Nobody's Child

Prologue

‘Finish her. I want her gone. Forever.’

‘I need her alive. She’s of no use to me dead. She needs to live.’

‘Please! Please let me go. Somebody help me! PLEASE! I can’t live like this. Please let me die.’

‘I promise I will not die. I will live, and I will live by your rules. Please let him go. Don’t kill him.’

‘I’m nobody’s child. No one wants me.’

One

Avniel. NOW.

2018

You’re paying for this.

It’s almost 1 a.m. when I see the message.

It makes no sense, and my brain is already dead after ten hours of staring at the computer screen.

I stretch my stiff limbs and yawn. It must have rained while I was shut inside the windowless office. The ground feels soft and wet. There’s moisture in the air. Something is rotting nearby. I regret taking a deep breath. Must be domestic garbage or refuse from the nearby shops. Intermittent rain and heat has caused the rot, hence the putrid smell.

Bloody monsoons! The romance of rain is lost on me. Mumbai becomes an open gutter, an overflowing, rotting gutter, when it rains.

I walk around to relieve the stiffness; it hurts. My left knee and ankle beg to be massaged, reminding me that I haven’t been exercising as per the doctor’s suggestion. I walk around some more, extend my legs and flex them, and then rotate my ankles. I need to get mobility back in my joints. I also need to lose weight. My trousers have started to feel tight at the waist.

I crave for a smoke and some proper home-cooked food. Priya isn’t much of a cook and I’m too busy. Meals are hastily ordered on Swiggy and delivered in disposable plastic containers. Editing thirty hours of recordings to make a spectacular thirty-minute reel for the BBC is all I have the bandwidth for. I can’t and don’t want to think about anything else.

I look at the other messages on my phone. Someone from college is planning someone’s fortieth birthday and has created a WhatsApp group. I am in it. I have no recollection of the subject, the moron who formed the group with everyone he could remember, or those enthusiastically posting emojis, expressing their keenness to drink and dance.

Fucking shit! I detest being added to random WhatsApp groups. I remove myself. I don’t have time for fortieth birthdays and I don’t care for the idiots I went to college with two decades ago. No fond memories there. They never cared to keep in touch all these years because a failed reporter didn’t quite make the cut. Suddenly, everyone wants to be my best friend. Everyone loves success. Sorry, suckers! Now you don’t make the cut.

There are a few more messages I delete without opening. But I open the one from Papa. After five unseen messages, he has simply written one line.

How are you, beta? Miss you.

I have missed his pings in the last few days. He has stopped calling because I’m never able to answer. Now it’s only images of sunrises, sunsets and puppies with profound philosophy scribbled over them that he sends with unfailing regularity. My response is always a thumbs up or smile emoji. The WhatsApp forwards from him and my corresponding thumbs-up emojis is how we assure each other of our well-being. In the last few days, editing has consumed every waking hour of my time. The absence of the blue ticks or a reply must have worried him. I type in a message hastily.

Sorry, Papa. Working very hard on the BBC documentary. Keeping very long hours. You okay, I hope? This is a huge deal for me. Working very hard to do it well.

I tell myself I will make the trip to see him but don’t know when that will be.

I go back to thinking about the message Priya had sent earlier, at 9 p.m.

You’re paying for this.

Why did she send me a picture of a wine bottle? Why am I paying for it?

It takes me a few more minutes to realize why. I curse loudly. The snoring security guard and his dog, also snoring, don’t stir.

I forgot about the dinner date! Again!

This was supposed to be the make-up dinner for the last two I failed to show up for. It’s too late to call now. It’s 1.20 a.m. I curse myself again for being forgetful.

It’s my first documentary for the BBC, on the errand boys in the studios of Bollywood. It’s not every day that one gets a break like this, so I have pushed everything else to the periphery. Priya, on the other hand, plans for dinners and make-up dinners. She does everything, really.

She bought a bottle for ₹10K just to get back at me because I forgot to show up! That’s a tad much as punishment. I feel annoyed, but not so much since I can afford it. It’s not like before when I had to monitor every penny.

