The Turning - Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

"Aren't you ready yet, Prakash?" called Dina from her room, the inevitable irritation creeping into her tone.

"Shortly," was the rather curt reply, as Prakash clipped on his diamond cuff-links and adjusted his tie to his satisfaction.

When it came to visiting Dina's relatives, he tried to delay as much as he could. The irritation in her voice merely served as a fresh spur to his sense of injury. Typical of Dina, he thought to himself resentfully, that she did not have the sensitivity to realize herself that he might not like to attend a party, (even a 'family' party), when not even a week had elapsed since his first wife's death! And he was too defeated by even the thought of further marital discord, to suggest it himself.

Damn! He suddenly remembered: it was Dina's birthday, soon!

Just the next day after Karuna's twelfth day ceremony, in fact. Thank God he had remembered in time! He'd better buy a present before it was too late. Some perfume, maybe. Dina loved perfume. Applied lashings of it, too!

* * * *

The traffic was unusually heavy near the President Hotel that day. As they crawled farther haltingly, Dina looked pointedly at her wristwatch every few moments. But it was she who had caused the final delay, Prakash told himself in self-justification; giving some last-minute instructions to their live-in maid, Fatima.

At last they were at the gates of the Parsee Colony near Grant Road Station where Shirin and Jamshed Dumasia lived with their only son, Tehmul. Tehmul was unmarried. He had not as yet found the right daughter-in-law for his mother. As he drove slowly past the solid old buildings, Prakash could not quite shake off the feeling of being stared at from behind all those curtained windows.

As he pulled up, Dina powdered her nose, adjusting the rear-view mirror, patted her lacquered hair into place and got out, giving her saree a twitch.

The medium sized hall was cluttered with furniture and people.Shirin had brought out every artefact and decorative piece she had hoarded through the years like a magpie, and placed it on display. The effect was a trifle bizarre, reminding Prakash irresistibly of Chor Bazaar.A minuscule bit of genuine Wedgewood cowered apologetically in the shadow of an imposing piece of Benares brass, while younger versions of Shirin and Jamshed beamed determinedly from the inevitable wedding photograph onto a particularly hideous glass sculpture of the fox trying to reach the grapes . . . the sour grapes. And Prince Charles and Lady Diana still smiled cozily together on a ceramic jug, given the pride of place on Shirin's overcrowded sofa-top.

The guests were a shade more prepossessing. Some rather more than the others, thought Prakash, his eyes on Dina's beloved niece, looking exquisite in an Oriya saree of gorgeous weave worn semi Gujarati style, the pallo left loose, held in place by a slim belt of oxidized silver. A silver choker and matching earrings complemented the ensemble, defiantly chosen by Scherezade who knew full well that her Shinn Fui would frown upon anything so un-Parsee-like and would have preferred a nice chiffon or georgette saree instead. Her choice however was applauded by Zerxes, whom Shirin insisted on calling 'Sherrie's steady', deaf to Scherezade's protests to that appalling appellation.

Prakash looked at Zerxes with interest. "Looks like a cold blooded devil," he thought to himself. "Rather attractive in an unusual fashion. Must be the mix of Parsee-French blood!"

Zerxes Avari looked indeed cold-blooded. What was worse, he looked almost indecently at ease in a room full of his girl-friend's relatives, all eyeing him, some covertly, some openly, with varying degrees of interest, disapproval and speculation. But that was before Dina and Prakash entered the room! Not even Zerxes' French mother and his ambiguous relationship with the Beauty of the Family could hold as much as a wick to the most rattled skeleton in the family cupboard.

"Dina, Prakash, how good of you to come!" gushed Shirin, rushing forward to embrace her younger sister and shake hands with Prakash.

She had a mind that thought in exclamation marks. She was a thin, sharp featured lady in her early fifties, wrapped in a nylon printed saree already coming out at the pleats, wisps of hair coming undone from what appeared to be a hurriedly put-up bun. Her restless eyes never dwelt for long on anyone object, and she had hands to match: thin, claw-like, almost in perpetual motion, worrying the cuticles when they had nothing else to flutter over.

