Free Married Woman by Manju Kapur Page B

Papaji’s draw had achieved for them 633 square yards in Vasant Vihar. And for the next ten years the family watched in amazement, satisfaction, and smugness the rate at which their initial investment of twenty thousand rupees multiplied five hundred times over.
    Astha’s marriage entitled her to the same emotions. This is what my parents hoped would happen to them, she thought wistfully every time the latest price of their plot was discussed, and it was discussed many times.
    Vasant Vihar too was once wilderness, home to rabbits, peacocks and deer, but by the late seventies almost a third of it was under construction, a boom which the Vadera family now joined.
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    For the plans Papaji contacted the chief architect of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, who enjoyed the same secretary level status he did. A senior teacher of the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture was recommended, drawings were made, their relative living convenience minutely examined.
    The house was going to be double storied, the ground floor for Hemant and Astha, the one above for Papaji and Mummy. Each floor would have a drawing-dining, kitchen, two bedrooms with attached baths, and a small study to double as a guest room. In the centre, overlooking a patch of lawn running on the side of the house, would be an open informal area where the family could congregate. There would be one large verandah beyond the drawing-dining, and small balconies outside the bedrooms. On the roof would be the servant’s quarters.
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    A puja was done at the site, and the building started. Steel and cement could only be obtained on quotas, and construction onthe house lasted nearly two years, despite Papaji’s contacts, as thirty tons of rolled steel bars and thousands of bags of cement were released in dribs and drabs by the concerned ministry.
    Periodically Hemant and Papaji would go shopping along with the contractor. To GB Road for cast iron and galvanised iron pipes, toilets, taps, stainless steel and ceramic sinks, wall tiles and marble chips; to Bhagirath Palace for mild steel conduit pipes, electrical cables for light and power, switch boxes, switches, fans, hinges, door locks and door handles; to Paharganj for wood and plywood; and last of all to Kotla for glass and paint, Snowcem for the outside, oil bound distemper for the inside, lime wash for the ceilings.
    Two to three times a week Hemant visited the site, he was a junior officer, and he didn’t have the pressures Papaji did. Sometimes Astha accompanied him, audience to Hemant’s sense of himself as the child of fortune. ‘This – this‚’ he said waving his hand at their plot, ‘this is worth over a crore today.’
    ‘A crore?’ breathed Astha. ‘So much.’ And she warmed with the pleasure of being part of a family that was in tune with the ways of the world. Now and for ever she would be looked after.
    *
    To avoid death duties, the five Vaderas were registered as co-owners, with a letter of intention signed amongst them as to future rights. Hemant was to get the ground floor; Seema, who had contributed dollars towards the construction, was to get the first floor; and Sangeeta, who had contributed nothing, was to get the terrace, which allowed a built up area of 25 per cent. Should either of the sisters wish to sell they had to give their brother first offer.
    After the house was built, it was given on rent to an embassy, at over a hundred times the rate they paid for their Lodhi Colony government accommodation. Astha’s mother listened to the details of the increase in the family finances with glistening eyes, sighing heavily, blessing her daughter, remembering her departed husband, a very simple man, with no sense of this world.

    The two-year excitement and absorption of building a house over, Hemant began to get bored. On his way home from work he took to frequenting the club where, swimming, playing tennis or drinking, he met men like himself.
    They were a new breed, these men. Their