The Death of Vishnu

herself, and shuddered.
    And Jhansi? What kind of destination was that to elope to? Jhansi? All it was famous for was the Rani of Jhansi, but that had been in the previous century—or had it been the century before that even? Here she had been having visions of Kulu or Simla or Darjeeling, all places she’d dreamt about going, and to campaign for which she’d certainly dropped enough hints the last few weeks. But Salim had called these choices impractical, saying Jhansi was where he had a good friend, with whom he could start a car repair business.
    Didn’t people drive cars in other parts of the country, she had felt like pointing out. And a car repair business? All that grime and that grease and that oil—is that what she’d be looking forward to smelling every evening?
    “But I love cars,” Salim had said, and Kavita had tried to console herself with the idea that cars were bigger and more important machines than Voltas pumps.
    The girl in the burkha was having trouble feeding her infant, with a second child sleeping in her lap and another crying loudly next to her. She looked at Kavita helplessly, but Kavita looked away, staring instead at the announcement board with the names of the trains. But then the girl leaned forward and tapped Kavita on the knee, requesting her to take the sleeping baby from her while she fed the youngest one, and Kavita had no choice but to agree. She accepted the baby with a forced smile, and held its body awkwardly in her lap, wondering if it was sufficiently well insulated against leaks. Imagine traveling in a second-class compartment, that too, to Jhansi , in a soiled dress.
    Meanwhile, the oldest child was still crying, so the mother asked him to go stand next to aunty. Kavita felt her face turn red. She had never been called that before. She felt like protesting—she wasn’t old enough, thank you, to be anyone’s aunty. The boy came over, sniveling, and with the fingers of one hand in his mouth. He brushed up right next to her, and Kavita felt herself surrounded by an overpowering baby smell, tinged with traces of urine and vomit. The boy suddenly took the fingers out of his mouth and draped that arm around her neck, and Kavita tried not to imagine the saliva dripping down her dupatta.
    “He likes you,” the mother said. “See, he’s stopped crying already. Say hello to aunty, Ijaaz.” The baby suckling at her breast made a gurgling sound. “Newly wedded, aren’t you? You’ll learn soon enough how to hold a baby properly, don’t worry.”
    The girl smiled, and Kavita noticed the two chipped teeth in the front row of her mouth.
    “Where are you going?” the girl asked.
    “Jhansi,” Kavita replied.
    “Jhansi? But that’s where we’re headed. It’s a wonderful town. Not so big and noisy like Bombay, no big buildings and film industry. Much more quiet.
    “I was born here, but I had all three of them once I moved to Jhansi. One after another, phut-phut. You’ll see.” The girl giggled.
    “Maybe we can sit together on the train—my husband doesn’t like me to travel by myself.”
    Just then, Salim came back from the ticket station. “You look so motherly with them,” he said, seeing Kavita with the baby in her lap and the boy clinging to her side.
    First auntyhood, now motherhood. This was too much to bear for one night. “Here, you hold them,” she said, thrusting the children at Salim. “I need to go to the ladies’ room.”
    They made it as far as Nasik. The girl with the children found seats with them and Kavita fumed the entire way at having to suffer the ignominy of an unreserved second-class compartment. At Nasik, she issued Salim an ultimatum. Either they traveled in first class or she was getting off and taking the next train back to Bombay.
    “And of course, whatever Daddy’s spoilt little brat wants, Daddy’s spoilt little brat gets,” Salim said.
    “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to live with a car mechanic the rest of my life.”
    “Don’t talk to your husband that way,” the girl, wide-eyed, admonished her.
    “He’s not my husband,” she replied. That shut the girl up.
    As Kavita stepped out of the train, she hoped Salim would relent and follow her. She hoped, as the whistle blew and the engine started up, that he would come to the door at the last minute and throw himself onto the platform for her love. Then she would consider taking him back—but only under some conditions—no Jhansi and no mechanic business.