After greeting the late-comers effusively, she glanced around, as though to gauge the reactions of her other relatives. Most of those present had been interestedly watching her reception of the sister who was the cause of the juiciest scandal in the family, which had been given a fresh lease of life by the mysterious suicide of Prakash's first wife.

Jamshed Dumasia, a simple man with shrewd eyes, greeted the couple courteously, nothing in his manner hinting at the avidity with which his wife had tried to discuss Karuna's mysterious suicide, while dressing for dinner.

"What will you have, Prakash, Dina?" he inquired."Whisky, rum, gin, wine?"

"Trust you Parsees to keep a bit of every poison," laughed Prakash with rather ill-judged jocularity. His unease with Dina's relatives almost always made him say the wrong thing at the wrong time, surprising gaucherie out of an otherwise assured and highly successful businessman.
A glance at Dina's face was enough to make him realize his tactlessness. Damn it, Dina was almost absurdly sensitive about this conversion business, he thought to himself resentfully. Looking more like a censorious schoolmarm than a wife! Well, she ought to have learned by now that he was no complaisant Bawa husband, he told himself, flicking a slightly contemptuous glance at his host, who generally appeared to be overpowered by his garrulous wife.

In this however, he did less than justice to Jamshed Dumasia, who appeared not to have noticed anything untoward either in Prakash's comment or the sudden rigidity that froze Dina. He mixed them their drinks, talking easily all the while, then drew Prakash away to introduce him to Zerxes, leaving Dina to circulate by herself. Dina, as was usual in such gatherings, first made for the one person from whom she was assured of a genuine, uncritical, welcome.

She went and hugged Scherezade, murmuring that it was good to see her.

"Good to see you too!" her niece responded warmly, drawing her onto a two-seater sofa, a little away from the rest of their relatives. "But are you all right? You don't look too wel1!"

"Oh I'm fine," protested Dina, leaning back. "Just a bit of insomnia sometimes," she admitted lightly, averting her eyes from the candid, searching gaze of her niece's strange, changeable eyes. "Tell me," she cast a significant glance at Zerxes. "Are you. . ."

"Yes, we are. . ." Scherezade cut in as Dina trailed off uncertainly, smiling a shade defiantly at her aunt. "And", she went on, a laughing warning in her voice, "don't ask me when we're going to be married! We haven't bothered to plan anything. We're happy as we are. Most I marriages are sham, anyway. Forster knew what he was talking about."

They do say you hurt the ones you love! Dina winced, as she acknowledged to herself the truth of what her niece had so casually stated, with the arrogant thoughtlessness of youth. Yes, most marriages were sham! Sherrie was right, Forster, one of her favourite novelists, indeed had a point: a marriage was no more a union, than a funeral was death. . . or baptism, birth. . .
Dina looked at her niece searchingly. There was something different about her. She had always considered Scherezade to be sexually attractive, as distinct from being merely beautiful. But now there was something else evident in her face, her bearing: a heightened awareness of her own sexuality. This lean stranger, with his rather forbidding mouth, his pianist's hands, and lithe grace, had awakened her favourite niece to a realization of her own potential as a woman. Sherrie was radiant - and yes, fulfilled! That was the word, thought Dina with a start. Fulfilled. Something that she, Dina, had never been.. .

. . . She thought back on her own fumbling courtship with Khurshed. Those furtive hand-holdings and tentative caresses in the last rows of the darkened movie theatres . . . the wet, inexpert kisses at her doorstep. . . that one-time bold foray inside her loose blouse, when she had slapped his hand away rather sharply . . . hadn't Banoo Maa instilled into her that sex without marriage was a sin? And caressing a breast, in those days, was 'crossing the line'! The taboo extended both above and below the waist - only the face and the midriff were exempt!

Then had come marriage . . . and the license to copulate, along with it.
That first night was a disaster! Loving and sensitive in all other respects, Khurshed's very ineptness rendered him insensitive when it came to love-making. Egged on by his macho male friends to 'make it' on the first night itself, he had forced himself awkwardly into a stiff, dry Dina, without the slightest foreplay, without arousing her at all. Sore and bleeding, Dina had taken to smearing herself with lubricants, steeling herself for the onslaught every other night, till Khurshed's passion had diminished, as did his performance . . . with the birth of Hanoz, both had all but petered away.

