Four

The next morning the doorbell rang at five minutes to nine and Mr Ali went to answer it. Mr Reddy, long hair combed over from the side to cover the bald centre of his head, was standing there. He had become a client just a few days before and Mr Ali was surprised to see him.

He opened the door and let the man in. “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked. “We don’t have any more matches other than what we have already given you.”

Mr Reddy sat down and took out the envelope that Aruna had given him when he had joined. He slid the lists out from the cover and turned to Mr Ali.

“I have seen a match that I am very interested in,” he said.

“Oh, good,” said Mr Ali. “Have you contacted them?”

“No. I was hoping that you could call and talk to them.”

Mr Ali nodded. He wasn’t too happy about it because there was nothing really that he could add by being in the middle, but some clients preferred it that way and it was part of the service. He took the list from Mr Reddy and looked at the entry halfway down the paper, circled in red ink. According to the details, the people were Kapus too and well off. The groom was an electrical engineer who worked for a power generation company just outside Chennai.

Mr Ali picked up the phone and dialled. After the introductions, Mr Ali said into the handset, “I have a match for your son. The girl’s father is here with me. He works in the Port Trust as an accountant.”

The man was interested. “What has the girl studied?” he asked.

“She is a BA,” replied Mr Ali. “Passed in first class.”

“That’s very good. But my son is living far away from all of us and we want a girl who is not just educated but can also run his house. We don’t want a career-minded girl.”

“Sudha is very good that way, sir,” said Mr Ali. “Her mother passed away three years ago and she has been looking after her father’s household while also studying.”

“Really? Sounds like a good match, indeed.”

Mr Ali passed the phone to Mr Reddy. Aruna walked in just then and greeted them. Mr Ali smiled at her. She put her handbag under the table and sat down.

Mr Ali showed Aruna the marked-up entry on the list and she nodded. She turned to the wooden wardrobe and looked through the files until she found the photograph and handed it to Mr Ali. The young man was standing in front of the high, wrought-iron gates of the power plant where he worked. There were ganneru trees in bloom by the side of the gates, with gnarled branches and white flowers. He was smiling in the photo and looked smart in jeans and T-shirt. He was tall and a bit dark. His hair had a stylish wave on one side.

Mr Reddy got off the phone and Mr Ali handed him the photograph. He seemed impressed.

“That went very well, sir. They seem like a good family, very similar to ours. And he looks quite handsome in this photo.”

“Fantastic,” said Mr Ali. “How have you left it?”

“The boy is coming home next month and they will visit us then.”

“That was a quick result,” said Mr Ali.

“Indeed,” said Mr Reddy. “Thanks very much, sir. We’ve been looking for almost six months and we didn’t find any matches. You were able to help us find somebody in days. Very good service.”

He left shortly, promising to keep them updated on the progress of the match. Gopal, the postman, came in soon after and delivered the morning post. Aruna started going through the letters and divided them into piles – people asking for information about advertisements they had seen in the papers, letters asking for new lists, two complaints and even one letter containing a completed application form and a cheque. She showed the cheque to Mr Ali who had been creating new advertisements for sending off to the newspapers.

“Good!” he said. “Please put it in the drawer next to the stationery box.”

This was an old shoebox that Mr Ali had divided into multiple compartments with stiff card, and it contained staples, erasers, ribbons for the typewriter and packets of black and red refills for the ballpoint pens. Aruna put the cheque away and said, “Sir, the typewriter is getting stiff again.”

“Does it need servicing? I’d better call the maintenance man,” Mr Ali said.

“I’ve been thinking…” she said and paused.

Mr Ali looked up at her and raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“I think it’s time to get rid of the typewriter and get ourselves a computer.”

“I don’t know anything about those things,” he said, doubtfully. “And they are expensive, aren’t they?”

“They’ve fallen in price a lot in the last few years and they are not as expensive as you might think. I attended a course for three months in college and they are not difficult to operate.”

Mr Ali was not convinced. “Maybe…”

Aruna added, “Our lists will be much neater. And we’ll probably save money because we can fit more addresses on to each sheet.”

“Do you think so?” said Mr Ali.

Aruna left it at that. She had planted the seed and was happy to let it germinate slowly.

Rehman and a boy came out of the house. Rehman lifted the boy and showed him the wall that Aruna had filled with a collage of letters from clients appreciating their services. There was a photograph in the middle of all the letters and wedding invitations. It showed Rehman with a young couple; the lady was holding a baby in her arms.

“That’s amma and naanna,” shouted the boy in his clear voice. “But who is the baby that my mother is holding?” he continued more softly.

