A secret door
A few days after the visit to the flower
show, a minor crisis blew up in We Three.
A small flash occurred somewhere in the
wiring, and as a result, the power supply to Srini's room went out. The problem
fell under Sripad's responsibility, and he wasted no time in calling an
electrician. While tracing the fault, the electrician discovered that the wires
to Srini's room actually ran through Kshipra's room.
Following the wiring further, he found an
interconnecting door between the two rooms, with the wires passing through one
corner of it. With some effort, he pried the door open and found the broken
ends of the faulty wire. He replaced it, and the electricity was restored. He
mentioned that he would need to return the next day to fix the problem
permanently, and asked Kshipra to leave the door open overnight. Both Srini and
Kshipra agreed.
That night, after dinner, once the Three
S-es had retired, Srini found herself feeling lonely — a feeling she had
noticed creeping up on her more and more often these days. Since the
interconnecting door stood open, she walked over to Kshipra's room and called
out to her.
"What's wrong?" Kshipra asked.
"Actually, nothing's wrong. I just
felt a little lonely."
"Oh." Kshipra thought for a
moment, then said, "Srini, my bed's really big, you know. Why don't you
come over and settle in here? Go back whenever you feel better — or stay the
night, for that matter. I won't mind."
"Thanks," Srini said. She
gathered her pillows and a blanket and settled at the far end of Kshipra's bed.
"You have a positively giant bed. Why
on earth did you need one this size?" Srini asked.
"Oh, that was Sam's idea. And once he
got an idea into his head, no one could talk him out of it."
"Now who's this Sam? You've never
mentioned him."
"His real name was Sampat Patil, but
everyone called him Sam — even my sons did."
"Were you married to him? You do go by
Patil as your surname..."
"Isn't that obvious, Srini? But wait —
last time, I told you my story, and you promised you'd tell me yours too. You
never did."
"I did want to. But it feels a little
awkward, talking about it with Sripad around — he's still my little boy, after
all." She smiled. "With you, it's different. You were my maid,
once."
"All right, then — let's hear it
tonight. Shri's fast asleep." Kshipra settled back. "I think I'll
start from the most recent past and work backward, because that stretch of my
life was the happiest one, and the one I least want to forget."
Kshipra watched Srini as she spoke, sensing
she needed something to lean on. Srini sat with her back against the headboard,
a pillow tucked behind her, legs stretched out. Kshipra slid forward quietly
and rested her head in Srini's lap, the way a child might, turning her face up
toward her and taking her hand. Srini, feeling steadier, stroked Kshipra's
forehead and began — choosing, of all places, to start at the end.
"Kshi, you may not know this, but
Jaswant died long back — thirty-four years ago, to be exact. I was living in
Delhi then, in what I believed was Jaswant's flat. His dealings were always a
little murky, especially where property was concerned. When we lived together,
he used to hand me enormous sums of money. I never spent it — I saved as much
of it as I could. FDs, shares, mutual funds. I never told Jaswant, and he never
asked. One thing, though, was certain: he loved me. I can't even explain the
depth of what he felt. Once, I dared him to lift me in his arms and carry me a
hundred steps. He walked five hundred. I'd quietly moved all my money into Pune
banks, just to be safe. Once I turned thirty-five, Jaswant became almost
obsessive about my looks — he'd suggest one beauty treatment or another all the
time, though I never really bothered, because even at that age I still looked
quite young.
"After Jaswant passed, I assumed the
Delhi flat — the one I lived in — belonged to him. It didn't. It belonged to a
friend of his, a man Jaswant had leased it from at a token rent. The actual
owner called himself Shahanwaj. Jaswant had helped him through a hard patch once,
and the lease was his way of repaying the favour. As it happened, it was
Shahanwaj himself who brought me the news of Jaswant's sudden death.
"A month after Jaswant died, Shahanwaj
came to see me. He'd visited a few times before, back when Jaswant was alive,
and even then I hadn't cared for the way he looked at me — his nazar. At first,
I assumed he'd only come to offer condolences. I was wrong, and I realized it
almost at once. Until then, he had always called me Bhabhiji. That day, he
dropped the formality altogether and called me Srini, plain and simple. I was
startled for a moment, but his roundabout talk soon made it clear enough — he
wanted to take Jaswant's place. I gave him no answer that day, only telling him
he was welcome to visit whenever he liked, for a chat.
"My hunch proved right — he turned up
again the very next day. I kept him waiting deliberately, offering no
encouragement, though I didn't say no either. After four or five days, he must
have grown impatient, because he asked, almost casually, what my monthly
expenses came to.
"I named a figure higher than what
Jaswant used to give me, but not so high that it would put him off. I also did not ask him any personal details for two reasons. Firstly, he was Jaswant's friend and secondly he was owner of my flat. If he wished, he could have driven me out from there, with nowhere to go."
"By then, in those last few days, I'd
already begun to like him. He was everything Jaswant wasn't.
