon the face of a mother who had lost her son to violence in Australia.
‘Oh my God, I’m so worried.’
‘No, Mama, please don’t worry,’ Neel replied.
‘But it’s my duty to worry!’ Tota shrieked. ‘I’m going to ring Arjun and see. We’ll ask him what to do!’ She was crying now, perhaps at a future catastrophe she was imagining or perhaps at the current one: the fact that her son didn’t seem in the slightest bit interested in moving back to India, in spite of the growing evidence that his life was in severe danger should he ever return to his supposedly beloved home in Australia.
Do not expect to gain your mother-in-law’s love, for she can never love you like she loves her son. But you can always work towards gaining her acceptance. And if you cannot gain acceptance, then at least give her no reason for criticism.
Perhaps some marriage counselling with this lady in Jaipur – What was her name? Yes, Rekha Singh – would be just the thing Mae needed if she was going to have to listen to another hysterical sentence spoken by Tota. But would it matter that Tota wasn’t actually her mother-in-law? Was it possible to have marriage counselling in India if you weren’t even married? Did Rekha Singh take the outlaw experience with the same degree of seriousness? And what would Rekha know about intercultural couplings anyway? Especially given that Mae could never replicate the Indian wife that Rekha Singh was familiar with tutoring.
Tota reached for her sari palla to wipe away some tears as she reached for her phone.
Mae read on.
Naturally, your mother-in-law is going to love your children, but the last thing she wants to know is that you’ve had intercourse with her son to avail yourself of the aforementioned offspring. It is vital, therefore, to hide any signs of intercourse, let alone romance, in order to maintain good relations. When you and your husband have intercourse, therefore, it is better to do the deed in the early hours of the morning, let’s say around 3 a.m.
Mae started giggling – uncontrollable guilty giggles that somehow triggered Tota’s vicarious grief, turning her tears from a few tasteful sobs squeezed from a news story into a throaty Grecian lament for what could only have been a very real bereavement.
‘People have been killed and I have to listen to hee-hee ha-ha,’ she moaned. ‘Hai Ram Bhagwan!’
Mae’s giggles escalated and she started to choke.
‘Are you okay?’ Neel asked. ‘Shall I get you some water?’
Tears were running down her face as well now, not in sympathy with Tota’s cooked-up grief but for the two of them – for their hopeless, sweet, farcical romance that perhaps could never have a happy ending.
‘Ram Lal, pani lao,’ Neel instructed. ‘I’ve called for some water.’
‘No, no, I’m fine, I don’t need water,’ she said, ‘I just need to laugh sometimes. It’s the only way I know how to cope.’
Tota had got through to her brother in Australia and took the phone into the corridor outside the dining room. ‘Arjun Bhaiya, we got the terrible news today …’ It soon became clear that Arjun Bhaiya didn’t know a thing about what sort of terrible thing had happened. ‘You know, the news about the killings over there. We-all are sitting here with Neel and we’re sick with worry … Tell me one thing, are you all right and is the family all right?’
Mae took advantage of her mother-in-law’s distraction to whisper into Neel’s ear: ‘Meet me tonight, in my room, at three in the morning.’
Neel gave her a quizzical look, wondering what treat lay in store, and what had inspired his sweetheart to make such an unexpected proposal. And why had there been such a precise revision to their now established ‘freedom at midnight’ rendezvous? What’s more, how could he possibly wait until three in the morning to make love with Mae?
She smiled at him, and the smile from their previous night’s midnight feast lingered. The two touched feet under the table while the cook removed the soiled breakfast dishes. It was worth being in India and tolerating a hysterical outlaw parrot for the promise of those lips. They would never belong to his mother. Not those lips. That was not the dutiful smile of a son who had been educated for the boardroom. That was the smile he reserved for his goddess.
If you always smile at me that beautifully, thought Mae, I will put up with the world and your mother to stay with you.
‘Arjun Bhaiya and the family are all right, thank God,’ Tota chirped as she returned to the table clutching the phone. ‘Nobody has been hurt.’ She said it as if there had been a miracle. As if war had been declared in a distant nation and somehow her family had survived.
Neel’s expression reverted to his innocent boy smile.
‘What are we going to do today, Mae?’ he asked. ‘There’s a long time between now and three o’clock.’
‘What’s happening at three o’clock?’ Tota asked.