I don’t wait for Kay, my assistant. I know she’ll lock the office and drive herself home. I get into my car and head towards Linking Road and then Khar. It’s Friday night, actually Saturday morning, so party revellers are out in full fervour. Mumbai is probably the only city in the world where one can get stuck in a traffic jam at half past one in the morning. I would have preferred to roll down my window; September nights are pleasant. With the monsoon just behind us, the days are hot and humid but late nights are cool, with just a hint of a nip in the air that dissipates ever so quickly at sunrise. But experience has taught me that it’s never a good idea to keep your windows down, especially this late. Bloody eunuchs get you.

A woman – a girl, really – in a shiny dress that’s too tight for her, is negotiating with those in the car ahead of me. My headlights are making her squint. She has too much make-up on, probably to hide her real age. She has a Band-Aid on her ankle; the shoe must be biting into her skin. I have seen too many of them to feel any pity. The road is dug up to my left, leaving me stuck behind the car as their negotiations carry on. I honk impatiently. I want to get home. Why can’t they carry out their sex deal in the lane ahead and not hold up the traffic!

The girl leaves and the car moves ahead, as do I. She gives me a glare as though to say I’m responsible for her loss of business. I guess she needed more time to bargain and my impatient honking didn’t help her case. I seem to be disappointing everyone. My dad, Priya … even the hooker on the street.

I get back home, park in the slot allotted for me. Duffy, the neighbourhood dog, opens one eye and gives me half a wag.

Sorry, dude! It’s too late and I’m too sleepy to give you a proper welcome, he seems to say.

I drag my aching feet up the stairs. My left knee and ankle feel rigid, as though locked in defiance. My muscles feel knotted.

You must remember to exercise your leg regularly, else normal movement will be hampered. It was a very bad accident.

The doctor’s words come back to me only when my left leg hurts and walking feels like someone has tied a 50 kg weight around my ankle. I promise myself that tomorrow will be a new day and I will get back to exercising diligently.

I promise I’ll meet you for dinner.

I promise I’ll visit you soon, Papa.

I just can’t keep my promises.

Every time you say ‘I promise’, I know you’ll not do it. Avniel, you’re horrible at keeping promises. You know that, right?

I’m almost at the door when those words suddenly flash through my mind. Why did I suddenly think of her? She’d said them a long time ago. I fumble with my key as I try to push the thought back into that dark space in my head where I don’t venture.

Priya has left the lights and fan on in the living room. Her stilettos are thrown on the rug and five wine glasses with lipstick stains, along with the said ₹10k bottle, now empty, sit on the centre table.

Did she do this on purpose? Leaving the lights and fan on. Glasses and wine bottle on the table. She knows how much I like things kept in the right place, and it’s annoying when she makes a mess and leaves it for me to clean.

It’s almost two in the morning and I’m cleaning up. I wouldn’t get any sleep knowing the living room is in a mess. I debate over cleaning the wine glasses now or later. The lipstick marks will be more stubborn in the morning but I’m too knackered to do it now. I just run water on them. As I walk towards my bedroom, I pick up the coffee mug that has been sitting on the windowsill, enjoying the view. I make another trip back to the kitchen.

Maybe I should buy myself a Versace shirt, click a picture of it and send it to her with the message ‘You’re paying for this because you left the house in a mess that I have to clean up.’

I almost chuckle at the thought. But I know I won’t do it. I don’t want Priya to join the club of angry ex-girlfriends. Three don’t exactly make a club, but still.

We’ve been together for more than a year, and it’s been a month since I gave her the key to my flat and emptied a closet for her things. Last I checked, it wasn’t even half full. She’s taking it slow. She hasn’t ended the lease on her place in Lower Parel, which is closer to her office. She stays there sometimes when it gets late at work and she’s too tired to come all the way to Khar.

It doesn’t bother me. Slow suits me fine. I’ve rushed into things too many times only to beat a retreat. Slow is better.

I slide into bed and set the alarm for six. Damage control is the need of the hour. I plan on fixing her a good breakfast. I missed the make-up dinner so I settle on breakfast. I sink into a dreamless sleep as soon as my head touches the pillow.

When my phone vibrates next to my pillow, I struggle to open my eyes. It feels like I’ve been asleep for only a minute. I switch it off before it starts to play ‘Wake me up before you go-go’. I’ve been the butt of numerous jokes for having George Michael’s chartbuster as my alarm tone, but refuse to change it. I silence it before it wakes up Priya, who is softly snoring, a fact she vehemently refuses to admit.

