Blind Faith by Ghose Sagarika

Author:Ghose, Sagarika [Ghose, Sagarika]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061350269
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2008-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The Catastrophe came to Victoria Villa.

Indi’s revenge on her parents for not being brave enough to love her, was so swift and so final that Ashish Kumar and Shiela Devi died within a year of each other.

Now that Pom was securely married and Indi working far away at her job, Ashish Kumar and Shiela Devi had thrown themselves happily into a daughter-less idyll. Ashish Kumar had started on the Complete Works of Tolstoy. And Shiela Devi had begun to flavour his yoghurt with little pieces of fruit.

Then Indi came to Victoria Villa and announced that she was pregnant.

Victoria Villa was shaken to its foundations. The semal tree trembled and the jamun’s branches sank closer to the ground. Shiela Devi flew into a panic and croaked that unless she bathed in the Ganga this very second, kaliyug would descend on the family. Ashish Kumar contracted mild diphtheria and lay in his study wishing the Four-Armed-One would come for him without further delay.

A nerve-edged silence sat in the living room. The bedrooms were darkened by a softly playing transistor-radio gloom. This was a shock of monumental proportions.

‘It can all be set right,’ said Ashish Kumar defeatedly lying on the sofa in his study. ‘You know it can be set right. Nobody need ever know. Why don’t you go and get it taken out?’

‘Taken out? Set right?’ Indi cried. ‘But there’s nothing wrong for anything to be set right. I’ll take care of everything. If anyone asks any questions, I’ll say I conceived on my honeymoon.’

‘Conceived on your honeymoon? Are you mad or what? That was almost two years ago,’ whined Ashish Kumar, frantically rotating his eyes. ‘Everybody can calculate. Not everybody is blind.’

She stood next to her father’s bed like a tall sentinel. ‘I’m not a helpless woman. I’m an IAS officer. I’ll take care of everything. The government has too much sympathy for me. They won’t touch me. Nobody will calculate dates.’

‘Monstrous girl!’ burbled Ashish Kumar. ‘Destroyer of my existence!’

‘Who? Who? Who?’ Shiela Devi wailed after she came back from her baths in the Ganga. ‘Who is the child’s father?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘You can’t remember?’

‘I’m single. I sleep with a number of men. It could have been any of them.’

‘Any of them?’

‘Because I can’t see! Understand? I can’t see anything at all sometimes. I could hardly see who it was. I don’t know who. Maybe a construction engineer. Maybe the postman.’

This was too much for Shiela Devi. She gave up trying to make yoghurt for Ashish Kumar. She gave up trying to get Indi to keep her voice down, and trying to keep her blindness at bay. She travelled to Benares every week to bathe in the Ganga, sometimes forgetting to dry her clothes. Eventually, she contracted pneumonia and died, telling herself with her dying breath that you had to be truly cursed to be consumed by your own child.

Ashish Kumar took to his bed with high blood pressure and breathing difficulties. Murmurings about Indi circulated busily in Delhi’s salons.

Then Indi found an unexpected protector.

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