Broken-hearted, Kamal took three months’ unpaid leave and went to stay with Swami Naadiyaananda in his Himalayan retreat. There, in the serenity and stillness of nature, living in a hut beside a rushing brook, his desolation melted and he found the strength to carry on; a different man, more silent, less gregarious than before.
For the last two weeks of his leave he travelled down to Tamil Nadu to visit Asha. She was all he had left; he would now build his world around her. Take her up to Uttarkund with him, find a home for the two of them, a carer for her during his working hours.
But she did not know him, did not want to know him. She stood there with her hands behind her back, shrinking away from his open arms, crying when he hugged her, resisting Sundari’s gentle coaxing: ‘Go to Daddy, Asha, go to Daddy like a good girl!’ But Asha wasn’t a good girl; she obviously didn’t care for him.
‘You see how she is wary of you,’ Sundari said, taking the child into her arms and handing her a bottle of water. ‘That is normal at this age; to her you are a stranger. The first three years are most crucial in the life of a child. A child needs stability. Familiar faces. A steady home. You cannot just tear a child from one home and put it in another. That would be most selfish. And apart from that, what do you know about small children? What is your experience with them?’
Kamal rubbed his temples tiredly. He had asked himself this question several times in the last two days. So Sundari answered for him.
‘Nothing whatsoever. And anyway, you are at work all day so you would be obliged to give her into strange hands. You would pay someone to keep your daughter! Why go to all that trouble when she has a good home here already?’
‘Sundari, I’ve thought of all this myself. I’ve asked myself if it wouldn’t be better to leave her here, with you—’
‘Better? Of course it’s better. How could there be any other alternative? I love this child as much as any of my own children. Janiki adores her. You must see that.’
‘But just until my contract runs out. Then I’ll move here and try to get to know her, and be a proper father.’
‘Still the child will need a mother. You realise that, don’t you?’
Kamal nodded. ‘I know I can never be father and mother to her.’
‘So you will have to marry again, once Caroline and you are divorced. Very quickly.’
Kamal shook his head vigorously. ‘No. I won’t marry again. Caroline was the love of my life. I can never replace her.’
Sundari smiled knowingly. Asha smiled too, gazing up at Sundari and hooking her forefinger into the woman’s bottom lip. She threw her empty bottle to the ground, where it rolled into a corner. Startled by the noise, Asha twisted around in Sundari’s arms, saw the bottle and struggled to be put down. Sundari placed her on the floor and she darted off to retrieve the bottle.
‘Ah, that’s what you say now. However, once the sadness has faded, you will start searching once more – you will try to fill the emptiness.’
Caroline had once laughingly told her the story of how Rani Abishta had tried to find a bride for Kamal. Sundari had not laughed; she had found it rude of Kamal to reject the potential brides, after Kamal’s Daadi had gone to so much trouble; it was her duty, she had told Caroline sternly. It wasn’t a joke. Marriage was an important step; it should not be left to chance meetings. Kamal had been wrong to reject them all out of hand. ‘But then,’ Sundari said, with a smile of reconciliation, ‘he found you and now I have met you and we are such good friends. Everything happens for a reason; even when we make mistakes, the outcome is what had to happen. You and I, we had to meet. And Asha had to be born.’
Sundari had been curious about Rani Abishta, as Kamal himself never mentioned her, never spoke of his childhood. Caroline herself had known little, but what she knew, she had told Sundari.
‘He doesn’t tell me much either,’ Caroline had said. ‘It’s like a taboo subject for him – I’ve no idea why. He just has issues with her, I guess. She’s very possessive, very domineering, I think, and I guess he just wants to assert his independence. He likes to think of himself as an ordinary person, not a prince. He’s so modest. It’s what I love about him.’
‘It is not good to be estranged from family,’ said Sundari sternly. ‘Family is everything. It is the foundation of society. One must respect one’s elders.’
Caroline shrugged. ‘I agree, and I’d love to meet her and go to that palace and meet my grandmother-in-law!’ she said, and, laughing, added: ‘It’s not every American girl gets to go into a real old Indian palace and meet a real old Indian ex-queen! I wish we could have married there. My parents would have adored it – their daughter, a princess!’
‘So Asha is really a princess,’ Sundari said in awe. And from then on she called Asha Little Princess. Now, she said to Kamal:
‘You must start looking for a new bride. A new mother for Asha. Why not ask that grandmother of yours, that woman who thinks she is a queen? I’m sure she would be eager to find a good match for you. Or if you like, I will help. My husband has some excellent connections,
you know. It is always better to have a go-between in these marriage matters.’
Kamal shook his head, held out his open palm as if to repel the very suggestion. ‘No, no, I won’t remarry. I’m certain of that.’
‘How will you look after Asha, then? It’s not as if you have a mother who would take her.’
‘Other men have raised children alone.’
‘Maybe in those foreign countries. Not here, not in India. Perhaps when she is older, but as long as she is young she should stay with us. Here she has two mothers, Janiki and me. We’ll be happy to have her. In fact, Janiki would be heartbroken if you took Asha away. She already feels all the love of a mother for her, even though she is so young. We would both be so very happy. And Asha too.’
Asha, meanwhile, had clenched the rubber teat expertly between four tiny teeth and, the bottle swinging gaily before her, returned to Sundari’s feet where she pulled herself upright and made the appropriate noises. Sundari bent over and picked her up. Asha pulled the palu of Sundari’s sari over her face and tried to engage her in a game of hide-and-seek. She ignored Kamal completely.
Kamal felt despair wash over him like a cold and final wave. All the peace he had gained in the mountains fled him; once again his soul reeled at the thought of Caroline’s betrayal; he felt incapable of making a single decision. He wanted Caroline! He ached for her. Where she had been there was a huge black gaping hole inside him, and he stood precariously at its edge, tottering, tottering, bracing himself against a fall. It was the thought of Asha that held him back.
He looked at the child in Sundari’s arms in despair; Asha was now twirling a curl of her thick mop of silky hair around a fat finger, gazing up adoringly at the woman she called Amma.
She will never call me Daddy, Kamal thought, even though I can love her enough for that love to fill the emptiness in me. She is all I have in the world, now. But where do I begin? What can I do? To provide for her is my greatest duty. But she must be cared for, mothered. I cannot do both. To take her away would be heartless, egoistic; it would be serving my own purpose, using her. She is happiest here. Caroline and Sundari are right – her happiness must come first. I must love her enough to lose her. True love is letting go. I can love her as well from a distance as by her side, with a love not bound by time or space.
Two days later Kamal left Gingee. Reconciled to Asha’s place as a daughter of the Iyengar household, he went back to work a week earlier than planned, after making arrangements with the Iyengars for the continued payments for Asha’s maintenance. He plunged into his work, and that became the focus of his life. A few years later he found an extremely lucrative position in Dubai, bringing water to the desert. He would save every penny for when Asha grew up and became an independent woman. He lived a quiet life. He was an introvert, a recluse, doing his job well but with no social life to speak of.
He was doing it all for Asha. He would save up for her, so that one day the world would be open to her. And so the years flipped past, turning like the pages of a book.