Madhuri Vijay Reads "Hidden Life"

29:44You're regressing, my dear Jaya. Last time you had the decency to wait until after breakfast. Such a joker, Jaya Aunty giggled again. You haven't changed at all. The professor, Nidhi learned, was not a professor, but a businessman. His name was Sudhir Desai, and he was Kenyan. That is, someone in his family had gone to Kenya from Gujarat a hundred years ago, and had settled on the coast there. Sudhir Desai had been born in a town called Mombasa, so he was not Indian in the way that Nidhi was. He explained this to her in so many words,

30:30Madhuri Vijay:with a kind look that said she probably wouldn't understand. Sort of like Gandhi, Nidhi said. The Indians in South Africa. He was about to eat his last piece of idli, but stopped and looked at her. Not bad, he said. Sort of, yes. Are you here on business, Sudhir? Nidhi asked. She'd already tried calling him uncle, and he'd told her that he preferred Sudhir, which was how she knew that he was even older than she'd guessed. Business, he laughed. No, I'm here, well, for a hobby, you could say. Padmini came into the dining room and took the Idli tower away. Sudhir Desai smiled at her, but she ignored him.

31:22She seemed withdrawn and sullen, the way she'd been during Nidhi's first days. Sudhir Desai turned to Nidhi with a sigh, as if to say, I'm trying. Nidhi asked, what kind of hobby?

31:44Madhuri Vijay:His room was not unlike hers. A bed, a chair. But, being on the terrace, it was not at all cave-like. It boasted two decent-sized windows, not on the terrace side, but on the exterior wall, one of which was fitted with a small A.C. unit. The A.C. was rattling away, and Nidhi's skin smarted in the artificial cold. The other difference was that his room was jammed with books. Plywood shelves lined the wall, their planks bowed in the middle. The books weren't in great condition either. Many of the spines had peeled off, and Nidhi could see the string and glue that held the pages together. Still, they were books.

32:38Sudhir Desai laughed at the look on her face. Don't get too excited. They're not novels. He touched his temples in mock divination. Something tells me you're the type of girl who's crazy for novels.

32:54Madhuri Vijay:She was, but hearing him say it made her wish she wasn't. You should have seen them when I first came, he said, gently brushing a tatty volume. Jaya had them downstairs, bang, in the middle of the living room. Nobody had looked at them for years. They were falling apart. Pages on the floor, silverfish, mold, you name it. I brought the shelves up here, installed the AC. It's not much. A dehumidifier would be better. But at least they're not rotting away down there anymore. So that explained the void in the living room, Nithi thought. She looked around again. Collecting old books, she said. That's your hobby?

33:43Not exactly, he smiled. The first time I came, it was a condolence visit. Jaya's son, Shankar, you know about him? He died in Mombasa. I met him there a few times, even helped with the arrangements to send his body home. A few years later, I was in India on some business, and I thought, why not pay my respects to the grieving mother? You know how it goes. Nidhi nodded, as though she did. I started looking through the books and found an impressive little collection about theosophy. I'd never even heard of it before. And, long story short, I became hooked. Are you familiar with theosophy, Nidhi?

34:28Helena Blavatsky? Annie Besant? Annie Besant, Nidhi echoed, pretending to think.

34:35Madhuri Vijay:She's home rule, right? Nidhi, he said slowly. I am impressed. She had to press her lips together to keep from laughing. Annie Besant was pure luck. Nidhi had studied the home rule league in school last year. A tiny motor of pleasure had started to hum away inside her, but she was aware, too, of a flash of scorn. How easy it had been to arouse his admiration. Well, Sudhir Desai said, if you know that, then you must know that the Theosophical Society headquarters are in Nadear, practically next door. Over the years, it's become a tradition of mine. Fly in every few months, stay with Jaya, read, attend some talks.

35:30It keeps me sane.

