He did not have a very high opinion of himself to begin with.
He often recalled a joke he had heard growing up in India, about the varying viewpoints, one could say, of the people from two eastern Indian states. Even though the joke was somewhat racist, it was rather illustrative. A Bihari, lets call him Yadav Bhaiya and a Bengali, lets call him Bannerjee Da, were fighting over something which was hardly of any relevance, but for the sake of the story, let us say they were fighting over a goat, both claiming it to be theirs. They broke into a scuffle and eventually Bannerjee Da had the upper hand, and was on top of Yadav Bhaiya, straddling him, holding his fist right over Yadav Bhaiya’s face, but still not hitting him. The onlookers were puzzled, and asked Bannerjee da why he wasn’t pummeling the goat thief, after all he was on top. Bannerjee da replied sheepishly, “It’s not that simple, when Yadav Bhaiya gets up, he will beat the heck out of me.” So despite Subhas Chandra Bose, a Bengali having formed the Indian National Army to fight the British, despite rest of the country following Gandhi’s peaceful resistance for independence, Bengalis had the reputation in India for being somewhat lily livered, justly or unjustly. Needless to say Kaushik was Bengali.
He did not base his entire self assessment on a mere anecdote or a stereotypical caricature. He was twenty eight and enough incidents in college, back in India and here in NYU, and confrontations he had had outside had confirmed his hypothesis. There was not much he could do though about it, he reasoned to himself, besides taking it lying down. Perhaps this is the way he was born. Bullying, in the college went to for four years for his engineering degree, was called ‘ragging’, and was pretty brutal and frequently caused physical injury and in some rare cases, even death. Forced nudity, simulating sex in awkward positions, humiliating skits, were all pretty common in the hostels for the freshman class. Since the college was in his hometown of Kharagpur, and he stayed at home and not the hostel, he had managed escaped the brunt of those encounters, getting away with some minor infractions in the campus itself. Now in his MBA class at Stern, everyone was too grown up and busy with their lives to partake in these kinds of juvenile antics. Still it was the first time he was staying in a hostel, which besides being called residences here, were a completely different animal from the ones in India.
As he stepped out of the Palladium residence, and headed towards the subway, he wondered if he should get a bottle of wine. Piu wouldn’t like that, drinking being a sure sign of moral decay to her. His sister lived at the border of SOHO and the West Village only from a few blocks away from his apartment at the Palladium residences near Union Square. So even though his sister and brother in law, Sudip, had a two bedroom apartment in a brownstone on Greene Street, fairly large by Manhattan standards, and the guest room was always free, he did not stay with them. She was a couple of years older than him, had already been working in Delhi for a few years, when he had finished his graduate degree and got an internship with an automobile accessories manufacturer in Gurgaon, just outside Delhi. At that time it had not been a consideration at all and even though she stayed in Punjabi Bagh, a good ninety minute commute for him each way, it had been expected he would stay with her. He remembered the fun they had had that year. He was just out of college, earning for the first time and knew almost no one in Delhi, while she being a fairly senior manager at an ad agency, got invited to the most interesting parties and get-togethers, and he would tag along. Then there was Neel, a family friend that both of them had known all their lives, and a completely stereotypical version of an ad agency copy writer, wild, pony tailed and hilarious. Their fathers had been in college together, worked in the same company together for 35 years and now stayed in five minutes from each other in Kharagpur. Neel was a class clown growing up, lifeblood of any party, absolutely entertaining, so much so that one felt he was always performing, however small the audience, or however inappropriate the situation. He was always surrounded by women hanging on his every word, but for all the time he knew Neel, he was never into a one steady relationship. Neel had been in Delhi only for six months after he got there, when on getting an offer for a stint at the Chicago branch of his agency, he leapt at the opportunity and left. Now through sheer chance, after so many years, they had all landed up in the same city, Neel having moved from Chicago some time last year, within a few blocks from each other. Though in his case, he had had a few options besides Stern, but had chosen it in no small measure because Piu lived here.
