Chapter 11
3:50 AM
He watched her, as she instructed the gardener about exactly what she wanted in the gardens, and how she wanted it. Smiling, requesting, and getting it done. She was polite, his Rani Sahiba- to everyone. To him, coldly so. The only time he could feel the fire within her- the warmth that he had seen radiating that day when he had first seen her- was when they came together.
Why did she not smile at him like that? Why did she not demand things from him, like wives did to their husbands? Why did she smile that ever polite, cold smile- when he brought her something? Why did she not talk to him? Why did she only answer him when talked to? Why?
He sipped on the tea she had brought him, perfect tea. with just the right amount of sugar, brewed for just the right amount of time, with just the right amount of milk added, Just perfect. Like his home was. Like everything else in his life was. Like his wife was. Just perfect. He was of mind to throw the damned thing against the perfect wall mural that she herself had drawn in the lounge. Shyam Manohar Jha was sick and tired of perfection.
He knew he would have preferred it if she had made him tea that had salt instead of sugar and was not brewed right- and yet he would have drank it as if it was amrit only if she had smiled that genuine beautiful warm smile she bestowed upon everyone but him. Was something wrong with him? Was that why she buried herself in worshipping a god, she hadn’t ever actually seen? Shyam tried to recall, was the girl he had fallen in love with 11 odd years ago the woman she was now? Or had he killed her too?
He got up, agitated. No longer able to see her with that veil of calmness, of politeness perfectly placed on her face. He had to get out of there, or he might do something he would later regret. He smiled wryly at that thought. Did she regret him saving her from a doomed life all those years ago? Would she have been better off with a pervert who had tried to buy her- who had placed a price on her body- than being with someone like him? Someone who loved her? But you bought her too, Jha, he reminded himself, cuttingly.
Shyam walked down the corridor, coming to halt at the room that led to his mother’s - the fancifully dubbed The Green Room. Rani Sahiba had taken up spending a lot of time there. In fact, all her free time at home was spent there. It was as if he was his father all over again, and she, his mother. Hadn’t she too started spending all her time in that thrice damned room just before she had lit herself up like Guy Fawks? Shyam shuddered, what was happening to Anjali? Had she taken to coming up here, in that room out of some morbid fascination? Or was the past exerting it’s pull on her? What if its worse, his conscience asked. What if, she came here to get away from you? She knew that he would never set a foot inside those ornate doors his mother had fancied and had carved to reflect the traditional Lucknowi jewellery designs. He just... couldn’t. Was that why Anjali crept about in this room? To escape him? Shyam closed his eyes, feeling as if a lance had gone clean through his heart, tearing it apart from the inside. He should be bleeding from that amount of pain, shouldn’t he, Shyam thought hazily, as he swiftly turned away and walked down towards the library. He needed to escape. He did. There were certain realities Shyam acknowledged that he was incapable of facing - one of them was that his borrowed time with his Rani Sahiba was coming to a close. He barrelled towards the shelf that held Urdu poetries - a secret passion. One he wished he could have shared with her. Would she care? He looked, until the well thumbed copy of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Quatrains was found and he sat down; collapsed really, on the cream couch facing the large French window. There used to be an old armchair here, he thought, fuzzily. An armchair rattily upholstered in green and beige velvet, from his grandfather’s time. She must have replaced it with the couch, for his comfort. Perfection, he thought bleakly. How he loathed it. He opened the book until the page he was looking for came up, bookmarked with a single dried lily. She had picked it once, laughing, soon after she had arrived at this house as a reluctant bride. Anjali had then forgotten about it after a while, dropping the flower carelessly on the side table on her side of the bed. Shyam had picked it up, and had pressed it in between the pages of this book. Oddly enough, he hadn’t noted the poetry then and now, nearly 11 years later how oddly it reflected the state of his mind. Had the course been set even then, he thought. Had the fates known that he would end up doing this to her? Shyam read the poetry again, his heart heavy, as if it had been weighed down with stones of his misdeeds.
