Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Twenty Seven : In Between Pavitra's Antics

I saw Pavitra idly staring at the muted television, anchored in the same recumbent position as last night. It was past noon and I had just woken up with great difficulty, finding Pavitra unbathed with a ring of sweat around the collar of her Big Bazaar graphic t-shirt like a necklace. It was odd to find her uncaring about her appearance, the girl who needed two wardrobes to stuff her collection of clothes, accessories and make-up. I checked out the breakfast laid on the dining table, a floral green hot box brimming with dry, untouched poha. Nobody had eaten, including Pavitra. I asked her, "Don't you have a job to go to?"

"Don't you have a life?" came her contemptuous reply. Jokes on her. I had Lila, the girl who radiated life and warmth larger than the sun. Pavitra swung her legs down from the sofa, sitting up. "Stop smiling like a creep. Something must have happened in that trip of yours for you to smile like that. Which one?" I gave her a quizzical expression and she snorted. "Sorry, my bad. For a second, I believed that someone would be interested in you. I forgot a person needed a personality and good looks for that."

"Let's not forget, everyone thinks we look alike." I smirked at her displeasure, blocking her view of the television. "You stink. That's why your in-laws must have thrown you out." Lethargy dominated her since she pretended to be apathetic to my comments, but I knew that she wanted to stomp towards me and claw my hair out. I took advantage of her indolence, continuing, "For a second at your wedding, I believed that your husband would be interested in you. I forgot a personality and good looks are necessary."

"Nobody threw anyone out! Pavitra came to just visit us, didn't you?" my mother desperately appealed to Pavitra whose silence brought my father out of his bedroom too. "Right? Did you come to visit us? You missed us, didn't you? You missed me, your father, your sister . . . " Pavitra burst out laughing hysterically and cynically, laughter which just rose above and above like the unremitting sound of the bicycle bell of an approaching milkman. It was that kind of laughter that echoed in Bollywood horror movies, the laughter of a dead, female ghost. Pavitra was like a ghost who returned from her grave since her haunting presence frightened my parents especially my father who had paid for her funeral rites and the golden coffin. She was supposed to rest in peace, not be resurrected.

"It's cute of her to think that I missed any of you," my sister said to me in English, tears of her fiendish laughter streaming down her face like thin rivulets.

To distract my mother's confusion, I changed the topic. "Why haven't you gone to work, baba?"

"It's Sunday. An official day for him to be useless," my mother said tartly and my father whom I had questioned, kept his gaze fixed on Pavitra who was wiping her tears with the hem of her graphic t-shirt. Vacations made me lose track of days. Especially vacations where I spent half a days at the seaside, kissing and cuddling Lila.

I cleared my throat at the raunchier memories and said, "Ah, that's why even Pavitra didn't go to her job."

"No. I quit. Every day is a Sunday for me from now on." She leaned back on the sofa with a broad, nefarious grin, intent on shocking our parents. Both of those poor souls stared at each other, aghast, at what they had given birth to. My mother who would have grabbed this opportunity to blame and slander my father for Pavitra's derailing life sensibly remained quiet. She could see how my father was a step away from a cardiac arrest and she had no intention of killing him, however dumb or lazy she thought he was.

My mother's shrill voice pierced the silence,  "Now is not the time to joke around, sonu . . . I can see no reason why you would quit. How will you get money for buying all those branded clothes and those powder and stuff you put over your eyes?"

"Eyesadow," my father chipped in, his eyes devoid of any emotion behind his slightly misty spectacles.

"I will get money from my divorce settlement, no worries. After all, it was his majesty's wish that I should quit my job." Pavitra dropped another bomb as casually as some powerful countries destroyed the weaker ones.

My mother swiftly covered Pavitra's mouth with her hand, chanting something holy under her breath. "You shouldn't joke about such things . . . What if they come true? Dear Lord!"

"They're true!" she spat out, shaking away my mother's now still hand. "He doesn't want me anymore. He isn't even special to reject me, yet I put up with that crap. Anyway, it's done. We have decided it's best for us to be separated." There was a quiet sincerity in Pavitra's otherwise insouciant voice that unnerved all of us, so much so that nobody could muster any courage to speak. Our "happily ever after" mental process couldn't accept what she had brutally thrown at us. "Move, Tulsi, or I'll swear I'll kick you!"

I moved away from the television, not out of acquiescence, but out of a hypnotic state of mind as if I had been injected with narcotics. My parents too took a step away from the television, although they were far from blocking the queen's view. If she had ordered all of us to jump out of the window, we would have done so without a second thought, that was how dazed we were. Millions of words were lodged staunchly in the base of our throats, none coherent.

I was the first one to recover and I feigned nonchalance and humour. "Hasn't it been only a month since you got married, huh?"

She tapped the remote on her chin with mock thoughtfulness. "Let's see . . . No. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight days . . . Shut up now, don't remind me of that cursed day."

"Not a month," the quavering voice of my mother rippled in the air, fragmenting the silence long after she had spoken like the tremors of a bell after being struck.

I took a glimpse of my distraught father who was staring into space, perhaps plotting ways to leave all of us, his debts, everything and embark on a journey to the Himalayas. My mother was surveying him too, worried at how he would cope with this new, sizzling bit of information. She suddenly plopped beside Pavitra, inching closer to her and doting on her like a mother coaxing her toddler to eat a morsel of rice. She said, "Things will get alright soon. Which marriage doesn't have its ups and downs? Distance makes love and fondness grow. The next thing you know, he'll be knocking at our door and begging you to come back."

At that precise moment, there weren't any knocks on our door, but the bell ding-donged. My mother sprang on her feet, thinking that it was a good omen from above, the Gods engaging themselves in trivial matters as if they didn't have larger issues at hand to solve. She soared to the door like a seagull towards a swimming fish and opened it with unbounded happiness. Her happiness dissipated within seconds and she appeared faint, my father mirroring her expression. For there stood Dev, the brother of Pavitra's husband with bags belonging to Pavitra surrounding him. He had come to dump them all, he had come to officially dump Pavitra on behalf of his brother.

* * *

Glossary-

Poha- a popular breakfast.

Sonu- a loving term like dear.

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