“That’s you, Vasu,” said Rehman, laughing.

Aruna looked up with interest. She knew that the couple were dead. Mr Ali had told her the story when she had first started making the collage of letters and wedding cards on the wall. The couple were classmates who had fallen in love with each other. The girl was a rich merchant’s daughter and he had been extremely angry when she married Vasu’s father. The merchant had disowned her and had not allowed her back in his house even though she had tried to make amends many times. Even the birth of his grandson had not mollified the rich man. After Vasu’s father died in a construction accident and his mother committed suicide, Vasu’s paternal grandfather had taken him to the village and brought him up there. His maternal grandparents had never asked after him.

The boy touched the photograph and turned to Rehman. “How did you know amma and naanna?”

“They were classmates of mine in college,” he said. “They were always smiling and happy people.”

Vasu said, “I can sometimes smell the fragrance of jasmine flowers in amma’s hair, but I don’t really remember the way she or naanna looked. Because they look so serious in the photo we have in our house, I think of them like that.”

“I have some more photos of them from before you were born – like when we went on the educational tour in our third year of college. We’ll get them out and you can see that your parents were such smiley people.”

Vasu nodded. He suddenly seemed down.

Rehman put him down on the floor and turned to walk back into the house. He said, “Don’t you want to see the photos?”

“It’s all my fault, you know.”

Rehman sat down suddenly on the sofa, next to his father. He held Vasu by his shoulders and asked him, “What’s your fault?”

“Everything. Amma and naanna dying. It’s all my fault.” Vasu mumbled these last words, looking down at his feet.

Aruna and Mr Ali stopped their work and looked aghast at the little boy.

“How is it your fault, Vasu?” asked Rehman gently. “Your father’s death was an accident. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I asked naanna for a ball.”

“So?”

“I asked him to get a stripy ball. When the police returned naanna’s bag, there was a ball in it.”

“I don’t understand,” said Rehman.

“If naanna hadn’t gone to buy the ball, he wouldn’t have been in the building when it collapsed. God was punishing me for being greedy.”

Vasu was looking down at the floor and Rehman lifted his chin with a finger until their eyes met. “Vasu, it was not your fault. The building collapsed because the contractor who built it did not mix enough cement in the concrete. Your father was not delayed because he bought the ball for you. He had an appointment to inspect the building at that time. Three other workers died when the roof collapsed. It was just bad luck.”

The boy looked confused. “Are you sure, Rehman Uncle?” he asked.

“Of course, Vasu. I swear on you. It’s not your fault. You should have talked to someone, your thaatha or one of the people in the village, a lot earlier.”

“My grandfather said it was all my fault, too.”

“What?” said Rehman loudly, his hands dropping from the boy’s shoulders. “Did Mr Naidu say it was your fault? I don’t believe that. You must have misunderstood.”

“No, not thaatha – the other one. My mother’s father. He said it was my fault.”

“When did he say that? I thought you never met him.”

“After my father died, amma took me there. That’s when he said it.”

“How do you remember that?” said Rehman. “You were very young when that happened?”

“Do you think I am lying?” said Vasu, trying to pull out of Rehman’s hands.

Rehman held on to the wriggling boy and said, “Of course not. I am just surprised that you remember it, that’s all.”

“I didn’t remember for a long time. Then after the harvest, Sitakka and her husband came to the village. One evening, she came to our house with some food. I was already in bed and everybody thought I was sleeping. Sitakka sat on the edge of my cot, put a hand on my head and told thaatha that she could not understand how any mother could leave a young son and go away. I wanted to shout that my mother was in heaven and still looking after me, but I kept my eyes closed.”

Rehman said, “What did your grandfather say?”

“I remembered some of it as thaatha spoke. The rest, I only found out then.” Vasu’s eyes took on a faraway look that was startling in a boy of his age. “It was a big house. We were stopped at the door in the verandah. Ammamma, mother’s mother, sat on a big, heavy swing. Grandfather stood in front of the door as if we would sneak in. Amma told them that she needed help because naanna was dead – that there were a lot of debts outstanding.

“My mothers father said, you broke all ties with this house when you married that lower-caste peasant. You will not get a counterfeit tuppenny from me. I remember a young man coming out of the house and asking my grandfather to forget the past, but both the old people just asked him to shut up and go back inside.”

Rehman nodded. Vasu’s uncle had been just a teenager and he had been inconsolable at his sister’s funeral – the only one of her family who had turned up. Rehman heard that, shortly after, he left home and went off to America to study. One of Rehman’s classmates who was doing his PhD in the same university had told Rehman that the boy was working as a waiter in a fast-food restaurant during weekday evenings and at a garage pumping petrol at weekends so that he did not have to ask for money from his parents.

