Chapter 12: Nandini

# Chapter 12: Nandini

## The Mother's Call

Her mother called on Day Eighteen.

Her mother called at 9:47 PM: the 9:47 being the time that Sunita Tiwari, née Pandey, of Civil Lines, Prayagraj (née Allahabad, née the-city-that-had-always-been-Allahabad-and-that-Sunita-still-called-Allahabad-because-renaming-a-city-did-not-rename-the-memories), called her daughter every Tuesday and Friday. The Tuesday call was the short call, fifteen minutes, the fifteen minutes covering: health (yours, mine, your father's), work (yours), weather (both cities'), and the mandatory closing: khana kha liya? Have you eaten?

The Friday call was the long call — forty-five minutes, the forty-five minutes covering everything the Tuesday call covered plus: the neighbourhood gossip (Mrs. Dwivedi's son's divorce, Mr. Shukla's new car, the temple committee's argument about the Diwali budget), the matrimonial updates (Sunita's ongoing project of finding Nandini a suitable match, the project having been active for three years and having produced seventeen biodata proposals, fourteen rejections by Nandini, two rejections by the boy's family, and one meeting that had ended with both parties agreeing that they were not compatible: the not-compatible, the politePrayagraj euphemism for we didn't like each other), and the philosophical section (Sunita's observations about life, love, marriage, and the characteristic challenge of, which was mother of a twenty-nine-year-old woman who lived alone in Lucknow and who showed no interest in the seventeen biodata profiles that her mother had sourced from the Tiwari community network).

Today was Tuesday. The short call. But the short call became a long call at 9:52 PM: five minutes in — when Sunita said:

"Nandu, tumhari Mausi ne kuch bataya."

Nandu, your Mausi told me something.

Mausi. Mausi being Sunita's younger sister, Kavita Trivedi, who lived in Lucknow. In Aliganj, four kilometres from Nandini's apartment in Gomti Nagar. Kavita Mausi was fifty-one, a retired government schoolteacher, married to Virendra Trivedi who ran a stationery shop in Aliganj market, mother of two sons (Rohit, twenty-seven, software engineer in Hyderabad; Kunal, twenty-four, preparing for UPSC in Prayagraj). Kavita Mausi was also, by disposition and by practice, the family's intelligence network — the network that gathered information from the Lucknow branch of the Tiwari-Trivedi family and transmitted it to the Prayagraj headquarters (Sunita) with the efficiency that the Indian intelligence agencies aspired to but that only Indian aunties achieved.

"Kya bataya Mausi ne?" Nandini asked, sitting on her bed with the phone on speaker, her laptop open to the choreography notes, her left wrist carrying the ghost of the forty-five-year-old rose attar that Ishan had given her yesterday. What did Mausi say?

"Mausi ne bataya ki. Mausi ne bataya ki tum rozana Qaiserbagh jaati ho. Ek haveli mein. Ek ladke ke saath."

Mausi told me that — Mausi told me that you go to Qaiserbagh every day. To a haveli. With a boy.

The intelligence. The intelligence, which was . Nandini closed her eyes, the intelligence. Product of theAliganj network, the network that Kavita Mausi operated through her connections: the vegetable vendor who knew the auto driver who knew the haveli's neighbour who knew Junaid who mentioned to the neighbour that a young woman came to the haveli every afternoon, the mention (seed), the seed travelling from the neighbour's mouth to the auto driver's ear to the vegetable vendor's stall to Kavita Mausi's kitchen to Sunita Tiwari's phone in Prayagraj, the travel taking approximately seventy-two hours, the seventy-two hours being the Indian intelligence network's latency: slower than the internet, faster than the post office, and infinitely more reliable than both.

"Mummy, main Kathak seekha rahi hoon. Ek competition ke liye. Lucknow Mahotsav."

Mummy, I'm teaching Kathak. For a competition. Lucknow Mahotsav.

"Kathak? Tumne Kathak toh chhod diya tha. Nani ke baad—"

Kathak? But you'd stopped Kathak. After Nani—

"Haan. Maine phir se shuru kiya."

Yes. I started again.

The silence on the phone. The silence —: the emptiness, which was a mother's silence, the silence of a woman who had watched her daughter stop dancing at fourteen when the grandmother died and who had not pushed the daughter to resume because the not-pushing was the mother's respect for the grief, the respect —: you stopped because she died. I will not ask you to start again. Starting again is your decision. Your decision will come when it comes.

The decision had come. Seventeen days ago. On a bench in a perfume shop in Aminabad.

"Aur: aur ladka kaun hai?"

And: the boy?

"Mummy, woh ladka nahi hai. Woh mera dance partner hai. Competition couple dance hai. Uska naam Ishan hai. Ishan Farooqui.

Mummy, he's not a boy. He's my dance partner. The competition is couple dance. His name is Ishan. Ishan Farooqui. He has a perfume shop in Aminabad.

Farooqui. The surname landing on the phone line between Lucknow and Prayagraj: the landing, which was same landing thatTiwari had produced in Ishan's shop when he had told his Abbu: the surname telling the mother what the surname told everyone in India: religion. Farooqui was Muslim. Tiwari was Hindu. The telling: the surname's burden, the burden that every Indian carried: the name that identified before the person could introduce.