♦
She sat in front of the dressing table mirror, staring, almost not even looking at herself. There was no way to explain this gash, and the make up was only making it worse; it would be too obvious. Sudip had stormed out, and she had no idea where Neel was, or if he would show up. Kaushik was on his way and would be there in less than an hour. She had made all the preparations in the morning before leaving for work, expecting to spend an evening chilling out with her family which she thought was magically coalescing in Manhattan. She had gone to great lengths to cook traditional Bengali dishes and neatly stacked them up in the fridge in Tupperware boxes. The house had been cleaned, she had a new centre piece on the coffee table that she loved, and she had gotten fresh flowers yesterday. Now the living room was in a mess, broken glass everywhere, flowers strewn all over, and in the bedroom was a mountain of clothes and bed spreads everywhere, as if a minor hurricane had passed by.
Piu was still a little stunned by the way the day had unraveled, and though the heat was turned up, she could not stop shivering. It had been a mistake she thought, moving here. She did not feel like she belonged here. She had no roots here, nothing to hold on to, and it made her feel very vulnerable, this lack of control. But she had thought things were getting better with Kaushik and Neel moving here. With a family and support group with her here she had thought the wrinkle in Sudip and her relationship would ebb away as well. The first year here had been especially hard, not being able to work without a work permit and sitting at home had made her gloomy, made her question herself. She had been working since she was eighteen, first teaching Rabindra Sangeet to young kids in a community center in Chittaranjan Park in Delhi, along with her studies and then starting down the ladder at the ad agency and rising through the ranks. Unlike Kaushik she had stayed outside home and had been on her own since she moved to Delhi for her graduation, and liked the feeling of being independent. This had made her mother very uncomfortable and resulted in long phone calls back home, almost endless and too numerous it had seemed to her, about getting married and settling down. Though she had had a few relationships in college, and when she was working in Delhi, none of them had been anything serious given that Piu’s first love was her job. She had risen quickly within the ranks, but made few friends at work, for try and she did, she had an abrasive no nonsense manner which did not suffer fools lightly, and when she was immersed in work she would hardly notice that in herself. But when she looked back on it later, maybe after a fight over a decision at work, she would introspect and tell herself to soften and take others points of view, but then when she was back in the middle of another deadline, she would abandon the niceties and get down to doing the best job for her clients and ignore ruffled feather among colleagues as an occupational hazard.
Sudip had tried his best when she moved here to get her work permit as quickly as possible but in the end it took eight months, and by the time she got a job as a Marketing Consultant at Boston Consulting, a year had passed. By then she was beginning to question her decision. While still in Delhi, the arguments with her mother about marriage had gotten worse, and she had given in after a point. She adored her mother more than anything else in her life and knew she had gone to great pains to raise both of them, and their happiness and to see them settled was her sole goal in life. Piu was twenty seven and relatives were beginning to talk. In India girls were supposed to be married early and any delays led to endless gossip, innuendoes and prompted endless questions from close friends and relatives. It was not as if she was seeing anyone either at that time and or even had had a relationship in over a year. There was nothing she could stall her mother with much longer. The issue of marriage had become an obsession with her mother, and when her health began to suffer, Piu thought she could maybe buy some time if asked her to start looking at prospects and she would then consider it. This strategy though boomeranged on her since she had underestimated her mothers’ single minded focus on the subject, and soon newspaper classified ads had been put in, responses began flowing back and forth and before she knew it her mother was in Delhi with a stack of photographs and profiles of prospective grooms. Arranged marriages, she thought might appear so anachronistic to observers looking at India from the outside, but it was the de facto social norm in the vast majority of the Indian society.
