(3)... Papa's Last Summer
The last few kilometers were passed in utter silence, all possible topics of conversation having been exhausted. As the tea was being served, Rama started crying all of a sudden. Between sobs, she said, “If there is anyone who can do anything, it is you, Maya. Try to make him see reason...”
“Shut up, Rama”, Rahul broke in, “Maya doesn’t know anything about it yet. You let me handle this.”
I put down my cup and mentally tensed up myself, wondering what they were talking about. Something was obviously very wrong with Papa to have made even Rama so upset. I was terribly in need of seeing my father. I supposed that he was in a hospital, and they wanted me to talk him into a major operation for something. At least he was alive, I thought. I wished they had taken me straight to him. Anyway, I waited for them to tell me about “it”. “Look Maya, we called you immediately because now this thing has got out of my hand”, Rahul said steadily and clearly. I shuddered involuntarily and clenched my hands together, not knowing whom to pray to, wanting badly to hear the details, yet dreading what was coming.
Rahul went on ominously, “You know he has never listened to me” ,or you to him, I thought, “So it is of no use that I explain to him again and again that it is our family’s reputation he is putting at stake. You tell him all this. Perhaps he will pay some attention to you. You have always been his favorite.”
I felt non-plussed. Not being able to contain myself any longer, I blurted out, “Why don’t you tell me what has happened to him?” Rahul raised his eyebrows, mocking any anxiety. “Happened to him? It is we who are in trouble, deviji, not our beloved and revered father.”
The tone of his voice was unmistakably self-pitying and jeering at the same time. I wondered that Papa had done something which had made my brother and sister-in-law lose their social standing in some way. This meant that he was alive and well, whatever he had done. I could now understand why Rama was so woebegone. I began thanking the stars and relaxed. Anything they told me now could not be very disastrous.
“Okay, Rahul. enough of beating around the bush. Just tell me what exactly it is”, I said comfortably.
Rahul paused, presumably to secure a dramatic affect. It was, however, ruined by Rama who could never understand the subtleties of melodrama.
“Your father is having an affair!” she shrieked hysterically. I sat up, thrilled to the core. Rama went on incoherently about the utter insanity of flirting at his age and the irresponsibility of it all, while Rahul glared at her.
After some time Rahul took hold of the platform again. “It is unfortunately true, Maya”, he told me kindly, mistaking my expression of pleasant surprise to be one of shock. “He has been seeing this... this... woman for some months. She lives just four blocks away. We got to know about is from the neighbors. They spent hours and hours at her home. They even went out together. Oh, you can’t imagine the strain this is putting on me.” He passed a hand over his brow. “I don’t know why he is doing this to us. he was perfectly all right a few months back.”
Rama said vehemently, “As if he ever cared what he did to us and our reputation. I feel like killing both of them.” She started crying again. “All the neighbors make fun of us even at our face. That awful Mrs. Chopra goes around telling all those who haven’t heard of it yet...” she said brokenly.
I addressed myself to Rahul, “Can you tell me where Papa is at the moment? I would like to meet him. After all his side also matters...”
Rahul told me that he had confronted papa with the “evidence” a week ago. Papa told him to mind his own business (literally, as he is a businessman). Hot words had been exchanged and the question of family status was raised. Rahul said that he should at least give a thought to the future of his grand-children. Papa said that he did not have to give explanations to his own son, and he was only answerable to Amma, who any case was no more.
“When I think of how it would have affected poor Amma, I am glad she is dead.” Rahul said bitterly. “This would have killed her.”
The long and short of the story was that Papa had concluded the argument by saying that he would see to it that Rahul’s family did not suffer much on account of him. The next day he moved out and since then was staying with his lady friend.
“As if that did not hurt us. That was not the solution to the problem. I had even offered to change the house for his sake”, Rahul added.
I nearly retorted that it was for only his own sake that he had offered anything. I stopped myself in time and gleaned some more information by tactful questioning. “She”, the vamp in the drama, was around fifty years of age and was teaching in a women’s college. She was most probably a Gujarati, not that that would have made a difference, as far as I could see. She had two married daughters and was a divorcee. Apart from this, Rama, and at times, Rahul, described her in colorful words, the most repeatable ones being a bitch, a schemer and a harlot.
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