Chapter 14
“So, do we need to marry again?” Chandni Aunty asked as Aditi was busy exchanging withdrawal papers with Zubin outside court, their associates and court clerks surrounding them.
This was procedural and did not need her personal attention, but Aditi had her partner’s best friend here, as well as was personally invested in this case after her husband’s show an hour ago.
“Sir, sign here, please,” she passed Mr. Jethmalani his copy.
“Huh?” Chandni Aunty pressed.
“No, Chandni Aunty.” Zubin handed over his set to Shashank and shrugged out of his gown, letting his associate pull it off. Aditi reached for her own lapels and Zubin was behind her, helping her.
“But you said the lower court had granted divorce!”
“I said,” Zubin pulled her gown off and folded it over his arm. “The Family Court ought to have granted the divorce if they granted your demands, but Mr. Jethmalani filed an appeal immediately at the granting of the first set of demands. If he hadn’t, you would have had to remarry.”
Chandni Aunty scowled at her husband — “Why did you have to appeal so soon? We could have remarried in a nicer way, at the Taj Land’s End…”
Aditi held back a smile, seeing her client signing the papers while holding a gentle, amused smile of his own.
“You know, in our first marriage, we couldn’t even call hundred guests. It was thirty from his side and thirty from my side, in a school’s yard that my father rented for three thousand rupees.”
“It can’t be called your first marriage,” Zubin corrected. “That was your only marriage.”
She harrumphed.
“Thank you, Advocate Doshi,” Raviraj Jethmalani handed her the set back, holding his hand out for a shake. “I appreciate all that you have done for me, fighting till the last moment even against your husband.”
“That’s my job.” Aditi accepted the bundle, shaking his hand.
“And she gets a kick out of it when I am on the other side.” Zubin-the-big-mouth quipped.
“Good,” Mr. Jethmalani said, glancing at his wife. “That should be there.” He glanced back at Zubin and held out his hand — “I just saw what you did, Advocate Daruwala. Thank you.”
Zubin took his hand.
“What did he do?” Chandni Aunty gasped. “Were you cheating? Were you on his side all along? Zubeeen…”
“No,” Mr. Jethmalani chuckled. “No. He returned his legal fees. I got a message just now.”
“How did I not get it?” She opened her mobile. Her husband’s eyes were amused and tender, on her.
“Do you even check your messages?”
“I do, I do, when I get OTPs I do…” Chandni Aunty read something and pinned Zubin with her eyes — “Why, Zubeen?”
“I promised you, you will walk out of this court happily divorced,” Zubin cocked his head. “You aren’t.”
“Neither divorced, nor happily,” she grumbled, glancing at her husband.
“But still rich.” Zubin pointed.
“But you cannot give back your fees! I promised your next Disneyland trip was my gift.”
“My daughter is waiting for the Barbie World to open, so I guess even that one is moot.”
“Zubin…”
“Go home, now, Chandni Aunty. And take Justice Deshmukh’s words seriously. He rarely veers from protocol.”
“Then we are waiting for you at home this weekend for dinner… no, Ravi?”
Aditi opened her mouth to decline.
“Yes. Please.” Mr. Jethmalani insisted, turning to her. “It’s the least we can do.”
“Maybe in a couple of months,” Zubin said. “You both sort everything out…”
“That we will do, but I want to meet your tiny mini, Aara. She likes Barbie, no? I will… yes, I will get a Barbie House for her and all those wardrobes and salon things and all. She will love it. Don’t tell her, ok, it’s a surprise…”
“Chandni Aunty, please don’t get anyth…”
“No.”
“We are working to teach her to earn gifts right now.”
“Then use your lawyer brain and make it earned before she comes to our house. Saturday at 8. Ok?”
“Bu…”
“Ok.” Chandni Aunty accepted her own invitation. “End of topic.”
Aditi looked at Zubin.
“Is it ok?” He asked. She shrugged.
“We will be there,” he told Chandni Aunty. “Now I have to run to a meeting. The rest of your paperwork will be taken care of by Shashank…” he began to loosen his collar band.
“Listen,” Aditi caught his shoulder.
“Listening.” He paused.
“Let’s walk.”
He gaped at her for a second, then nodded. They stepped away and Zubin automatically pressed his hand to her back, making way for them through the busy High Court gate at lunch hour.
“What happened?” He asked.
“I am so bloody angry at you and so damn proud of you.”
He laughed — “Tell me something new.”
“I want my daughter to see me like this with you.”
He stopped, his head turning to her. “What?”
“Watch out!” She pulled him by the lapels as a stupid Ola driver raced past. “Idiot!” She yelled after him.
