specifically naughty, and even then I knew forgiveness was never far away. He always seemed more angry at himself for allowing the big black crow to settle on hisshoulder and make itself comfortable. When I was upset I was like mama, we cried instinctively and often. But I had never seen papa cry and wondered if he would feel better if, occasionally, he could let himself go.
I caught a few English phrases, half-listening as I fixed on the flickering screen: ‘…can’t worry about them, worrying won’t do anything …’ Mama whispered. Papa said, ‘When they go, we won’t be with them. We will get a letter, or a phone call in the middle of the night…everything left unsaid.’ They were talking about their parents, the grandparents I had never seen except in the framed photographs that hung in my parents’ bedroom.
Mama’s mother, my Nanima, looked like a smaller, fatter version of her, all bosom and stomach and yielding eyes, whilst her husband, Nanaji, towered over her, erect and to attention, regal in his tightly wound turban and long grey beard. Papa’s parents seemed more relaxed, more used to the camera. My Dadaji was smiling toothlessly into the lens, a tall man but stooped by years of tap-tapping at a desk in a faceless government office, who supplemented his existence as a clerk with passionate literate articles in the left-wing press, which he composed on his daily walk to the market for fresh vegetables. And my Dadima, an ocean of goodness contained in a loosely wound sari, a carefree grin belying the suffering that had touched all of that generation.
Papa had got the best of both his parents: Dadima’s generous mouth and affectionate eyes, Dadaji’s pride and cheekbones. And while papa spoke copiously about his mother, her sweetness, her courage, her patience, his references to Dada were less frequent and always more surprising. Once, after we had watched footage of Russian tanks parading past some half-dead leaders on the TV news, papa said casually, ‘Your Dada was a communist. That’s why I never learned any of the prayers, but I can tell you what the GNP of Kerala is …’
I did not understand all of this, though it made mama laughuntil she cried, but I did gather that it was somehow Dada’s fault that we did not have a homemade Hindu shrine with statues and candles on top of our fridge like all my other Aunties.
On another occasion, another mehfil , after papa had just finished a song to rapturous Vas !, my Auntie Shaila leaned over to papa and squeezed his arm playfully, her breasts hanging over the harmonium so that they brushed the keys and played a discordant fanfare. ‘Kumar saab,’ she shouted, ‘you should have been in films!’
‘I was offered a contract, when I was younger,’ papa smiled back, ‘but my father refused to let me go. Mindless rubbish, he said, give people politics not songs …’ There was a brief pause and then papa laughed uproariously, cueing Auntie Shaila to join in, turning a father’s edict into an anecdote.
Oh but in that pause, what possibilities hovered! Papa could have been a film star! There was no doubt he had the looks; even then the Aunties would waggle their heads appreciatively when he sang, enjoying his noble profile and almond eyes in a proud, proprietorial way. Mama would sigh at the framed photograph of the two of them which hung above their bed, taken in some small Delhi studio where they looked as if they had had their picture taken through vaseline. ‘Look at your beautiful papa,’ she would say. ‘What did he see in a dark skinny thing like me?’ Funnily enough, papa would often ask me the same rhetorical question about mama. I presumed that this was what love meant, both people thinking they were the lucky one.
But once I had heard about Dada’s film ban, I became obsessed with what I had missed out on, being the daughter of a famous film hero. Maybe I would have grown up in a palace, had baby elephants as pets and held my
I caught a few English phrases, half-listening as I fixed on the flickering screen: ‘…can’t worry about them, worrying won’t do anything …’ Mama whispered. Papa said, ‘When they go, we won’t be with them. We will get a letter, or a phone call in the middle of the night…everything left unsaid.’ They were talking about their parents, the grandparents I had never seen except in the framed photographs that hung in my parents’ bedroom.
Mama’s mother, my Nanima, looked like a smaller, fatter version of her, all bosom and stomach and yielding eyes, whilst her husband, Nanaji, towered over her, erect and to attention, regal in his tightly wound turban and long grey beard. Papa’s parents seemed more relaxed, more used to the camera. My Dadaji was smiling toothlessly into the lens, a tall man but stooped by years of tap-tapping at a desk in a faceless government office, who supplemented his existence as a clerk with passionate literate articles in the left-wing press, which he composed on his daily walk to the market for fresh vegetables. And my Dadima, an ocean of goodness contained in a loosely wound sari, a carefree grin belying the suffering that had touched all of that generation.
Papa had got the best of both his parents: Dadima’s generous mouth and affectionate eyes, Dadaji’s pride and cheekbones. And while papa spoke copiously about his mother, her sweetness, her courage, her patience, his references to Dada were less frequent and always more surprising. Once, after we had watched footage of Russian tanks parading past some half-dead leaders on the TV news, papa said casually, ‘Your Dada was a communist. That’s why I never learned any of the prayers, but I can tell you what the GNP of Kerala is …’
I did not understand all of this, though it made mama laughuntil she cried, but I did gather that it was somehow Dada’s fault that we did not have a homemade Hindu shrine with statues and candles on top of our fridge like all my other Aunties.
On another occasion, another mehfil , after papa had just finished a song to rapturous Vas !, my Auntie Shaila leaned over to papa and squeezed his arm playfully, her breasts hanging over the harmonium so that they brushed the keys and played a discordant fanfare. ‘Kumar saab,’ she shouted, ‘you should have been in films!’
‘I was offered a contract, when I was younger,’ papa smiled back, ‘but my father refused to let me go. Mindless rubbish, he said, give people politics not songs …’ There was a brief pause and then papa laughed uproariously, cueing Auntie Shaila to join in, turning a father’s edict into an anecdote.
Oh but in that pause, what possibilities hovered! Papa could have been a film star! There was no doubt he had the looks; even then the Aunties would waggle their heads appreciatively when he sang, enjoying his noble profile and almond eyes in a proud, proprietorial way. Mama would sigh at the framed photograph of the two of them which hung above their bed, taken in some small Delhi studio where they looked as if they had had their picture taken through vaseline. ‘Look at your beautiful papa,’ she would say. ‘What did he see in a dark skinny thing like me?’ Funnily enough, papa would often ask me the same rhetorical question about mama. I presumed that this was what love meant, both people thinking they were the lucky one.
But once I had heard about Dada’s film ban, I became obsessed with what I had missed out on, being the daughter of a famous film hero. Maybe I would have grown up in a palace, had baby elephants as pets and held my
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