35:32Madhuri Vijay:Can I borrow one? Nidhi asked, one of the books. By all means, they're your aunt's, not mine. So why do you lock the door? She had not meant to sound so sharp. Sudhir Desai looked startled. Then he laughed. Ah, he said, you know, force of habit. She chose Theosophy and the Theosophical Society by Annie Besant, not because it looked enticing, but because she felt herself accidentally bound to Besant now. And though it wasn't a novel, she came to enjoy its old-timey cadences, the ohs and ahs that popped up whenever Besant was overcome by the splendor of her ideas. At times, Nidhi even harbored a kindly superiority toward the book's exhortations, which ranged from the ardently childlike, listen to the bird as its whole little being swells in the delight of the sunshine, to the simply kooky, and when the six jewels are bound upon your forehead, then shall you be seen as ready to enter the portals of initiation.

36:51She did most of her reading on the plastic-covered sofa, or else up in Sudhir Desai's cool room. Whenever she grew bored, she talked to him about what she had read. He too was usually reading, but would set his book aside with a wry, all right, let's hear the latest screed.

37:13Madhuri Vijay:In these dialogues, he liked to adopt the role of believer, patiently defending against her attacks, the perfection of the human soul, the joyful oneness of all beings. Nidhi noticed that, as a consequence, she tended to make herself out to be even more cynical and quarrelsome than she really felt. If utopia ever came to exist, she argued, human beings would find a way to destroy it within a month. Non-materialism was the sort of wishful nonsense preached by those who weren't in any real danger of going hungry. And what the hell was a portal of initiation anyway? She knew that she was modulating herself for Sudhir Desai's benefit.

38:02It evidently amused him to hear such harshness from someone so young, and she knew, too, that she wasn't the only one changing in his presence. Jaya Auntie had been watching less TV since his arrival.

38:18Madhuri Vijay:She found it far more entertaining to watch him. Everything he did made her shriek with laughter. A button came off his shirt one day, and he asked for a needle and thread. Needle? Thread? Jaya Aunty cackled. You bachelors, manage everything on your own, is it? Cheat! Padmini will fix it in one minute flat. It was Padmini, however, who was the most altered. Gone was the garrulous woman Nidhi had known for close to three weeks. There were no more sweet, impractical presents. No surprise groundnuts. Padmini became as disgruntled as Ambika, clomping through her work and barely speaking. Ignoring her better instincts, Nidhi cornered Padmini and tried to probe for a reason.

39:16They were standing in the kitchen, and Padmini spun to face Nidhi. Her expression was distorted with anger. She picked up a tomato from the cutting board,

39:28Madhuri Vijay:held it under Nidhi's nose. and squeezed, juice and seeds spurted from between her fingers. Before she could pick up another one, Nidhi backed out of the room. A clue to Padmini's behavior surfaced. It was after lunch on a Friday, Jaya Aunty was flipping channels, Nidhi was reading Besant, and Padmini came in from the garden where she'd been hanging clothes. Bits of grass stuck to her heels And a clothespin dangled from the hem of her blouse Sudhir Desai was at the Theosophical Society for a talk It was the second such talk he'd attended And Nidhi had been vaguely disappointed not to have been invited The TV landed on the movie Titanic It was the sex scene, Nidhi noted with dismay the one in which Jack and Rose steam up the car window.

40:33Madhuri Vijay:Nidhi had watched Titanic in the theatre with her parents a couple of years before and had glanced at them during this scene. They were both grinning. Padmini turned her head to look at the TV. Her glance lasted only a few seconds, and she did not visibly react, but this was enough for Nidhi to grope her way to a dim theory. Sudhir Desai must remind Padmini of her dead husband, whose friend, after all, he had once been. He must remind her of the life she'd so briefly had as an adult, a married woman, a life that had been cruelly snatched away and replaced with this endless twilight childhood with Jaya Aunty.

41:29Madhuri Vijay:Whether Padmini and her husband had ever done any of the things that Jack and Rose did in that car, Nidhi was not brave enough to imagine. But she did believe that this was why Padmini scowled whenever Sudhir Desai was in the house, lounging in his striped pajamas. He was a hated medium. His presence conjured up the ghost of a different man. It was a hot night. Every night was hot, but this one felt infected by heat. And Nidhi was tossing in bed. Her lower back had ached during dinner, and, sure enough, there was the tarnished rust of her period in her underwear. She'd been tired all evening and had fallen asleep early, but she was awakened by cramps in the night.