She’s just inches away from me, her new pixie haircut messy and spilt on the pillow. There are a few blue streaks in her hair that look more weird than nice. When did she get those? Her left hand is tucked under her chin and the right pushed slightly under the pillow. I don’t see the charm bracelet I gave her. It was my birthday gift to her and she wears it on her left wrist all the time. I got it made especially for her, with miniature charms of things she likes. A tiny book, a bottle of wine, a sudoku puzzle, a stiletto (she loves shoes), a globe to signify wanderlust, the eternity symbol and even a tiny me, to signify the man in her life. It wasn’t easy to get it done but I wanted something special. The eternity symbol was Kay’s idea.

‘Women love that kind of thing, boss,’ she’d insisted, and she was right. Priya loved it and so did her girly gang who know everything that happens between us – from the number of times we have sex to how many times I make her come to the times I goof up and miss dinner dates. I could tell I’d scored lots of points with the charm bracelet, especially the eternity symbol. The admiring look on their faces said it all. I must have lost all those points because of my back-to-back no-shows.

She wears the bracelet all the time, but now it’s not on her wrist. I need to fix this.

Have I upset her that much?

I look at her sleeping face. Laugh lines are beginning to show near her eyes. I want to kiss her there as well as on her lips. I want to slip my hand under the sheets and cup her breasts. I know she doesn’t sleep with her bra on. Any other day, it would have been a good way to wake her up and start the day. But not today.

Instead, I want to wake her up with the aroma of a good breakfast. Scrambled eggs for her, sunny side up for me and some slivers of bacon to go with it. Black coffee for both of us. Nothing says Honey, I love you and I’m sorry for being such an asshole better than well-done eggs. Priya always tells everyone that I make perfect scrambled eggs, though I think my sunny side up is better.

I slip out quietly, closing the bedroom door behind me. I open the windows as I walk towards the kitchen. It’s cool and pleasant in the morning; the sticky humid heat of the day is yet to hit us. Sticky September is my moniker for the month.

I pick up the bowl of crackers, which I’d missed the previous night. I notice the book on which the bowl sat.

She stares straight at me from the cover, unblinkingly. The photograph is brilliant and I couldn’t have chosen a better one for the book cover. I’m Nobody’s Child.

I stare back at the familiar face and smile. This book is my greatest achievement yet. I don’t allow any dark thoughts to arise. When they do, I push them away. Someone had to tell the story; I was there at the right time.

It’s going to be a great day, I tell myself. I’ll fix a good breakfast, Priya will be happy and we will make love. Morning sex is always the best, and she’ll forgive me. I’m humming a tune, confident in my anticipation.

I pull the curtains apart. It’s a tiny flat, even by Mumbai standards. The owner, an elderly widow we call Sharma aunty, decided that she didn’t need the three-BHK flat after her husband’s demise, given that she lives alone and her children are in Canada. So she got herself an architect and put him on a shoestring budget to make two flats out of one. The part that I rent has a decent living room, an open kitchen and one bedroom. I can afford a larger flat now but Khar is close to Bandra. I know what they say – those who can’t afford Bandra stay in Khar. But at least I’m close, much better than the previous dump in Kandivali that I had to call home.

I love the huge windows, which look out to leafy trees with dense foliage. The building stands in the far corner of a cul-de-sac, so it is relatively quiet. It’s not a high-rise, only five floors. The owners love the privacy and often ward off greedy builders who try luring them with crores if they sign over the plot to them. So far, the largely elderly population in the complex has succeeded in keeping the hungry wolves at bay.

I stand near a window and look out. Some kids are getting ready to play gully cricket. Doggie aunty, as everyone calls her, is out with breakfast for the strays that are jumping around her in glee. Duffy is leading the pack, his tail wagging so vigorously that it might fall off. The pao-wallah has just arrived. He parks his cycle near the gate and enters with his huge jute tote. I watch the kids play. Their squeals are a welcome respite. The dogs are happily lapping up their breakfast. Duffy has finished his share and tries to take a bite from his neighbour’s bowl, who responds with a snarl. He backs off and looks at Doggie aunty with a hopeful May I have some more? face.

She gestures a no with her finger. He understands and accepts it. She then pats his head as he rubs his muzzle against her leg. She sneaks out a biscuit and gives it to him. She clearly loves Duffy more than the others.

