Chapter 2

From wistful mornings to regretful evenings, her blabbering continued. Unfortunately, my father left me with her family while he went on his regular mysterious journeys in the country. When he left, he called Jaan and told her,

“Take good care of my boy, don’t leave him alone”.

Jaan was as loyal as a pet dog to my father, and since the moment he departed, she never left my side. I wonder if she was so loyal because of the little incident the other day after which I have been trying best to ignore her. I was so embarassed that I even skipped the scrumptious meals served for the celebration of her “womanhood”. It was even more embarrassing at times when I had to pee because she kept following me around.

Jaan was a decisive girl. I tried being rude to her, but her skin was as thick as that of a wild boar, and none of my insults seemed to permeate her. But I found a way to escape from her endless chirping. She was immersed in her chattering and did not actually care, if I listened or not. So, I chose to enjoy the serenity around me. Though she was a pain in the ass, she had a vivid taste in the places she chose to take me. The part of the coffee plantations she took me was quite beautiful. There was a small hut on one side, where they made fresh coffee for tourists. There were wooden benches for us to sit on as well. I took a sip of the coffee and felt a current passing right through my brain, shaking it wide awake to the present and to Jaan. She asked me,

“Tell me, Benny, do you like coffee?”

“Of course I like it, otherwise I wouldn’t be drinking it, isn’t that obvious”?

“Why do you like it”?

Now she was definitely getting on my nerves, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut even while drinking or eating.I simply released a distorted grunt and she said

“Do you know why I like it, because it’s just like me, it’s dark and flavored, too much can make you feel awful, not everybody likes it, but if you like it, you get a hang of it and can’t live without it”

I couldn’t help but laugh at this.What an odd girl is she, she was well aware of herself and very confident at that too. She was not exactly beautiful, too dark and too fat at the same time is what I would call “unfortunate” for a girl. I personally preferred fair and slim girls with golden hair. But that doesn’t make me a racist, but just an admirer of true beauty.

I pitied her for being ugly, and decided to be nice to her. But, the problem with me is, I am never able to find the right words. Finally, as I decided to open my mouth to say something nice, I saw Lalitha, coming straight at us. Lalitha was Jaan’s best friend and now she no longer needed me. As soon as Lalitha joined us, I took the opportunity to sneak away, finally enjoying my freedom. I ran halfway and took a moment to turn back. I was astonished to see that Jaan did not even notice my absence and was chattering away with Lalitha, as though she was there the entire time. I do not know why, I felt a little irritated by this. I waited for a bit more for Jaan to call me back and when there was no sight of her, I ran as fast as I could, back to her home.

I was so thrilled to see Lalitha. I hadn’t seen her for the last week. I loitered once or twice a day in her neighbourhood, and saw some of her relatives coming and going, but never did I see her. I kept telling myself, something was definitely wrong. Today I can see that, my instincts were quite correct. Lalitha was not quite herself today. I could see streaks of dried-up tears on her face. I did not ask her anything and waited for her to open up. Lalitha and I are quite the opposite kinds. I always talk too much and she never enough. So, it was quite a hassle to get something out of her. After half an hour or so, Lalitha opened her mouth or I thought she did. The only thing I could gather was muffled sobs and in between a word or two like “marriage”.

“Lallu, I couldn’t understand a thing you just said, who is getting married and to whom, and most of all, why are you crying about it?”

I turned back and looked at Benny for some help, only to discover that he was gone. Anyways, there was no time to ponder over his absence, I had more important things to deal with now.Lallu stopped crying

“I am getting married in three days, to..to..Somu”

and she burst into tears again. I was dishevelled, first of all Lallu was getting married, she was only 16 years old, same as me, secondly Somu was the most undesirable man in the entire neighbourhood. He was around 40 years of age. He was a drunkard and a womaniser. How could they do this to Lallu, my sweet Lallu who was as soft as a rose. This couldn’t be. I cannot let this be. I held her in my arms and tried to quiet her down.

“As long as I am alive, I won’t let this happen Lallu. We have got three more days right, I will plan something, please don’t worry”.