42:27She crept to the bathroom and put on a fresh pad.

42:32Madhuri Vijay:Wrapping the used one in a page torn from an old rani she'd filched for the purpose, she chucked it into the bin. On her way back to her room, she hesitated, desperate for some air on her face. She decided to go up to the terrace. The cement was so hot that it was almost painful to stand on. A bougainvillea growing in the corner through spiky, quivering shadows. The air felt as thick as smoke. There was not a jot of relief to be found. She turned to go back inside, then paused before Sudhir Desai's closed door. She pictured him asleep, one long leg dangling off the side of the bed. Did Batchelor's sleep bare-chested?

43:26Maybe even naked.

43:29Madhuri Vijay:Nidhi laughed to herself, a soft laugh that contained a question, a giddy, half-serious dare. Would she? Just a peek? Easy to pass it off as a joke if he woke up. She placed a palm on the door and pushed. It was locked from the inside. Her first reaction was relief. Her second, utter horror. Had he somehow been expecting her to do this? Had he taken precautions? Something tells me you're the type of girl. Then she remembered what he'd said about locking the door. Force of habit. And she relaxed, even managing another laugh, this one at her own panic. Nevertheless, as she walked down the stairs toward her stuffy bedroom, her legs trembled slightly, as if she'd made a narrow escape.

44:38She bled more than usual that month and had to change pads every few hours.

44:44Madhuri Vijay:Only once did she allow herself to imagine her mother's ordeal. Nurses running, shouts, the gory extraction, before putting it out of her mind. Her wrapped pads multiplied in the bin. She stared at them uneasily. When would the bin be emptied? If only she knew where to take the pads, she'd get rid of them herself. She was reading in the living room one afternoon when Padmini appeared. Jaya auntie had fallen asleep in front of the TV. Nidhi didn't know where Sudhir Desai was. Padmini! Nidhi smiled, glad for a distraction. Then, stiffening, what are you doing? For Padmini held in her arms every one of Nidhi's discarded pads, There had to be a dozen of them.

45:47One or two, where she had been careless and not used enough paper, were coming undone, their crimped edges unfurling to expose the dark smears inside. Padmini! Nidhi yelped. Don't touch those! She glanced around to see if Jaya Aunty had woken,

46:08Madhuri Vijay:but her great-aunt was an extraordinarily heavy sleeper. and did not move. They're dirty. He shouldn't see them, Padmini said calmly. He meant Sudhir Desai. Arms full of Nidhi's blood, Padmini stepped out into the garden. Nidhi, still pleading with her to drop them, followed, the long grass stinging her ankles. They went past the clothesline, past matted vines and drooping red monkey-tailed cactuses to an enormous wild lantana bush at the far end. Padmini walked around it, disappearing from view. Nidhi followed. Padmini had made a fire pit ringed by dark rocks. There were flakes of grey ash on the rocks and the choking stink of wet soot.

47:07She dropped Nidhi's pads into the center and stepped back. Nidhi went closer and peered into the pit. It was apparent that Padmini burned the household trash here, but nothing was fully incinerated. The air was too humid for that. Nidhi saw several charred pages of Rani, a few singed potato peels, some scraps of yellow and white cloth that looked familiar. Nidhi squinted, trying to identify the cloth. When she did, she looked up sharply at Padmini, who was holding a match to one of the wrapped pads, which flared limply but didn't catch fire. Unfazed, Padmini lit another match. After ten minutes, she'd used up an entire box of matches and succeeded in reducing Nidhi's pads to a nest of shriveled black eggs.

48:11The air stank of burnt plastic. For the rest of the day, Nidhi debated whether to inform Sudhir Desai of the fate of his pajamas. In the end, she didn't. She couldn't say why. Perhaps he hadn't noticed that they'd gone missing. He hadn't said anything, after all. Plus, she feared that if she broached the subject, he'd want to see the fire pit for himself. And then the whole embarrassing story would come tumbling out. Her pads in Padmini's hands, Jack and Rose in the steamy car, Her silly theories about Padmini and ghosts and love. Finally, Sudhir Desai invited Nidhi to a Theosophical Society talk.