I stay near the window for a little longer, watching the world outside, hearing the sounds. I like the early Saturday morning sounds, wafting through the house.

I walk towards the refrigerator. It’s time I start making breakfast.

A Post-it note held in place by a magnet tells me that Priya has done the weekly grocery shopping.

You forgot. Again.

My ‘miss list’ is getting longer. I’m forgetting too much, too often.

I take out the eggs, milk and bacon. Priya has stocked the fridge with everything I like. She’s been very nice and I feel like an asshole. I hope to revive my tarnished image with this breakfast.

I place the frying pan on the stove and the bread in the toaster. I will turn it on when the eggs are nearly done. I sprinkle some olive oil on the pan and crack an egg over it; the other, I break into a bowl, add milk and start to whip. I pour it into the pan, away from my sunny side up, and then add the bacon slivers near the edge.

While the eggs are getting done, I turn the flame down, switch the TV on to watch the IKA news hour and then separate the eggs in the pan. I scramble one without disturbing the other, while allowing the bacon to fry quietly, spluttering in its fat and adding more flavour to both the eggs. I transfer the scramble to a plate for her and gently tilt the pan to place mine in another. This is when people end up disturbing the yolk and ruining a perfect sunny side up.

That’s when I hear it.

‘BEGGARWOMAN FOUND OUTSIDE CHURCHGATE CLAIMS TO BE ASAVRI BHATTACHARYA. ASAVRI WON INDIAN KOEL TWO YEARS AGO AND WAS KILLED IN A ROAD MISHAP.’

My hands freeze as the camera focuses on the scarred face. Who is this?

The anchor, Anindita, is speaking animatedly into the camera, saying that she found her on the footpath outside Churchgate. The camera closes in on the face of the woman, who is talking in English.

‘I studied in Loreto. Shantipur.’

The face is almost unrecognizable. The skin is darker than I remember. I can barely breathe … Then she starts singing.

The pan falls from my hand as I hear the voice, the voice I know so well. I dash for the bedroom and climb into my trousers that I’d flung on the stool near the foot of the bed. I proceed to grab my mobile, wallet and car keys.

Priya wakes up because of the noise I’m making.

‘Where are you dashing off to?’

‘I … I have to leave. I … I will call you.’ I don’t wait for her to answer.

I run out of the flat. Almost comically, it strikes me that this is probably the first time in my adult life that I have ruined a perfect sunny side up.

Two

Kamini. NOW.

2018

T is calling me again.

Being a mother is like nursing a migraine. A nagging dull throb that never goes away. You just teach yourself how to manage it, how to live with it.

I’ve told T a million times not to disturb my only hour of peace in the morning. I like to be by myself, collect my thoughts, sip my adrak chai and prepare myself for the day ahead. But my words to her are like water off a duck’s back. She always thunders her way through, disturbing and throwing my plans asunder. She arrived into this world pretty much the same way – much before the expected date, ruining my Parisian outfit and rabbit-leather shoes. Pratap had wrapped the shahtoosh shawl around me; the bloodstains couldn’t be removed. What a waste! I’ve never quite forgiven her for that.

Tanya has remained consistent; always barging in, demanding to be heard and attended to with scant regard for anything else.

But I’m surprised that she’s calling me at seven in the morning. How did she manage to wake up this early to make a call? Though 7 a.m. is hardly early, in her world it is. So if she’s calling at this hour, it’s either to complain, nag or negotiate. She wants something desperately. I know my T.

Of late, her constant whining and the nasal ‘What the …’ has been getting on my nerves, and I have resisted the urge to scream the sentence complete.

What the fuck, Tanya! Can you ever shut the fuck up and not complain all the time?

But I don’t. I’m a mother – a fact I have to keep reminding myself. The seed of my womb – now twenty-two years old with long, sinewy legs, her father’s sharp nose and my thin lips and wavy hair cascading over her thin shoulders – won’t stop trying my patience.

In the last twenty-four hours, she has called six times to say the same thing. ‘Why the ... do I have to sing all day?’ She knows better than to utter the expletive in front of me. She pauses instead of using the F-word but I know she’s saying it in her head. There’s a line which she dare not cross but I do at will. I never hesitate to use the expletives openly with others and silently in my head with Tanya.