"Jaswant could never do anything
gently or with any finesse. He meant well, but he usually ended up offending
people anyway.
"'Waj', as I later called him, was his
opposite in every way — an artist through and through. He earned his living
teaching sitar, classes that were quite popular in Delhi, and gave the
occasional recital, which brought in a lump sum each time. Once he moved in
with me, he began spending that money on me instead.
"He really was a remarkable man.
Everything he did, he did with a kind of quiet artistry. Jaswant had always
lived in jeans and polo shirts; Waj wore embroidered kurtas and
churidar-salwars. He was, without question, very handsome — fair-skinned,
half-bearded, gold-plated spectacles perched on his nose. Slender, with wrists
as delicate as a girl's — though I'd later discover he was far stronger than he
looked. He played the sitar beautifully, and had won a fair number of medals
for it.
"In short, he needed a wife. Formal or
otherwise.
"Eventually, I told him yes — though I
warned him, I was thirty-five, and he'd have to keep his expectations within
reason. I would certainly be a faithful wife; if he wanted to be a faithful
husband, I'd prefer it, but if he wanted the occasional fling elsewhere, that
was fine by me too. He thought it over, and simply said, 'Okay.'
"Then he said something strange — that
he'd be moving his 'thing' in on Sunday. I assumed he meant his sitar. He never
did bring it, though. He always spoke in riddles and double meanings, and it
would sometimes take me days to work out what he'd actually meant.
"When he left that day, I found a
brown envelope on my table. It held the exact figure I'd asked for. He needed a
wife, plainly, and he was willing to pay for one — the money he'd left was his
advance booking, in a manner of speaking.
"He moved in on the Saturday. By then,
I'd cleared every trace of Jaswant out of my bedroom. When he brought his bags
in, I offered to help arrange his things. He declined politely, and unpacked
them himself, item by item — stacked by size, small things kept separate. He
brought an artist's eye to everything, even this. When he'd finished, he
turned, took me in his arms, and kissed me — long, and full on the lips. Then
he whispered something in my ear. All I caught was 'thing,' and I said nothing.
"Neither of us slept well that night —
me, because of a new presence in my bed, and Waj, because of a new place and a
stranger in his. But Shahanwaj proved himself a man of his word. He did move
his 'thing' in — on Sunday."
Both Kshipra and Srini burst out laughing,
until Srini hushed her. "If Shri wakes up, our little secret will be
out."
"After we'd settled in together and
worked out the small matters of running a household, I noticed that every day,
when I came out of my bath, he'd look at me expectantly, then turn his eyes
away — never saying a word. I began to sense he was waiting for something from
me. So one night, lying in his arms, I brought it up — told him I noticed a
kind of disappointment in his eyes whenever I stepped out after bathing.
"'What's the problem?' I asked. He was
reluctant to say, and tried changing the subject: 'Kuch nahi, ji.' But when I
pressed him, he finally admitted, with some difficulty, that it wasn't about me
— it was about my clothes.
"'What, you don't like my dresses?' He
finally confessed that, Northerner though he was, he simply didn't care for
kurtas on a woman.
"Srini, in all my years with men, I
was never one to dig in my heels. I always listened to them, and did as they
asked. When I first moved to Delhi, I used to wear sarees, but Jaswant wouldn't
hear of anything that wasn't Punjabi. I changed my whole wardrobe back then,
bought Punjabi suits — he wouldn't even let me wear a saree in the house.
"So, I thought, it was time to change
again. 'Fine — if you don't like kurtas, I won't wear them. I'll wear anything,
even a swimming dress.' He actually blushed at that. Then, for the first time,
he called me Jannu, and said, 'Everything looks lovely on you, honestly — but
when I picture you in a saree, tightly draped, I lose my mind.'
"'No problem, then,' I told him. 'I'll
switch to sarees from tomorrow. Only trouble is, I don't have very many.'
"'Oh, that's nothing,' he said. 'I'm
expecting some payments next week — we'll go shopping.'
"So the next morning, after my bath, I
came out in a saree. Waj took one look at me and got straight up. 'Is that what
you call draping a saree? Take it off — I'll show you how it's done.' Kshipra,
you won't believe it, but Waj actually taught me how to drape a saree himself —
how many pleats, how wide, where to pull tight, where to leave loose, where to
pin. He knew all of it. He did the whole thing with such artistry that I was
left speechless. Once it was done, he led me to the mirror, and I saw a
completely different woman looking back at me."
"I must learn this art from you,"
Kshipra said.
They both glanced at the clock. It was
already half past ten. "I feel fine now — I'll head back to my room,"
Srini said.
"No problem. Call me if you need
anything in the night," Kshipra said.
"Good night," said Srini.
We Three fell silent again.
(Continued to Chapter 6)
(All characters places except for geographical names events actions of people are fictional. Any similarity found is purely accidental. All images AI generated)