49:09Jayanti, clearly displeased but unable to criticize him, said, Psh, what will a child do listening to that? He tapped her on the head. You don't need it with that big brain, my dear Jaya, but we ordinary people like to expand our minds. She subsided into contented giggles, and no further objection was raised to Nidhi accompanying him. The society was a sprawling campus on the Adiyar River, its peaceful walking paths dotted with old buildings and gently unkempt trees. The main building was painted a tranquil yellow, except where eight white plaster elephant heads stared out from a red-accented wall.

50:02The lecture, on the subject of clairvoyance, was given by a tall man with gold-rimmed spectacles, and it began with a poem. Nidhi tried to memorize this, but retained only the first line, which she recited to herself as the man spoke. O hidden life, vibrant in every atom. O hidden life, vibrant in every atom. O hidden life. Afterward, Sudhir Desai walked her around the campus, pointing out its highlights. The shrines built to every religion on earth, the ancient banyan tree, the accommodations for scholars and volunteers. It was dusk when they started back to the house. Nidhi was quiet. Her bleeding had tapered off, but she felt exhausted.

51:03Madhuri Vijay:Sudhir Desai, too, seemed subdued. He kept tapping a fountain pen in his breast pocket. Tap, tap, tap. He said, I want to tell you something. Then, without looking at Nidhi, he began a story. It was about a beautiful German nurse whom he'd met during the war. He did not specify which war, and Nidhi did not ask. He and the nurse had had a passionate affair, and she'd become pregnant. She begged Sudhir Desai to return with her and the baby to Germany. But he couldn't, not because he didn't want to, but because he and another man were already making plans to fly a plane into the jungle. Nidhi listened in silence, not knowing what to make of this extraordinary confession, which became more garbled as it went on.

52:09Madhuri Vijay:There was mention of a genocide, armed gorillas, a cache of gemstones, someone named Sparky. And by the time all that was over, the genocide, the flying, it had been too late. He could not bring himself to contact the German nurse or the child, who was his child. Why? Because too much time had passed. And also, why lie? Because he was afraid. They had reached Jaya Aunty's gate. Nidhi could see lights in the windows. Sudhir Desai said softly, I've never told anyone this before. I don't know why I told you. It's just, I sense this incredible wisdom in you, Nidhi. You're an old soul. I just knew that if anyone could understand me, it would be you.

53:14Madhuri Vijay:Nidhi didn't respond. She was seeing herself, so thrilled by her own audaciousness, her daring, standing like a fool. like a child in the dark before his closed door. She suddenly wanted to weep. Nidhi, he whispered. Is that when you met Shankar? She asked loudly, while all of this was happening. Shankar, he frowned in confusion. Oh, that Shankar. No, that was much later, in Mombasa. some people introduced us. He wanted to start a business and they thought I could help him, I guess. But I saw right away that nothing would come of it. Why not? It was a half-baked idea. Sudhir Desai shrugged. He wasn't the smartest fellow.

54:15I heard he was a genius. He gave a short, grateful laugh as if Nidhi were being droll on purpose to cheer him up. Shankar, a genius. Sure, why not? Let's call him a genius, a full-fledged genius.

54:36Madhuri Vijay:Later on, she would tell herself that it was a natural thing to say. It had become her role, after all, the one she played with him, the one he himself had encouraged. Nidhi, reader of novels, argumentative, opinionated, precocious, wise Nidhi. How else could she have responded? Full-fledged, she said. What? There was an uptick in his voice, of vigilance, perhaps of alarm. Full-fledged, she repeated. not full-fledged. He laughed again. Nice try, but you're wrong. It refers to an arrow. The feathers at the bottom are called fletching. I know what fletching is, she said quietly, and that's not where the word comes from.

55:43Madhuri Vijay:He looked at her, but did not speak. They went into the house. After dinner, Sudhir Desai said goodnight and retired upstairs. Jaya Aunty and Padmini went to bed soon afterward. Nidhi brushed her teeth and was sitting at the edge of her bed, cooling off in front of her fan, when there was a knock at her door. I was wondering, he said pleasantly, if you'd like to sleep in my room. He had been called away by an emergency, he explained. He was going straight to the airport, where he would camp out until the early plane to Bombay departed. From there, he'd fly to Nairobi and on to Mombasa. He said that he'd felt guilty sleeping in his air-conditioned quarters while she sweltered down here.