Paradoxically, Dina had by then got hooked on to painful sex. As Khurshed's aggression in bed waned, her desire for it increased. Developing a perverse taste for masochism, she visualized self flagellation to arouse herself to an orgasm. One night, she shocked Khurshed by assuming an almost masculine lead in their love-making,urging him to hurt her . . .

Dina winced as she recalled Khurshed recoiling from her in bed . . . then her mouth curved sarcastically . . . his maleness had been offended! Women cringed at being hurt sexually, but they bore it out of love for their men . . . they did not desire to be hurt, surely . . . !
Only one man had understood her unconventional sexual desires, her strange fantasies. . . he who had so callously betrayed her. But what a lover he had been! The more vicious and perverse his love-making, the more pleasure it had given Dina. Having realized the kink in her psychological make-up, he had skilfully used pain, in foreplay, to arouse her. . . after the unimaginative, mechanical Khurshed, sex with him was like playing variations on themes by Chopin . . . or Liszt . . . whereas with Khurshed, it was like practising the same dreary scale in the same unchanging Key in the same even tempo . . .

She felt a light touch on her arm. It was Scherezade, looking at her concernedly. Dina shook back the past and smiled at her niece. So lovely. And so young. So heartbreakingly young! Just over twenty . . .Soon to be twenty-one, Dina realized with a start. She gave an imperceptible sigh. What could one tell the young? How could one warn them? Especially Sherrie, her vibrant, impulsive Sherrie, with such reserves of passion in her . . . such a capacity for love! Whereas this fellow, obviously experienced and worldly, seemed so cold . . . with those uncomfortably penetrating eyes, those finely chiselled grim lips, that sarcastic manner of talking.
She could well understand her niece's attraction for him. He was devastatingly attractive! Dangerously intelligent too, with just the right mix of ruthlessness and tenderness. "Don't hurt her," she implored him silently. "Don't hurt my Sherrie." To Scherezade she said aloud gently, a hint of sadness in her voice, "Don't bother about others, Sherrie, do what you think best. Just one word of advice," she paused hesitantly, her hand on Scherezade's arm. Smiling a little bitterly at the inquiry in those cognac eyes, she went on, "make sure, if you can, that what you are doing is right! That it's what you really want. That you won't regret it after. . . say after ten years."

Scherezade stared at her aunt. This was the first time she had even so much as hinted that she was regretting the step she had taken, ten years ago. Scherezade knew she would not admit that to any other member of their family. Except perhaps Banoo Maa, she thought, her troubled gaze resting affectionately on the vigorous old lady, undefeated by her seventy odd years.

Banoo Maa had been waiting patiently, expectantly. She knew Dina would take her own time in coming to greet her. Nothing could ever completely sever the bond between them, both knew full well; as they also knew and recognized the fact that Dina's action in abandoning her religion for mere expediency, (at least according to Banoo Maa), had strained that bond as nothing else ever could. Had Dina really known what she was doing? Had she realized that there was no return?
"If that man wants to reconvert into a Hindu tomorrow," thought Banoo Maa resentfully, "he can do so! Especially now that his first wife is dead. But my Dina can never become a Parsee again." Once Dina had actually abandoned the Parsee Zoroastrian faith, she would never be accepted back into the fold.

Banoo Maa recalled how she had begged and pleaded with Dina. First to go back to Khurshed. Khurshed Sooneji, Dina's first husband. So much he had loved her. Loved her still! They had been so happy, thought Banoo Maa. Till that awful day. The day that little Hanoz had drowned in the swimming pool of the club. Dina had been beside herself. Blamed Khurshed for everything. To get a child after so many years of marriage, and then to allow him to drown! Khurshed had had neither the strength nor the will to defend himself, then. To explain to her that it was an accident, that it was not his negligence that had caused their child's death. For he had not been able to exonerate himself, either.

Bitter, hurtful things had been hurled by Dina at her shattered husband. After the 'Charam', the four-day ceremonies at the Tower of Silence, Dina had been unable to go home with her husband. She had gone to stay with Banoo Maa, sent her to get her clothes and stuff from an unresisting Khurshed, and had never returned to him since.

