Chapter 12 #2
When she had fed him the last morsel, both her puris were still intact, even if soggy.
She crunched on one, sitting through crawling traffic and Zubin’s calls.
She reached the last puri and glanced his way.
He was gazing out of the windshield, engrossed in talking on the call, unconcerned about it.
Because he knew, there was no eating those three puris that he had promised her a long, long time ago.
Aditi smiled at the Arabian Sea through her window, and bit into the fourth puri.
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Aditi stared at the line of three women sitting in front of them, and then at her husband.
Zubin Daruwala didn’t know what hit him, with the three sweetest-looking women in different age groups gaping at him as he sat there in his white hand-stitched Suvin shirt and tailored black suit pants and coat, hoping to intimidate them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Daruwala,” the coordinator smiled. “Thank you for coming in at such short notice.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Zubin was quick to smile his charming Daruwala smile. So it was charm over intimidation now? “Our daughter’s upbringing is of the utmost importance.”
“As it rightly should be, Mr. Daruwala.” The coordinator beamed at him. And then suddenly her smile fell — “With what’s been going on, it absolutely must be.”
Zubin glanced sideways at her, eyes narrowed. What the hell?
Aditi shrugged with her eyes.
“Madam,” Aditi started. “What exactly happened?”
“What happened is that Arzoo is saying vulgar things in her class.”
Aditi was stunned into silence.
“There must be a misunderstanding, she is a very respectful child. Ms. Yamini has told me so herself this month at her open house…” Aditi looked at the youngest lady on the other side — Aara’s class teacher. She nodded, but kept her mouth shut. Aditi noted Zubin’s hackles rise.
The coordinator’s mouth pursed. “I was asked to come to her class for a surprise recitation on ‘My Parents’ today, and what she said does not align with Ms. Yamini’s assessment, Mrs. Daruwala, I assure you.”
“What exactly did she say, ma’am, if I may be direct enough to ask,” Zubin interjected, now stern. “I would prefer a verbatim quote, not paraphrased.”
The coordinator recoiled at that measured, cold tone. But then she nodded — “Verbatim, Mr. Daruwala, when asked to talk about her parents and how much they love each other, she said, “My Mumma loves my Papa so much that she sueded his donkey for daivorce.”
Aditi kept her shock to herself, as she knew Zubin would too. Years of courtroom face practise.
“That makes zero sense,” Zubin said. “It’s absurd in its phrasing, and most likely a child’s misinterpretation of words that she might have picked up around.”
Oh, so now absurd was an ok adjective to use?
“Daivorce?” The coordinator stressed, clearly not ready to relent.
“Her classmate Prisha Kapoor’s parents are divorcing.”
“There is no child with that name in her class or our school.”
“I insist you check your registers.”
“Sir, there is no such…”
“Presha Kapoor,” Aditi corrected.
“Yes, Presha Kapoor. She learned the word ‘daivorce’ from there.”
“Not from people at home? Sir, Madam, your personal life is no concern of ours but if it affects a student from our school and by default the rest of them, then…”
“How are other kids affected by our daivorce, and for the record, neither Arzoo’s mother, nor I pronounce it like that. It’s di-vorce.”
“Oh, I did not know you were separating,” Ms. Yamini folded her hands together, looking softly at her — “Mrs. Daruwala…”
“We are not separating.” Zubin asserted. “Or divorcing. Our daughter learned that word from her friend and clearly mixed it up. This cannot be basis enough for calling us from across town for a disciplinary meeting.”
“What about ‘sueded his donkey’ Mr. Daruwala?” The coordinator was not letting it go.
“Let me know when, if the meaning dawns upon you, Madam.” Zubin was going just as hard. Aditi wondered if she would have to look for another preschool for their daughter. Admissions were anyway a lottery in any part of Mumbai, town especially.
“Mr. Daruwala, even we couldn’t believe it at first. When asked if she had mistakenly said it wrong, Arzoo insisted that she had not. Then she went on to say it again, word for word. We asked her why donkey, and she said that her Papa told her that ass is a bad word, one must use donkey instead.”
The room plunged into silence.
The coordinator sat back triumphantly. “So now the question arises, Mr. Daruwala, why would a student of my KG foyer say that her Mumma is suing her Papa’s ass, pardon my French, for daivorce?”
Zubin glanced aside at her, his hunger ready to burst.
“Ma’am,” Aditi addressed the principal before her husband could unleash his annihilation toolkit on the coordinator. He had the skill and the intention right now to make her weep.
“As I deduce from this conversation, there has been a misunderstanding. Our daughter did not say those words with the intention for them to mean what they have been construed as. As I see it, she has confused certain concepts. And as caregivers, it is our duty to understand where the cross connection happened. We will speak to her.”