Vasu continued, “They asked amma to leave. We don’t want you or your inauspicious brat’s face darkening our door again, my mother’s mother said. At these words, amma got really angry. You can say what you want to me, but don’t utter a word against my son, she said. You have no right. My grandfather said, we know why you had to marry that peasant. This bastard was born less than eight months after. You have brought enough ill repute on this house. Get out and don’t come back again. My mother hugged me tight and started crying.”

“Your mother was a devi – a goddess, a virtuous woman,” said Rehman in a gruff voice. “You were born very premature. That taunt must have hurt her a lot.”

“I don’t understand how it matters when I was born,” said Vasu.

“You’ll know when you are older,” said Rehman, shaking his head. He had to struggle to control himself from showing the rage that he felt towards Lalitha’s unknown parents. “Your grandparents were very cruel.”

“Thaatha said that, as we were leaving, my maternal grandfather shouted, you brat, it’s all your fault. By coming into this world, you destroyed my family’s good name. And it was to pay for you that your parents took on so much debt that your father worked double duties and killed himself. You are like a crow – a dark, raucous bringer of bad news.” Vasu started crying and Rehman held him close. After a few moments, Vasu pulled back and looked Rehman in the eye. “Is it true? Was it to pay for me that naanna died?”

Rehman closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again. “You were born early, very small and weak. You had to stay in hospital for a long time and it cost a lot of money.”

Vasu pulled out of Rehman’s grasp and turned away. “It’s true,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “My father died because of me.”

Rehman caught him and pulled him back. “That’s where you are wrong. Your parents happily took on the loans to save you. They loved you – you were the moon in their lives. Your father could easily have earned double or triple the money by working for a big company or a contractor. Instead, he chose to work on projects that helped poor people. That was his choice. He didn’t have to go to the building that collapsed. Nobody was paying him to inspect it. He heard rumours that the construction was shoddy and he went there to gather evidence for the municipality. He died doing what he believed in – what he loved. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not your fault. If anybody is at fault, it is the greedy builder who put profits above safety.”

Rehman hugged Vasu and said, “Your parents were both great friends of mine and wonderful people. I can only say that I am sorry that you knew them for such a short time. Don’t blame yourself for their deaths. They loved you and would not want you ever to think like that.”

“If my mother loved me so much, why did she leave me?” said Vasu.

Out of the mouths of babes, thought Aruna. The boy had asked the one question that had troubled her since she had heard about the incident. How could a mother abandon her young child?

Rehman took a deep breath. “Your mother was very disturbed and depressed at that time. She didn’t think she could provide a good life for you on her own. I had long talks with her in those days but I didn’t even imagine what she was planning. If I had, maybe things could have been different…” He paused for a long time, staring into the distance. He then looked again at the young boy. “Your mother genuinely believed that, once she was gone, her family would take you in and bring you up. She thought that you could then have the same kind of childhood that she had when she was growing up – nice toys, good education, big house, no money worries. She wanted a bright future for you. How was she to know how hard-hearted people can be?”

♦

It was an hour past noon and Aruna was waiting for the driver to come and take her home for lunch. She had packed away the files and stacked the letters neatly. She rearranged the pens in the tall, narrow biscuit tin, even though she had just done it once less than five minutes ago. Peter, the driver, was normally very prompt. In fact, he usually came just before twelve-thirty and waited for her. She wondered what was keeping him today.

Mr Ali came out and almost closed the iron-grille gate to the verandah that served as the office before he noticed her.

“What are you still doing here, Aruna?” he asked. “I thought you had already gone.”

“The driver hasn’t come yet, sir.”

“Why don’t you call home and find out?” he said.

“Nobody is answering, sir. The phone might be dead.” It was quite common for land phones to go dead during the monsoon season but it was not so common in winter.

Mr Ali said, “Have lunch with us. We have beans-fry with coconut. Also, tarka dhal – a vegetarian menu today.”

“No, that’s all right, sir. I’m sure the driver will be coming soon.”

“All right,” he said. “Let me know when you are leaving.”

He went back inside. Aruna looked at the dainty watch on her wrist with a tiny diamond just above the six on the dial and frowned. It really was getting late and she was hungry. She didn’t feel like starting any task, in case she was interrupted. Her thoughts moved from the morning’s conversation between Rehman and the boy to her own famished stomach.