When Piu met Sudip, first in an arranged family get together in Calcutta and then alone for dinner a day later, Sudip had been working with an investment bank on Wall Street for over four years. Before that he had lived and studied all his life in Calcutta and though he had studied from premier colleges in India, first graduating from Jadavpur University and then doing his MBA from IIM Calcutta, his family was from a working class background and life in Manhattan took some adjusting to get used to. Sudip was short and stocky and his skin was a darker shade of brown than even most people from eastern India. He did not fit into any of the shallow race based stereotypical groups that got formed either at work or where he lived, neither with the white right wing crowd or with the blacks or latinos. He had not gone to school here, and though there were quite a few batch mates from his IIM class in the area, he had not managed to assimilate into any of those groups either. He had always had a nagging complex about his social background even in India, and that only got more pronounced here. He had never been in a relationship, had gone on only a handful of dates even in India, and dating scene in Manhattan, very different from Calcutta, scared him. Even then, despite being lonely and missing home desperately, he had stuck it out here for pure ambition. He had wanted to be different from his family, the careers they aspired to, the lives they had made for themselves, all in and around Calcutta.
When Sudip and she had finally gave in to their parents persistence, they were not in love, far from it, they were making compromises, she for her mother and Sudip to his loneliness, both literally plunging into what could be the sun soaked warm waters of the Caribbean or a gaping abyss that could swallow them both. In the first years of marriage, she found out, the truth was somewhere in between, with the ever present possibility though lurking in close vicinity of it perhaps moving to the edges, to the extremes.
♦
As Kaushik stepped out of the Prince Street subway, and moved towards Greene Lane, he was surprised to see Neel standing in a corner finishing a cigarette, a disgusting habit that both Piu and he had not managed to rid Neel off, all these years. He had not expected to meet Neel here, in fact Sudip, Piu and Neel all had some work at Park Slope that afternoon and had all decided to meet in the 9th Street Station and come back home together for the evening. Neel had moved to Manhattan from Chicago about eighteen months back, a little after Piu got married and move there. He seemed to have hardly aged or changed ever since Kaushik could remember. Neel’s family had moved to Chandigarh for a brief period and by the time they returned to Kharagpur, Kaushik was in his first year at high school and Neel and Piu were just starting college. Neel had been the same ever since, an overgrown child, constantly switching interests and majors while in college, on occasion disappearing from his hostel and backpacking through southern India at a time, when not many in India even knew what backpacking was. Kaushik always felt a little wary of Neel, never sure what he might do next, always feeling like he was in a shadow of the strong ray of Neel’s luminous presence, but not wanting to miss the sheer entertainment of being with him either. But he seemed distracted today.
“Hey Neel,” Kaushik said walking up to him, “What are you doing here; I thought I’d meet you guys at Piu’s.”
Neel, who hadn’t seen Kaushik come from up behind him, seemed to wake up from a stupor and then looked at him and far beyond him at the same, and said, “Uh, I had some other work, so…” and then he trailed off.
Kaushik wondered if it was something he was smoking, since it was quite like Neel to go off into his moods, without needing any assistance from hallucinogenic inducements either, when they wouldn’t hear from him for weeks. Last fall after Kaushik started his classes at Stern, it was like old times, like in Delhi. They packed the weekends with, first the sights in Manhattan, the museum mile, the MET, Guggenheim, MOMA, musicals on Broadway, smaller plays off Broadway, and then moved to sights all over the tri state area, sometime going as far as Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, or the Jersey shore. The three of them would almost always be in perfect unison in their plans, while Sudip would never have an opinion himself of where he wanted to go, but would join them in their rendezvous without question or comment.
As they entered the lobby of Piu’s building, Neel said, “Why don’t’ you go ahead Kaushik, I’ll finish my smoke and come up.”
As Piu opened the door, Kaushik reached out to give a bear hug, saying, “Hi Didi”, but coiled back immediately, noticing suddenly the bruises on her arm. Her entire right arm seemed to have a dark bluish tinge, and there was a distinct reddish swelling on the side of her neck too, which she had attempted to conceal with a polo neck pull over.
“What happened Didi!” he said, while still at the door, looking at her in disbelief.
“Come in first Tito,” referring to him by his nick name, “Its nothing really, come in, do you want something to drink first”.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, still not saying anything, looking at her as if to say, go on, tell me what happened.
“Oh its nothing, it was really stupid of me,” putting a bright smile that hardly penetrated her eyes, “I stumbled on the steps at subway station. Sudip tried to grasp me, but could not, and I fell down some nine or ten steps and landed hard on my right side.”
