Tanya Tania by Antara Ganguli Page A

that’s the reason she married my father? Is that good enough?
    What makes someone good enough? What is a good enough reason to want to spend your life with someone?
    Love,
    Tania

    March 3, 1992
    Karachi
    Dear Tania,
    It was nice of you to phone us. Chhoti Bibi couldn’t stop talking about it for days. You have become her hero. ‘No one has ever called me from India before,’ she kept saying. ‘All because I went to my cousin’s house.’
    It must be nice to be able to pick up the phone and call anyone you want without worrying about the expense.
    Remember I had told you I need to look over the family finances? Today I found the door of my father’s study unlocked after a long time. It was dusty inside and smelled of the petrified black thing in the dustbin that had been a banana a long time ago. I also found the folders I was looking for. My father’s bank statements.
    Things are worse than before. My father has sold his last remaining investments. There has been no income for over a year now. Before I could see more, my father came in. I thought he was going to shout at me, I thought he would scold me. But he only asked me to leave. The door has been locked again.
    I wish I knew what my father is thinking. I don’t mind if he is not thinking of me, I just want to know. What does he wake up and think of? Does he miss sleeping in the same bed as my mother?
    My dad thinks the hospital will change everything for us. That it will just take a little more time, a little more money, a little more patience and the hospital will make our lives. I haven’t heard him say that in a while. Ali says he is fida over me. My father is fida over the hospital.
    Chhoti Bibi didn’t come back for a few days as I told you on the phone. She somehow got on a bus with my pink bicycle and went to her cousin’s house in Lyari, one of those neighbourhoods always in the papers because of a riot or a murder or several. She won’t tell me her cousin’s name or what she did there. She just shakes her head with a deep, knowing smile on her face.
    She and Bibi act as if nothing has happened which I take to be the result of living with my family. Haha.
    I almost got into an argument with my mother about it. I asked her if we should be worried about what had happened to Chhoti Bibi while she was gone. She had been gone for four days and three nights. My mother looked at me blankly.
    I thought, how callous. Surely my mother has a responsibility towards a seventeen-year-old girl living in her house. Anything could have happened to Chhoti Bibi. Then I saw that she had been crying. The skin beneath her eyes had turned grey and wrinkled like a dead rat that had washed up into our garden last monsoon.
    My mother saw me looking and she lifted a hand to her cheek and rubbed at where the tears had tracked. ‘Your father didn’t come home last night,’ she said.
    â€˜He was at the hospital.’
    She gave a short bark of a laugh I haven’t heard before and went into the bathroom. The tap ran for a long time before I heard her splash water on her face.
    My father was at the hospital. Truly. I’m absolutely certain he is not having an affair. I know this because I followed him a few months ago. He just goes to the hospital and stays there all day long. There are no women in the hospital except the nurses and they are all married and mostly old and fat.
    My mother came out and sat down at her dressing table and began to comb her hair. It fell around her in soft glossy curls even though I could tell she hadn’t washed it in days.
    â€˜He was at the hospital,’ I said again. ‘I’m sure he was at the hospital.’
    She looked at me at the mirror and smiled. ‘Tell me about Chhoti Bibi,’ she said. ‘Why were you so worried? What happened?’
    I told her what happened and she frowned. Then she called Bibi and scolded her for not letting her know that Chhoti