Chapter 9: Vandana Akeli (Vandana Alone)

Nagpur, 1982

Vandana Jadhav did not die when her daughter disappeared. Vandana Jadhav did something worse: she continued.

The continuing was the cruelty that nobody warned you about — the cruelty that was not the sharp cruelty of the disappearance itself (the night, the knock, the scream, the daughter gone) but the blunt cruelty of the morning after and the morning after that and the morning after that, the mornings that kept arriving and that kept requiring the living, the living that was: wake up, get up, breathe, eat, exist. The existing that was the punishment. The existing without the person who made the existing worth doing.

Vandana was in Pune. The network — Bharati's network, which Vandana knew only as "the people who took my daughter and who told me my daughter was safe and who I believe because I have no choice but to believe" — the network had moved Vandana to Pune three days after Lata's disappearance. The moving had been: a woman named Kaveri (the network's Pune operative, a retired schoolteacher who ran a women's shelter that was not officially a women's shelter but that was, functionally, a place where women who needed to not be found could not be found) arriving at the temporary location where Vandana had been taken after the night of the knock, arriving with a train ticket and a new name and the instruction: "Pune jao. Kaveri-tai tumhala saambhaltil. Thamba. Safe raha." Go to Pune. Kaveri-tai will take care of you. Wait. Stay safe.

Vandana had gone. Not because she wanted to go — Vandana wanted to stay in Nagpur, wanted to be at Sitapur Gali, wanted to be at the house where the tulsi plant needed watering and where the coriander was probably dying and where the neighbours probably thought she was dead or gone or both. Vandana wanted to be where Lata might return. The wanting that was the mother's logic: if I stay here, she'll come back. The logic that was emotional and not rational and that Vandana knew was emotional and not rational and that she wanted to follow anyway because the rational — the rational said: Lata is not coming back to Sitapur Gali, Lata is somewhere else, the somewhere-else being the place that the network controlled and that Vandana did not know and that the not-knowing was the safety and the safety was the torture.

But Vandana went. Because Kaveri said: "Tushar bail var aahe. To tumhala shodhtoy." Tushar is on bail. He's looking for you. And the looking was the danger that overrode the wanting, the danger that said: if you stay, Tushar will find you, and the finding will be the thing that the network took Lata to prevent.

Pune was — Pune was not Nagpur. The distinction that mattered because every city in India was specific and the specificity was the identity and the identity was the home, the home being not just the house but the city, the city's sounds and smells and rhythms being the larger home that contained the smaller home. Nagpur's identity was: heat and oranges and dal-bhat and Nagpuri mirchi and the particular Maharashtrian Vidarbha culture that was not Pune's Maharashtrian culture, the two being related the way cousins were related — the same family, different personalities.

Pune's identity was: moderate weather and educational institutions and the particular Brahminical intellectualism that the city had cultivated since the Peshwa era, the intellectualism that made Pune's conversations longer and Pune's opinions stronger and Pune's chai weaker (Pune chai was, in Vandana's assessment, a disappointment — the chai that was milky and mild and that did not have the strength that Nagpur's chai had, the strength being the particular Vidarbha boldness that expressed itself in chai the way it expressed itself in mirchi: aggressively, unapologetically).

Kaveri's shelter was in Kothrud — the western suburb that was, in 1982, still semi-rural, the suburb that had fields between the buildings and that had the particular quality of a place that was becoming urban but that had not finished becoming and that therefore retained the rural elements: the open space, the quiet, the cows that wandered the roads and that were, in their wandering, the most reliable indicators that a neighbourhood was not yet fully city.

The shelter was a house. A three-bedroom house that Kaveri owned (the ownership being in Kaveri's name, the name being real — Kaveri was not hiding, Kaveri was sheltering, the distinction being: Kaveri's identity was known and Kaveri's identity was protected by the community that knew her, the community of Kothrud knowing Kaveri as the retired schoolteacher who took in "relatives" and whose relatives were always women and whose relatives stayed for varying durations and whose varying durations were not questioned because Kothrud's community, like all Indian communities, had learned the art of knowing-without-asking, the art that was the foundation of Indian social survival).

