The Gift

Image by Hadis Safari on Unsplash

Urvi’s brow furrowed as she debated which outfit she should wear for the occasion. Not that she was inundated with choice. It had to be one of the two which she had bought for herself after being hired by The Global News. They weren’t anything classy but then her salary as a backroom editor was a pittance and barely covered her expenses, leaving little for frivolities.

She had picked the two at an end-of-season sale. A real bargain at buy one get one free. It had been an incredible feeling, selecting clothes and paying with her own money. Dresses which she could truly call her own. The others were all handed down. Not that she had any issues with that. It didn’t really matter if something had been worn by somebody else earlier. At home and even in the hostel, they borrowed and wore each other’s clothes all the time. It was just that this one time she didn’t want to wear any of Avni’s dresses. Zeroing down on the pink one, she lovingly folded and settled it into the base of her scuffed brown bag. The sparse packing done, she swung her overnight bag onto her shoulder and headed for the metro station. Her heart lifted as it did every time she was headed back home.

The solid iron gate looked exactly the same. Paint peeling at the edges, stern and dismissive to anyone who might want to catch a glimpse of what lay within. The curved metal strip held aloft between the two rusted posts bore the lettering Anjani Children’s Home. Her eyes caressed it lovingly. There was an invisible umbilical cord which held her to these borrowed roots and it had prevented her from accepting the better paid position at the Bengaluru branch. She knew Amma would need her support when the construction of the third floor commenced.

It had been the only home she had known for twenty-two years. Within its walls lay all her memories, her large family of sisters and brothers bound not by blood but by circumstances and of course Amma. King, their adopted indie pranced excitedly on his three legs when he sighted her. He had lost one under the wheels of a speeding car. Urvi inhaled deeply from the familiar sights and sounds. It was good to be home. The next hour was spent in blissful reunion as the younger girls clamoured around her in excitement. Amma hugged her affectionately and pronounced that she was looking thinner than before. Wasn’t the food good enough?

It was the same every time she came home. To Amma’s motherly eyes she was always underfed and undernourished. Anjali smiled shyly at her; half hidden behind the yellow pillar she was clinging to. Urvi beckoned and going down on her knees, fished out a box of colour pencils from her bag and handed them to the seven-year-old artist. The child’s huge eyes sparkled and she pronounced fervently ‘Di you are the bestest’. Anjali had recently been introduced to superlatives at school and she religiously appended an est to every adjective in her limited vocabulary.

‘When are they coming?’ she enquired from Amma, raising her voice to be heard above the babble of voices.

‘I expect them to be here by 5 pm. Like always.’

It was a regular feature of their annual calendar. Avni’s birthday. Avni was Mrs. Bakshi’s only offspring and the canvas of Urvi’s growing years had been dominated by the presence of mother and daughter in the foreground. Wealthy and magnanimous, Mrs. Bakshi or Mimi, as she was to all of them, had adopted their little home as her special philanthropist endeavour and they had been at the receiving end of not just her money but also her influential connections. The woman was a firm anchor who buffered all the little storms which threatened their simple existence.

Like the time when an eminent MLA’s greedy eyes had spied the land on which the orphanage was located and he had tried every trick in the book to acquire it. When persuasion and coercion had not worked, police constables had descended upon them to investigate the apparently nefarious activities of the Home. Urvi had been fifteen at that time. She and the other girls had been interrogated mercilessly till late in the night. Even Divya who was barely twelve. A mean -faced constable had cracked stinging blows across her face in order to make her confess to whatever it was that she wanted to hear. Things would have become uglier but mercifully, Mimi had swooped down with the media in tow and pulled the right strings in the right places.

Two years ago, she had wrested sanction for constructing the top floor from the reluctant municipal authority. She was an Amazon both in size and determination and there was much they had to thank her for. And it was not just their benefactress, there were so many others Urvi was indebted to. The unknown messiah who had retrieved the infant wrapped in sodden newspapers and given a new lease to her life, Amma for replacing the mother who had discarded her at birth, all those nameless people who consistently supported their little world in so many different ways. And more recently, the media house which had accepted her as an intern in spite of her faltering English. A lot to be grateful for. She could never thank her lucky stars enough for placing her on the receiving end of so much generosity.

Krishna who was just seven and as naughty as they make them, volleyed headlong into Amma, ‘They are here! They are here!’