The doorbell rang, and Kaushik opened the door without even looking since he knew it would be Neel, and kept looking at Piu, as Sudip stepped out of the living room.
“Hi Sudip, this is crazy, isn’t it,” Kaushik said, and then turning to Neel, “Can you believe it? Didi fell down a flight of stairs at the subway.”
“Oh, are you alright? Maybe we should take you to the emergency room,” Neel said, in a voice which Kaushik thought betrayed a sense of detachment, seeming to suggest almost as if injuries were only to be expected in daily commutes in Manhattan, though if pressed, he would certainly be open to getting some medical attention for Piu.
“I think both of you are trying to be big drama queens, and you two are late. Sudip has made his special Radha Ballobi. It’s getting cold.”
He had known for sometime that Piu and Sudip had been having trouble. When he had come here last August, a month before his classes began at Stern, he hadn’t yet decided to stay at the Palladium residences the college offered or use the spare room Piu and Sudip had. He had always been very close with Piu, in terms of caring for each other, but when it came to very personal matters, they had built a barrier of sorts. He could talk to her for hours about the kind of literature they liked, or her complete fascination with post modernist art, and his complete lack of appreciation of any art of any period, his love of movies and their common interest in old Hindi Ghazals. She had never told him about her relationships, her breakups, and he had not even met any of her boy friends, except one who at that time he had assumed was a colleague, and had found about the truth years later. Kaushik had never had much to tell, except of course Piu found about Jenny, his batch mate that he was seeing now, more than six months after they had been together. Talking about each others lives made him uncomfortable, any discussion about love, happiness and pain, seemed melodramatic. It was really sketchy territory where he was not sure of his footing, something which he would ask of her, might boomerang on him and she might want to know why he had made some of the decisions he had made. For the weeks he was at their place, he would over hear arguments once Piu and Sudip retired to their bedroom after dinner, never very loud, but definitely disagreements. In the morning, while they would be visibly fine, there were silences, slightly longer than there should be that he would pick up, or a certain turn phrase, or stress on a particular word said in perhaps a sarcastic way, things he noticed but never discussed with Piu. At his core he wanted everyone to get along, no confrontations, clean straight lines, always A+B = C; nuance, meanings between the lines, gray areas were too dark for him to venture in. He would rather stay in the light, oblivious, content to know everyone was happy, assuring himself in his mind that these were just minor instances of discord every married couple had. So he would just turn up the volume of the TV and watched whatever was on, till they were asleep and then he would try to sleep himself, trying to convince himself this would pass. The alternatives were just too scary to consider, for him, or Piu, or their parents. But he was convinced he couldn’t stay here and keep his sanity, and so he filled out an application for the residence after all, and luckily still found a room, and moved out as soon as he could.
♦
She wished everyone would just lighten up, and she could get through this day without any further incidents. She would have to rethink everything tomorrow. Her sacrifices weren’t going to make anyone happy in the long run, least of all her mother. Kaushik was trying to sell his idea of all of them going on a cruise that thanksgiving. He was asking her where she thought they should go, she heard him, but it seemed like a voice far away, a reality that did not matter any more. He had convinced Jenny to come along, and this would be their first real holiday together away from her family or from their friends in college. She like Jenny a lot, the way, despite being from an old moneyed Connecticut family, she did not give the impression that she was trying to study the exotic and quaint lifestyles of the natives. She seemed genuinely interested in Indian culture and had come home many times without Kaushik, looking at his old pictures, trying her hand at Bengali cooking.
