A Sahib's Daughter (26 page)

“You will really like Radhika. She’s a very sweet girl,” she continued in the same breath.

“Yes, Ma, I’m sure I will,” said Ravi. His throat was dry. This was not a scenario he had envisioned for himself. Why had he agreed to it? It was ridiculous. He should just have agreed not to marry Samira and left it at that. How had they talked him into this? He felt that he had been manipulated into agreeing to their plan to compensate for the indiscretion he had committed by even thinking about marrying someone like her.

Driving home, he looked disconsolately out the window at the helter-skelter of urban life he had been so overjoyed to escape. Everyone tore around in frenzy with horns honking, brakes slamming and a nerve-racking attitude of one-upmanship. Cars sped towards each other on the narrow pot-holed streets, with one driver finally giving way to the one who stood his ground. It was a miracle more people weren’t killed. In wintertime, the dust lay thick on every surface. Now in the monsoon, mold and mildew blackened the sides of buildings and turned the footpaths slick and treacherous.

“If you don’t like her, just tell us,” said his father, Sunil. “There are other girls.”

“Don’t talk like that, Sunil. Of course, he will like her. Remember how pretty she is.”

Yes, there were thousands of prospects in Delhi, each one of them described as “tall, fair and convent-educated” in the matrimonial columns. So, where were all these fabulous women, he wondered? He knew of only one who truly fit the description, he thought wryly to himself. She was the tallest, fairest and most beautiful girl in the land, and he had broken her heart and couldn’t get her out of his mind. He was still smarting from causing so much hurt, and was about to perhaps create more pain. Could he even contemplate saying,

“She won’t do. This girl’s not tall, fair or educated enough. Next please.”

After all, there were plenty more for him to choose from.

But what was the difference? His heart wasn’t in it. They would all seem the same to him in his current frame of mind. He might as well go for the first one. Obviously, his parents and family thought highly of her. She must be pretty special. Why make things more complicated?

His father maneuvered the car up the driveway, and they entered the house, going up the marble staircase. The living room was furnished with low couches upholstered in purple brocade, brass side and coffee tables and white drum lampshades. There were large pictures on the walls depicting medieval scenes of crossed-legged men playing lutes, women balancing earthenware pots on their heads and half-clad dancing maidens surrounded by deer. Cool and uncluttered, it could have been any middle-class home in Delhi, with no personal stamp on it except for a small number of sepia picture frames of the family in front of the Taj Mahal, one of him with his sister Deepa, and Sunil and Poonam’s wedding portrait.

His bags had been taken to his room. He discarded his sweaty travelling clothes and went to the bathroom. The water smelled strongly of chlorine. He had grown accustomed to the pure, unsullied water of the Dooars. As he poured tepid water over his body, he felt himself grow tepid and indifferent. He had presented every argument to his father, who had refuted all of them and won. Ravi was defeated. Like a Christian before the lions, he would go forward and meet his fate.

After a cup of tea and some of his favorite sweetmeats, they climbed into the car for the short ride to Radhika’s house. The houses were all flat-roofed and faintly Art Deco, if a particular architectural style could be attributed to the buildings that cowered behind protective cement walls, with concrete paths and driveways constructed to defy the intrusion of any wayward weed or wildflower. The odor of disinfectant used for cleaning the floors combined with the scent of incense that burned in an alcove in homage to the deity Krishna.

They were ushered in by the girl’s parents, the stress of the occasion evident on their faces. Their beloved daughter was about to be assessed by a highly eligible bachelor. The right of refusal on her part was purely academic. The likelihood of her making a better match was highly unlikely. In any case, this bridegroom was so handsome that she would have to be out of her mind, or blind, to turn him down.

“Please come, come in. Be seated. Have some tea. We will fetch Radhika.” Pushpa fussed, passing plates of food, while Ashok, went to summon their daughter. She rejected their protests that they had already had tea.

“No, no. I insist,” said Pushpa, who had gone to great lengths to select the very best sandesh and samosas for this auspicious occasion.

Radhika was in her room, anxious and flustered by the ordeal ahead of her. She had been told that Ravi was a great match, besides being extremely handsome and intelligent. But she didn’t want to leave her friends in Delhi and to go to the tea plantations or to be separated from Santosh, whom she pined for every minute they were apart and who loved her desperately, but would never be anything but an office clerk, whom she knew her parents would never agree as to as a suitable match for her.

Should she try to look as pretty as possible? She wasn’t quite sure what the better course of action was. While she ached to be with Santosh, she did not want to be rejected by Ravi. And if she couldn’t have Santosh, then surely it was better to be with someone she didn’t love who had good looks and a good job, than someone who had neither? So she wore her prettiest salwar and dutifully followed her mother downstairs, jasmine- scented, silks rustling, bangles and anklets jangling.

Ravi had to acknowledge that she was exceptionally pretty as she entered the room, her large, frightened eyes darkened with kohl. He didn’t think it polite to examine her too openly and looking down, he saw her slim feet resting in gold thong sandals with toenails painted red. She saw that he wore leather tasseled moccasins, gray socks and dark trousers. She had been instructed to cast her eyes down and look demure, but in truth she scarcely dared to raise her eyes and look at him, fearful of what she might see, as though that first glance would seal her fate forever.

