MAYA AND VEER

The season after the monsoon ends in Mumbai—a monsoon that floods the city and leaves it bone dry at the end, so dry there is a water crisis and farmer suicides in the state—Maya and Veer and Janu move into their new apartment. It is in a concrete apartment building in a suburb far north of the city. It is hot, but they do not fight.

But first, they host a gruhpravesh, or traditional Hindu housewarming ceremony, and the invitations are sent out in Veer’s father’s name. On the invite Maya sends out herself, she writes: “Bless us as we enter our new home, the‘happy star.’”

She cannot help giving the new apartment the same name.

In the morning, they do a pooja with a priest in the flat, and at night they host a big dinner. Veer’s family invites Maya’s father to the ceremony, as does Maya, but he does not come. Veer invites many of their friends, including Subal, which surprises Maya, but Subal does not come either. Maya has begun going on her own or with Janu to the local beach now. As they play together by thesea, she lets new memories paper over the old.

Guests at the gruhpravesh tell Maya she should have used Italian marble on the floors. Why spend so much and not show it off? they ask. Instead she has used wood, which feels homey to her. Veer does not care how she decorates the new apartment. But at the tile store, he says he wants to buy tile printed with images of galloping horses for his new study. He announces plans to someday own a fleet of horses, a fleet of airplanes, and a brewery. He makes these plans on a day he is feeling unwell. Maya tells him not to get the tile because it is tacky.

The first night in their new apartment, Maya cannot sleep. It does not feel like home to her. That week, Janu cycles around the flat on a bicycle because it is so big. He says he is bored, because there are no children in the courtyard to play with.

Maya throws herself into the work of decorating the apartment. She finds lovely yellow flowered chairs, pale blue couches, and an old antique clock on a trip to Jaipur, the city where she and Veer were wed. For Janu’s room, she buys astronaut sheets and origami wallpaper. To his collection of toys, she adds the pink fluffy teddy bear she bought Veer after their wedding.

Almost all the furniture is new, but they keep the living and dining room tables from their old apartment. Maya does not try to replace them. “Papa won’t let us give them away,” says Janu, his tone serious, and Maya agrees. The tables are from Veer’s childhood, from time he spent with his mother. Janu has begun eating more meat but knows not to ask for meat in their new home.

In the guest room, Maya installs bookshelves against the wall, which contain books she has bought, or that were given to her by Subal, or collected from places she doesn’t remember. Among them is Sacred Games, the book she bought with Veer that Sunday he came to Crossword. She also hangs the painting of Radha and Krishna in the guest room and thinks that she might sleep in there sometimes.

After a few months in the new house, Maya decides to go to a session of past-life regression therapy. She wants an answer to why she moved into the new flat, even though it was an opportunity to leave Veer. Even though he is feeling better from the diabetes. And even though there are other men more suited—men who tell her how much they love her. She feels that her past must contain the answer.

The session lasts four or five hours, and in this time Maya is taken through her past lives, each of which feels like a dream. In one, she sees that she was a hippie who died in a road accident. In another, she was a Buddhist monk child. Janu also appears in several of her lives—twice or three times as her son and once as her father. The therapist tells Maya, “Janu is the one guiding your soul from birth to birth.” This does not surprise Maya. She does not get an answer about why she cannot leave Veer.

At home, Veer’s health has improved. He even puts on a little weight, but not too much. His pants fit him just right. He works hard, like he always has, traveling between his factories and family offices and to Africa. He does not repeat his big plans about horses and airplanes. He begins coming home early, in time to help Maya put Janu to bed.

Veer is doing better in part because their new maid cooks him the mostly vegan diet he needs. They have a new maid despite the fact that Maya tried to convince Pallavi to move homes with them. She even took Pallavi to meet a broker and look at shanties nearby. Pallavi initially told Maya she would move with them, but in the end she said she couldn’t leave her husband. When she said this, Maya thought of Pallavi’s two small sons, who showed up that day looking for her, anxiety on their faces. She also thought of Janu.

Around this time, Janu tells Maya that in school he has learned about Santa Claus, whom he sees as a kind of miracle. “Santa Claus, you know what he will do?” Janu tells his mother one day in a rickshaw, his voice earnest. He watches her face to make sure she is listening. “He will make one snow globe and inside will be me, and you, and Papa also, and when he shakes it all of Bombay will be covered in snow.”

“Haan, beta,” Maya says, and ruffles his hair.

After Janu tells her this, Maya does not push the matter with Pallavi. She understands why she does not leave.