Custody (28 page)

So far as the children were concerned, Raman was a better and more magnanimous person than she. He would not stop contact between them, if only because it would be in their best interests.

A week before the final signing Shagun hauled Roohi onto her lap. She loved her little girl so much, but her hands were tied, tied so hard she felt the knots chafing at her skin. She longed to leave this terrible city, go far, far away.

‘Babu?’

The child continued to suck her thumb.

Shagun pulled at her hand. Roohi was too old to be doing this, but she had not worked at stopping her. In all the recent upheavals, let the thumb at least be constant.

‘Roohi? Listen to me.’

Raman’s face looked up at her.

‘Beta – how would you like to spend some time with your father?’

The child looked puzzled. She did see her father. Every weekend.

Shagun rephrased the question. ‘Not like now. Longer. Go to school from there.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Mama has to go away for a bit.’

‘Why?’

‘Some work.’

‘I want to come.’

‘Children are not allowed. Now wouldn’t you like to spend more time with your father? You really like being in that house, don’t you?’

‘No,’ said Roohi and put her thumb back in her mouth.

‘Why?’

Roohi couldn’t say. She looked around quickly into the small history of her life and came up with her brother. ‘Bhaiyya said to look after you. I promised Bhaiyya before he left for school.’

‘Bhaiyya did not know what he was talking about. He was just anxious about leaving. How can a small baby look after a big mother?’

‘I want to come with you.’

‘Beta, your school is here, your friends are here, your grandparents are here. And your Papa will miss you.’

By now Roohi was looking thoroughly alarmed. ‘No, Mama, no.’

Impatiently Shagun gave her a little shake. ‘Beta, where I am going, children are not allowed. How will I take you? The police will send you back, and it will all be your father’s fault.’

At this unexpected information Roohi began to cry. Shagun instantly regretted all she had said, but Roohi could sometimes be slow to understand. ‘Shush, beta, shush, Mama loves you. Don’t worry – I will come back quickly quickly – make a home for my Roohibaba. Everything will be all right, I will find you a wonderful school – don’t worry.’

‘But I want to come with you
nooooow.’

‘Beta, you can’t. Your father has made the court stop it. I will be put in jail if I take you.’

Roohi went on sobbing.

‘Nothing will change. You are still my baby girl. Remember that I love you. Always, always. Now stop, stop this crying. Come, let’s see what cartoons are on TV. Let me carry you, my, you are getting such a big, heavy girl – soon Mama won’t be able to lift you. Come. Come.’

Shagun carried her to the drawing room and settled down in front of the TV. She hoped that the child would be in a better mood by the time Ashok came home. Though he never complained, the sound of children’s programmes gave him a headache and Shagun tried to protect him from the noise.

It was raining a few days later, an unseasonable late September rain, when Raman came to pick up Roohi from her grandmother’s house. Unlike other times there was no Shagun standing theatrically at the entrance. When his daughter emerged it was with the grandmother struggling under an umbrella, clutching a suitcase, with a school bag slung from her shoulder. In the transaction involving the child, the suitcase and the school bag, no look was exchanged, not a word uttered. The door slammed, the car reversed and sped out of the central parking lot, while the grandmother stood, holding the hem of her sari up with one hand, watching her grandchild go. Once the car was out of sight she turned and walked heavily back to her apartment where her daughter was waiting.

Did he say anything? Did Roohi cry? Did she go willingly? No, no, yes.

For the rest of the day Shagun remained sunk in apathy. It would take time to get used to her new status as part-time mother. Once they were in their own apartment in New York she would regain her equilibrium. Ashok had said they would find one overlooking Central Park. Just the name was enough to distract her. The real Central Park, not the falsely named builders’ creation in Gurgaon.

Yes, she couldn’t wait to start her new life. They would keep house together, they would have no servants, they would do everything by themselves, just the two of them, laying the blocks of a happy, successful union.

A week later Raman and Shagun were divorced. Thirty days had to pass before either was free to marry.

Great was the relief in the Kaushik household. At last their son was out of the clutches of that woman. Raman had been generous, very generous, he had not made his wife suffer, nor had he punished her by refusing a divorce. Such men were rewarded in lifetimes to come.