I have a busy morning ahead. An important meeting at the party office. I can’t afford to be late and she’ll have to be dealt with. I have to take her call. I think of ignoring it, but I just can’t. I guess I have become the part I set out to play. After twenty-five years of playing the doting wife and happy mother, some of it might’ve seeped under my skin. Though I could never be accused of the former – I never pretended to be a doting wife and Pratap never wanted me to be one. Am I a happy mother? Let’s save that for another day.

I swipe right to take the call – ‘Good morning, T.’ I’ve finished fifty surya namaskars and would have liked to finish the remaining fifty-seven, but if I don’t deal with T right now, she will keep calling all day. I don’t want that.

With my other hand, I fiddle with the cup of chai that was made for me earlier by the staff. I allow myself to sink into the large cane chair and put my feet up on the white railing, which is in stark contrast to my dark skin. Toenails trimmed short, clean and buffed. Gone are the days of blood-red nail-paint. Nowadays, it’s clean and clear. Over the years, I’ve left behind every habit and preference of yore to fit the new cast.

‘Mom! I can’t do this anymore.’ Her trademark nasal falsetto sounds like the scratching of nails on a blackboard. I grit my teeth. She continues, ‘You promised that I wouldn’t have to sing after one year and it’s been almost two! My life’s ruined, Mom. Ruined! My friends are going to the Bahamas and I’m stuck in this smelly, stuffy studio, belting out numbers for some dumb-shit movie. Mom! What the …’

I hear her out like I always do, while checking my fingernails – also trimmed short, U-shaped and with no paint. I miss the long nails I used to flaunt and the insane colours I painted them. Dirty yellow. Orange with purple flecks. I miss the wild days sometimes. I run my fingers through my hair. I pull out the band that held them in place while I did yoga. It tumbles over my shoulder, letting the early-morning air caress it lightly. I know I’m tuning out what T is animatedly saying in my ear.

Sometimes, I hold the mobile away from my ear so that my head doesn’t burst, hearing her rant about the same thing again and again. ‘My life’s ruined’. Ruined. Does she even know the meaning of the word? Ruin is when your father leaves you with a neighbour because there’s no place else for his daughter to stay while he goes to work at Ganesh Sari Shop and you grow up making tea and pakodas for the men Asha tai let into her home while her husband was at work. I dusted and watered her plants, all the while trying to ignore the unapologetic noises from the bedroom. She didn’t even bother shutting the door of her room.

Though, in many ways, people would say that ruined my childhood, Asha tai taught me things that helped me survive in the real world; stuff that no school ever taught. She taught me how to pleasure a woman. She would make me give her a massage while she lay naked with her legs spread wide apart. This came in handy when I chose to sleep with Kaveri Sharma, the PR head of Taj, because I wanted her to take me along when she joined Origin PR. I didn’t want to be stuck with a front-office job. And it’s not that I disliked pleasuring Kaveri. Single and much older than me, Kaveri dated men to keep up a façade but sneaked in some time with me every now and then. It was fun. Sex with her was satisfying in a way only sex with a woman can be. And the new job was worth it, for it led me to Pratap.

I usually don’t do anything I don’t like, and even when I do, I know how to sweeten it. For example, my landlord from when I lived in a tiny hole in Karol Bagh wanted the rent in kind. I wanted to throw up at the mere thought of taking him in my mouth. I don’t think he ever used soap – he smelt of spoilt milk, garlic and mirchi bhajji. Layers of fat would trap his stinky sweat. Just the sight of him was sickening. But I found ways of making it likeable. In his case, squirting Maaza on him sweetened it for me. It wasn’t like I was short on rent; I just didn’t want to pay him. I needed money for other more important things, like buying clothes and shoes. So I pleasured him whenever he wanted, I just made sure there were enough bottles of Maaza around.

One needs to handle shit in life and not complain.

Something my T, entitled-princess-to-the-manor-born-with-a-platinum-spoon-studded-with-diamonds-in-her-mouth, never had to learn.

My daughter’s life is ruined very easily. In fact, it happens every week. When her Louboutins can’t be found. When she wants the latest Versace products in less than a day. When her hair doesn’t obey. Her life is ruined. I feel like telling her she doesn’t even know