Neel and Sudip both sat staring at the TV, trying to be polite to Kaushik’s ideas about possible cruise locations, but she was sure they were not listening. The idea of them taking a cruise together now seemed so farfetched. She wished they hadn’t had their altercation at the station in such a public way. She was still not sure why Sudip had chosen it that way, where they very well could have gotten into trouble if a cop had been nearby, or if it had just had happened to get out of hand. She didn’t know if she was happy or sad that he had reserved the worst for when they got home. Sure she had fought back, and there were scratches all over his back to prove that, but she still felt humiliated at being overpowered, for once not being in control of her life. She would have to think about this tomorrow, now was not the time, pretences had to kept. Kaushik did not know anything, and it was best this way. She did not want him to worry. She knew she could take a lot, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to drag him into this. As for Neel she did not know, what more she could tell him, or how else she could help him. But it was his decision, and if he wasn’t ready, she needed to give him his space, give him the time to deal with it in his own mind.
Kaushik was hardly up to the job of being a party clown, given that his idea of an engrossing upbeat conversation was to discuss Proust or if he was in a particularly decadent mood he would talk about the screwball comedy stylings of Shaw. So suffice is to say, he wasn’t being particularly convincing at the dinner table. She had worked really hard last night and in the morning to make a complete fish themed Bengali meal starting from fried Hilsa, to dal with fish’s head, to cabbage with fish’s head, topped up with two curries, Hilsa and steamed prawns. Sudip kept his head down though Kaushik’s ramblings and kept his responses down to barely passable monosyllabic replies. She wished Neel would work a little more to keep up appearances; he was hardly eating anything and sweating profusely, so much so she had to finally ask him if he wanted the heat to be turned down. He did not want that either, saying he was cold. By the time Neel and Kaushik left, it was almost a relief to be left alone with Sudip, which she thought was rather ironic given the way the events of the day had unfolded.
♦
The evening had been a disaster. It was a little after eleven when they had left Piu’s place. Piu was fooling no one with that subway story, he thought. He was surprised Neel had behaved that way, so distant and aloof. He thought of Neel as part of his family, he had expected him to be more concerned for Piu. He was ashamed himself that once again he had shied away from confrontation. As they stepped out of the building onto Greene Street, a cold gust of wind hit them, and Neel seemed to double over. He was just wearing a short sleeved shirt and slacks in this weather.
He reached out to help, “Neel are you alright,” but Neel who seemed to be in a daze, took a couple of steps back and sat down on the steps of the building. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be clutching his left hand.
“Neel are you alright, do you want my jacket,” he tried again.
This time Neel nodded his head to say yes, but as he took off his jacket and tried to drape it over Neel, he could see tears flowing down his cheek.
“Hey Neel,” panicking a little now,”Are you in some kind of pain, c’mon buddy tell me”.
“I’m sorry Kaushik, I’m truly sorry.”
“What for Neel, do you know what happened between Didi and Sudip today. It sure wasn’t the subway, right?”
He shook his head, shivering violently now, and then seemed to keel over on the steps.
“Ok, forget that for now Neel, we need to get you inside the house and call 911.”
“No, No,” Neel screamed, the mention of 911 having shaken him out of his stupor, “I’m ok, I’m ok, can you walk me to my apartment”.
Neel stayed hardly three blocks away on Thompson Street, but he wasn’t sure Neel would be able to walk, but agreed on Neel’s insistence. Any mention of going back to Piu’s place seemed to get him in a frenzy, made him forget the pain that he was obviously in. They had hardly gone fifty feet, when Neel sat down at a bus stop, out of breath, sweating heavily, this mere distance having worn him out. He had then insisted that Neel tell him what was going on before they went any further, or he would call 911 right now. Having no other choice, Neel spoke, so softly that at times Kaushik had to lean forward all the way up to Neel’s face to near him.
Neel, Sudip and Piu had met at met at the 9th Street station in the afternoon after all. Neel had gotten there an hour earlier than agreed, and called Piu, and found that she was almost done as well. They had then decided, since they had some time, to get their favorite Calcutta style Kathi Roll from Karim’s near Byrne Park, and then come back to the station together. By the time they had gotten back to the station, eating their rolls, carrying one for Sudip, Sudip had been waiting for more than fifteen minutes wondering where they were. According to Neel, suspicion and jealousy had been in Sudip’s mind for a long time, and it had been a cause for a perennial fights between Piu and Sudip. Piu had tried to explain that Neel was like family, they had never thought of each other that way, but the seed had been sown and there was nothing Piu could say that would make that go away. Seeing them together that afternoon, had triggered something, and a fight that had between Piu and Sudip, had finally come out into the open. Sudip had been out of control and had tried to hit him, in the middle of the platform in front of scores of onlookers. Piu had made Neel leave and had said she would talk to Sudip. But when they had reached home, matters had gotten worse and they had gotten into a physical altercation, and as was evident from her bruises, Piu had borne the brunt of that exchange.