I held her hand all the way back home. Both of us were silent. I reassured her that nothing unfortunate will happen. I walked towards my home. As soon as I reached my home, I found a sulking Ben right at the courtyard. He had been talking to my mother, when I went in. As soon as I reached her, she roared at me in anger

“You wretched girl, what did I tell you, why did you leave the darling boy all by himself. he could have lost his way, or somebody could have kidnapped him, what face would we show before Uncle John.”

He is as long as a ladder, you must be stupid to assume that somebody would try to kidnap him”

I glared at Benny

“I knew you were a selfish asshole, but I did not think you were a liar. How dare you lie that I abandoned you when you went at your own will”

Before I could say any further, I felt the heat of my mothers’ beating on my back. She hadn’t raised her hands at me since I was 13. I felt angry, sad, and embarrassed about being beaten in front of him. But I couldn’t cry before him, that would be accepting failure, instead, I ran into my room and took out all the anger by shutting the door of my room, as hard as I could, without the door falling apart.

I went into my room and paced up and down. I did not know, what else to do. All my courage was slowly drifting away. I was in a very difficult situation myself and on top of that I had Lallu’s issue to solve. I had put on an act before her, even without knowing a way out. I racked my brain for something, anything. Suddenly, it struck me, Lallu was only 16, which means according to what we study in the school, this marriage is illegal. So, if we inform the police, they would not let the marriage happen. What a brilliant idea. But how do I inform the police? Even if I go in person, will they listen to me. Even my own mother doesn’t trust me on anything, why would the police believe me?

Suddenly remembered, yes Ramu, he recently joined the police forces and lived in the fourth block. He was my senior in school. May be I could ask him for help. He will definitely help me. He even had a crush on Lallu and had asked me to hand over a letter to her during one of those days, I remember vaguely. But, he lived all by himself and how could I go there. I definitely needed some help. As I was calculating the various possibilities, I heard a small knock on my door. It definitely couldn’t be my mother, for if it was her, she would have broken the door by now. So, I wondered who it could be and was utterly surprised to see Benny outside my bedroom door.

I was in one of my worst nightmares right now. I had knocked very gently, I did not even think she would open the door. Now I had no choice before me, so I said,

“See Jaan, it was not in my intention to hurt you, I am…I am…I am…sry”

I couldn’t believe myself, it was clear that even she couldn’t believe her ears. Her face was so full of anger, that I thought she would lunge at me any time now. Just in a flash of a second, I saw her face soften, she took a step forward and said,

“Benny, you really did hurt me today, but I forgive you because you are uncle John’s son, and..because you helped be before. But forgiveness always comes with a cost and you have to pay me that cost”

Now I felt completely trapped. So there was a solid reason for the sudden change of weather from thunder and lightning to breeze and drizzle, I wonder what it could be. I waited for her to complete it. She began her long, very long story of years of friendship with Lallu and took three hours to complete it and tell me that she needed me to accompany her to see some police guy, to break off Lalitha’s marriage. She begged me to go with her and her pleadings were like little needles that poked me and reminded me of my guilty action towards her a few hours ago. I had no choice but to agree with her

“You should know that, right now, you are the only devil in my life, taking away all my sanity and tormenting me every moment. I do not understand how you absolutely walk into trouble like this. This is the last and final time I will be helping you”

And in the night I set out with her, to God knows whose house. I learned from her repeated blabbering that the police man’s name was Ramu. His house was not too far. It was a neat little building four blocks from Jaan’s house. There was even a calling bell in his house, which was rare in this part of the country. We pressed the calling bell and waited. I was imagining a fat, old man, who would come and shout at us the very instant he heard Jaan’s blabbering. Instead there came out a very handsome hotshot of a guy, whom I couldn’t say was much older than myself.

As soon as he came out, I saw a shift in the personality of Jaan. She became very coy, and let out a feminine smile towards the gentleman. What had happened to the jumping monkey of a person I had always seen. All my inner universe was bursting with laughter at this new development. He approached us with a smile and welcomed Jaan in the warmest of ways. He greeted me as though he already knew me. We sat in the charpoy in his courtyard and he offered us some drinks. From the comfortable demeanor of Jaan, I presumed she totally forgot the entire purpose behind our visit. So I took over and told Ramu everything. Once I began talking, Jaan woke up from her frivolous thoughts about the gentleman sitting right before us and joined me in the talk. Ramu listened very carefully and did not intervene even once and when we finished he came up to us and took my hand in his hands and said,

“I promise you that I will do everything in my power to stop Lalitha’s marriage with Somu. Please make sure not to tell this to anyone else, if anyone else knows, they may not let me do things according to my plan”

“Brilliant, you already have a plan, so there is nothing for us to worry”.

