on foot. As much running water as I wanted instead of begging my landlady to fill my mutki. A front door to which only I had the key. A house no one could force me to leave. At fifteen, I’d been turned out from my village to marry when my parents could no longer afford to feed me. Now I could afford to feed them, take care of them. They hadn’t responded to any of the letters or gifts of money I’d sent over the years, but surely they would change their minds and come to Jaipur now that I was offering them a bed in my very own home? My parents would finally see that everything had turned out all right. Until we were reunited, I would keep my pride in check. Hadn’t Gandhi-ji said, An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?
* * *
The sound of breaking glass startled us. I watched a cricket ball roll across the carpet and come to rest in front of the divan. A moment later, Ravi, Parvati’s older son, walked through the veranda doors, bringing with him the November chill.
“Bheta! Close that door at once!”
Ravi grinned. “I pitched a burner and Govind wasn’t ready for it.” He spotted the ball near the divan and scooped it up.
“He’s so much younger than you are, Ravi.” Parvati was indulgent with her sons, especially with the younger boy, Govind, the child who in her opinion was surely the product of my henna applications (I had done nothing to discourage that notion).
Since I’d last seen him, Ravi had grown taller and broader across the shoulders. His square chin and jaw, so much like his father’s, were now shadowed. He must have started shaving. With the rosy complexion and long eyelashes he had inherited from his mother, he was almost pretty.
He tossed the ball in the air, and caught it, with one hand behind his back. “Is there tea?” It could have been his father speaking—so alike was their boarding-school English.
Parvati rang the silver bell she kept next to the divan. “You and Govind take yours on the lawn. And tell the chowkidar we need a glass-walla to replace the pane.”
Ravi grinned at us, winking at me on his way out. He closed the door so carelessly another shard of glass fell out. I watched him jog gracefully across the lawn. Three gardeners, their heads wrapped in mufflers, were weeding, watering and trimming hibiscus shrubs and sweet honeysuckle vines in the back garden.
Ravi’s appearance was the perfect segue to what I’d come here to accomplish. Still, I needed to move forward cautiously.
“Home from boarding school?”
“Hahn. I wanted Ravi to help me cut the ribbon on the new gymkhana. You know Nehru-ji—how he wants to modernize India.” She sighed and laid her head against the cushion, as if she were besieged by daily calls from the prime minister. For all I knew, she was.
Lala entered with a silver tea tray. While I took out the savories I had cooked especially for Parvati from a tiffin, I heard her say to the older woman, “Did I not tell you to send her away?” Her voice was reproachful.
The servant put her hands together in prayer, touching them to her lips. “My niece has nowhere to go. I am her only family now. Please, Ji. We are at your mercy. Won’t you reconsider?”
I had never seen Lala so distressed. I turned away, afraid she was about to drop to her knees. A shrine for Lord Ganesh sat on a small table beside the four-poster bed. A garland of gardenias and another of tulsi leaves were draped around the statue, in front of which a diya burned. As modern as she liked to portray herself, Parvati spent every morning praying to the gods. I used to pray to my namesake, Lakshmi, the Goddess of Beauty and Wealth. Maa loved reciting the story of the Brahmin farmer who offered his scythe, his sole possession, to the goddess. In gratitude, she gave the farmer a magic basket that produced food any time he desired. But that was only a story, as true as any other Maa told and, at seventeen, I turned my back on the gods, just as now I turned away from Ganesh’s shrine.
Parvati was still addressing Lala. “I wouldn’t want to lose you, too, Lala. See that the girl is gone today.” She glared at Lala until the servant dropped her gaze, her shoulders drooping.