The gentle, aged principal nodded, having been quiet through the entire conversation.
“I thought the same, Mrs. Daruwala.” She smiled.
“Thank you for coming in, both of you. Our intention behind calling you was to nip this in the bud. I’m sure the child is confused, because clearly she thinks her parents love each other a lot.
It’s the reasoning that’s a little off.”
Aditi returned her smile, getting to her feet and grabbing her bag. Zubin was slow in doing so, glaring at the coordinator who was glaring back.
“Thank you, Ma’am.” Aditi touched Zubin’s elbow. He turned, and kept his head up as they left the office.
“Bloody coordinators, bloody always bloodsuckers!” He muttered the moment they were out of earshot.
“Shhh, quiet,” she walked him out of the alley and down the stairs. “Zubin!”
“What Zubin? They have nothing to do but pick out needles from haystacks to justify their paycheque. We also had one like this in our school…”
“Quiet.”
“I told you Aara wouldn’t be at fault.”
“No, but we are.”
“How so? She learnt daivorce from Presha Kapoor and her idiot parents.”
“And suing your ass from us.”
“From you.”
“Excuse me!”
“Who said to whom, Mumma?” He cocked his head. Aditi winced, recounting their conversations as they navigated the ground floor to walk towards the gazebo where other parents had gathered to collect their kids. It was home time in five minutes.
“I said it to you alone, she was sleeping.”
“She pretends to sleep and overhears everything.”
“No, she doesn’t!”
“Ha ha, welcome to our daughter’s Daru genes.”
Aditi huffed. Took a deep breath. Then sighed — “Ok, listen.”
“Listening.” They stopped just outside the gathering of parents, smiling and waving but keeping their backs to the major lot lest they buzz around to talk.
Aditi could never save herself from the idle gossip from mothers around.
Sometimes, if she came early to pick up Aara, she parked in a quiet lane and hid from the rest of them until it was time to pick up.
Zubin didn’t. But then, he could talk to the watchmen about their village’s well’s lizard and still not lose it.
Aditi glanced at him now, his dark eyes on her, forehead frowning.
“You are hungry, Aara must be hungry, too. Let’s get you both something to eat. I’ll finish my calls and then we will talk to her. Wait… you have to go back to your office, no?”
Zubin pulled out his mobile — “Let me cancel for the rest of the day. I will review the drafts from home. Let’s eat and go home.”
“What do you want to eat?”
“The entire chatwala’s thela.”
Aditi threw her forehead on his bicep, shaking with amusement — “You still make my knees go weak, Daru.”
He went silent. Concerned, she pulled back, only to find his stunned eyes on her — “By saying that I want to eat through an entire thela?”
She chuckled. “I love when you are frustrated. You are exactly yourself.”
“As opposed to the times when I am not frustrated and Fred Flintstone?”
“Oooo,” she cooed. “I would love it if you were Fred Flintstone. You are already going to have the paunch of one.” She tapped his mostly flat belly.
His mouth made a long puffing sound; the hunger, frustration and latent anger finally winning over his need to rebut.
“What happened, no objection?”
“Where I started with Johny Bravo, and now I am a Fred Flintstone.”
“Fred is damn cute, especially when he takes his MAN-SIZE lunch to work to sustain his solid muscle.”
“Doshi…” he groaned. “Don’t provoke me when I am hungry.”
“Mummaaaaa!” Aara’s shrill holler made them turn.
“And here comes our Pebbles.”
As if all his hunger, anger, frustration had vanished into thin air, Zubin-the-Papa jumped in front of her and engulfed the girl bounding towards her — “Papa, you call me Papa. Remember?”
Aara was giggling, her arms banded around Zubin’s neck. Aditi admired the picture they made — the man she had been at loggerheads with an hour ago, now kissing her daughter’s chin.
“Are you hungry?” Aditi caught the water bottle that slid out of her bag.
“Yes!”
“Bhel or pani puri?” Zubin asked her.
“Um...? All of it.” She grinned. Her version of bhel would be sev, kurmura and unlimited puris with one or two pani puris bursting like balloons down her uniform. Aditi glanced up at her husband, smiling at her — the man who quietly dropped those puris there.
————————————————————
“Aara, come here.”
“I want to learn cartwheels, see…” she was balancing herself upside down with the support from the wall, Zubin standing with one hand gripping her ankles.
Aditi sat down on the sofa, having finished the day’s calls, house chores and research work. “Today’s lessons end now. It’s bedtime. Come…” she patted the space beside her.
“When Mumma calls…” Zubin raised his war cry, straightening her back on her feet.