Recap: Once Molly, the bride-to-be, lands in Calcutta, wedding preps at Ghosh Mansion shift into high gear. But friction between the families threatens to hijack the celebrations. So, Lata and AJ’s cousin are tasked with averting a full-blown crisis. And it’s in the course of discharging that duty that Lata runs into Ronny — once more.
That’s the house?” Pixie asked her parents. “But it looks so dilapidated!” The parents ignored Pixie. For once her father did not ask admiringly where she’d learnt the word dilapidated. Instead, continuing to argue under their breath, Bappa and Nisha stomped towards the gate. That is, to the gap in the wall where there should have been a gate if the house wasn’t so run down.
Pixie sat sullenly in the car with Ram Singh, the
60-something, luxuriantly moustachioed chauffeur who had been assigned to them when they first arrived. Over the week, Pixie had decided that he was in fact her favourite person in Jampot. He reminded her a little of Dadu — incidentally, nobody was telling her when Dadu would come to visit them in this godforsaken place — and it helped that RS was the only one around here who told her anything approximating the truth. (Pixie’s Hindi and his English were at the same level of broken-ness. They had found a perfectly reasonable way to communicate though, one that was a mysterious mix of both languages.) When RS had driven them back the first time from her new school, her parents had gushed endlessly about how lucky she was to get admitted to a proper convent. Ram Singh had looked at her and said in his stoic fashion, “Good school. Good teachers. But very strict. Too many tests.”
It had barely been a week. But Pixie had already appeared for three — three! — practice tests. And other than the English essay, where she had used words like astringent and radical, she was quite certain she had performed abysmally. Ugh!
TBH, Pixie was quite underwhelmed by this new life.
Lata Ghosh had told her fifty hundred times to not compare her new life with her old (they both knew she meant “London”) life and she was trying, she really was. But it wasn’t easy. For one, the new school was full of insufferable goody-goodies who flaunted the nuances of Hindi grammar or multiplications with fractions — neither of which had been part of her curriculum in London — and who seemed to have all arranged themselves into little, impermeable cliques long before Pixie arrived on the scene.
For another, Pixie was yet to find a bookshop where she could browse at leisure. (It’s true that Lata had promised to send her a few books to compensate for the lack of bookstores. But how long could that be sustained? What about when Lata returned to London or found a new friend or — god forbid! — had a baby or something? Pixie was stuck here for the long run.)
And worst of all, her brother Posto, who was never ever taken seriously in London, had emerged as quite the star in Jampot. People were randomly stopping by to compliment his curls or his gurgles or his general cuteness. They didn’t see how prone to drooling he was, or how he was yet to articulate his first clear words. Pixie didn’t want to brag, but by the time she was Posto’s age, she had spoken her first, grammatically correct sentence.
“The house will be renovated by the company, Baby,” Ram Singh finally spoke up from the wheel, curtailing Pixie’s list. “Then it will become a beautiful home. Maybe you should choose your room and tell your parents what colours you want on the walls? Otherwise they’ll make all the decisions on your behalf.”
Pixie sighed and got out of the car. Ram Singh walked with her to the gate-shaped hole in the wall and Pixie saw, past the long driveway which led to the bungalow with its wraparound veranda on the left, a deliciously overgrown garden. The bright sunlight — Pixie had to admit that one category where Jamshedpur clearly scored over London was the weather — became almost greenish as it passed through the tangle of trees and vines and fell on the grass, which was almost ankle-high. “That’s a mango tree,” RS pointed out, walking towards the garden. Pixie followed. “And look, by the boundary wall at the back, there’s a row of neem trees.”
Pixie looked in the direction of RS’s outstretched hand, but, somewhere, somehow, her eyes got distracted.
“Who is that?” Pixie asked.
Then, before RS could say anything, she began to sprint in the direction of the mango tree.
