Chapter 5: Jab We Met, Part 3

When the home phone rang, Kavita waited for Ammaji to get it. Ammaji could be ferocious with the tele-marketers. But she was back in the kitchen.

She smiled at the sound of the familiar voice. "Finally."

"Like you call me ten times a day," Nandita retorted. Her speech was like a Ferrari on a racing track.

They had continued to be the best of friends, their fondness for each other surviving their relationship as sisters-in-law.

Nandita had married a year after Sameer and Kavita. Kulvinder owned a small hosiery manufacturing unit near Ludhiana. They were a quintessential Punjabi family, if there was one. Nandita had counted four Sweetys, three Pinkys and five Dollys in the extended family besides a handful of Tonys and Happys. No meal was complete without some homemade white butter and no festive occasion without some crazy dancing. But there was an energy about them Kavita sometimes envied, a commitment to enjoying the moment.

"Khaana ban gaya. Thought will check on you," Nandita said.

"Let me guess dal makhni or butter chicken?" Kavita dragged the phone to the dining table, pulled a chair and sat down.

"Oye chal, vadi Delhite," Nandita laughed.

A little later, Kavita asked, "Do you miss the old times?"

"Of course. College days. First day first show of Dil, kulche chole in Sector nine, passing notes in Saxena's class. Fun times," she rattled off.

"Does getting old bother you?" Kavita's eyes caught her image in the glass of the dining table.

"It's all about how you feel. I still feel twenty-five," Nandita laughed.

"Are you alright?" Nandita asked.

Kavita thought for a moment before responding, "I don't know. Sometimes I feel life has passed me by. All the years gone and nothing to show for them."

"Oho ji. Here comes a major mid-life crisis."

Kavita smiled.

"Kya hua? A fight with Sameer?"

"We never fight. Maybe that's the problem. To fight you have to talk. We seem to hide from each other."

"Look, I'm not going to defend him. You know I never have. But he was never the one with a lot to say."

Kavita right hand fiddled with her hair. "You seem to know a lot about mid-life crises. You have one too?"

"Nahin ji, you know the motto here. Don't worry, be happy. And I am not talking about Kulvinder's cousin Happy. God forbid, one should be that kind of Happy. Despite all his idiosyncrasies, Kulvinder still brings home the bread and sleeps next to me. The kids may not be geniuses, but are not into drugs. I count my blessings."

"How about love?" She leaned back in the chair.

"Pata nahin ji. Kulvinder doesn't tell me he loves me a dozen times a day. But I have no reason to believe otherwise."

"Very wise ji," said Kavita, mocking Nandita's tone, "You should be a psychiatrist."

They laughed together.

"How's your Dad?" Nandita asked.

"Managing." He was doing better than managing. Kavita's mother had died five years ago of a heart attack. She had never imagined that the poet-shopkeeper, who had never cooked a meal in his life, would be able to live on his own. He had surprised her. Intensifying his involvement with Chandigarh Rajput Sabha (he edited their monthly magazine, 'Rajput Veer' that carried stories about the glorious past of the Rajput warriors), he had survived.

A phone call with Nandita was generally a long drawn affair. First, they talked. Then Nandita with the girls she was especially fond of Tania. Then Kavita with the boys Harmeet and Ishmit. Harmeet was fifteen, Ishmit nine exactly a month younger than Pari. And then it was the boys and the girls. It pleased her to see the kids bonding, carrying on the affinity Nandita and Kavita had forged years ago. One of the family photographs in the living room was of Harmeet and Tania taken on the lawn of Nandita's house in Ludhiana. They are three and four respectively; their clothes are spattered with mud and grass, after having played in the rain. Harmeet's jooda has come untied and his hair is all over his face and little Tania is holding his hair back to ensure his face is visible as they sit posing for the camera, grinning in conspiracy. That day, however, the kids were at school. She enjoyed talking to Nandita without the pressure of time.

Afterwards, she sat on the balcony, soaking in the mild winter sun and watched little kids playing in the park. The shadow of her foot touched the dark reflection of the Hawaiian fan palm on the floor. Ammaji joined her a little later, moving the jar of carrot pickle in the sun, before sitting cross legged on a dari on the floor, shelling peas.

The gloom of the morning had shifted.

Pari ran through the front door and hugged her. Tania followed and went straight into her room. Something had gone wrong.

Pari was her usual chirpy self, "Guess what happened?"

"Obama came to see you?"

"Highest score in class in the maths test!"

"I love you." She hugged Pari.

"I'm awesome. Everyone loves me. Even dogs. Bruno followed me from bus stand to the house." When Pari spoke, her hands did half of the talking.

"Shreya's dog?" Shreya was Pari's friend next door.

"Yes." Her eyes twinkled with amusement. "She had to drag him to her house." Her hands pulled the imagined leash in the air.

"There is something about you. Even dogs can't resist you." She pinched Pari's nose.

She had ambitiously named her Pratishta. Pride. Honor. However, the name never stuck. Everyone called her Pari.

After settling Pari for lunch, she went to Tania's room. She lay on the bed with an arm over her eyes, still in the school uniform. She was expecting her.

Tania didn't look like Kavita at all. She had her dark oval eyes. But that was it. Tania was tall, petite and a shade darker. She almost always wore her hair in a tight pony tail. Beautiful but not soft. She had a hint of Sameer's cleft chin. Even in temperament, she was more like him quick to get angry, quick to regret.

"Hey baby, what's the matter?" Kavita said, drawing apart the curtains and opening the windows of Tania's room. The place needed some airing.

"Nothing."

"Come on. Something is bothering you." She sat on the bed, stroking Tania's hair.

"There's nothing. Besides you can't do anything." She stiffened.

This was going to take a while.

Kavita wondered how Sameer would have reacted in this situation. He would have probably walked away, rationalizing to himself that he had tried. She didn't have that option. She was the mother.

She sat there, stroking her head, waiting, till Tania burst into tears and buried her face in Kavita's lap. Kavita felt Tania's pain. It had been like that since she was a baby. When Tania got hurt, Kavita hurt too.

Slowly, Tania started talking. Shruti, her best friend, hadn't been to school that day and during the lunch hour, she had decided to join Aditi, Ritika and others on their table the popular girls. And they had shunned her. First covertly, talking in whispers and sharing private jokes. But when Tania braved that and tried to join in the conversation, they told her off explicitly.

High school was a cruel place. As Kavita comforted her, she wished for Sameer's presence. They should share these minor pains and disappointments of their children. She didn't want to be burdened by the weight of solving these problems alone. But Sameer hadn't had any time for them for some time now. Work. And whatever little time he had, it had been golf. Work and golf. Golf and work.

She continued placating Tania till she stopped crying. She was the mother and that's what mothers were supposed to do.