eyes. In fact, he’d wondered what was wrong, whether she’d been ill. He could tell she had been working hard—her hands, with their narrow, tapering fingers, had looked a bit rough and red.
He’d also observed that she had hardly eaten any dinner. She had cooked a delicious meal and fed them well, but since Kiran was always so finely tuned to her actions and reactions, he’d noted that she’d practically skipped the meal herself.
Then his mind wandered to that odd episode after dinner. Amma had dispatched the men, namely, Kiran’s father, his two uncles, Suresh, and himself on a long walk. “You men should go take a nice walk and digest the rich meal, you know. And Suresh needs the exercise to build some muscle.” When the older men had put up some resistance, she’d firmly pointed out, “Walking is good for the prostate also, no? And the three of you are getting old. Go, go walk!”
Kiran had flatly refused to go with the other men because he’d become suspicious. Amma was up to something. He’d sensed an undercurrent of excitement in her all evening. She had been more animated than usual, more talkative, more manipulative.
After she’d disposed of the men, she had shepherded Kiran’s mother, Kamala, and his aunt, Devayani, into the drawing room and shut the door, making it obvious that something of great importance was about to be discussed. Megha and his three female cousins, Kala, Mala and Shanti, had been told to amuse themselves by playing card games in the kitchen.
Pretending to relax in the master bedroom with a newspaper, Kiran had found a spot where he could put his ear to the wall separating the drawing room, so he could eavesdrop. Somewhere deep inside he knew this secret conference among the ladies had to do with Megha.
What he heard over the next few minutes was disturbing. The walls in that home were rather thin, and thank God for that.
“Megha’s father has still not paid you any of the dowry money or what?” Devayani asked in her nasal drone. His Aunt Devayani was a small woman with an overbite and perpetual allergies that left her with a congested nose and a voice that sounded like a broken guitar.
“Not one paisa yet. And I don’t see any chance of it coming soon. That’s why I’m thinking about this,” replied Amma.
Kiran had wondered what this meant. Exactly what was the old bat planning?
Then he heard his mother’s voice say, “Chandramma, it’s only one year since the wedding. Why not wait a bit?” Kamala was generally the voice of reason amongst the three women.
“One year is more than enough if you ask me,” Devayani sniffed. Amma had mentored Devayani since the time she’d married Amma’s youngest brother, Rama Rao, and since then Devayani had become Amma’s staunchest supporter and friend.
“I have been very patient,” Amma confirmed. “They promised us the money. This is clearly a breach of contract, no? Also, there is the matter of infertility to consider.”
Kiran frowned. Breach of contract? Infertility? Where had his aunt learned such terms? She had obviously been educating herself on these matters.
“A healthy young girl can’t get pregnant in one year or what?” Devayani wanted to know. “Then she must be barren also.”
“Wait a minute,” Kamala interrupted. “The girl gets along well with the family. And she is beautiful and bright, Chandramma. That was the main reason you chose her for Suresh, remember? You always wanted someone just like her for a daughter-in-law.”
“I have considered all those things, Kamala; I’m not a fool.” Amma sounded irritated at Kamala’s words of caution.
“And pregnancy takes time,” Kamala argued, somewhat impatient herself. “It took me many years before Kiran was conceived.”
“That may be, but don’t forget you had miscarriages before and after Kiran.”
Miscarriages before and after his birth? Taken by surprise, Kiran contemplated the matter for a minute. Nobody had told him that and he’d never really questioned why he was an only child. It was something to which he’d never given any thought, always assuming his parents had ended up with a single child because fate had determined it. And well…it had.
No wonder his parents doted on him and the rest of the family treated him like a precious commodity. As the son of the oldest Rao brother, Kiran’s was a special position to begin with. On top of that, his father’s brother had two daughters and no son. As the only male in the Rao clan, it was up to Kiran to carry on the family name. It was small wonder that they thought he was handsome and bright although he considered himself ordinary. Their adoring attention bordered on smothering at times.
Kiran had forced his attention back to the drawing room and its occupants.
“That girl is getting too clever for her own good. She has started to question my actions,” Amma fumed.
“What exactly has Megha questioned?” inquired Kamala.
“Do you know what she did last week? She openly defied me by going next door to that Muslim family’s house when I told her not to go.”
“Oh dear!” Devayani seemed to agree with Amma’s cause for indignation.
But Kamala asked, “Why did she go there?”
“She said she went to help that woman because she had an appendicitis attack.”
“What was Megha doing there if the woman had appendicitis? She needed a doctor, not a housewife,” Devayani, in her infinite wisdom, added.
“But Megha claims she stayed with the woman until her husband came home. She said their three-year-old daughter was crying and she had to do this to help out. I suspect she stayed there to laze, to get out of doing her own work here. When I asked why she disobeyed my orders, she called me selfish and thoughtless.”
There was a moment of silence as the two other women apparently absorbed this interesting piece of information, while Kiran silently cheered for Megha.
“Then she comes back home as if nothing happened. She polluted our Brahmin home by stepping into a Muslim house. That is total disregard for our religion, no?” Amma’s tone was one of righteous indignation.
Kiran nearly laughed out loud. So Megha had helped a neighbor in distress and for that she was branded a villain. Amma’s sense of right and wrong was twisted beyond imagination.
Unfortunately, too intent on eavesdropping to pay attention to his surroundings, Kiran’s elbow had accidentally struck a hairbrush on the dressing table and sent it crashing to the floor. Damn! After that, probably realizing that Kiran was able to hear them, the rest of the conversation in the other room had turned to whispers and gone on for several minutes. Kiran hadn’t been able to catch any of it. That was the part he needed to hear the most, and clearly, it was also the most damaging part of the meeting. And he hadn’t a clue as to what it was.
The only portion he’d managed to overhear at the end was his mother saying with an ominous sense of finality, “Chandramma, please, I beg you, don’t do it, at least for the sake of family honor. Imagine the scandal.”
A sense of dread had engulfed Kiran. The men had returned from their walk shortly after that. On the drive home, his mother had been strangely quiet and contemplative. He’d been tempted to ask her about it, but he knew she’d never