“Hey, it’s fine,” Zubin gathered her close and crossed over. Aditi glanced up in time to see the mighty Flora Fountain pass them by, this time dry because it was the end of summer and scorching everywhere. She stopped.
Memories flooded. Of that time when she had come running into the arms of a filmy Zubin Daruwala who had accepted defeat — not on his case but in front of her. They had passed this fountain innumerable times in the years since, and forgotten what it meant to them. She definitely had.
“Doshi,” Zubin opened the button of his suit coat, sweating under the cloudy sky. “The heat is crazy, if you have time, then come to my office. My meeting is in half an hour, we can talk there…”
“I want to talk here.”
“You must be crazy…”
“Crazy enough to be thinking this.”
“Thinking what?” He squinted as the clouds moved and a sharp ray of sun pierced his eye.
“That Aara cannot see us in our wildest, unhinged versions but she must also not see this sanitised version. Not only has it changed us as a couple but it also might make her believe that that’s how a relationship should be — perfect. Which it is not.”
Zubin’e eyes narrowed, peering at her.
“What?” She asked.
“Slow Train Doshi, what have I been hammering all this time?”
“But you didn’t say about the middle version! That is my idea.”
“What middle version?”
“The one where we don’t use words like ass and daivorce and sued.”
“Or sued-ed.” He wiped the sweat trailing down his brow. “Doshi, seriously, let’s talk somewhere in AC…”
“We can banter in front of her but not fight-fight.”
“That’s what all normal parents do! My own parents bantered all the time.
From who will open the door when the doorbell rang to picking up the phone, to Papa messing up Mummy’s list of fruit order and blaming it on the fruitwala to…
” Zubin snorted, squinting into the distance.
“Once my Mummy accidentally poured his favourite gin from his bottle into the drain thinking it was regular water. And then filled it with vinegar and stowed it in the fridge. Papa filled a glass. Oh god, the war that day. Sometimes I would become the referee and count between them — one, two, three — START.”
His eyes misted, but his mouth was stretched. Wide.
“Daru.”
His brows rose as his eyes came to her.
“Aara must also get the chance to do that. Right?”
“THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING!”
“This was half your idea, half my idea. I refined it.”
“You know what, take the full credit.” He held his hands up. “But just fight the hell out of me.”
“Banter, banter! Not fight.”
“What if I badly need a fight at home, the adult kinds… like it’s coming very badly and I can’t stop it?”
She rolled her eyes. “We will find a secret place to do it.”
“Our bedroom…”
“That’s Aara’s bedroom more than ours.”
“Our bathroom.”
Aditi cocked one brow. Their bathroom was also more of Aara’s. Their girl owned their stuff more than she owned her own.
“The pantry…” Zubin snapped his fingers. “The gift cabinet.”
“Your future son-in-law’s bedroom?”
He scowled. “Stupid, stupid patriarchy.”
“By that logic, you should shift into my father’s pantry.”
“I would happily do it if Papa had a pantry.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I can do anything for you, Doshi. How have you not figured it out by now?”
“But apparently you can’t lose a case.”
“Excuse me?”
She poked his chest — “You knew you were losing today so you quashed the entire thing, you cheater.”
He smirked, gripping her finger. “You had some very harsh things to say there.”
She reddened, chagrined. “Listen, I didn’t think what you were planning… and I know I should know better, know you better, but in that moment I thought what the hell?!”
“I know. I am that good an actor.” He pressed her finger tighter into his shirt, which was now soaking and sticking to his skin.
“Did Chandni Aunty put you up to it? Was it both of you?”
He shook his head. “I convinced her to go for such a restraining order, and she was emotional enough to say yes on the last day.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, from the day she came into my office for the first time, I had a hunch that she didn’t want this divorce.
It kept getting stronger with each hearing.
Jethmalani also kept giving up all his assets to her, keeping the bare minimum.
That’s not a man who is done with a woman.
That’s a man compelled to be done with her.
After the immovable assets hearing, I asked Chandni Aunty three things.
I knew she wouldn’t openly admit that she did not want her husband to leave her, so I asked her:”
“Chandni Aunty.” Zubin stopped in front of her, sliding his hands inside his pockets.
“Yes, that’s me,” she waved playfully.
“I will ask you three questions. And you will answer them honestly, without lying.”
Her waving hand dropped.
“Do you still love your husband?”
She swallowed. “After all this time at this age there is no love-shuv…”
“Answer, please.”
Her mouth swelled in a pout.
“Yes.”
“Do you think he loves you?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Chandni Aunty?”
She shrugged.“Only he knows that.”
“My question was, DO YOU THINK he loves you?”