In the tiny garden she saw a butterfly with plain cream-coloured wings flying erratically from an orange kanakaambaram flower on a small plant near the ground to a guava blossom higher up on the tree. A man who owns a house sleeps in only one bedroom, but the homeless man sleeps anywhere he fancies, Mr Ali had told her once, and she remembered the saying now. Before she got married, she didn’t have a car to ferry her around and she would have just left and walked down to her parents’ house. Now, she had to wait.

Ten minutes later, she saw the car pull up. She picked up her handbag, called out to Mr Ali and rushed out before Peter, the driver, got out with his dicky leg.

“Sorry, chinnamma,” he said, waiting for her to close the door and pulling out into the road. “Mani madam asked me to pick up a bottle of medicine for her son just as I was leaving to get you.”

“Oh! Is Sanjay all right?” she asked.

“Yes, chinnamma. He was watching TV when I left.”

The car turned on to the highway. There was hardly any traffic at this time of day. They left the highway at the TB Hospital junction. As the car jolted its way slowly past Spencer’s supermarket, where the road had been dug up months ago and not filled up properly, a wailing siren came from behind them. Peter gave way and an ambulance with a big 108 printed on its side moved past.

“People are driving more carelessly since 108 started,” said Peter.

Government hospitals usually had one or two ambulances but normally they were used to ferry senior hospital officials and their wives around town, and were not generally available for public use. A foundation run by a software company had recently started an ambulance service that anybody could access by dialling the three-digit number.

“Before there were ambulances, people used to drive carefully, but now they are fearless. They have started thinking that if there is an accident, an ambulance will come and take them to a hospital to be patched up.”

Aruna laughed. “I don’t think people think about ambulances when they are driving,” she said. “Where do they take the patients?”

“If the patient tells them the name of a hospital, they take them there, chinnamma. Otherwise, to the nearest hospital that takes emergency cases. And it is not just for accidents – heart attacks, deliveries, anything urgent.”

“Good,” said Aruna. She wanted to get home and eat lunch. She wished they had a siren on their car, so they could go past all the other traffic. They slowly climbed up the slope towards the university and then went faster downhill towards the sea before they reached home.

Aruna went quickly inside to find Sanjay slumped on a sofa watching television.

“How are you?” she said, patting the boy on the head.

“Fine,” he grunted, not taking his eyes off the screen in front of him.

“Did you take your medicine?” she asked, putting her handbag down on a side cabinet.

“No,” he said.

Aruna washed her hands in the dining-room sink and sat down at the dining table. She lifted the upturned plate that covered a bowl and set it before herself. The bowl contained steamed rice.

She removed smaller side-plates covering three other dishes. Her mouth watered at the sight of the stuffed brinjal curry, sauteed cabbage with mustard seeds and dried chillies, and the drumstick sambhar. Before she had eaten a couple of mouthfuls, Kaka came in with a freshly fried poppadom and vadiyams, sun-dried rice flour and pumpkin crisps. She smiled at him. He went back into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of home-made yoghurt.

“Have amma and naanna eaten?” she asked him.

“Yes, chinnamma. They all ate about half an hour ago. Babu did not come home,” he said.

She nodded. Her husband had told her in the morning that they were taking a retired senior doctor from the hospital to lunch.

She started with rice and the stuffed brinjals and ended the meal with curd rice and spicy mango pickle. As she finished, Kaka came in again to clear the table and she went into the living room. This room had windows on two sides and was lighter than the dining room. Aruna loved looking out of the side window at the dark-green, glossy foliage of ferns, the dusty leaves of a climbing jasmine, pots of sweet marjoram, and a ground-cover plant with little pink flowers that looked like roses and succulent leaves. Sanjay was still watching the television and Aruna sat down beside him on the sofa.

“Do you want to come outside and walk in the garden with me?” she asked.

“No, watching cartoons.”

“You’ve been watching TV for a long time now. Take a rest.”

Just then Mani and her mother came in. Mani’s stomach stuck out in front of her and she walked a little bit like a duck, rolling her hips.

“Namaste,” Aruna greeted her mother-in-law. She smiled and nodded to her sister-in-law.

“Aruna attha doesn’t want me to watch cartoons,” said the boy to his mother.

Mani looked at Aruna accusingly. Unaccountably, Aruna felt guilty. “I didn’t…” she began.

“You did too,” interrupted Sanjay.

She took a deep breath but before she could say anything, her mother-in-law said, “What’s wrong if your aunt tells you to stop watching television? You’ve glued your eyelids open, staring at the screen all morning.”

“What’s wrong with Sanjay?” asked Aruna. “Peter told me that he had to get medicine.”

“I thought he had a temperature,” said Mani. “But I’ll wait until the evening before giving him the medicine.”

