Brushing aside all of Mala’s protestations, Ketaki hauled her to the market and bought her easels, paints, brushes and all the paraphernalia needed for painting.
‘But what will Shankar say? Will he allow it?’ Mala was apprehensive.
‘Nonsense. You just need to be smart about it. You have to present this to Shankar as another feather in your cap.’
‘Meaning?’ Mala was confused.
‘Meaning Shankar would be all too glad to show off to the world that his trophy wife is not only gorgeous but an artist too.’
‘Er . . . do you think it will work?’ Mala was hesitant.
‘Of course! I know exactly how men like Shankar think. Just do as I say.’ Ketaki was confident.
Mala nodded. Her being began to fill with a long-forgotten excitement at the thought of using the paintbrush after years.
‘Now the first thing you do is convert one of the guest rooms of your sprawling bungalow into a studio. After that, all you have to do is paint. Paint like never before. Pour all your angst, all your emotions, everything, into your paintings,’ Ketaki spoke passionately.
Mala looked at Ketaki in wonder. Was she a goddess, the thought came to her, and tears almost welled up in her eyes.
A month later, Mala invited Ketaki to her studio when no one was at home. Ketaki went from painting to painting exclaiming in delight. ‘This is better than I expected.’
‘Really? You really think so?’ Mala’s art teachers in school and college had always loved her paintings—but that had been so long ago.
‘Yes.’ Ketaki was firm. ‘Now I want you to make about thirty more, in addition to these six, and then we will exhibit them in one of the art galleries.’
Mala was speechless. For the first time in her life, she began to dream . . .
To Mala, Ketaki was everything she never had. She was her mentor, her best friend, her brother, sister, girlfriend, boyfriend, buddy, doting mother, indulgent father, partner-in-crime, confidante—everything. Bit by bit, Ketaki began filling the painful void—the humungous aching crater within her that had swallowed up the real Mala eons ago.
They felt like long-lost soulmates united at last.
One afternoon while sharing their daily lunch, Ketaki said, ‘I don’t feel like going back to my office. Let’s go back to my apartment for a nice siesta.’
‘Okay.’ Mala was all too ready. In any case, her children returned at six after attending school and subsequent tuition classes. And Shankar returned only by nine or much later.
Later, lying in Ketaki’s eclectically designed bedroom and holding hands, they felt at peace.
‘This is the first time I’ve taken time off since I started working,’ Ketaki broke the companionable silence.
‘And I feel free for the first time in years.’ Mala smiled.
‘I love your hair.’ Ketaki softly caressed Mala’s silky locks.
‘Hmm . . . that feels so good!’ Mala purred languidly as a heavy lassitude overcame her limbs. Her eyes grew heavy and a contented smile curved her mouth. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to pull Ketaki into her arms. Ketaki’s arms embraced her tenderly. Mala experienced gentle vibes enveloping her. From somewhere deep within her, copious tears started flowing down her cheeks and heavy sobs racked her, as years of anger, sorrow and frustration rolled out of her. The calm that followed left her with only one deep feeling—of being loved and cared for as never before.
Holding Ketaki close, she whispered, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you . . .’
‘I know. I love you too,’ cooed Ketaki.
The hours passed in sheer bliss. At last Mala understood the ramifications of her own being. Finally she had become true to herself. She was complete now.
In the ten years of marriage, Mala had never formed any kind of attachment with Shankar. Whereas here, within a few hours, a lifelong irrevocable bond had been formed.
Ketaki emerged from the kitchen with two steaming cups of tea, and Mala was brought back from her ruminations. They smiled at each other mischievously, sipping their tea in silence. Words were unnecessary, for they knew that each belonged to the other in an immutable union. Till now their lives had been like a parched desert, but at last they had been blessed with the nourishing rain of love and life. This was their own cocoon of love, which no one in the world could breach. And as evening fell, they left the apartment, hand in hand, towards their separate destinations, with joy in their hearts and a spring in their step.
5
The Matchmaker
Anuj Dutt
It was winter and I was sitting in the lawn waiting for the school bus to drop my daughter Amaira home. The bus came and the little lady got off. When she saw me she came running. I was really proud of my fifteen-year-old.
‘I am going to be Samyukta, and Rohan will be Prithviraj Chauhan!’ she shouted before breaking into her favourite jig. Well, she had landed the role she wanted in her school play, Chand Bardai’s Prithviraj Raso. For me it was a dazzling tale of medieval romance. However, I knew that the authenticity of the Samyukta episode was in history’s grey area of sorts.
The legend is that Samyukta, the headstrong princess of Kannauj, and Prithviraj Chauhan, a Rajput king, fell deeply in love. On finding out about the love affair, Raja Jaichand, who was Samyukta’s father and the king of Kannauj, was livid that a romance had been blossoming without his knowledge and that, too, with a king he could not stand. Jaichand decided to insult Prithviraj and arranged a swayamvara for his daughter, an event where she would garland a husband of her choice from a galaxy of invited royalty. Prithviraj was, of course, not invited. To insult him further, Jaichand commissioned a clay statue of Prithviraj in the form of a lowly guard of his court and installed it at the entrance.
Prithviraj, on hearing about the ceremony, devised a plan. Now there are two versions of how things went after that. One version says that Prithviraj hid behind the statue and another says that he removed the statue the night before and stood in its place. On the day of the ceremony, Samyukta walked through the court holding the ceremonial garland. Ignoring the gaze of her ardent suitors, she passed through the door and put the garland around the neck of Prithviraj’s statue. The ‘statue’ magically came to life, sweeping Samyukta off her feet, literally, setting her on his horse and riding away with her to Delhi, his kingdom. Till date, I believe this is what a true swashbuckling romance is about!
Coming back to the present, as per the deal struck with Amaira a few days back, it was agreed that if she landed the role, I would narrate to her and her little sister, Naina, how I’d won my ‘Samyukta’! They knew patches of how Rekha, their mother, and I got married. My in-laws and my parents had strictly censored the uncomfortable bits and had told them their own versions. I wanted both my children to hit their teens before I could share the true chain of events that had transpired so many years ago.
After dinner, we were all to curl up on the sofa for the grand narration. I had serious doubts about my storytelling skills. While revising the narrative in my head, I recalled how, in those days, the messengers of romance were PCO and STD booths, and how, for arranged marriages, the girl’s photo was sent to the boy’s by speed post and a pre-arranged match under intensive parental supervision was the done thing. And I wondered if I would come out at the end of the narration as dashing as the Prithviraj Chauhan of history lessons. In the world that Amaira and Naina lived in, mobile phones had replaced STD booths, and it was not just the girl’s photo that was sent any more, it was the boy’s too—for which they used WhatsApp and email. And meetings took place in one of the numerous coffee shops that had sprung up, of course after their respective profiles were vetted on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.