“See how shy she is!” her father said, proudly. “Don’t be shy, Radhika. Come and meet Ravi.”

He had stood as she entered the room and waited to sit until she had been ushered into a seat beside him. She sat with eyes lowered until finally her father intervened,

“I think we should show Poonam and Sunil the view from the terrace and leave you young people alone.”

After the older couples left the room, they looked at each other for the first time. Finally, Ravi said,

“You are very pretty Radhika. Please don’t be nervous.”

“Thank you. I am a little nervous,” she finally spoke.

“Where did you go to college?”

“I went to the Lady’s Academy,” she said, fiddling uneasily with her gold bangles.

“I would like to get to know you better,” he said.

They both knew each other’s histories, and she realized he was trying to make conversation. At least he was not rejecting her outright if he wanted to get to know her.

“Then, I would like to get to know you, too,” she replied.

“Would you like to go to a movie with me, perhaps?” he suggested. “You can choose which one.”

That seemed like a good idea. It took the pressure off having to talk and finding things to say to each other.

“That sounds fine,” she said. “When?”

“How about tomorrow evening? I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Okay. Do you like English or Hindi movies?”

“Either one, you can choose.”

The parents decided to return as it was hot out on the terrace. They were pleased that the couple had arranged to meet again the following day. After that, they would know if they had a match.

In the balmy air of Darjeeling, Prava and Prem’s romance was being rapidly rekindled. The two previously solitary individuals were suddenly discovering that they couldn’t function without each other. Prem could see no reason to return to his lonely villa after he left the office each day when Prava was waiting eagerly for him at her home with a glass of rum and a hot meal. He couldn’t remember what he had done and how he had passed his days before he met her. They enjoyed animated conversations, long walks or just pottering about the house. Prem found many projects that needed to be done in her little home, which hadn’t had a man living in it for almost twenty-five years.

When they were at his house, she arranged flowers, rearranged furniture and supervised the cleaning and polishing till the house gleamed and started to smell of mansion polish and pine just like hers. Eventually, it made no sense for him to go back to his house after an evening at hers or for her to return all the way back to her cottage when it was so much more convenient, not to mention pleasurable, for them to just stay together.

Charles and Ramona would soon be arriving and had spent a weekend looking at properties, helped by Tashi. It was understood that Prava would move in with them, and Prem found that he was contemplating their arrival with more than a little dismay. Prava realized that it would put an end to their intimate evenings by the fire, cuddling and giggling on the sofa and eating breakfast in their pajamas.

“What are we going to do,” he asked her, as they cleared the dinner things one evening in her kitchen, “when Charles and Ramona arrive?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” she said, stacking plates in the sink ready for Tiki to wash in the morning.

“Could you in your wildest dreams consider moving in with me?” he asked. “Or would that be too unconventional?”

It was something she had already considered. It would be unconventional, but it wasn’t as if it didn’t happen all the time.

“Or we could get married,” he said, “If you prefer.” He passed her some glasses to put in the sink.

“We could,” she agreed. “If we really had to. But do we really need a piece of paper at our age?”

“It’s your decision, my darling. Please think about it. I would be very happy to marry you.”

“I will,” she agreed, pragmatically. “But the real issue is which house we would live in.”

“You really like this place, don’t you?”

“It’s just that I’ve lived here so long, and we can walk to shops and restaurants or just take pleasant strolls, which we can’t do from your place. It’s the only permanent home our family has had and, yes, I think it’s because I just love it, almost as much as I love you.”

It was the first time she’d said the words. He came over to her and took her in his arms. His voice shook.

“I can’t believe my incredible good luck finding you again and being given a second chance to have you in my life. I love you and adore you and would do anything to make you happy. And if it means spending the rest of my days with you in this little cottage, then nothing would bring me more joy.”

Prava rested her head on his shoulder and felt a great sense of contentment. They would be able to grow old together. It was a comforting and reassuring thought.

The next day, he instructed Tashi to have Prava’s name added to the deed and to tell his aunt that the house was no longer available, as he was moving into it himself. His third instruction to her was to put the villa up for sale.

In Ranikot, the manager’s bungalow was in complete chaos. There were piles of newspapers in every room. Kala had picked up dozens of plywood tea chests from the factory storage go-down and taken them to the bungalow in the pickup truck. China, silver, linen and the all the accumulation of thirty years had to be wrapped and carefully packed in the chests. There was also a growing pile of items they no longer needed, to be distributed among the servants.

Charles came home one afternoon and said that the baboos and office staff would be arriving at three o’clock for the farewell party.

“Oh, how nice of them,” said Ramona, preoccupied with packing. It seemed everyone was throwing farewell parties for them. Charles instructed Ram and Jetha to set up tables and chairs for sixteen people under the Poinciana tree. Kala was dispatched to pick up the ladies.

By two-thirty, the first people started to arrive, excited about having the afternoon off and being at the manager’s bungalow. Some came on bicycles, others on foot. Kala returned with a jeep-load of women, and Ramona started to get concerned when she saw that no one had brought any food.