I shook his hands as a man would to another man and I had to force Jaan by hand to take her back home. She looked like she was ready to spent the night looking at the handsome face of Ramu. So I had to pinch her on our way back to bring her to her senses.

“What do you think you are doing Jaan? I thought you wanted to save your friend and you ended up drooling over some strange man you just met”

Driving her mad gave me some sort of pleasure and instantaneously the madness in the monkey was let loose. She barked at me

“I was just being humble, because he was a gentleman, unlike you, you are so filthy Benny that you equate my humility to drooling. I was just being thankful for his help”

and she went on and on about my lack of empathy and kindness. My head was heavy from hearing all the bad words and lack of sleep. It was 2 am in the morning. I couldn’t see or hear anything other than my bed right now.

I was so unfortunate as to carry Ben to his bed. He was so heavy. My shoulders ached from carrying him for half a mile around. I was happy to finally dump him in his bed and straighten my back. I must say, while asleep he looked handsome and innocent. I stood there looking at his handsome face for thirty seconds and had to pinch myself out of his room. God did a terrible mistake by giving such a vicious person such a pretty face.

I went back to my room and jumped up and down in ecstasy. I was so proud of myself that I could save Lalitha. I could think of nothing more because my head was so heavy from all the thinking and impending sleep.

Though I slept late, I woke up early in the morning. I wanted to be ready when I received the news of Lallu’s marriage being stopped by the police. I remained at home the entire day because every tiny bit of gossip was served fresh in my home by my aunt. But the day was quite uneventful, even the next day passed without much happening.

Finally the day of Lallu’s marriage arrived. Everyone in my home was getting ready to attend the marriage. I was so confused. The only person I could confide in was Ben. So, I went into his room, early in the morning, while he was still asleep and poked him awake. He did not get as angry as I imagined him to be, maybe because he sensed my half-sobs.

“I don’t get it Ben, why hasn’t anything happened yet”

“Jaan, may be Ramu did not take us quite seriously, or may be he is also a perpetrator in this marriage, He told us not to tell anyone else, so that he could make sure the marriage went through without any commotion. We were fools to have trusted him”

“I don’t know how I will face Lallu ever again, she had trusted me so much and there is not anything I can do now”.

“It’s not your fault Jaan, let us assume it was in her fate to marry someone like Somu.”

I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t set my foot on the marriage hall, until my mother vowed to set my foot on fire if I didn’t. Both myself and Ben were dragged to the marriage scene. I imagined Lallu, sitting on the stage like a goat ready to be slaughtered and I imagined wicked Somu, humming and sitting beside her. The very thought broke my heart into a thousand pieces.

Then I saw it, I saw Lallu sitting on the stage and she looked quite different from what I had expected. She was beaming and waving her hand at me. Perhaps she finally accepted her fate. She was wearing a blood-red saree, with matching ruby ornaments. Her hair was covered with jasmine and she looked so divine, so gentle and so young, like a child playing role play. Tears started rolling down my cheeks and Ben offered me his handkerchief, only so that I wouldn’t be an embarrassment.

It was time for the groom to enter. The crowd hooted and cheered at the entry of the groom. My eyes were so blurry from tears that Somu looked a bit different and even handsome. Beside me, Ben was shaking me vigorously to bring me to my senses.

It was only when I wiped my eyes I could see the groom clearly and my jaws dropped at the sight of Ramu sitting beside Lallu. The groom was not the womanizer Somu, it was the gentle and handsome Ramu, whom we had approached to break off the marriage. I looked at Ben and he was laughing like an idiot. He whispered in my ears

“So, the man kept his word after all, he only promised us he wouldn’t let Lalitha marry Somu, he never said he would stop the marriage.”

I do not know how this happened, but to believe that my little attempt brought that broad smile on Lallu’s face was something worth being proud of. Of course, the marriage was illegal and of course, Ramu had tricked us, but some sudden course just simply brought every piece together and it somehow fit perfectly..

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