The Fifth Rebellion – XIV
Rabt-e-khaas tha, na aarzoo-e-sila koi, Tark-e-ta’aluq ka hai gham, na gila koi — HRS, March 7, 2024
Save for making a point and offering resistance to what I saw essentially as societal overreach, my second visit had no real-life, worldly purpose — not even meeting the person I was visiting, for there was nothing to be gained by pursuing a one-sided friendship anyway. But the second visit threw open a lot of questions, some of which could be sort-of answered by inductive reasoning to a degree of close probabilities. Or I could seek definitive answers by asking Mohtarma, whose potential course of action had been so kindly opened by her sister, whose unexpectedly friendly reception of me had unraveled and called into question a lot of what I thought of as certain and settled about my presumably one-sided friendship with Mohtarma.
Evidently, her sister did not think Mohtarma would mind my calling her at her matrimonial home, for otherwise she had no reason to share the number with an otherwise complete stranger. She could have only known me through what Mohtarma had told her, but I had no way of knowing exactly what. She could conveniently explain me away as an inconvenient imposition without raising any eyebrows. In fact, I expected her to do just that and wouldn’t have held it against her one bit, given how completely antagonistic her family appeared to be. Somehow she doesn’t seem to have painted such a simple and eminently convincing single-stroke picture — at least not for the sister I met. “Oh, just another guy.”
Apart from briefly puzzling over the unexpected reception and Mohtarma’s inordinately early marriage, I did not think much about either of the two things for more than a year and a half, which was possibly because I had made whatever point I intended to make and with that, as far as I was concerned, the chapter was closed. And it was many years later, when someone else raised the possibility, I wondered if my first visit had contributed to her early marriage. I had laughed the idea off as ridiculously far-fetched when it was first brought up, but then it struck me that however remote, it was a possibility. Ridiculous, yes, but no more than her career-slaying early marriage.
There are two broad possibilities. One, she found someone, and circumstances, most likely on the guy’s side, compelled her to bring it up with her family and they got married with their largely reluctant families by their side after the initial resistance. Two, the family found a particularly good guy (read “tall, fair and handsome”) with a great (read “rich and prosperous”) family that wanted a quick marriage. So her family moved fast to catch the “catch” and “seal the deal” before the “window of opportunity closed”. Talks held, understanding reached. Wedding bells (read “holy incantations”).
Although I really, really hope it did not, my appearing at their doorsteps, uninvited, might have catalysed the process by sparking the marriage discussion. For my part, I much prefer the story where she finds the guy (like the Nazm I wrote wished) and the two of them decide to be done with their marital inevitable before something or someone upset the proverbial cart of fruits for them. Quickly done, marital life off the block. Umm… come to think of it, the possibility I prefer is perhaps also the most unlikely, given the circumstances.
In UP, girls groomed and geared for marriage opt for humanities, Sociology and Hindi being among the preferred subjects. Science stream is for careerist girls with Biology as the most and Mathematics as the last popular option among them, Physics and Chemistry being common to both sides, which explains the solitary girl in Tandon Sir’s maths class just as much as all the realistic jokes about the sad, young lives of engineering students spent in fond longing for the ever-elusive female company. Sandstorms of mathematical equations in the scorching desert of scientific rigour — no oasis, no garden, no daffodils and no fleas (or butterflies, in stomach or otherwise).
Save probably for household money management, the arc of domesticity has no natural intersection with mathematics. So Mohtarma’s marriage came out of nowhere.
About two years and a half years after the second visit and perhaps about four years after her marriage, I was sitting by the phone in Auraiya, leafing through my phonebook, and saw Mohtarma’s number I had taken down from that piece of paper. I dialed. The phone was quickly answered by a small, high-pitched child voice. “Helloow!” She seemed excited to have grabbed the phone before an adult encroached on the opportunity. “Umm… hello,” I said, not expecting a child to answer the call. “Aapko kisse baat karni hai?” She asked, fighting off her lisp to do a good job of phone-answering. I chuckled. “Bas aap se hi baat karni thi,” I said, smiling. “Huh?” She probably didn’t know how to pass on the receiver to herself. A familiar female voice called out in the background asking who was on the phone. “Huh? Patta nai.” Footsteps closing, the phone taken from the little hands (I picture a little girl holding the receiver kid-like with both hands). I placed the receiver back on the cradle, still smiling at the little interaction with the child — her daughter, I like to think. That was the only time I ever called. With a soft click, the disconnection was complete.
That she had kept the friendship on her side was enough. More than enough.
Concluded