As for the jewellery, Shagun herself offered it, bringing it to court in a little attaché case: ‘Please keep this for Roohi.’

Clearly, thought Raman, she wanted nothing from him – nothing except her freedom. Not a shred, not a pin, not a rupee would she keep of their former life.

It would be prudent to forget her existence as quickly as possible. From now on he would devote himself to his children.

*

Thirty-one days later Shagun returned to Tees Hazari, this time to sign the marriage register. She had sacrificed so much for this love of hers, she felt like the Heer of Heer-Ranjha, the Laila of Laila-Majnu. Only their love was not doomed, it was going to flourish. Neither Ranjha nor Majnu had had the canniness and sagacity of Ashok Khanna. Everything he touched succeeded, every step he took was imbued with thought and purpose.

She felt guilty about Raman, but she had made all the amends she could. He could hold no grudge against her, nor blame her for any misfortune. She had returned the jewellery he had not asked for. She had given him the children.

It was one in the morning, foggy outside, with rain splattering against the windshield when Mrs Sabharwal accompanied her new son-in-law and daughter to the airport.

Ashok had expressed some inadvertent astonishment at the requirement that they spend their last night in India at his mother-in-law’s place. ‘Please, darling,’ said Shagun, ‘she is very upset we are going. She really wants to come and drop us.’

‘Why is she so upset? You know she is always welcome wherever we are.’

‘She says she will wait and see how things go before she visits.’

‘All right,’ said Ashok, not quite aware of the dimensions of Mrs Sabharwal’s loneliness, nor intuitive enough to suggest alternative solutions.

To herself Shagun wondered at the difference another marriage could bring. Had she been going to New York with Raman she knew he would have spent hours with her mother, convincing her to stay with them.

Now they were driving slowly, negotiating the fog that had suddenly thickened as they left the more built-up areas of the city. Ashok, sitting in front, looked impatiently at his watch. There is plenty of time, darling, murmured his wife from the back seat, her hand in her mother’s.

They reached Indira Gandhi International Airport, their car inching along with others up the ramp. In front of the long entranceway they stopped abreast two other vehicles, adding to the chaos. Ashok jumped out and darted towards a free cart, the driver pulled the suitcases from the dickey, and there stood husband and wife in the line inching towards their designated door. Mrs Sabharwal was stopped at the barricade, passengers only from this point. With a last hug, a last kiss, I will phone you, Mama, take care, and Shagun disappeared inside. Mrs Sabharwal remained some few moments standing next to the guards as she watched her daughter exit in pursuit of happiness.

XXIII

‘Such good news,’ said Mrs Rajora, beaming with excitement from news so good that even the difficult child would rejoice.

‘What is it?’ asked the difficult child, sitting in the veranda looking at the strings of coloured lights that decorated the balconies of the buildings around them. Down below children were letting off firecrackers. It was Diwali and Ishita had just delivered a box of sweets to Mrs Hingorani. Now all she wanted was to be left alone, prey to an unaccountable depression.

‘Raman is divorced!’

Raman?

Mrs Kaushik had revealed this when Mrs Rajora had gone to give her some Diwali dry fruit. Seeing her friend looking so sad, Mrs Rajora had scolded her for keeping secrets. Privacy and discretion were all very well, but a friend’s concern also had to be given value. Why this permanently worried expression? Hadn’t she herself told Leela everything about Ishita as soon as she was asked? Hadn’t she?

Then Leela cried and said it was much worse than anything that had happened to beti Ishu – here there were children involved and the fear that Raman would die.

Ishita listened silently. She remembered the younger Mrs Kaushik by reputation; so fair, such unusual green eyes, so foreign-looking. But living as she did, away from Swarg Nivas, she could not be interested in her mother’s gossipy nuggets. Now she was given a quick recap of those unnoticed years: Raman, so brilliant, all the Mang-oh! sales in the country due to him, marriage always considered so perfect, now look what happened.

A woman with such looks might use her face to travel further than the PPG-emerged Raman, thought Ishita. If she had possessed amazing beauty, she didn’t think SK would have been so keen to leave her. It all boiled down to externals.