56:43Madhuri Vijay:He said that there was no reason she shouldn't take his room, starting tonight. Starting now, in fact. Look, he was all packed and ready to go. So he was. His suitcase stood by the door in a pool of moonlight. What about Jaya, Auntie? Nithi whispered. She won't know what happened to you. Oh, Jaya's used to me by now. She knows I'll be back. The sheets weren't clean. They smelled of him, of sweat, and a soap that Nidhi wasn't familiar with. But she was too tired to care. The A.C. was noisy, but effective, and she had to go downstairs and fetch the sheet from her own room to add to his. The bookshelves loomed.

57:39The cold constricted her. Light leaked into the room from the street lamps below.

57:46Madhuri Vijay:For a moment, she thought that she would never be able to fall asleep. But she was wrong. When the door opened, she didn't wake up fully. Everything reached her from far away. Her sensations were ghostly. If she did have a thought, it was, He's here. Strangely, this did not provoke panic. While she was in this half-asleep state, nothing felt dangerous, and nothing menaced her. She possessed a calm, inexplicable authority over her surroundings. She was the dreamer, the puppet master. And so all of this, the dip of the mattress, the tiny sigh, the soft, human bulk pressing down on her, the back and forth rocking, erratic and timid at first, then gaining in momentum, the long strands of hair tickling her bare arm, all of it was happening because she, in some distant part of her mind, had willed it so.

59:02She could not say exactly when she understood,

59:06Madhuri Vijay:But even then, she did not move. She did not fling Padmini off. She did not scream. The reason was that she had caught sight of Padmini's expression. Padmini's eyes were closed. She wore a funny look of urgency, of impatient longing, as if she were waiting for something to happen, something that had been promised to her long ago. Surely, Nidhi thought, any minute Padmini would recognize her, but she only let out a small, frustrated cry and, burying her head in Nidhi's shoulder, increased her efforts, dashing her hips hard against Nidhi's through the two sheets, passionate, determined, and utterly ineffectual.

1:00:11How long it lasted, Nidhi couldn't say. But all at once, Padmini was rolling off. She was standing up, her back to Nidhi. Her hair hung loose past her shoulders, silvery and very beautiful. Then, she was gone. Nidhi stayed motionless for several minutes Finally, she got out of bed crossed the room, closed the door

1:00:42Madhuri Vijay:and, with shaking fingers, latched it She did not believe now, of course that he'd had any kind of emergency Why had she been stupid enough to think so? She imagined him strolling with his suitcase to the Theosophical Society and requesting a bed for the night, or else walking the dark streets of Adyar, past snoring watchmen and vigilant street dogs, feeling serene and self-congratulatory, even fatherly, at having provided her with useful instruction, the lesson he thought she so badly needed to learn. You think you're smart. You think you know the world. But, little girl, you don't know a damn thing.

1:01:43Eight days later, she was back in Bangalore. Her father, guilt-ridden, spoiled her for weeks. Her mother was withdrawn at first, a little sheepish, tentative. But jokes slowly reappeared, as did words like fetus, cervical insufficiency, evacuation. Still, things were not the same. There had been a definite blocking off, a shift of terrain that put Nidhi on one side, her parents on the other. Nidhi found that she did not mind this. She did not mind because of something that had occurred to her during the train ride home. She had closed her eyes, and the rhythmic rocking of the carriage had brought back the rocking of Padmini, her anguished little cry at the end.

1:02:47And then, it was not Nidhi's body under those sheets, but her father's, Her own father, at fifteen years old, lanky and inexperienced, panicking at this turn of events, trying to decide what to do, how to respond. Naturally, Nidhi did not actually think that what had happened to her had also happened to him. If it had, he would never have sent her there. But for those few seconds on the train, she gave in and allowed herself to imagine it.

1:03:30Madhuri Vijay:Would he have held still as she had and waited for it to be over? Would he have fought and screamed? Or would he have done something else entirely?

1:04:14Thank you.

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