Chapter 6: Niyati

Let’s talk about fear, shall we?
Fear makes people stupid. Fear makes us hasty and paranoid. It makes us shiver in the summer and sweat in the winter. It makes us make decisions we would never make otherwise.
But worse than fear is terror. Terror is fear on steroids. Terror can make fear look softer than puppies playing with pillows. Terror makes the same afraid people make hastier and stupider decisions and make them quicker.
I was afraid of Rajju Bhai. Anita was terrified.
“He’s going to kill us,” she said.
Ah… Certain Death. Definitely by second least favourite pre-sleep subject matter. My topmost least favourite pre-sleep subject matter was of course my parents, but Anita, for however much of a bitch she can be, would never stoop that low.
“Let me sleep, please,” I begged and turned away. But I was going to stay awake that night, no matter how hard I tried. Rajju Bhai’s face lay plastered on the inside of my eyelids.
And it wasn’t just his face. I saw the faces of his entire gang. And I saw their revolvers and their daggers. And I saw them threaten my wife...
Ah… How did I ever get myself into this?
Several minutes passed. Anita was lying with her back facing me, but I couldn’t hear her snores, which told me that she was probably still awake too. I turned and gave her a hug. My hand brushed against her breast and I quickly shifted it down to her stomach.
I felt her stomach ascend and then come back down as her lungs breathed nervously..
“I’m terrified,” she said.
“I know.”
Anita turned over to face me. “We have to do something, Azad. Rajju has been after you for years… Why don’t you just give him the money..?”
“No.”
“Azad…”
“I said ‘No’!” I pushed my body away from her, “I pay him once and he will come back every month. Say goodbye to your dreams of having a child because I won’t be able to support one. Do you want a get a job Anita?”
She didn’t. So she crept back closer to me. I knew her well enough to see her wet eyes without looking at them.
“Maybe we should have a baby,” she whispered.
Not the line I had wished to or expected to hear. “Maybe we what?”
She sat up, reciting her words like she’d practiced saying them before. “Maybe that’s it, Azad. If we have a child, Rajju will leave us alone. Remember Vinod? He was having the same problems. But after Chhaya got pregnant he never heard from the gangsters.”
Vinod was a friend I had made because our wives were friends. I didn’t like him and I’m sure he wasn’t too fond of me either. But Anita had wanted us to be a ‘normal couple’ and do what ‘normal couples’ do – meet up socially and spend money with people whom you detest.
Vinod had a similar problem to mine – the mafia used to help themselves to every new piece of technology that entered Vinod’s electronic shop. Rajju Bhai had the flattest televisions, the smallest cell phones, and the loudest stereo systems – all for nothing but the price of a hectoring visit.
But when Chhaya got pregnant, things abruptly changed. Rajju Bhai mysteriously disappeared out of their lives and began occurring more frequently in mine.
Anita’s plan sounded too easy to work. “That’s a stupid idea, Anita,” I flouted, “Matter of fact, that’s the stupidest thing you’ve said this week.”
“Think about it,” she said and lay back down.
“You are telling me,” I said, “That I should present Rajju Bhai with another weapon against me? What’s he going to say now? ‘Ay, Azad, I’m going to kill your wife and your baby.’ Why don’t we just hand him the unborn foetus a few months in advance so he doesn’t have to take the trouble of coming back and kidnapping it?” I turned away.
Anita wasn’t convinced. “Just give it a thought, ok? Rajju turned soft when Chhaya’s son was involved. Just think about it.”

And I did think about it. I thought about it all night and I thought about it all of the next day. I thought about it when Rajju showed up at work again, and I thought about it when Atty couldn’t handle the pressure and broke down to tears.
An offspring. My offspring. Mine and Anita’s offspring. It was a scary thought to be responsible for the life of another human being. Another life to take care of. Another child that will grow up in this cruel world. A world full of Rajjus and Sahnis and Osama Bin Ladens and Shiv Sena activists. Another life meant another possibility of a child not raised well. Another life meant another teenage drama, another mid-life crisis, and another depressed senior citizen. Another life meant another death.
I would have to worry about what the child eats. What the child says. Whether the child gets peer pressured or becomes a loner. What if the child picks up bad habits? What if the child becomes left-handed too? What if the child becomes too much like me?
It isn’t encouraging to be a parent when you haven’t been parented yourself.
It is also not encouraging to be a father when you’re wishing that the mother was somebody else. But it was never going to be easy to get rid of Anita, find Kalpana, get her to leave her family for me, and then ask her to carry my seed.
But I couldn’t deny it any longer. If my craving for Kalpana had been equivalent to snorting a line of cocaine, then settling for Anita just to ‘normalize’ life was like taking a sleeping pill.
Aah… Fuck Kalpana! I slapped the side of my skull. She probably doesn’t even remember you, Azad. It’s been twelve years. She’s probably somewhere else fucking that other guy carrying That Other Guy’s seed. Fuck Kalpana and fuck That Other Guy.
Everything was wrong about Anita’s idea. One can’t change their life because of fear. This is terrorism. This is Rajju flying two passenger planes into my BTV office. The last thing I need in this chaotic life is to handle another little piece of chaos.
It took some deep breaths and calm thinking for me to remember that having a baby had worked out for Vinod and Chhaya. Why couldn’t it work for us? Babies are basically puppies who grow slower and eventually learn how to talk. I could definitely take care of a talking puppy – especially if it grew to call me ‘Dad’ and planted some pity in Rajju Bhai.
He has his own family. His eight-year-old goes to school with my cousin’s daughter. I’ve even seen Rajju Bhai at the malls buying ice cream for his kid. Maybe the man does have a heart.
Like so many other choices I had faced throughout my 30-odd years, I felt compelled to decide on this one quickly. When I got home that evening, I had made up my mind.
“Let’s do it!” I said before Anita could tell me what she’d prepared for dinner.
And that is where babies come from.