‘You can share divorce stories with Auntie now,’ she said.

‘I never share stories about you with anyone.’

‘Well, you should. What happened to me is nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘People are very narrow-minded. They don’t understand how misfortune can come.’

‘Explain it then. Tell them I am barren.’

‘I came to give you some good news, and you talk like this about yourself. It hurts me.’

‘But why do you consider this good news? Do you imagine we should get married?’

‘O-ho. It’s just news. Can’t I share it?’

‘Not if you have something else in mind.’

‘Why are you always so negative?’

‘Because I know you always think of one thing.’

‘He is known, he is a neighbour, a man from a decent family, people like us. Perhaps, sometime in the future—’

‘Mummy! When has any proposal ever worked? Don’t you get tired?’

Ishita got up to suffer in her bedroom. Would the search for a husband continue into the adoption process and after? Her father’s attitude was infinitely preferable, whatever has to happen will happen. It led the believer to a comfortable burial behind reams of newspaper and it led to tranquillity in the house.

Mr Rajora meantime discovered his wife in the little veranda, shivering slightly in the growing chilliness of the evening. He sighed. It had to be Ishita. Nothing else could reduce his wife to this state.

‘What is it?’ he asked, his exasperation showing despite the festival day.

‘You know what it is.’

What he had really meant was why does it have to be what it is? ‘Leave her alone. She will find her own way.’

He often asked his wife to leave Ishita alone. But how could she? She was her daughter, they had to do what they could. Sometimes she suspected her husband’s attitude came from a disinclination to be bothered.

Now she gave him the news that should have been so cheering, Raman Kaushik’s divorce.

So this was the information that had sent Ishita flouncing into her room, while the mother sat sadly looking at the winking Diwali lights.

‘Can we have a little halwa-puri now?’ he asked longingly after a while. His wife hurried into the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later Ishita, chomping on her mother’s crisp dal-stuffed puris, could bring herself to mumble, ‘Sorry, Mummy, I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I know you worry about me, but please don’t.’

It was a wonder what communal eating could do.

Even if Ishita refused to take the news of Raman’s divorce in the proper spirit, it continued to be a source of great consolation to Mrs Rajora. Shame and humiliation would touch the Kaushiks; the Rajoras could count on the companionship of similar miseries. Mrs Kaushik, in her turn, was relieved to find someone at her very doorstop who understood her situation. With renewed intensity they rehashed their children’s histories, trying to come to terms with offspring whose lives had fallen against the grain.

‘The boy is too idealistic. We said, why give a divorce?, you have not turned her away, but he didn’t listen.’

‘My girl was like that also. Arre, she was such a good wife, devoted, caring. For her marriage was for life. Life. But the man lost interest, and she refused to stay where she was not wanted. Are there any such nowadays?’

If there were any such, she had not had the pleasure of their acquaintance, thought Mrs Kaushik bitterly. In her son’s ex-wife’s case it was the opposite. More new-fashioned than the latest fashion. Changing husbands with the breeze.

‘To top it all, that boy is now married with two sons, while my daughter refuses to look at a man. And what she does for those street children, bap re. Her heart is as big as the sky.’

‘Has she started her studies yet?’

‘Still applying,’ said Mrs Rajora, suppressing all information about prospective adoption.

Mrs Kaushik looked thoughtful. She hadn’t seen Ishita in a long time, why didn’t Mrs Rajora bring her over? ‘Maybe she can help Raman. All the time he is brooding.’

‘She is too, too shy. When you are divorced, people talk.’

‘These days people get divorced, what is there? Anything can happen to anyone.’

‘I know, but there is no point my saying anything. She doesn’t listen.’

‘Tell her Auntie is calling her. This Sunday. That is when he comes with Roohi. He wants to give the child a sense of family. He has friends of course, but Roo loves Nandan’s twins.’

That Sunday Mrs Rajora told her daughter of the invitation to tea. If she didn’t accept, Mrs Kaushik would personally come and get her.

Ishita took exception to this. ‘What? Why?’