Parallel Planes
Roy Lazarus
1 July 2009, 10:52
Mr and Mrs Sen like to spend their Saturday evenings at the City Club. Kamla, the babysitter, comes in at six and by half past seven they’re done with grooming themselves in front of the full-length bedroom mirror and are ready to go. Athletic Mr Sen dressed in a pair of denim jeans and a half-sleeve shirt usually untucked around his waist and open at the collar, while Mrs Sen looks statuesque as always in a light colored sari that elegantly hugs her slender frame with her black, patent leather handbag casually slung over a shoulder.
This is only one of the three reasons why even the fawning smiles of their friends at the club (office colleagues by daytime) seep envy at the edges. However, they do not notice it, or pretend not to notice it. The second reason is thirteen year old Raju and four year old Riya, their two extremely agreeable, indeed adorable kids. It never ceases to amaze people how the Sens have the time and the energy to bring up two children without it affecting in the very least their careers or their youthful good looks.
Not that the kids are any trouble, on the contrary, they’re very mild and very easy to manage. Raju, who diligently attends to his schoolwork on other days instead of playing outdoors with the neighborhood kids, is allowed to take it easy and watch cartoons on Saturdays. He is usually too impatient to come down to the porch and see them off. He grunts a hurried goodbye from the white camel back sofa as his myopic eyes behind black, plastic framed glasses dart rapidly back and forth trying to catch each image on the flatscreen in its proper context and sequence before it flickers away to the next. Mr and Mrs Sen don’t mind this minor transgression; Raju is doing well in school, his teachers are all proud of him and so are they.
It is left to Kamla then and little Riya (carried by Kamla in her arms) to close the door after them. They get into their white sedan, waving back to Riya (who won’t stop waving till the car is quite out of sight) after promising Kamla to be back by ten and reminding her not to open the door to anyone but them (one can’t be too careful these days, feel the Sens). The car glides away into the evening dust with a low hum. The scent of Mrs Sen’s perfume lingers on in the air for a little while, sometimes the child sniffs her nose loudly and claps her hand at it while Kamla secures the bolts and ushers her in.
The third reason is of course is their meteoric rise in the workplace. They’re both General Managers at the same Telecom Company and it seems unfair to the others working there, though they will never admit it, that two such formidable employees should team up to form this strong alliance against them. Their’s is indeed a “power team”, as Mr Sen, who is fond of sports and sporting jargons, likes to say.
Evenings at the Club are for drinking root beer and socializing; which for Mr Sen usually consists of discussing boisterously with the “boys” the latest fortunes of the Indian cricket team or why the Mohun Bagan football club is a bunch of faggots compared to East Bengal. As for Mrs Sen this means talking at length about the latest piece of jewellery she bought from New Market, for although she’s a modern woman she’s no feminist virago as she herself likes to say. On some special occasions (the monthly fete, the Foundation day, Christmas eve) she reluctantly takes the stage, urged on by her friends and the other club members – for she is nothing short of a celebrity here – and sings old Hindi songs in her smooth, mellow voice, swaying ever so slightly to the rythm of the music. On such occasions Mr Sen is content to sit still at his table and watch her while sipping his drink and whispering sporadically to his friends: “That’s my wife! My wife!”.
Sometimes the other women come to Mrs Sen with worried faces (wholly exaggerated, if you were to ask Mrs Sen) and tell her that their kids are no good and keep getting into the most awful scrapes at school; or that their three year old refuses to eat the food prepared for him, preferring instead to chew the soles of the rubber slippers lying about the house; or their little girl keeps scratching her mommy when all mommy’s done is to coochie-coo the wretched child – and other such motherly woes. At these moments Mrs Sen is most gracious and states with an embarrassed smile that all kids are good in her opinion and her’s aren’t anything special, although it is true that they hardly give any trouble at all.
The trick I suppose, she says, is to not scold them but instead to be patient and to understand them and in turn make them understand all the things they need to do if they’re to get what they want. “But Mala, your kids are such blessed angels! I’m sure if I stopped scolding my _, he’d just blow up the house or set it on fire or something!” Mrs Sen is used to all this by now and though she doesn’t really relish it (she repeats what they said to her husband when they get back, then adds emphatically that no, she doesn’t really enjoy this, although it does make her feel very, very proud of Raju and Riya) she bears it with her charming smile.
