The Forbidden Daughter. Shobhan Bantwal
well liked and respected by most…unless, one of his employees had a grudge against him? Or it could be a competitor. But if that were the case, Nikhil would have mentioned something to her. Every night, as they lay in bed together, they used to share the day’s experiences with each other. He used to talk to her about the business, tell her details of his day at work.
Shaking off the grim thoughts temporarily, Isha tried to focus on what she was doing: urging Priya to eat her breakfast. Nikhil used to apply some fatherly discipline to make sure the finicky Priya ate.
Ayee emerged from the devghar—altar room—after finishing her pooja. Her elaborate worship. The night she’d received the shattering news about Nikhil, she’d promptly fainted. The doctor had been summoned and she’d recovered from the fainting spell, but afterward she was never the same. She’d suffered an emotional breakdown and taken to her bed for more than three weeks. She had lost some weight from the trauma, too. And what little humor she had possessed before the episode was gone.
Now, although she was gradually beginning to ease back into her social pattern and dress elegantly like she used to, she walked around in a surly mood, with a perpetual line between her eyebrows.
Ayee wore a turquoise print cotton sari this morning. Her hair was neatly coiled into her usual bun. There was plenty of gray in her hair, much more than most women her age. But she covered it with hair color. With the sudden weight loss, her face looked drawn, her blouse hung loose in the sleeves and waistline, and the excess skin jiggled around her upper arms whenever she moved them.
As Ayee entered the dining room, Isha could smell the lavender-scented talcum powder the older woman liked to wear.
Seeing Priya in Isha’s lap, sniffling, with her face buried in her mother’s shoulder, Ayee frowned. “Why is she crying again?”
“The usual morning blues,” replied Isha, hoping Priya would cease the fussing and get on with her breakfast. Ayee seemed particularly cantankerous this morning. It didn’t bode well.
“Such a crybaby.” Ayee shook her head. “Every morning and night it is the same story. She does nothing but cry.”
“She’s crying for Nikhil, Ayee. She misses him.” He was the one who dropped her off at school before he went to work. Poor Priya couldn’t understand why her father wasn’t around anymore. The palpable misery around her didn’t help matters, either.
“She’s not the only one. We all miss him,” Ayee said, her lower lip trembling, the tears already glistening in her eyes.
Isha nodded, keeping her own emotions tightly reined in. If she broke down, Priya’s sniveling would only get worse. Nikhil’s presence was still very much there. Everywhere. It would always remain with them.
Ayee blinked and looked at the wall clock. “Priya has to go to school soon, no? Why is she wasting time?”
“I’m trying to get her to eat her breakfast so I can get her ready for school,” Isha assured her mother-in-law. Couldn’t the woman see that Priya was only five years old and needed a little extra comforting at the moment? Had she forgotten that the child was usually very sunny by nature? Labeling her a crybaby was so unfair!
“What she needs is strictness, not more coddling.” Ayee threw an exasperated look at Priya’s pajama-clad back.
With a resigned sigh Isha said, “Time to finish your breakfast, sweetie. I bet all your friends are dressed and ready for school. You don’t want to be late, do you?”
A sob erupted from Priya. “I don’t…want…to go…to school.” She refused to remove her face from Isha’s shoulder. “I want Papa.”
Stifling her own desire to burst into tears, Isha patted Priya’s head. “I told you Papa is in heaven. Dev-bappa needs him more than we do,” she whispered in her ear, using the child’s term for God, or Holy Father. “But I’ll take you to school. Maybe we can go for ice cream after school.”
Instead of making things better, Isha realized she’d made them worse. Priya threw a full-blown tantrum, her ears turning red. “I don’t want ice cream! I want my Papa!”
Ayee accepted the cup of tea poured for her by one of the servants and let out a long-suffering sigh. After taking a sip she gazed out the window at the interminable rain, making her aggravation very clear to Isha. Her mother-in-law had her own passive-aggressive ways of making her feelings known.
Realizing that sternness was the only way to deal with the child, Isha held her by the shoulders and forced her to make eye contact. “Priya, I told you Papa can’t be here. I want you to finish your egg and toast and then change into your uniform. I want this crying to stop! Now!”
Priya’s full mouth started to quiver and large tear drops started to tumble down her cheeks once again, breaking Isha’s heart. “I don’t…want…breakfast.”
Tears gathered in Isha’s eyes, too, which she hastily dabbed with a handkerchief. Was this bone-deep grief ever going to go away? She wanted to gather her little girl close to her heart and cry with her. Maybe they could help wash away each other’s misery. But there were practical matters to consider, for example, her father-in-law.
As if on cue, his heavy footsteps sounded nearby. From the corner of her eye she saw him stride in, dressed in charcoal pants and a tan shirt. His thick silver hair, slick with hair dressing, was combed back from his wide forehead.
He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and accepted the steaming cup of tea one of the servants brought to him. He liked it superhot and sweetened with precisely one teaspoon of sugar. Then he reached for the customary newspaper Ayee left for him in the exact same spot each morning—at his right elbow.
When he heard Priya’s sobs, he adjusted his glasses and glared at her over the rim. “Why are you crying, Priya?”
The little girl continued to sniffle and ignored her grandfather.
“I asked you why you are crying.” His voice rose a bit, planting the first germ of fear in Isha’s mind. Baba’s temper was quick to flare, and it was notorious. Since Nikhil’s death, Baba had been forced to come out of semiretirement and take over the running of the business. Between the loss of his only son and the responsibility of the store, Baba’s temper fits had escalated in frequency and intensity.
When Priya continued to ignore him, his gaze settled on Isha. “What is her problem? Should she not be ready for school by now?”
Before Isha could answer him, Ayee chimed in. “Every day it is the same thing. Priya does nothing but cry. You don’t see Milind and Arvind crying like that. Girls are always fusspots. Soon there will be another girl to add to our headaches.”
“Priya’s only a child, Ayee,” argued Isha. “And she misses her Papa.” But she knew her attempts at defending Priya were weak at best.
Ayee rolled her beautiful eyes and gave another dramatic sigh. “If you had not insisted on ignoring our request to have an abortion, Nikhil would still be here. I was telling you for weeks that the unborn child is showing all the signs of bad luck.”
Her own temper stirring, Isha looked up at her mother-in-law. “Nikhil and I never thought of our child and your grandchild as a bad omen. A child is a blessing, Ayee, never a curse.”
Ayee put down her cup with a flourish. “The astrologer warned me that the child was conceived on a bad day. But who is going to listen to me in this house? The baby is not even here yet, and already she has caused such tragedy for us. What will she do after she is born?”
“Ayee, please…Let’s not blame an unborn child for what fate decreed. Nikhil would be very upset if he could hear that.” Isha cast an uneasy glance at Baba. He was reading the news headlines and nibbling on his buttered toast. “As you know, Nikhil was against abortion. In fact, he was very upset when he found out that Dr. Karnik performs gender-based abortions in the first place.”
Baba slapped his newspaper on the table. The teacups on the table rattled. “Dr.