The Turning - Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

"What did you expect, that they would have welcomed you with open arms?" Dina Sattar asked her husband sarcastically. "The prodigal father returning after ten years to condole with his children on the death of their mother? His wife?"

Her tone grated harshly on his already defensive ear. Her words sliced through the layers of indifference accumulated over the years, touching a nerve that had not, as yet, been rendered insensate. He winced at the bitter, spitefully enunciated 'wife'.

Prakash knew that that had always been a sore point with Dina.
That he should have remained legally married to his first wife also.
Dina was in the position of 'wife number two', as a malicious acquaintance had commented deliberately in Dina's hearing.

Karuna had flatly refused to give her husband a divorce. Her own bed had been barren for years! She would not let him go, to spill his seed into that hoity-toity Parsee bitch!

Long hours spent with his lawyer friend had convinced Prakash that he himself had no ground for divorce. That any petition filed by him would be thrown out, probably after a long drawn out battle, into which Dina too was bound to be dragged. What better way out, than to embrace a religion that welcomed proselytism and permitted four wives?

He looked rather anxiously at Dina. At the hard, almost bitter lines that marred her once attractive face. The years had worked their stamp on her, though she was still attractive at forty-eight, in a hard, haggard fashion. The thin lips had acquired a bitter, closed-in look, even in repose. The eyes too often held a haunted look. As though she had been trapped into something she now wanted to get out of. At any cost. . . to anybody. . . except herself.

Prakash wondered, as he often had in the past few years, if they had done the right thing ten years ago. With a sudden, unaccustomed perception, he realized why she was so particularly bitter today. Today was their tenth Wedding Anniversary. And he had not even wished her! Ten years of marriage to Dina . . . and his first wife had begun the day by slashing her wrists . . . he had celebrated the tenth Anniversary of his second marriage by attending the funeral of his first wife. It was an irony he did not have the stomach for.

Prakash was tired. He felt trapped in the web of his own making.
The guilt of proselytism gnawed deeper into his flesh with the passing years. A yearning to return to the faith he was bred in struggled for fulfillment with a violence he was compelled to suppress.

And now this! Nivedita's denunciation. The final rejection by his own flesh and blood. Alien! That was what his children had become to him. Alien. He almost hated Dina in that moment. If only. . . he caught himself on the thought, horrified by the depth of his own bitterness, and cast a resentful look at Dina.

She caught the look. And gave a caricature of a smile, as she intuitively divined his thoughts. He wished her dead! He dared not risk the scandal of a divorce, a 'talaq', right now! Dina was well aware that the new Finance Minister had advised Prakash against taking her with him to official functions. His business depended too heavily on the goodwill of politicians, for such advice to be ignored.

That several politicians depended on Prakash's 'goodwill', financially, was a matter they themselves preferred to ignore! And Prakash had made his fortune too quickly, too precariously, to rock the boat. One could never tell, in these unpredictable times, just whose survival would be threatened by a scandal!

Prakash averted his eyes, embarrassed. "I didn't expect to be welcomed with open arms," he blundered into speech. "I thought they would be pleased to see me, after all this time," he faltered, not needing Dina's contemptuous smile to tell him how inane he sounded. This paradox had persisted all through his second marriage. The successful, confident businessman reduced to a defensive, guilt-ridden husband at home.

They completed their meal in silence and almost immediately retired to their bedrooms. The connecting door had not been opened in a long, long time. Resentment can fuel the sexual drive only in the very young.

Dina desultorily flicked a few pages of the novel she was reading before laying it down, ultimately tired of the pretense of reading. Her thoughts strayed to her divorced husband, Khurshed. If he died, would she be tempted to attend his funeral? Would she be allowed to? The thought entered her mind unbidden. Unwelcome.

Suddenly, Dina sat up in bed with something of a shock. This was a thought she had always deliberately blocked out from her mind. Now it impinged itself upon her consciousness inexorably.

"What will happen to you when you die?" The voice inside taunted her.
Feeling claustrophobic, Dina got off the bed and walked up to the open window, taking deep gulps of air.