“So are you?” Kaushik asked finally.
“Am I what Kaushik?”
“Are you guys…, or were you guys ever, I mean seeing each other.”
“It’s not possible Kaushik,” Neel was wailing by now, crying uncontrollably, ”I simply can’t make Sudip understand, it’s impossible.”
“I know that Neel, but is it not plausible that Sudip might think, given that we all know each other for ever. In his mind, in his sick mind, maybe he thinks it is obvious.”
“It’s not possible,” Neel said quietly, still shivering, “I’m gay, Kaushik, I’m gay.”
This shook the ground beneath his feet; he had been standing in front of Neel, kneeling to make sure he was O.K. Now he sat down next to Neel, still reeling from what he had heard.
“What, you’re gay? Are you kidding Neel, I’ve seen you with scores of women in Delhi.”
“That’s an act Kaushik, I have to do it. Have you ever known me to have a relationship with a woman, have you ever met my girl friend here or in Delhi.”
He was right, they would hear of lots of stories, well told tales of conquests, but had never met anyone who was a bonafide girl friend.
“So no one knows? Your parents?” Kaushik said, as Neel shook his head.
“This is 2007 Neel, don’t you think people will be fine. Who cares what you do. It’s nobody’s business but yours.”
“They care in India Kaushik, my parents care. I have to live in this society after all. For god’s sake they care even here.”
“But Neel, don’t you realize this is tearing Piu’s marriage apart, don’t you think she should know, Sudip should know.”
“She knows Kaushik,” Neel said, bending, grimacing in pain, his eyes closed.
He couldn’t believe it, Piu knew and yet she was going through everything, protecting Neel, respecting his privacy. It took Neel and him three quarters of an hour to walk three blocks to Neel’s apartment, stopping numerous times for Neel to catch his breath, more than once collapsing on the side of the street. Finally Kaushik supported Neel on his shoulder and almost dragged him the final stretch to his apartment. Once in the apartment Neel collapsed on the couch, not even having the strength to make it to the bedroom. Kaushik knew there was something wrong with Neel, but could not convince him to call 911. He did not want trouble; he did want everyone to come to the hospital, lest they all found out. How or what they would find out, Kaushik could not get out of him. He stayed up all night next to Neel, checking every few minutes to see if he was alright. He must have dozed off in the morning, for when he woke up, Neel was gone.
Almost a year had gone by since that night. He had not met Neel again. Piu said he had moved back to Chicago, informing her through a text message. He himself had received an email from Neel many months later, saying he was fine now, he had gotten himself checked the next day, that it was a mild cardiac arrest and that he wanted to thank Kaushik for everything he had done that night. The matter of fact way in which Neel referred to what had happened, that he might have almost died, took his breath away. He had almost let a man die because he thought it would complicate matters, and all their families would find out what was going on. He later realized why Piu had never told Sudip about Neel. Sudip might never have told their parents or anyone, but Piu knew if their marriage could not stand that test, perhaps it was not worth saving. He never spoke about that evening with her either, neither did he ever confront a man who had beaten his sister. Piu and Sudip separated later that year. She had proven to be stronger than any of them. He knew in most cases of domestic disturbance, the couples reconciled time and time again, perhaps confounding the friends and family who wondered why or how a women could suffer voluntarily through such ordeals. In many cases these instances ended in disaster. He was proud Piu was not part of that silent suffering majority. She had confronted her reality and taken control of her life. Even though this country was new to her, she had planted new roots here now; she had decided call this her new home. All she needed to do was to clear the weeds out in the summer and start afresh.