Khurshed had agreed to everything she had wanted. Even to the divorce she finally demanded.
And then she had got entangled, first with that no-good. . . (Banoo Maa muttered an unladylike swear word) and then with this fellow . . . Banoo Maa looked at Prakash resentfully. Talking to Zerxes Avari.

Banoo Maa smiled sadly to herself as Dina left Scherezade's side and walked up resolutely to her younger brother. Fredun had not been able to forgive his sister for what he considered to be her 'defection'. Fredun, who had hitherto heroine-worshipped Dina! As she was to discover, no hate is more implacable than one which has its roots in idolatry.

Ten-year old Scherezade, confused and rebellious, had ranged on her aunt's side. Her brother Firdauz, two years older than her, self-contained and phlegmatic, had remained aloof from the whole sorry business.

Banoo Maa sighed, thinking back on the turmoil the whole family had been plunged into. Prior to the marriage, Dina had informed only Banoo Maa, and had sworn her to secrecy. The rest of the family had been informed afterwards, after Dina had converted and got married by a Nikah ceremony. Fredun had not been able to forgive her anything: her conversion, her re-marriage, her secretiveness. He had insisted, in the face of Dina's defiant denials, that Dina's action affected not just her alone, but all of them. The whole family. Nothing would ever be the same again, he had thought irritably. Dina herself would never be the same again, even if she did not realize it.

The moment Dina had converted had been the turning. And not of her life alone.

Clear and unclouded in his vision, Fredun had been astounded that his sister couldn't see that. But she was gifted with a shield that had been denied to him. An impenetrable shell of hypocrisy and selfdeception, which not only justified all her actions in her own mind, but gilded them with motives of the purest altruism. She had tried unavailingly to convince Fredun that she had taken the best possible step for everybody concerned, in the circumstances.

"Everybody?" Fredun had echoed incredulously. "What of that' chap's first wife? And his children by her?" He had flung at his sister challengingly.

"Karuna has made Prakash's life a misery," Dina had answered defensively. "Turned the children against him, too! He'll have nothing more to do with them."

"You have a hope in hell," her brother had returned grimly.

And even then, the whole truth had not been told to everybody. Only Banoo Maa knew that one tragic secret. Which had completely devastated Dina. Because it had all been in vain! She could not now undo anything. She had no one to blame but herself. That was the pill that stuck in her throat, too galling to swallow!

Banoo Maa, seeing all that, had suffered helplessly for Dina. With Dina.

She found her shoulder being shaken gently. It was Fredun, looking down at her, puzzled. "Where have you got lost, Maa? I've called your name twice!" Then she looked up into his eyes and his expression changed. "Come darling," he said gently. "Dinner is served. We have to toast Shirin and Jamshed," and steered her tenderly into the dining room.

Over the three-course dinner, the hostess's capabilities were stretched to the full, trying to glean as much information as she could about their respective lives from Zerxes Avari and Prakash Sattar, both relatively unknown quantities to her. Scherezade, stifling her giggles at Zerxes' urbane sarcasm and Prakash's discouraging monosyllables, covertly studied the aunt she loved best. Dina did not look happy. No,she definitely did not look happy. She did not seem to be quite well, either.

* * * *

Back in their posh flat at Cuffe Parade, Prakash informed Dina that he would be proceeding for a short business trip in a few days. He did not look at her as he told her this. Dina would make out that he was lying, if he did so!

*

The Turning - Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Nivedita glared in exasperation at the juniper. Despite all her efforts, it insisted on growing sideways, refusing to go straight. The saleswoman at the nursery had assured her that that, in fact, added to its value, as it was rarer. But Nivedita was scornful of a market logic that placed higher value on abnormalcy. She had no stomach for irony, either!

She had been trying to work off her restlessness by pottering about in her terrace garden. Tired of pottering around, she dragged out an easy chair and flopped into it, gazing idly at the result of her labours.

The garden was flourishing: the greens were green, the flowers were blooming, the pomegranate just coming into flower. It would soon ripen into fruition.
Contentment stole into Nivedita slowly, insidiously, as she lay back in her chair enjoying her blooming garden.