‘Oh, we have an appointment,’ Neel replied vaguely, not even looking at his mother as he spoke. ‘Mae has some business she has to attend to.’
STORM IN A TEACUP
NEEL AND MAE had spent the day in the city, strolling through the Tibetan traders’ stalls in Janpath. On their return Tota wanted to examine the purchases Mae had made, something she had always done with Savitri whenever she went off to any of the Delhi markets. Somehow it was less satisfying doing it with Mae, but she felt obliged to go through the motions and was even slightly curious about what sort of clothes this foreigner would most like to wear.
‘Let’s have a fashion show!’ Tota suggested with great pomp and ordered some tea, which arrived just as Mae was changing into a diaphanous top made of cheap nylon. ‘I hope you didn’t pay more than a hundred rupees for it,’ she quipped, barely casting an eye over it.
‘I paid five hundred,’ Mae replied. ‘Only ten dollars.’
Tota was indignant. ‘Neel, darling, why didn’t you bargain for her?’
‘I did,’ he replied, ‘only Mae’s too blonde.’
After a few more outfits the tea arrived and Mae pulled out the exquisite present she’d bought for her future in-laws, in return for the diamond ring they’d presented her with on arrival: two cushion covers with Aboriginal designs, stitched in the Kashmiri embroidery style.
‘Look, I chose these for you. They were designed by Aboriginal women with a start-up in Kashmir,’ Mae explained. ‘This is the symbol for a women’s sacred site, and this here is a sacred river.’
Tota was finding it hard to concentrate. She had to order the evening meal and she decided they would have channa bhatura, the deceitful dish she had supposedly cooked as a first meal for her in-laws. The dish that had given her the upper hand in her husband’s family. But will Mae eat channa bhatura? Probably not. She has a white palate. Maybe I’ll order pasta.
She called for the cook, distractedly. ‘You know we have Aboriginals in India, too, and their art is also so simple and lovely like this.’
‘Neel wouldn’t let me bring you anything when I was in Australia, because he said you had everything you wanted and more … but nobody has everything, right? You didn’t have these, did you?’
Tota made signs that she was warming up. She made a show of examining the cushions further and then, with complete innocence, piped up with a radical question. ‘Do Australian Aboriginals make good household help?’
Mae, who was by now balancing a cup and saucer together carefully on her lap, sat paralysed for a second. ‘What?’ She shook her head, startled. ‘Did you just ask me if Australian Aboriginals make good servants?’ She looked at Neel. ‘Did your mother really just ask me if Aboriginals made good servants?’
‘Mama, you can’t say that. It’s not the same over there …’
Mae seemed to produce a rash on her chest as she raised her voice now, with more rage than confidence. ‘Aboriginal people are not fucking servants, all right?’
Incredible. Had she just heard this chit of a girl fall into a trap that she couldn’t possibly crawl out of?
‘Excuse me?’
Mae continued, with a red flag raised alongside her Australian one. ‘Nobody talks about my people like you just did.’ She glared at Neel. ‘I can’t believe that such a lovely boy like you could have such a heartless bitch of a mother,’ she roared, and as she stood up the cup and saucer slipped to the ground, unbroken.
Seeing the perfect porcelain at her feet, she picked up the cup and threw it. ‘Your mother has to be just about the rudest fucking –’
‘Mae, please …’
Tota could see that Neel was trying to silence the girl, trying to catch the bullet that flew from her mouth with his bare hands, but with all her heart she was willing Mae to continue, erecting a firewall with her shoulders pressed back, readying herself for this unexpected assault.
‘Mama, over there things are different … What you said was rude.’
Mae started to make her way towards the door, shaking. Anuj, the chef’s peon, who had come bearing more biscuits for tea, moved quickly to one side and looked at his feet. Tota could tell that he was deeply embarrassed that the house guest was daring to scream at her future mother-in-law. Watching him gave her the gumption to continue.
‘I wasn’t being rude.’ Tota snorted. ‘We’ve had many Bihari Aboriginals working with us in the past, and I think they make excellent household help. Other people can be so unfair and unkind about Bihari servants, but if you treat them well …’
‘Oh, it’s easy enough for you to sit here in your fucking superior home, ordering this and that and paying nothing to the people who work for you, but we don’t have the same low standards in Australia. We don’t just use people because we can. We wash our own fucking dishes, we cook our own fucking dinner …’