"Don't do it, Dina . . . . Don't. 'Tis a sin you are committing," her Banoo Maa had pleaded, horrified when she had disclosed to her what she was going to do.

"You're being narrow minded, Maa," she had asserted with the bravado of the insecure. "After all, all religions are the same."

"Then how come you had never thought of changing your religion, till now?" had asked that shrewd lady, then in her sixties. Banoo Kanga, her mother's sister, was the only mother Dina had ever known. As had her sister Shirin and brother Fredun.

"Admit it to yourself, at least, if not to me," the old lady had said, in a last ditch effort to try and get Dina to change her mind. "This sudden urge for conversion is only so you'll be able to 'marry' this man. If you can call it marriage at all!"

"You don't understand, Maa! I have to get married to him!" She had then confided in Banoo Maa her reason, her desperation, her exhilaration.

Dina closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Banoo Maa, Banoo Maa," she despaired. "Why didn't you stop me? Surely you must have guessed how it would be?"

The first traumatic shock shortly after the marriage. The feeling of being utterly bereft. And then the feeling of being imposed upon. The distrust and the hostility of his children by his first wife. The neveracknowledged, ever-present guilt where Karuna was concerned. Poisoning everything including their sex life. Especially their sex life! The differences and misunderstandings that were stifled and repressed till they ossified into implacable hatred. The corrosion that set in, eating into her every time the name of her Prophet automatically came to her lips. Not being able to go to the Fire temple or the Doongerwadi. After that disastrous incident, when an old friend had asked curiously why she was sitting outside with the non-Parsees instead of inside the bungli, she had stopped going altogether.

Yes, the end had been present in the beginning itself. Banoo Maa had seen that. Wise old Banoo Maa. If only she had!

The poison had been eating into her entire psyche gradually, almost imperceptibly changing her. She had of late seen that reflected in the faces of her relatives. . . her beloved Banoo Maa . . . her brother and his family . . . her cherished niece . . . her elder sister and her husband . . . Thinking of Shirin, she frowned in annoyance. She and Prakash would have to go over to Shirin and Jamshed's, the day after tomorrow. It was their thirtieth Wedding Anniversary. And her family had always been scrupulous in inviting her and Prakash to all their functions! Her pride forced her to attend, pretending a gaiety she did not feel, in the face of those covert, speculative stares, just waiting for her composure and her marriage to crack.

Only her niece had understood. Always. Stood up for her, been her sole outspoken champion. Her darling little Scherezade! Though Dina wasn't comfortable about that fellow Sherrie was involved with.

Dina turned away from the window. As so often in the past, her eyes wandered to the bottle of sleeping tablets lying on her bedside table. And lingered there. And then the spectre raised itself again.

"What will happen to you when you die?"

Trying to shut the thought out of her mind, Dina opened the door leading to the balcony and walked out. The balcony ran the length of the outer side of the flat, overlooking the sea. Casting a swift glance at the door of Prakash's bedroom next to hers, she was relieved to find it shut. His air-conditioner was on. Prakash couldn't sleep without the AC, whereas Dina preferred open windows and fresh air.

She leant her arms on the balcony railing and struggled to relax her tense body, feeling the shroud of the night close in upon her. The moon was a sliver of silvery sickle. Twenty stories below, the inky waters of the Arabian Sea rippled with the compulsion of gravity. Dina gazed fascinated at the neon lights reflected in the sluggishly undulating waters. The fingers of fear crept towards her once more. Relentlessly, with a gravity of their own that she could do nothing to repulse.

Dina shuddered, trying to overcome the feeling of someone having walked over her grave.

What would it be like for her? A hurriedly dug up grave, unsanctified by the prayers of the Faithful? The chanting of the Parsee Priests, she could forget about! She was bitterly aware that none of her relatives would even try to give her a Parsee funeral at the Tower of Silence. Except perhaps her Sherrie. But she would not succeed. She could not succeed! Not in the face of the disapproval of her own parents. Not against the intransigent orthodoxy of the Priests who would not allow it, if they knew of Dina's conversion. And somebody from among her relatives was bound to spill the beans, she thought, grimacing.