***
A few kilometres away from Bappa and Nisha’s new house, Vikramjit Sen, distinguished professor of strategic management, walked into the office of his wife, the dean. It was one of the nicer offices on campus, with a view of the lake and a sense of low hills in the distance. She had also “curated” the furniture and curtains with the same kind of fastidiousness she brought to their home.
Meanwhile, Tilottama Chaudhuri, the dean, sat at her desk in a huddle with a bunch of younger colleagues. She waved at Vik wordlessly and, while he sat himself on the sofa at the far end of her room and picked up a journal that was lying on the coffee table, returned, serious-faced, to her cabinet meeting.
They wore intense expressions, and, Vik noted, at least three people were feverishly taking notes. For all the apparent bonhomie and only-first-names and elaborate teas at home that Tilo insisted on, she ran a tight ship and people were petrified of her. Vik was too, actually, though he didn’t admit it readily. In her powder blue shift dress and power jewellery — sourced mostly from Jaypore where she’d instructed him to buy her gifts from — Tilo, with her hair piled artfully on top of her head, was a commanding presence. Vik ran his hand through his silver-edged hair and wondered exactly when he had come to dislike her so.
After 10 minutes the state secrets were put away and the others shuffled out of the room, having exchanged banalities with Vik. Finally, when the room had emptied out, Tilo walked up to him and collapsed on the sofa opposite with her bottle of Evian. Vik still didn’t know how she’d managed to find a vendor in Jamshedpur who kept her stocked with Evian.
“So Ronny’s assistant has finally replied. She says he cannot send a copy of the keynote address in advance because he is not an academic and won’t be reading out from a typed text. Her tone was a bit rude if you ask me. So much for printing it out and circulating it at the venue.”
“I think an extempore address will be much more interesting, Tilo,” Vik said mildly. “And I think the students will learn a great deal. We keep talking about our ‘rounded-person model’ and highlighting ‘art awareness in adult life’ but unless they actually hear artists and actual rounded persons being themselves — how will they learn?”
Tilo arched her eyebrows. It was her code for if-I-deigned-to-respond-I-would-destroy-this-argument-but-let’s-just-let-it-go. She prided herself on being a true rounded person. She was a mother, a professional, a volunteer, a wife, a social conscience, a good dresser, a hobbyist, a dedicated meditator, a great cook, and a sensitive daughter and daughter-in-law. She was quite certain that it added up to greater roundedness than what that Ronny Banerjee, with his two films and a documentary or two, had achieved. Anyway.
“Lata Ghosh emailed her confirmation in the afternoon,” Tilo continued. “Aaduri, I spoke to a few days ago. She’s going to bring one of her colleagues.”
“The Stanford duo?”
“You mean, the Staaanforrrd duo. They’re going to be here. In fact, they’re bringing their kids too. So we have to book connecting rooms for them at the Club.”
“I have to be off now if I am to pick Josh up in time,” Vik said, standing up. “You coming?”
“I’ll see you guys at home,” Tilo replied, returning to her table and switching on her laptop again, “I have this paper to finish.”
***
Eventually, Pixie found her parents perched on a window ledge in one of the rooms overlooking the tangled garden. Her mother was weeping, and her father was patting her shoulders gently, “Moving continents is not easy, Nisha. It’ll all fall into place. Don’t worry.”
“Bbut llook aat the sstate oof tthis hhouse,” Nisha blubbered.
“They’ll fix it. Until then we’ll stay in the guest house. As long as it takes. At the guest house, at least, you don’t have to worry about food and stuff. And we’ve got a good nanny for Posto. Pixie’s in school. Let’s count our blessings.”
“Ii’m sso ttired,” she said, resting her head on Bappa’s shoulder.
Pixie walked up to them and said in a small voice, “I’m sorry I said the house is dilapidated, Mama. But it has character. And the garden is great. Also, look who I found.”
Nisha raised her head from Bappa’s shoulder and, smiling, the parents turned to her.
Pixie had an angelic expression on her face and a white puppy in her arms. The puppy mirrored her expression.
To be continued