ANSUYA: Stop blaming your mother for everything.
DEEPAK: Ma’s too much, yaar. She is more ambitious for me than even I am for me. Sometimes I get tired of her going on and on about me, even before perfect strangers. Why, on the way up to Simla, we stopped for breakfast at … what’s that place called?
ANSUYA: At Barog?
DEEPAK: Yes.
ANSUYA: (Laughing.) Everyone stops there!
DEEPAK: There she was, mother dear, at Barog, whispering to the waiter, making sure her little boy’s puri-alu were nice and hot. Let the rest of the world eat it cold, but for her little boy, it has to be nice and hot!
(He takes a deep breath.)
Anu, sometimes she smothers me so that I can hardly breathe.
(Pause.)
ANSUYA: I am sorry. It is just that I’ve been so looking forward to your coming. I have been counting the days.
DEEPAK: So, tell me?
ANSUYA: I wait for your letters. You don’t know what it is like here. I’m tired of Amma and Mamu going on and on about the good old days. Honestly, sometimes I feel like going to bed at eight o’clock in the evening.
DEEPAK: Oh, I say, there’s the old radio.
(And he goes towards it.)
Shall we put it on?
(He examines the knobs.)
ANSUYA: (Embarrassed.) We only have old things. Mamu and Amma still cling to them, and try to hold on to the past. (She laughs sadly. Deepak turns the radio on. Soft, romantic music is heard, from one of the films of the early 1960s. Deepak goes to the window and takes a deep breath.)
DEEPAK: You know, Anu, I can still smell the one summer I spent in this house as a boy.
ANSUYA: And you have grown up and become an important man …
DEEPAK: Arre chhodo!
ANSUYA: … and we’ve stayed the same. Even this house …
(Realizing.)
… oops!
DEEPAK: What about the house?
ANSUYA: I’m not supposed to say it.
DEEPAK: Say what?
ANSUYA: Well, everyone knows it anyway, and I can’t hide anything from you. Even this house is up for sale.
(Trying to laugh.)
‘The End,’ as they say in the pictures.
DEEPAK: Why?
ANSUYA: (Irritated.) To pay our debts—what do you think, for our health?
(Pause.)
DEEPAK: But the house need not be sold, you know.
ANSUYA: Don’t talk about it before Amma.
DEEPAK: About what?
ANSUYA: About the house.
DEEPAK: You shouldn’t have to sell it. (Suddenly.)
I’ll tell you what!
ANSUYA: What?
DEEPAK: (Speaking like a professional manager.) Why not convert it into an exclusive season hotel? It is the perfect spot—Jakhoo Hill, the highest point in Simla, isn’t it? ‘Jakhoo Hotel for the discerning.’ It would cost a bit to refurnish, but I’m sure we could get a loan from the bank. Give it to a professional company to manage it. ‘Jakhoo Hotel, managed by the Taj.’ The Oberois have the Cecil and the Clarks, but I’m sure there couldn’t be enough hotel rooms here during the season. And I’m sure the Taj people would love to get their hands on a property like this. In fact, I know some of their senior chaps. I can speak to them. It will be the perfect answer for you. Open it in April and close it in October, and you could use it for the rest of the year. And, I tell you, in two years, you could pay back all your debts and keep the house, too.
ANSUYA: Amma would never agree.
DEEPAK: You must speak to her, yaar.
ANSUYA: She won’t.
DEEPAK: All right, then I will.
ANSUYA: (Softly.) Don’t! Don’t you see this house means all that is beautiful and happy in her life—the gaiety of her younger days.
(Long, embarrassed pause.)
Deepak?
DEEPAK: Huh?
ANSUYA: Tell me about Bombay?
DEEPAK: What about Bombay?
ANSUYA: Does Bombay have a big heart?
DEEPAK: Eh?
(Ansuya excitedly goes and picks up the guidebook from the shelf and reads.)
ANSUYA: Tell me about Chowpatty and Malabar Hill and …
(Deliberately.) …
Cum-bal-la Hill! How nice the names sound. Ma-la-bar Hill, Cum-bal-la Hill!
(She pronounces the names by elongating the ‘a’ vowel and she gets enormous pleasure in doing so.)
DEEPAK: Bombay is like any other city, yaar.
ANSUYA: Bombay is not mean?
(Deepak is puzzled.)
If you scold a servant here, the whole town gets to know by the evening. As we sit here, they are gossiping about our house.
DEEPAK: But Anu, Bombay can be heartless and indifferent.
ANSUYA: I’d rather have the indifference than our great hospitality, which suffocates you in the end. You don’t have Mrs Kumar … (and she mimicks.) … ‘I wonder what’s wrong with that girl,’ or Mrs Mehra … ‘Arre, what a fast girl!’ I dream of going to Bombay and those places that have such musical names!
(She sings.)
Cum-bal-la Hill, Ma-la-bar Hill, Cum-bal-la Hill …
(And she’s lost.)
DEEPAK: Wake up, Miss Malik, we’re on Jakhoo Hill, Simla, and not Cumballa Hill, Bombay. It is Diwali and what are we going to do?
ANSUYA: Oh Deepak, what can we do? There’s a war on. There’s a total blackout.
DEEPAK: Why don’t we light one candle and one phuljari and celebrate our own, secret Diwali on the verandah after dark—just the two of us?
ANSUYA: Shall we?
DEEPAK: Come on, Ansu, just one candle and a few phuljaris!
ANSUYA: Oh, Deepak, you are going to bring Diwali into this house!
(Deepak goes close to her.)
I am so glad you are here.
(He puts his arm around her. She puts her head on his shoulder.)
DEEPAK: Oh, Ansu …
(They embrace.)
ANSUYA: I have missed you.
(They kiss.)
DEEPAK: Me too!
(Long kiss.)
ANSUYA: Oh Deepak!
(Fade.)
Act Three
[Stage Centre. Spotlight on Karan, the narrator.]
KARAN: A Moorish proverb says, ‘Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother.’ Deepak is not your ordinary beetle, and between you and me, neither is he a gazelle. But what matters is that to Chitra, he is a gazelle. Oh, what power is