“Raat yunh dil mein teri khoee hui yaad aayee
Jaise veeraaney mein chupkey sey bahaar aa jaye
Jaisey sehra on mein howley se chaley baadey naseem
Jaisey beemaar ko bey wajhey Qaraar aa jaaye”
Translation
“Last night, your lost memories crept into my heart
as spring arrives secretly into a barren garden
as a cool morning breeze blows slowly in a desert
as a sick person feels well, for no reason.”
He didn’t know how long he had sat there, lost in the past. In the memories of the girl who had once sparkled like a newly polished diamond, radiant in her joy. The jeweller in Shyam could almost see the blue lights coming off her, back then. She had the warm fire one would associate with the richest green of a Columbian Emerald, wasn’t that why he had always given her emeralds? Should he have told her why? He shrugged tiredly, what difference would it have made? The girl with such warmth that even his cold heart had felt thawed just being around her. The girl to whom he had pledged his heart, his love and his loyalty; albeit silently. Should Shyam had vocalized his pledges? Would they have mattered to Anjali? After all, he would always be the replacement, for all he knew, she was still in love with her no-good almost husband. Shyam laughed hoarsely. She was loyal to a death, hadn’t he experienced it first hand. Looking after his house like the perfect wife, all the while probably hating the seconds away. Where had she gone, the magical creature he had once seen running about in a Lucknowi wedding clad in green kanchivaram? Would she ever be back? Shyam was afraid that would never happen. Why was it that the Jha men destroyed everything that had ever mattered to them? What scared him more was the knowledge that it was his past that was doing it to them. A past he would never be able to outrun.
“Shyamji?” she had dimpled at him, eyes playing peek-a-boo through the curtain of silk that was her hair. She peeked through again, and he could see her eyes dancing with shy laughter. An inner joy he couldn’t fathom but loved all the same. A joy that lit him from the inside. He could live forever, just on that joy. How these four years had passed, he thought. It barely seemed as if a day had gone. “If I ask something, would you give it to me?” her eyes had twinkled and his heart had dropped a beat. “My life for yours Rani Sahiba,” he had said, smiling. She hadn’t understood, but he wasn’t joking. Neither was he flirting, being the charming rogue. Shyam had been serious. “Lets have a baby,” she had smiled, going red and he had felt as if a cold blade had butchered his heart. He had frozen. Assaulted by the images of his childhood. Of his mother burning. By the knowledge that he carried that faulty gene inside him that destroyed people from the inside. As it had done to his mother. To his father. How could he do it to an innocent child as well? He felt the blood drain from his face, knowing what the answer would do to her, “In that case Rani Sahiba, I am afraid our roads must part. Because there can be no child. Ever.” He had seen what he had expected to, that wounded, shocked, then empty look that came into her eyes. She had stood there, face blanched, and had nodded curtly, and left the room. Shyam knew something had wilted then.
Yes, he thought, he had known. It was that moment his goddess had wilted, and the perfect icy wife had been born. And since then he had died every second, knowing that the one thing she had really wanted- he could never give her. She had tried to persuade him- she had. And with every cold refusal of his- the light that had been his Menaka had diminished- until one day, only a cold shell remained. A cold shell, he thought, that had frozen into an icy exoskeleton. Was his Menaka still in there somewhere? Slumbering like the Sleeping Beauty of the old fairy tales? Or was it empty? As empty as Shyam felt inside, these days.
Was he a murderer then? A cold-blooded killer? A man who had watched, silently as his Mother burned- and who had watched silently, his wife- his love- lose her life force? He shook his head. Could there be a man more cursed than him?
“Suniye?” he looked up, as she walked in. Suniye, he sneered- not Shyam, Suniye. He raised his eyebrow at her, sitting straight, closing the book and keeping it aside, as he motioned her to take a seat beside him. Feeling that razor sharp cut in his chest again, as she nodded a no, and opted to stand instead of sitting. Was he so repulsive, now?