What it is to be a plant in a pot, she mused. If it were watered and fed, it flourished. If neglected, it died. That was all that was required for a plant in a pot to die . . . neglect. . . nothing else . . . no overt act. No razors . . . no blood . . . no mess . . . Nivedita closed her eyes, trying to block out the images that zigzagged into her mind.

Trying to forget. . .

. . . It was Nivedita who had discovered her. Her mother, lying stained by her own blood. Her wrists slashed inexpertly; the rivulets of blood drying into snake-like cords; the bloodied razor still clutched in the feeble death-clasp. Her face frozen, the death-mask of pain and terror still etched on to it. Her eyes wide open, her empty stare an accusation . . .

Her dishevelled long hair lying tumbled on the pillow. In life, it may have looked alluring. In death, it merely added to the indignity of the kimono ridden up to the thigh, the pendulous breasts pathetically exposed: one brown nipple sticking out incongruously, making one final desperate cry in death for the attention it had not received in life. Her mouth a lipsticked slash of red, acknowledging the ultimate defeat. Or snatching the ultimate victory.

Nivedita had stood there, stunned and catatonic. Vinod had yet not returned from the hospital. The servants had left for the day. Nivedita had then quietly crumpled to the floor in a dead faint. She had lain thus until Vinod had returned and found her. . . and roused her. . . and called the family Doctor, who called the Police.

The cogs had started turning, rolling the machinery into action . . .
post-mortem . . . police inquiries . . . impertinent questions about the personal lives of their parents which they had been compelled to answer.

The police had been satisfied that it was a case of suicide. But for Nivedita, it was murder. A murder that just had to be avenged!

"You murdered her," she had told the image in her mind, lying on her bed, recovering from her fainting spell. "You murdered my mother. And you shall pay for it. I'll make you pay for it!"

The ringing of the doorbell roused her back to the present. It was her Aunt Suchitra, back from a trip to the bazaar.

"Busy with anything?" Suchitra asked her.

"Not really," she replied, listlessly.

"Then come on. Come, help me in the kitchen. I'm making some fresh khakhras. Arun told me your Dadi likes those. She is coming from Baroda tomorrow." She put her arm round her niece's shoulders, and hugged her comfortingly. "It'll be all right. It'll be all right, my dear.
Have courage!"

Nivedita roughly pushed away her aunt, crying bitterly, "That's a lie! Nothing is all right. Nothing will be all right. Not as long as she is alive!" She started sobbing, suddenly. "It's not fair! It's just not fair! Why should she be alive, and my mother dead? She stole my father, now she's killed my mother. I hate her, hate her, hate her. . ." The sobs grew more and more shattering, the voice rising to a crescendo before breaking under the burden of its own misery.

While she was debating what she should do to calm her suddenly hysterical niece, Suchitra felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Vinod, back from the lawyer's office. It appeared that their mother had died without leaving a Will. Not that she had had much to leave, anyway!

"You carry on, Maami," he told her quietly. "I'll deal with her."

Suchitra thankfully escaped, unable to quite quell an uneasy feeling about Nivedita. The girl did not appear to be quite sane about this business! True, there was the shock of finding her mother with her wrists slashed. But still . . . this obsessive hatred of that other woman!
Even now, after all these years!

Suchitra did not like it. She did not like it at all. She wished sheand Arun could get away. After all, she had hardly known Karuna or the children. The rare meetings were mainly at family functions, and you couldn't get intimate in those! Well, it was only for a few more days now, Suchitra consoled herself, shrugging off Nivedita's hysteria mentally, as she made for the kitchen.

In the living room where Suchitra had left them, brother and sister stood staring at each other. She tear-drenched, mouth moving convulsively. He, cool, calm, implacable. Just a look from him worked.

Staring at him half fearfully, half pleadingly, she gradually calmed herself into a semblance of normalcy, hoping for her usual reward. But Vinod had something else in mind for her that day. He took her by the arm and led her to her room and made her lie down on the bed. Then he went out and returned carrying a hypodermic syringe and a vial. "This will help calm you down," he said, injecting the needle into her vein, ignoring her disappointed protest at this departure from his usual therapy.

*