Riya has the exact same smile, only much more charming than her mother’s. Mrs Sen who liked to read Tagore’s Gitanjali in college, once remarked in a fit of motherly affection and poetic inspiration that her daughter’s smile was like the margin of a quivering conifer leaf from which the drool dripped over like pure morning dew. At which Raju exclaimed that he’d never heard his mother talk so funny before. But he wasn’t being jealous, he’d never really been jealous of Riya. Having a baby in the house meant a welcome diversion as he’d take a break from his studies to sneak up to her and wiggle her toes or tickle her belly and watch her giggle her toothless giggle or just sit and stare at her sucking on her tiny thumb.
Now that she’s older he doesn’t do that anymore; instead she precariously totters up to his mahogany desk and pulls his shirt and staring at him with her large, brown eyes, coos softly, hopefully: “Play? Play…!” In the house she’s almost always in cashmere rompers and a pair of dirty woolen socks and her hair is tied up with ribbons into two neat pigtails which Raju likes to twirl every other time that she comes to him. When the Sens leave on Saturday evenings she plays ball with Kamla, although Kamla’s a rather poor substitute for her brother. She’s always distracted and never throws the ball straight.
From the living room the sound of the television wafts in, distorted by the occasional noise of the traffic outside and muffled by the thick walls of the house. Riya’s never watched the television for more than ten minutes, curious glimpses stolen surreptitiously when she’s passing through the living room. Mr and Mrs Sen believe that a child below eight ought not be allowed to watch TV as it impairs their impressionable minds. According to them a child at that age is at the peak of his or her formative years. This conviction of theirs clearly stands vindicated by the remarks in Raju’s annual report card. His teachers describe him as being quiet, hard-working and a brilliant student with a bright future ahead of him. His parents have big plans for him; they want him to go to engineering school and become the CEO of some big multinational company.
The day had been singularly hot with no promise of rain. Mrs Sen cracked open an egg at the edge of the skillet, then skillfully emptied it out on the black, ceramic surface of the pan and spread the wobbly albumen with a quick, circular motion of the plastic handle. As the egg sputtered and spit oil and albumen, she looked out the window and saw the trees and tall grasses yellowed with heat wavering in the light, hot air and the gray metalled road beyond simmering like a burning rubber tire. She turned the egg over, waited a few minutes, then scooped it up on the plate with the other poached eggs and walked back into the dining room where Mr Sen and Raju were already seated. Riya had already eaten, having been fed by her mother almost an hour ago and was now asleep peacefully in her cot upstairs.
“God, it’s so hot outside one can almost see the landscape boiling!”, she said as she put down the plate on the table.
Mr Sen looked up from the newspaper, nodded at Mrs Sen and said that the Indian cricket team was run by a bunch of incompetent women.
“Oh, it’s almost the end of June and still no sign of rain…can’t stand the heat any longer…”. Mrs Sen wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead with her sari, lest they should fall on the food.
“Mom, mom, do you know that King Ashoka the Great was actually not Indian but Greek? Rachna Ma’am told us today while teaching us about Hellenistic Greece that Ashoka was actually Greek and not Indian at all.”
“Well what did they teach you in maths today? Didn’t you have a maths class today?”, she asked as she scooped up a big ladle-ful of rice and deposited it with a thump on Raju’s plate.
“Not so much rice Mama. Yes we had a maths class. But do you know what Ashoka’s real name was? Guess?”
“Well what did they teach you today?”, she repeated her question impatiently.
At this Mr Sen looked up from his plate, the paper now discarded on the divan nearby, and said that there wasn’t enough salt in the food. He got up, stretched himself, reached for the salt and sat down again. As he sprinkled the salt in an elaborate pattern all over his food, Raju spoke up: “They taught us parallel planes…But Mama, Mama did you know Ashoka’s real name was Diodotus?!”
“Well, do the exercises they have in Walker and Miller on parallel planes…Have you seen them?”
“But Mama, today is Saturday! I want to watch cartoons…”
“I’ll mark the difficult problems with a star and you shall get up early tomorrow morning and do them before breakfast.”
Raju quietly dug into his food without any further words and Mrs Sen munched her chicken softly, then got up to get some cold water from the fridge. Just then the phone came alive with a violent ring that almost startled Mr Sen and Raju rushed up to answer it. As Mrs Sen came back from the kitchen clutching a plastic bottle mottled with condensed drops of water and sat down, Raju came back and announced that it was Kamla and that she wouldn’t be coming tonight because her sister was having her baby.