He controlled his rising temper. No, it wouldn’t do to lose control like that around her. He didn’t want her to withdraw even more than she had. He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring briefly, and opened them again. “Yes, Rani Sahiba?” Did she flinch when he called her that? he wondered, or was it his imagination? Her eyes fluttered, the only indication of her nervousness. “There is the Roy-Chowdhari Wedding tonight. We were invited. Would you be coming?”
He wanted to shout at her, yell, shake her- why are you giving best wishes to other couples- wishing them happy marriages, when you have nearly let your own marriage fall into shambles? He sighed. “Yes. I remember. We will leave in a few hours, Rani Sahiba.” she nodded, was she relieved? to be away from his presence? He watched her walk out of the room- the emptiness of the room echoing the one in his heart. Come back to me, Rani Sahiba. Come back to me.
He watched, as she stopped just outside of the doors, and turned. Those black, wide innocent eyes looking straight at him. Something that he felt deeply for her reflected in those pools for a moment, before she turned away. Making his cold heart beat for a moment before it stopped again, in despair. The words that he longed to say to her ringing in his mind- the words that he would never be able to bring to his lips- due to the deeply entrenched fear he always lived in. The fear of losing her completely. The fear of losing her tangible presence around him- the only thing that she had yet to withdraw completely from him. The only thing that had still kept him hoping.
Come back to me Rani Sahiba, from wherever you are lost right now. I Love You, Anjali. My Menaka.
He went out, craving fresh air. Craving solitude. Craving... what, he wasn’t exactly sure. As Shyam walked around the award worthy showplace of a garden his wife had created, he knew one thing - he couldn’t go to that damned wedding. He couldn’t stomach another evening of pretense. Of make-believe happily-ever-afters and of her perfection. Shyam shuddered. There wasn’t enough liquor in the world to help him with it and if he wasn’t mistaken - The Roy-Chowdharis’ didn’t drink. No. Shyam wasn’t going. He wouldn’t be able to mouth politely worded greetings and platitudes tonight. He needed to get... out. He stalked over to the great room where his beautiful wife stood, ordering the help to do something or the other - her everlasting quest of attaining perfection in this house, he thought with an inward sigh. Would it kill her to be a little mussed up. A little dusty? Not so perfect? Kill her, he thought, shuddering. No. He wouldn’t think about that... not tonight...
“Rani Sahiba.” he said, quietly. He didn’t need to raise his voice to call her. She seemed to sense him behind her.
“Ji?”
His control almost snapped at that. Ji. Suniye. Was it really that hard for her to think of him more... fondly? Without the bloody respectful honorariums? But he controlled himself. No. He couldn’t lose control. If he did, he knew, he wouldn’t be able to put himself together again, not unlike Humpty Dumpty, he thought sardonically.
“I will not be accompanying you to the Wedding tonight, Rani Sahiba. If you wish, you can go. There is work.” he said, curtly. But he watched those inky black pools for a sign. One sign- that she wanted him with her. But Rani Sahiba wouldn’t be her if she let her emotions and feelings be known to him, would she? He sighed. She was blank. Politely nodding. Asking his permission for attending the wedding herself. He sighed and turned away with a curt nod, without looking back and then when he was sure that she was gone, he sighed again, cursing his fate.
What else could he do? he thought wryly. As he got into his car, and pulled out of the driveway. Not looking back, as he drove away. Not noticing the lonely woman standing looking out the French windows on the top floor her black eyes glistening with grief as she watched him drive away. Had he turned back once, just once- like she had done- his heart would have gained that one ray of hope it was so desperate for.