Vandana lived in the shelter. With two other women — Meena (from Aurangabad, whose husband had broken her jaw and whose jaw had been wired shut and whose wired-shut jaw was the particular evidence that no court had been interested in examining) and Geeta (from Solapur, whose father-in-law had been the perpetrator and whose husband had been the enabler and whose enabling was the complicity that the law did not recognise). Three women. In a house in Kothrud. The house that was the hiding place and the healing place and the place where women who had been broken by the men who were supposed to protect them sat in a kitchen that was not their kitchen and drank chai that was not their chai and tried to figure out how to continue when the continuing was the punishment.

*

Vandana cooked. The cooking was — the cooking was the thing. The thing that Vandana could do. The thing that Vandana's hands knew. The thing that did not require the mind (the mind being the dangerous territory, the mind being where Lata lived — not the real Lata but the imagined Lata, the Lata-in-the-mind who was sometimes safe and sometimes not-safe and whose sometimes-not-safe was the thought that Vandana could not think and that Vandana's mind thought anyway, the thought being the particular torture of a mother whose child is missing: is she alive? is she hurt? is she scared? is she calling for me? the questions that had no answers and that the no-answers made worse).

Vandana cooked because the cooking was the hands and the hands were the present and the present was the only tense that was bearable. The past was Sitapur Gali and the tulsi plant and Lata's face at the dinner table and the dal-bhat and the pohe and the particular heaven of ordinary evenings that Vandana had not known were heaven until the ordinary ended. The future was — the future did not exist. The future was the place where Lata was either returned or not-returned and the not-returned was the thought that Vandana could not think.

The present was: the kitchen. Kaveri's kitchen. The kitchen that was not Vandana's kitchen (no kitchen would ever be Vandana's kitchen the way the Sitapur Gali kitchen had been Vandana's kitchen) but that was — a kitchen. A stove. Vessels. Ingredients. The ingredients that Vandana could organize and prepare and combine and that the combining produced food and the food was the thing that the body needed and the body's needing was the reason to cook and the cooking was the reason to be in the kitchen and the kitchen was the reason to be alive.

She made pohe. Of course she made pohe — the pohe that was her signature, the pohe that was her identity, the pohe that was the thing she could do perfectly in a world where nothing else was perfect. The pohe in Kaveri's kitchen: the flattened rice soaked for four minutes (the four minutes that were sacred, the four minutes that were the only reliable truth in a world of unreliable truths), the tempering (mustard seeds — the popping that was the morning's percussion, the sound that was home even in a kitchen that was not home), the curry leaves, the turmeric, the chillies (not Nagpuri mirchi — Pune's chillies were milder, the mildness being another of Pune's disappointments), the peanuts, the toss, the sugar, the salt, the coriander, the lemon, the coconut.

Meena ate the pohe. Meena, whose wired-shut jaw had been unwired after six weeks and whose eating was now possible but painful, ate Vandana's pohe and cried. Not because the pohe was sad — because the pohe was good. Because the pohe was the first good thing. Because the pohe was the evidence that good things still existed in a world where jaws were broken and daughters were taken and husbands were the danger and safety was a house in Kothrud with a retired schoolteacher and two other broken women.

Geeta ate the pohe. Geeta, who was twenty-two and who had been married at eighteen and who had spent four years in a house where the father-in-law did the things that father-in-laws did in the dark and the husband pretended not to know, ate the pohe and said: "Tai, tumchi pohe — mi kadhi itki changla pohe khalleli nahi." Tai, your pohe — I've never eaten pohe this good.

The compliment. The compliment that was — the compliment broke something in Vandana. The breaking that was not the breaking of damage but the breaking of the dam, the dam that Vandana had built to hold the grief and that the compliment cracked because the compliment was Lata's compliment, the compliment that Lata had given every morning at the Sitapur Gali table — "Aai, pohe khup bhari aahe!" Mama, the pohe is amazing! — the compliment that was the ritual and that the ritual's absence had turned into the thing that the dam held.