“That girl, she always finds some excuse or the other to shirk work…I’ve got a good mind to dismiss her…what shall we do tonight? I promised the ladies that I’d sing tonight, for the Chairman’s coming to the club this evening and well, I must sing tonight…”
“Is he? Shit that means I can’t hang around in the bar? Why does have to come tonight?”
“Yes, but what are we going to do? Kamla isn’t coming today, in case you haven’t heard…”
Mr Sen looked glumly across from his plate and then shrugged his shoulders and said that they’d find somebody or in the worst case scenario they could leave the kids alone, for Raju was old enough after all and Riya wasn’t a baby anymore.
Mrs Sen said nothing.
It was quarter to eight and the sky that had in the day been without a blemish was now being slowly blotted over by a glum, black cloud that quietly spiralled in towards the town, above the colorful cement and mortar houses that dominated the landscape. Outside, there was a faint rustle of dead leaves on the pavement and the newly born breeze occasionally lifted the plastic bags strewn all around, capriciously, playfully, tossing them about in gentle reproach. Raju and Riya however didn’t see it, nor hear it; they were inside, watching cartoons on TV.
Mrs Sen had tried to arrange for a babysitter at the last moment, but babysitters are hard to find even with a month’s notice and she turned up nothing after spending almost an hour on the phone. This helplessness, this forced reliance on house maids and babysitters – the lower class that dwelled in the ugly slums opposite the new shopping mall down the street – drove her mad with frustration and she decided then and there to get rid of this exasperating dependence. She put her faith in Raju, who she judged – and rightly so – to be a responsible boy and after instructing him a thousand times not to play with the electrical switches and appliances and to keep an eye on Riya and to eat the big English cake from the fridge if they felt hungry, she and Mr Sen locked the door from outside and promised to return as early as possible.
Raju propped his legs up on the low teak table before the couch and turned up the volume. Riya sat at the corner of the couch, turning a woolen sailor cap over in her hands, and stared with big, brown eyes at the glaring images on the television. The lights in the upper room had been turned off when their parents had left and only the kitchen and the living room lights were on. The blinds were drawn over the windows, the potted azalea beside the TV nodded occasionally and overhead, the regular hum of the ceiling fan was being drowned out by the loud, excited voices of the cartoon characters.
After sometime Raju decided he was hungry. He asked Riya if she wanted a cake and she nodded absentmindedly, her eyes fixed on the tiny, brown mouse that was scampering up to a big, blue cat with a white belly and was attacking it boldly with a huge scimitar that seemed twice its own size. The cat miawoed, or rather yelped – like only a cartoon cat can yelp – and tried to fend the blows ineffectively with a wooden table. The agile mouse jumped over the table top, leaped onto the cat’s head and cut him up into a million pieces.
When Raju came back with the cake, wrapped in aluminum foil, and the kitchen knife, the scene had changed and now the cat was running after the mouse who was running around wildly, trying to find a place to hide. He moved the geometry book, bookmarked to the page on Parallel Planes, to one side and lay the cake in its place on the table, and began to cut big, generous slices both for himself and Riya. It was a plain English cake and the butter smelled delicious and Raju smacked his lips in delight. Few things came close to the pleasure of watching your favorite cartoons while munching on delicious cake, he thought, as he handed Riya her share.
He told her to shift a little to the side, so he could sprawl down on the couch, and she willingly obliged, dropping bits and pieces of the cake over the satin covers. He put his head on a cushion, turned to his side and let his legs hang from the sides. Outside, there was a distant rumble that went unnoticed; the first drops of rain – almost the size of hazelnuts – began to fall pitter-patter on the cement roof.
It was almost twenty minutes later that Mr and Mrs Sen came back. The party, which was being held in the open air in the central lawns, had been washed out and abandoned because of the sudden downpour and Mr and Mrs Sen, fearing a power blackout had hurried back. Mr Sen was parking the car in the garage, when Mrs Sen inserted the key in the lock, clicked it open with a practised turn, entered the living room, staggered back with a shriek and fell unconscious on the doormat.
Inside, Riya was wearing the sailor cap on her head and was giggling merrily as Raju’s punctured carotid, where she had playfully plunged the knife (or was it a scimitar?), still erupted in sudden fits an invigorated fountain, blood red in color, and soaked the satin covers of the couch in big red blotches that seemed to spread by the minute, much like Riya’s broad grin. On the couch Raju lay quite still; on the table, the cake lay half eaten and the geometry book was opened to the page on Parallel Planes. A big red splotch of blood was spreading quickly over it, and soon the words “Parallel Planes” written in bold face at the top of the page was blotted out and was no longer visible.
