As I sat in the auto, I was angry with my sister. How could she let herself be manipulated by someone like that? How could she not see what is going on?
How could she tell me that she is not my sister any more? How dare she? A part of me wanted to understand her and be there for her, but that was only a small part of me, most of me hated my sister. Nobody can control you, unless you let them. I knew that.
Some where at the back of my head, I heard a very strange question.
“What kind of a relationship are they having? Is it a father and daughter relationship or is it something else?”
No it can’t be anything else. Maria knows more than anyone that George means the world to Amma, She would never do anything to hurt Amma. But the voice kept asking me “Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?”
“Stop” I yelled
The auto driver braked suddenly and looked at me
“Yes madam?”
I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I looked around. I was about 2 km away from the campus.
“I will get off here” I spoke. I looked at the meter, it was showing 12 Rs, I opened my wallet to get money.
“But you said the medical college, I won’t get any return trip from here” He sounded angry
I took 2 ten Rs note and gave it to the driver and told him to keep the change.
I watched the Auto driver starting the auto and taking a turn. I looked around, there were lots of houses on either side of the road, there were children playing outside, there was a vendor pushing a cart and selling barbecued corn. Everything around me was alive, but I was dying. I was dying of shame. My chest felt like it was exploding. Few young guys from across the street were looking at me and I knew I shouldn’t stand there like a telephone poll, but my legs felt so very heavy.
I wanted to cry, but tears refused to come out of my eyes. May be even my eyes died! I knew I was going crazy. But I didn’t know how to bring sanity back to my head. I started to walk. I blocked everything and everyone out. I was dead anyway, wasn’t I?
I heard a bike sound coming close to me, but dead people don’t have to worry about bikes. The rider called my name, but I hated my name, I hated the fact that I belonged to the Thomas family and I wasn’t going to answer to a name I no longer wanted to be associated with. The rider stopped the bike right in front of me and I tried to bypass the bike
“Nina, are you ok?” He held my hand. May be it was the human touch, may be it was the human voice, I started to cry.
“Did Arjun do something to you?”
“No”
“Get on the bike”
“No”
“I said get on the bike”
I looked at his eyes, the tiny eyes looked pretty serious, “Nina get on the bike”
I sat on his bike and he started to make a U turn. Campus was straight ahead, so there was no need to take a U turn
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t say anything. I was just so tired, so I leaned my face on his back. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel that I was supposed to be going steady with Arjun and I shouldn’t be travelling with him, I didn’t think what Caroline would think/do if she knew that I was with her boy friend. I refused to think. All I wanted was a moment of sanity.
After a while he stopped at the petrol station to fill petrol. I had no idea where we were going and I was too tired to ask.
“Are you ok?” He was looking at me
“I am tired”
“Nina, from here the road is rough, would you hold my body for support?”
“Ok”
He started the bike and I held his body for support. I didn’t feel anything. This was the guy I loved the most in my life and even when I held my arm around his body, I felt nothing.
He must have ridden for at least an hour, soon we were travelling parallel to a river. I didn’t know where we were and I wasn’t interested to know. He stopped the bike in an open area.
“Come” He held my hand. “I will show you my favourite spot” We walked together and he pointed a small rock to me. He climbed on top and gave me his hands and pulled me up.
The view was spectacular. You could see the hills in the far distant, the river in the middle and the green grassy area near to us.
“I come here often”
I thought of asking with Caroline? Then I thought it is none of my business. May be he understood what I was thinking and replied
“I come here alone, Caroline hates this place. She prefers MG road any day”
“hmm”
“What is going on?” He was looking at me
“I don’t know” I replied
we were silent for a while and I started to think about my family. My heart felt so heavy.
“Nina, talk to me” He spoke again
“My uncle is destroying my family”
“What?”
“My uncle is destroying my family” I repeated again
“How?”
“He and my mother are first cousins. My grandmother is a very pretty woman and everyone used to talk about how pretty she is, while my mother was not pretty. My uncle successfully manipulated my mother by telling her that she looks like Saira bhanu. Now he tells her that she looks like Padmini Kolhapuri!
I guess my mother was craving for attention. My grandparents concentrated all their attention to their son and when George started showering her with attention, she fell for it. He controlled everything she did, he decided what she wore, he decided where she worked and everything. When family members became suspicious of their relationship and started to get marriage proposals for my mother, so they can get her married off, he did everything to break up each marriage proposal my mother got. First proposal was from someone who worked in the British railways and my uncle convinced Amma that, her prospective groom is exposed to (coal) fumes, so he would have 100 % chance of getting lung cancer and she would become a widow. Second proposal was from an accountant and he convinced Amma that she won’t have a good life because accountants always sit with their ledgers! Then came my father’s proposal, Unfortunately he was out of town at that time and my grand parents forced my mother to marry my father. From then on, it has been a journey of hell.”
I looked at beautiful eyes to see his reaction. If I was listening to this story, I would have felt disgusted. But he didn’t show any disgust.
“Then what happened?”
“I don’t know, I guess Amma could never love my father and George ensured that she would never give my father a chance. My father never got what he wanted. He was expecting a hindi movie style life where the wife is forever loving, kind and forgiving and he got just the opposite and it became a marriage made in hell. My father started working overseas, so he could get away from Amma and Amma was happy because she could do what she wants. Soon the marriage made in hell became a marriage of convenience and the four of us were just the proof to show the world that their marriage was fine.”
“What about your uncle? What does he do?Did he get married?”
“He is in the civil service. He married a wonderful and beautiful lady from a very aristocratic family. Poor lady, she would have thought she was marrying the most eligible bachelor in Bangalore.”
“Does she know all these?”
“I don’t know. I have never met her. I have only seen her photographs”
“hmm” He mumbled
“When I was 15 years old, my mother took us to meet him. It was fun initially. Living with a very famous uncle, with a driver on call at any time of the day, servants to cook any food you want, opportunity to visit so many tourist places as a VIP. A part of me felt guilty of betraying my father, but glamour and the glitter kind of blinded me.
My oldest sister looks exactly like my mother and soon he started to tell my sister that she looks like Meher Jasia. My sister always hated the fact that she is dark skinned like my mother while I got my dad’s skin colour. It didn’t take too long for him to manipulate her and control her. I went to see her today and she told me not to come and see her again”
I started to cry because it hurts knowing that my oldest sister could just walk away from all of us.