Vandana cried. In the kitchen. Over the pohe. The crying that was — the crying was months of not-crying. The crying that was the compound interest of suppressed grief, the grief accumulating daily and the accumulation finally reaching the threshold and the threshold being: a stranger said the pohe was good and the saying was too close to the daughter's saying and the too-close was the breaking.

Kaveri came. Kaveri, who was sixty-three and who had been a schoolteacher for thirty-five years and who had, in the schoolteaching, developed the particular ability to manage crying (children's crying, adolescents' crying, the particular crying that Indian educational institutions produced with their examinations and their failures and their particular cruelties) — Kaveri came and did not say "don't cry" or "it will be okay." Kaveri came and stood in the kitchen and waited.

The waiting. The Chinmay-waiting. The waiting that was the kindness that did not speak.

*

The years passed. The passing that was — the passing was not dramatic. The passing was the drip of days, the days accumulating into weeks, the weeks into months, the months into years, the years being: 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982. Four years. Four years of Vandana in Kaveri's shelter, making pohe and cooking dal-bhat and maintaining the kitchen that was not her kitchen and that was, through the maintaining, becoming hers the way all spaces became the inhabitant's through the daily act of inhabiting.

Four years of: no Lata. The messages came — Bharati's messages, delivered through the network's channels, the channels being: a note passed through three intermediaries, the note saying: "safe hai." She's safe. Two words. The two words that were supposed to be enough and that were not enough because enough would be: Lata's face, Lata's voice, Lata's hands at the dinner table reaching for the pohe, the enough that was the presence and that the two-word note could not provide.

Vandana wrote letters. Letters that could not be sent — letters that Vandana wrote in a notebook that Kaveri had given her, the notebook being the outlet, the outlet being the only channel between Vandana and Lata that was available, the channel being one-directional and imaginary and necessary.

Lata, aaj me pohe banvli. Tuza aawdta tashi. Peanuts jast ghatle karan tula jast peanuts aawdtat. Mi jaante ki tu khaat nahis pan mi tuzya saathi banvli.

Lata, today I made pohe. The way you like it. Extra peanuts because you like extra peanuts. I know you're not eating it but I made it for you.

Lata, aaj paaus aala. Pune la paaus Nagpur peksha vegla aahe — halka, shant. Nagpur cha paaus jasa bhandan karto tasa nahi. Mi tula sangaychay ki paaus aala aani mi tuzya saathi ek cup chai banvli aani terrace var basli aani tuza vaatchat basli.

Lata, it rained today. Pune's rain is different from Nagpur's — lighter, quieter. Not aggressive like Nagpur rain. I wanted to tell you that it rained and I made a cup of chai for you and sat on the terrace and sat waiting for you.

The letters that accumulated. Notebook after notebook. The notebooks that Kaveri stored in the shelter's storage room, the room that held the shelter's archives — the letters and documents and evidence of women who had passed through and who had healed and who had left and whose leaving was the shelter's success and whose letters remained as the record of the pain that the leaving overcame.

Four years. And Vandana was — Vandana was not healed. The healing was not the word. Vandana was — functioning. The functioning that was: wake up, cook, eat, exist, write a letter that cannot be sent, sleep, repeat. The functioning that was not living but that was not dying and that the not-dying was the thing, the thing that said: I am still here. I am still the mother. The mother who makes pohe. The mother who writes letters. The mother who waits.

The waiting that was Vandana's life. The waiting that had no endpoint. The waiting that was not patient (patience implied acceptance; Vandana did not accept) and not impatient (impatience implied action; Vandana had no action available). The waiting that was — endurance. The endurance of a woman who had lost her daughter and who had not stopped being the mother and who would not stop being the mother because the mother was the thing that Vandana was and the thing-she-was could not be removed by distance or time or the network's two-word notes.

"Safe hai."

Two words. Repeated across four years. The words that kept Vandana alive and that did not keep Vandana whole, the alive and the whole being different things, the different being: you can be alive without being whole, you can function without being complete, you can make pohe without the person who eats the pohe.

Vandana made pohe. Every morning. In Kaveri's kitchen. The four minutes. The mustard seeds. The popping. The coriander. The lemon. The coconut.

The extra peanuts.

For Lata.