Then why did you ask Peter to get the medicine just when it was time to pick me up, thought Aruna, her face flushing.

Mani looked at her coolly. “Yes?”

Aruna couldn’t answer her. She felt frustrated at her own inadequacy. Her sister-in-law was the one who was acting mean, so why did she feel petty to ask her about it? Aruna shook her head and went to her room. She would lie down for a couple of hours before going back to the office. An incipient headache was bubbling up.

♦

Aruna’s day had gone from bad to worse. It was six in the evening that same day and her temples now throbbed dully. She had made several mistakes in typing a list of Brahmin brides – a twenty-six-year-old had been aged to a sixty-two-year-old; a girl from a village who wanted to marry a boy from a city had been turned into a girl from a city who wanted to marry a village boy; and a career woman on a good salary became a career woman with no good salary. Mr Ali had come the closest he ever had to criticising her. She told him she had a headache and he had appeared a bit flustered.

“If you need to, why don’t you take tomorrow off as well?” he suggested.

“No need, sir. I will be fine by tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I will be all right.”

He had nodded, looking unconvinced, and she had been puzzled by the conversation. A few minutes later, she realised that he must have thought she was using a euphemism for a period when she said she had a headache. That embarrassed her even more, especially as she couldn’t really correct him.

A large group of people came in. Five of them squeezed on to the sofas and chairs and two others remained standing up. Aruna and Mr Ali looked at each other in surprise.

Mr Ali turned to the gentleman sitting nearest to him and asked, “How can we help you, sir?”

The gentleman, who seemed to be in his late forties or early fifties, had a large, dark spot that ran across his left cheek and into his scalp. The spot looked rather like a map of India, thought Aruna, starting broad at the top and tapering to an inverted triangle at the bottom; Vizag would be about the bottom of his ear.

“My name is Hasan,” said the gentleman. He pointed to the lady sitting next to him. “This is my missus, Khalida.”

She bobbed her head. The introductions continued. “Hussein, brother…Mr Rizwan, uncle…Bilqis, sister…Mr Ahmed, wife’s uncle…Haroun, son.”

Aruna’s head whirled, trying to remember so many names.

Mr Ali said to Mr Hasan, “Who is the bride or groom?”

“My daughter, Sania,” said Mr Hasan.

“Where is she?” asked Mr Ali. “Didn’t you bring her too?”

“We thought about it,” his wife Khalida said. “But there wasn’t room in the car.”

Aruna wondered how even the seven of them had fitted into a car. There were all fairly slim but, even then, it must have been quite cosy.

“Do you wish to become a member and register Sania’s details?” Mr Ali asked. He turned to Aruna, who handed him a prospectus and an application form. Mr Ali passed the papers and a pen to Mr Hasan. “Please read through and fill in the form.”

The whole family crowded round as Mr Hasan started reading the prospectus.

Mr Ali asked, “By the way, how did you find out about us?”

One of the uncles looked up and said, “The imam in our mosque told us about you.”

“Which mosque do you go to? I didn’t think any mosque leader knew about us enough to recommend us.”

“New Colony mosque,” said the gentleman. “You helped one of his parishioners who didn’t have a father find a very good match. The boy’s name was Irshad.”

“Oh, Irshad!” said Mr Ali. “My wife and I went to his wedding. In fact, I was one of the two official witnesses at the Nikah.”

Aruna smiled and said, “Yes, that was a difficult case but sir did a very good job. Irshad and his wife still visit us every few months on festivals and holidays.”

Mr Hasan started filling up the form. After some time, his wife said, “What do you mean, up to thirty-five years? Sania is only twenty-three. We don’t want a son-in-law who is twelve years older than our daughter.”

“OK,” said Mr Hasan and scratched out something in the form.

A couple of minutes later, the uncle who had told Mr Ali about Irshad stopped Mr Hasan and said, “Mention that we are not interested in Muslims from Hyderabad.”

“OK,” said Mr Hasan and continued filling in the form.

His sister, Bilqis, then said, “We want somebody from a religious family. Make sure that you write about it. The groom must be a man who goes to the mosque at least every Friday, if not more often.”

After Mr Hasan completed the form, his son Haroun took it from him and quickly read through it. “Abba, we have already talked about this. The groom must be an engineer, preferably in software. You didn’t write about this here.”

Mr Ali took the form and the fee, while Aruna put the list of Muslim grooms in an envelope and handed it to Mr Hasan. The family departed.

Aruna clipped the form into the new members’ list.

Mr Ali shook his head and said, “This is not going to be an easy case.”