Her fingers closed on the cold hard railing of the balcony till the bones of her palms pressed painfully against the unyielding metal. It had started drizzling.
Dina went back into her bedroom, gulped two sleeping tablets and lay down, imploring oblivion to her aid.


*

The Turning - Chapter One

June 13, 1994

The last of the mourners had left, and brother and sister at last had the house to themselves. Except for their mother's brother and his wife, who had come over from Calcutta and would be staying with them till at least the twelfth day ceremonies were over; and their cousin, their father's eldest brother's son, Sunil.
Arun Khanna poured himself his third cup of coffee in the last about fifteen minutes. He badly wanted a drink, but somehow felt awkward to ask his nephew for one. Vinod seemed even more unnaturally detached than he remembered. As for Nivedita ... he looked at her uneasily. Then his eyes met his wife's and he gave her a slight, reassuring smile. Sunil looked at his watch pointedly a few times, then announced pompously that he'd be taking his leave. He had a busy day ahead of him!
Arun Khanna glanced at him amusedly. "Going to the factory, Sunil?"
Sunil looked up defensively. His small workshop, where he manufactured hair-dye, of all things, was a bit of a joke in the family. Only Vinod took some interest in it from time to time, dropping in at the workshop off and on. It was quite close by, just across the street. And Vinod was quite friendly with Sunil, who minted a lot of money thanks to the universal human desire to combat overt manifestations of the ageing process. He ignored Arun, nodded to Vinod, and made good his escape.
Suchitra Khanna was determinedly trying to engage Nivedita in low-voiced conversation, not seeming to be put off by the monosyllabic responses of her niece. Arun took this opportunity to move closer to his nephew, who was standing by himself, now that Sunil had left.
"She seems all right now," began Arun tentatively, in a low voice.
"But don't you think you should give her something? To calm her
nerves, y’know!”
Vinod looked across at Nivedita. She’ll be Okay,” he said curtly.
“You honestly think so? After that exhibition?” persisted Arun, his voice reflecting a tinge of distaste.
“She’s a bit overwrought at Mama’s suicide. You can’t blame her for going a it berserk when Father turned up at the funeral!”
I can understand her resentment towards your father. After all, your mother was my only sister. But need Nivedita have washed all that family linen at the funeral, in front of everyone? I had no inkling of what was coming, when she saw Prakash, and suddenly let fly!”
“She’s never been able to get over Father deserting Mama, changing his religion to be able to marry that other woman,” said Vinod, his tone expressionless. “When he suddenly turned up at Mama’s funeral, after all these years, she took his presence here at such a time as an insult to Mama’s memory.”
As Arun looked rather doubtful, Vinod went on, “You see, she’s always blamed Dina for everything. For Father leaving Mama, his leaving us, his conversion ... that is something Nivedita has never been able to understand or forgive. His conversion somehow muddled up Nivedita’s own psyche, her own sense of identity. And now, she blames Dina for Mama’s suicide.”
“But surely Karuna’s suicide could have had nothing to do with Prakash leaving her for Dina, years ago?
“You can never tell,” said Vinod, adding thoughtfully, “It was this day, ten years ago,. That Father left us to get married to another woman. Mama had always refused to talk about either Father or Dina. But she has never been the same, since. I don’t think she ever forgave either of them. Nivedita realized that. That’s why over the years she has worked herself up to a morbid hatred for them both. Especially Dina. It’s become a sort of an obsession with her.”

“Haven’t you and Nivedita kept in touch with Prakash after he married again?”
“For both Mama and Nivedita, he was dead.”
“And you?” asked Arun curiously.
Vinod shrugged. “I haven’t really bothered, one way or another. He’s been sending the monthly cheques to me - `guilt money’, Nivedita calls it – as Mama refused to accept anything sent in her name.”
“Is the amount adequate?”
“Quite,” shrugged Vinod. The gesture conveyed the dissatisfaction the word tried to cover. “In these last ten years he has become a very rich man, you know! And quite an important one.” He couldn’t help adding, “Dina’s a lucky woman!”

*