"Muslim hai?"

He's Muslim?

"Haan."

The second silence. The second silence being longer than the first, the first silence, which was silence of a mother hearing that her daughter was dancing again, silence of a mother hearing that her daug, the second silencehter was dancing with a Muslim man in a Nawabi haveli in Qaiserbagh, the second silence containing: calculations. The calculations that Indian mothers performed when the variables included religion: what will the family say? What will the community say? What will the neighbours say? What will the marriage market say? What will my husband say?

"Nandu. Yeh sirf competition ke liye hai na?"

Nandu — this is just for the competition, right?

"Haan, Mummy."

The answer. The answer, the answer she gave because the answer her mother needed was the answer that would end the conversation and because the true answer: I don't know, Mummy. I don't know if it's just for the competition. I don't know because I haven't asked myself the question and I haven't asked myself the question because the question is the kind of question that changes things when you ask it and I am not ready for things to change, the true answer was too long and too complicated and too honest for a Tuesday call. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

"Theek hai. Competition kab hai?"

Okay. When's the competition?

"December chaudah."

December fourteenth.

"Hum aayenge."

We'll come.

"Kya?"

What?

"Main aur tumhare Papa aayenge. Competition dekhne. Tum naach rahi ho. Nani ki Kathak: hum dekhenge."

Your father and I will come. To watch the competition. You're dancing, Nani's Kathak: we'll watch.

The sentence. The sentence, the sentence changing the conversation from interrogation to support, from surveillance to solidarity. The change, the mother's pivot, the pivot from who is this Muslim boy? to we will come to watch you dance. The pivot: the mother's choice: the daughter's dancing was more important than the partner's surname. The dancing was Nani's dancing. Nani's Kathak. The Kathak that Sunita had watched her mother teach her daughter for fourteen years in the veranda in Allahabad. The Kathak that had stopped when the mother had died. The Kathak that was now, seventeen days ago, resurrected in a Nawabi baithak in Qaiserbagh.

The Kathak mattered more than the surname.

"Mummy: sach mein aaogi?"

Mummy — you'll really come?

"Haan. Nani hoti toh; Nani hoti toh woh bhi aati. Nani nahi hai. Toh main aaungi.

Yes. If Nani were here; Nani would have come too. Nani isn't here. So I'll come. In Nani's place.

The sentence. The sentence reaching through the phone line from Prayagraj to Lucknow and reaching through Nandini's chest into the place where the grief lived, the place that the not-dancing had sealed and that the baithak had unsealed and that the mother's sentence now opened fully: Nani isn't here. So I'll come. In Nani's place.

Nandini's eyes were wet. The wetness that was, the wetness: grief and the gratitude and the unmistakable emotion that Indian daughters felt when their mothers chose them, the choosing: I am your mother. You are dancing. I will be there. The surname of the partner does not change the fact that you are my daughter and you are dancing and I will be there.

"Shukriya, Mummy."

"Khana kha liya?"

Have you eaten?

"Haan."

"Sach?"

Really?

"Haan, Mummy. Khana kha liya."

The closing ritual. The ritual that ended every call, Tuesday or Friday, short or long, confrontational or loving: have you eaten? The question that was not about food. The question that was about care. The question that every Indian mother asked because the asking was the caring and the caring was the question and the question was: *are you alive? Are you fed? Are you safe?

"Theek hai. Good night, Nandu."

"Good night, Mummy."

She ended the call. She sat on the bed with the phone in her hand and the choreography notes on the laptop and the rose attar on her wrist and the grief in her chest, the grief that was not the old grief, not the sealed grief of fifteen years, but the new grief: the grief of a woman who was dancing again and who wished that the person who had taught her to dance could see her dance and who knew that the person could not see and who had been told by her mother that the mother would come in the person's place.

She picked up the phone. She opened WhatsApp. She typed:

Mere parents aa rahe hain. Competition dekhne.

My parents are coming. To watch the competition.

The message was read at 10:03 PM. The reply came at 10:04 PM:

Mere Abbu bhi aa rahe hain.

My Abbu is coming too.

She stared at the message. She stared at it and she thought: Waseem Farooqui and Sunita Tiwari will be in the same audience. The perfumer's father and the dancer's mother. The Muslim father and the Hindu mother. In the same audience, watching their children dance together.

The thought was, the thought was India. The thought was the thing that India was: complicated. The thought was the thing that Indian families navigated: the intersection of love and religion and tradition and change. The intersection: the place where the attar met the skin and the foot met the marble and the surname met the surname and the meeting was not easy but the meeting was necessary and the necessary was the thing that India did every day: meet. Across the lines that history had drawn and that families maintained and that children crossed.

She typed:

Achha hai. Sab aayein. Sab dekhein.

Good. Let everyone come. Let everyone see.

The reply came at 10:06 PM:

Haan. Sab dekhein. Hum naachenge.

Yes. Let everyone see. We'll dance.

She placed the phone on the bedside table. She pulled the razai over herself. The razai from Allahabad, the mother's razai, the razai that kept her warm in Lucknow's December cold. She lay in bed and she thought about the stage and the audience and her parents and his father and the amber dupatta and the rose attar and the seven minutes that would contain all of it.

Four days to go.