“Maybe.”
“What exactly happened before he came home and asked for divorce?”
“We fought.”
“In detail. What was the fight about?”
Her eyes went far away. “It was a week before that day. I had sent my dance reel to our society group and he was angry that I was doing this teenage timepass looking like a fool. He called me a fool! And even I didn’t hear his talks without giving back, huh!
I also called him… umm, forget it. But he was so mean to me, and I was crying so hard and then I had a mini attack. ”
“A heart attack?”
“Not heart attack, just an attack like thing. My BP always remained high for days after fights, but that time my ankles swelled up and then they wouldn’t come down.
The left side of my neck also got stiff and I couldn’t dance for four days.
He didn’t talk to me. Then he came and calmly said let’s divorce. ”
“Didn’t you get worked up then?”
“I was on so many medicines. And I had also calmed down. He told me he will leave the house, leave everything I want with me and live elsewhere. If I didn’t want to separate on paper he was happy with that too.”
“So then why did he file for divorce?”
“Because I said I will never divorce him on his order! Who is he to leave me? I can live alone very happily but I will make his life hell.”
“Then I spoke to her cardiologist with her permission. Remember that fashion show I went to?”
“You went to a fashion show to speak to a cardiologist?”
“She was booked through the week and wouldn’t give an appointment. Then Meera found out that her husband is a fashion designer and that she would be present at his show.”
“Who?”
“Nilay Patel.”
“Isn’t he gay?”
Zubin’s brows rose — “Very much straight, if the looks he was shooting me were anything to go by. What’s with men and their insecurity about their wives talking to a lawyer? The man was on the ramp and looking at us instead of the cameras.”
“Surprising.”
“Trust me. They have two little sons as well. Very much straight.”
“Why am I discussing a fashion designer’s orientation with you right now?”
“Oh, right, yes, his wife, the cardiologist. Dr. Ritu Kapadia. She has been treating Chandni Aunty for years. She reassured me that Chandni Aunty hadn’t suffered a mini-attack but just a high-BP episode.
And it was a recurring thing with her over the last couple of months.
And, her husband had been the most concerned about it.
In any family or couple, there’s always one health-freak panicky tool.
Her husband was that for her. That’s not a man who doesn’t love his wife.
Today, I had a hunch about Raviraj Jethmalani’s reason to separate and it was confirmed when he balked at the restraining order.
It was a tad much, I know. But the alternative was a divorce. ”
“It was actually one of the most romantic things a man can do for a woman at that age.” Aditi mused.
“Leave her?”
She shrugged. “If it’s to keep her calm and their lives from shattering even more.”
“Hey, Doshi, don’t have that expectation from me at 60. I am built to fight you to the end and win — both you and the war.”
“Even if I become like Chandni Aunty?”
His eyes glinted, that deadly laughing smile splitting his mouth. “I would pay all our joint savings plus retirement funds to watch you dance on reels. Me and Aara both.”
“Why my savings and retirement funds? Spend your own on stupid things.”
“Doshi,” he grinned. “What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is obviously mine.”
She scratched her nail brutally into his shirt. He winced.
“You are the Chandni Aunty equivalent between the two of us.” Aditi drilled her nail again.
“Don’t turn me on, Doshi.”
“By calling you Chandni Aunty?”
“By doing this.” He scratched the nail that was scratching him. She pushed him back. “Now fuck off.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to court. I have another hearing after lunch…”
The skies roared open and rain broke free over them. “Oh shit!”
Zubin was right by her side, opening his gown up to cover both of them as they ran towards the Bombay High Court gates.
“Why are you coming to court?” She yelled over the pelting rain and people’s chaos and carts of roadside shops packing up wares.
“Do you have something to cover you up and drop you back?” He yelled.
“Wait a minute… this is my gown!” She bunched the fabric sheltering them, now drenched. “Yours was with Shashank.”
He laughed. “I can lend you mine from Shashank but I accept payment only in kisses.”
“Fuck off.”
They reached the court gates and the rain was now a sleet, nothing visible beyond a few metres.
“You can’t argue without a gown, Doshi. And this one’s wet.”
“I’ll borrow somebody else’s…” She began to run into the covered porch area when he grabbed her wrist and took her mouth.
“Over my dead body.” He pushed his tongue inside her mouth and her hand went to the back of his head, her fingers twining into his hair as her laughter rang into him through his lips.
“You are so dead when I come home tonight, Daru.” She pulled back, blushing and laughing and still glaring up at him.
“U/A version for Aara, 18+ for me.” He grinned.
She began to move but he stole a kiss again.
“Zubin!” “Just a teaser, bye!”