She turned around, wiping away the tears glistening in her eyes almost ruthlessly. Why was she even acting this way? She knew that he was growing impatient with the endless social obligations. He never liked going to weddings in the first place, probably brought the bitter taste of his own back to him. Nowadays though, he seemed to loathe going to one - was it a symbol of where her own marriage had come down to? Anjali expected nothing from Shyam. She was well aware of what she owed him, all because of her mother’s pleas. He was a good man; even if not the one for her, she thought in mute melancholia. A man would deny her what every woman would want at some point of their life - a child. Why? Did he think she wasn’t fit to birth the child who would carry out the Manohar-Jha birthline? She shook her head, whatever his reasons maybe; very soon - Anjali wouldn’t need to abide by his rules. He would, she thought, with a lump of hot coal in her throat - be free to choose whom he wishes to. Someone right this time.
She wound the purple and jade green Thanchoi saree around her. It had peacock motifs done in gold that was reflected in her jade and mauve choli. Shyam had brought it back with him the last time he had been to Banaras; she had meant to wear it today to show it off to him. Anjali shook her head wryly, did she never learn? She took out the Meenakari jewellery, a style so popular in Rajasthan. Ever the jeweller’s lady, she thought with some amusement, as she draped the heavy gold choker with green and purple enamelling of peacocks with little amethyst embedded in the midst and matching taanaa earrings. Her eyes blurred again, and to think.. she thought, slipping on the matching bangles - to think that she would have traded it all for his love. She pulled her pallu up, pinning it on with a tiny meenakari peacock brooch and drew the pallu around her - an invisible shield. She wasn’t the soft hearted fool Anjali Malek any longer - she was Shyam’ Jha’s Rani Sahiba, she sneered - Anjali Jha; the Caged Queen to the Prince of diamonds.
She had the driver take her down to the wedding. If the hosts had found it strange that the man who had never let his wife-his beloved Rani Sahiba - attend any events alone, glaringly missing - they didn’t comment on it. She had told them that Shyamji had an important order of business and they had perhaps understood. To run an empire, and a law firm … poor man, they had chuckled. Why not rest on family’s well earned laurels? but of course, For a Man like Shyam Manohar Jha- that would be dishonorable, wouldn’t it? The women had looked admiringly at the Wife- the Rani Sahiba, as the Prince of Diamonds liked to call her. She was a Queen, indeed. they thought with green-tinged sighs. Lucky, like any other Princess, to have married a Prince who doted on her. Showered her with her weight in gold. Who wouldn’t want it? If Anjali had known their thoughts, she would have laughed, hysterically. Take it all... she would have said, take it all, please. Just give him back to me, she would have implored.
The placid faced Rani Sahiba though, went about, congratulating the parents of the bride and the groom, giving her gift. Blessing the couple. Smiling. Laughing. Who would have known that she was feeling... torn without her errant husband. Without his eyes on her like a safety blanket. Yet, this corner in her... this little sliver of her heart rejoiced. Freedom. At what price though?
At the Price of Love, of Peace, of a Happily Ever After which danced just out of reach, she answered herself. A price, she realized that she was willing... was desperate enough to pay now.
“For water surely needed a boundary, a rim, a shore, to give it shape and hold it in place. This was a firmament,like the night sky, holding the vessel aloft as if it were a planet or a star." - Amitav Ghosh (A Sea of Poppies)
He drove, thinking about the book, about that quote and the woman who reminded him so much of it. After all, wasn’t Anjali... his Rani Sahiba exactly like water? Her different avatars the different shapes she took in different social situations. With him she was the perfect wife, with the public; she was the Queen - his rani sahiba and yet, when he observed her, when there was nobody looking - she was that girl he met 11 odd years ago - his Menaka. Funny how a book, two lines of it can describe the woman you love, who frustrated you to no ends in ways that nothing else ever could. No wonder he loved Amitav Ghosh’s fictions, he thought wryly, as he flicked his hands, turning towards Marine Drive in South Mumbai. He knew a good place to get away. Even a warrior too hid out, to lick his wounds sometimes, he thought, mockingly and he was but a mere man to his Ice Goddess. As he drew to the corner, in front of the iconic building with the Oberoi Hotel on its right and the Churchgate Station to its left, he sighed. And yet, he still missed his Menaka.
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