Free Bombay Time by Thrity Umrigar Page B

neighbors at the Kanga wedding tonight, the apartment building felt uncharacteristically empty and silent. Even that recluse Tehmi had decided to attend the wedding. I wonder if that drunken Adi is at home, she thought to herself. Or did Jimmy also invite him? I wish Bapsi had married him instead and left my darling Zubin alone.
    Zubin’s decision to marry at thirty-five had shocked Dosa, who had been lulled by the long years of living alone with her only son. Dosa immediately told her son he was too old and too bald to marry, but for once, Zubin would not listen. He was head over heels in love with the jovial, hardworking bank teller who had just been transferred to his branch. When Dosa met the strong, vibrant, buxom woman her son brought home, she regretted the many times she had talked her son out of marrying the insipid, pale, unthreatening women he had previously expressed an interest in. Those women, Dosa would have been able to control; one look at Bapsi told Dosa that she had met her match. Bapsi charged into Dosa’s wiliness and guile with the open honesty and the head-on innocence of a young bull. All of Dosa’s surreptitious ways, her slyness and penchant for troublemaking, now lay naked under Bapsi’s unwavering gaze. Her new daughter-in-law blew Dosa’s cover with alarming regularity. “Mamma, come away from that window,” she would say in a loud voice as Dosa would discreetly part the curtains to spy on someone. “None of our business what others are doing.” For Dosa, whose business
was
other people’s business, Bapsi’s words were blasphemy. To make matters worse, her daughter-in-law also refused to nurse Dosa’s lifelong sense of injury at the cruel trick fate had played on her. “Come on,
na,
Mamma,” Bapsi would boom in her good-natured way. “Who even knows if you really would have been a doctor? Anyway, you had a good man for a husband and your Zubin is a sweetie pie, and now you have a daughter who takes care of your every need. What else are you wanting? Let bygones be bygones.”
    It was like two continents clashing. And Zubin soon became the territory they each wanted to colonize, so that he was increasingly torn between the two strong women in his life. He spent years trying to build bridges between the two of them, to get them to speak a common language, but to no avail. Bapsi resented the fact that while she and Zubin were at work all day, Dosa invited a steady stream of neighborhood women into their home for hours of gossip and conversation. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop,” she would say. “Why don’t they do some social work or something instead of spying on one another and poking their noses in other people’s business? Some people have too much time on their hands.” Dosa saw this as a challenge to her life’s work and reacted with the ferocity of a businessman whose lease has just been canceled. “You’d think she was president of the bank instead of just a common clerk,” she’d complain to her many admirers. “The Queen of Sheba, my son has married.”
    The situation at home reached a point where when his branch manager offered Zubin a transfer to Pune, Zubin had to stop himself from kissing the man on both cheeks in gratitude. “Sir, I accept,” he said. “No, no, nothing to think about. As long as Bapsi gets a transfer also, I accept.”
    Still, leaving Wadia Baug was not easy. On his way to the railway station, Zubin encountered Rusi Bilimoria coming up the stairs, and he thought back to a conversation from decades ago. Strange it is, he thought. For all his talk, Rusi never left Wadia Baug. And here I am, the one who is leaving. “Best of luck with the business, Rusi,” he said, surprised at the tremor in his voice. “Thank you for all your help,” Rusi replied, taking Zubin’s hand in both of his. “You’re a good man, and the building people will miss you. Good luck in your new life.”
    As he stepped out of the building, Zubin had felt a