Abhay

Somehow I managed to apologise before Paakhi and Tulti arrived. I managed to say that I could see no part of Mira’s decision to jump (not an ‘accident’, I repeated) was down to Dada or black magic.

‘Abhi, believe me, that’s the truth. I have no such powers, and Maheshji wouldn’t dream of hurting a child. There is much you can accuse me of; I did play games in New Zealand — which, by the way, Moushumi had nothing to do with — and I absolutely wanted to shake your world a little, above all because it seemed you had avoided so many of the shocks that we have faced over the years. But from the day I confessed that Didi was alive, nothing else has been a lie.’

Dada didn’t let me out of his embrace. It was just as well Yakub didn’t walk in with the girls. We were like some final-act scene on a stage — Dada and me pretty much spooning on the floor, or else him saving me with a horizontal Heimlich, with Moushumi taking the sensible option of pulling up a chair to watch from above, probably learning stuff about the Wellington trip she had no idea of.

Mira was in unimaginable pain just then, and I had her in my sights all the time, but this right here was funny too.

And this, I also thought, is the calibre of so-called grown-up to which all these kids — her, Tulti, Paakhi, Jhappi — entrust their wellbeing.

‘I believe you, Dada, but it’s me. I can’t do it. I’ve tried, but I messed this up as well. In making an effort finally to notice you all and Didi, I took my eyes off Mira. It seems I can’t do both at the same time. I’ve never been able to, not since ’89. And I know you and Didi’s family could use some help, but do you really want someone this rubbish and one-eyed on your team? Unfortunately for that four-year-old in Wellington, this piece of crap is the only Baba she has—’

‘Abhi, you will go back right away, but it’s not an either/or—’

‘Oh, but it is. You’re mistaking me for some other Abhi, a truly fearless, superhuman Abhi with a third eye and a dozen arms who can straddle a continent and two oceans. This Abhi can barely be a father and a writer at the same time, let alone trying to find his Didi. But this pathetic Abhi is all that little Mira has, the Mira I simply forgot about and decided to take for granted, so obsessed was I by the chance to close the gaps in my own story. I said, darling daughter, I have accumulated a lot of unused vacation time, so I’m just going to put you, your feelings and every expectation that I have hitherto created of normal, loving behaviour on pause for a couple of months and go and sort out this other little thing, which of course should take no more than a long weekend. What was I thinking, Dada? Of course it’s not you. If anything I am truly our father’s son, which is my only shameless defence. You and Didi had Thamma as a role model, who was all about holding the family together, and so you’re able to carry on what you grew up with. I only had Baba, who I know is your hero, but who forgot about anyone as soon as they were out of sight, including his own son and daughter.’

‘Abhi, tomorrow morning we’ll set off for Ranchi airport. There’s an Indigo flight to Calcutta just after one. I’ll drive you—’

‘No, I want to leave now. I have to be in Wellington by Saturday.’

‘Yes, sure, we can book the flight online and also try and change your international ticket right away, but—’

‘I’m going to book the flight and leave. In any case, I’m not returning to Calcutta. I don’t want to see Ma right now. There will be flights to Delhi tonight, right? That will give me more options for Bangkok or Singapore, or even KL. I have my passport with me. Can you order a car? I’ll make something up for Ma after I’ve got a flight.’

Dada let go of my arms when I tried to get up.

‘OK, go to Delhi, but by leaving tomorrow you can have a guaranteed journey all the way to New Zealand, and also see Praveen, who I’m pretty sure will be home tonight—’

I had started gathering things of mine that were lying around in the living room, but at this I had to laugh.

‘Do you really think that still matters, whether I meet this drunkard or not? Do you think if I see him I’ll be able to resist smashing his face? If he’d come along like a normal person yesterday or the day before, I might not have had this dreadful idea of staying an extra week.’

‘Abhayda,’ Moushumi spoke, ‘you must remember what Lena has said, that the sprain will fully heal. She’ll be absolutely back to normal.’

Now that I’d taken the first step, there was in fact much more I had to urgently say about their collective blind spot regarding Praveen, the appallingly neglectful parenting I had witnessed even before I’d met the man, and more than anything, his overwhelming share of blame for Didi’s disappearance. Who was this person they were all trying so hard to include and engage, the very man Didi wanted to be rid of forever? There were so many home truths — glaring, at least to me — that I wanted to leave them thinking about. Couldn’t Dada and Moushumi formally adopt at least Paakhi? They pretty much looked after her full-time anyway. Maybe tossing Praveen overboard, rather than this policy of appeasement for the sake of the children, was one key to bringing Didi back.

Moushumi moved her chair back to the dining table, and Dada went to their bedroom to switch on the desktop. We had to book a Delhi flight, and have me off to Ranchi airport either in a hire car or with Yakub within the next hour. Which meant right now was the moment to say my piece on Praveen, even if I’d never met him. But what doubt could there be? He’d caused my sister so much misery that she chose to leave even her children behind. And now he drank, with no regard for his responsibility to Paakhi. Jhappi seemed to have shut him out altogether, living as though both his parents were absent.

It often takes an outsider to make you see the obvious. This was another necessary role I had come all this way to play, for Paakhi above all.

I was ready with my verdict, on the one bad egg they needed to ditch. This guy needed dumping, not carrying. And the time to state this was now, with both Moushumi and Dada in the house, but Paakhi and Tulti due back any minute.

And then these were the words that came out, once Dada returned to the living room.

‘Thank you for reminding me, Moushumi. That’s what I’m going to hold onto for the whole of this endless journey. And I am sorry for abusing Praveen. I take that back. What I’m actually lamenting is my own incompetence. What you have collectively created here is full of love and acceptance, of people and realities as they are; in fact, it’s the very image of relationships and family that Lena and I would like Mira to have. And the tragedy is that were it not for my blindness and laziness and fear and guilt, the three of us and maybe even Ma could have been part of your world for years now. But — and this is where my incredible uselessness reaches its peak — I acted on this long-overdue realisation in the worst possible way. I explained nothing to Mira before disappearing so abruptly, and I showed up here hoping to connect and understand and clear up the mystery about Didi in four days flat. Well, as you can see, I have overachieved rather brilliantly on all fronts—’

‘Abhi, shut up and listen. Shut up. Not another word until I have finished. I know you will return. You’re an amazing dad, which I have seen with my own eyes, which is exactly why Mira’s missed you so much, and you’ll go home and make sure she’s all right, and Lena too, and tell them both how much they belong here, and when the time’s right for you, you will all return and we’ll be waiting to welcome you. And I’ll tell you another thing I’ll do. There are a couple of people in that sadhu’s ashram whom I’ve met and stay in touch with, who manage to get my messages through to Didi even when she is far away and out of reach, and I’m going to let her know that I saw you and that you were here, and so now we are literally all of us waiting for her, the one absent person in the family. Everyone else has come together, and we’re waiting. Let’s see if that has any effect.

‘And you enabled that. Without you visiting, without Jhappi and Paakhi themselves meeting you and being able to confirm what kind of uncle they had, could I have truthfully made this claim to Didi? I know you and I, and perhaps Jhappi, will still have to go in search of her. But for now, if this message reaches her, at least she will know this has happened. Maybe it will mean something.’

As I hugged my brother, it came to me in these very words that Mira, so used to being the centre of attention, had jumped ‘to regain her visibility’.

And that I could play around with any combination of those words — visibility, invisible, Didi — all the way back to New Zealand, and I’d still for now understand nothing about my sister.