Avni always celebrated her birthday with them before the extravaganza with her own friends later in the evening. Avni was Destiny’s special princess. She had everything one could ever dream of, including a set of doting parents. Both a mother and a father. And there was no need for her to be grateful for anything. They were taken-for-granted perks of her privileged life. Practicing gratitude was a lesson reserved for lesser mortals like Urvi.

From the earliest time she could remember, she had been taught to sing prayers thanking the bountiful lord for his blessings. She had accepted it unquestioningly and followed the dictum religiously till the day Amma revealed to her how she had arrived at the orphanage. The elderly matron firmly believed that each one of them had a right to whatever scanty information she had about their background and she divulged it when they turned eighteen. The sordid narrative of a mother who had left a helpless infant to the mercy of dogs and fate had turned Urvi into an atheist.

Avni floated in, looking beautiful in a stunning cream and silver dress which fell in shimmering folds around her. Urvi smiled happily. She knew that soon that gorgeous creation of silk and lace would be hers. She and Avni orbited on different planes yet had a lot in common and the entwining of their lives had started with both of them being named after the benevolent mother Earth. They had been through school at the same time and had graduated together.

Though Avni was a couple of years older than Urvi, they were almost the same size and the former’s dresses invariably made their way to the latter’s wardrobe. Urvi smiled to herself. The tiny closet of three shelves which were hers in the shared PG accommodation could not be called a wardrobe by any stretch of imagination. Pity her feet were too big and she could not get Avni’s sparkling silver stilettoes as well. Never mind, she would save and buy a cheap imitation. She knew she would look prettier than Avni.

Avni happily accepted wishes from each child and handed over a gaily wrapped gift in return. She knew them all by name. That was perhaps where her true beauty lay. In spite of the abundance in which she had grown, she was untouched by conceit or arrogance. Her spontaneous smile and genuine warmth dissolved the gaping world of difference which lay between her and Urvi. On her birthday and on every festival, she would accompany Mimi to the home, followed by a chauffeur bearing armloads of gifts and sweets which she proceeded to distribute with undisguised excitement. Receiving from her was a pleasure because there was nothing condescending about her spontaneous pleasure in giving. Nothing to drive home the fact that she was a fairy godmother and Urvi the poor little Cinder girl. But things were going to change. Soon, she would be the one to arrive in a long car loaded with gifts. Urvi smiled at the thought.

The younger ones sat down to blissfully devour the goodies that had been brought and the two young women joined their mothers under the huge banyan tree which grew right in the center of the courtyard. The elder duo leaned back in moulded chairs under its abundant shade while the younger pair scrambled onto the cemented parapet around the ancient tree trunk. Urvi winced as Avni’s dress scraped against the rough cement. She already regarded it as a personal possession.

Mimi’s smile was no less than a beacon as she beamingly revealed that they had zeroed down on a perfect alliance for Avni and if everything fell into place, by this time the following year, shehnais would be playing.

Amma hugged Avni and blessed her. ‘Who’s the lucky boy?’

‘He is the son of our business associates. The children have grown up together and know each other well.’ Inevitably, the conversation veered towards wedding preparations. Mimi was in the seventh heaven of delight. Avni smiled shyly while Urvi listened with a faraway look in her eyes.

Her thoughts meandered. It was natural for the mother of the would-be bride to be ecstatic. Amma was her mother but would her wedding also be discussed with the same enthusiasm? She gave herself a shake for her uncharitable thoughts. Avni was an only child and Amma was mother to twenty-seven daughters and eight sons. And unquestionably she was an amazing mother.

‘I’ll soon find a boy for Urvi too.’

For one wild moment she had an urge to prick Mimi’s self-obsessed complacency. Poor little Urvi didn’t need anyone’s generosity or charity any more. She had found her own prince Charming. Someone who truly loved her and with him at her side she could thumb her nose at them. Because he too was a part of their world. Their rich and privileged world. And he had set his heart on pulling her into the enchanted circle. She had an insane desire to spill everything and savour the incredulous expressions on their faces.

But the time was not right. They had decided that he would tell his parents first and then she would reveal her good fortune. She could visualize Amma’s pleasure and the little ones’ excitement. Mimi would pretend to be thrilled but the instinctive aversion to a nobody inhabiting the same space as her precious daughter would make her grudge Urvi her happiness. But this time there would be nothing she could do about it. True, Mimi was a lifeline. Urvi was grateful to her for the umpteen favours she had done and Avni was a sweetheart. But just for once she couldn’t help feeling smug.

‘Once Avni is married I promise I’ll get an equally good match for you.’

Urvi responded with a perfunctory smile. Avni’s life and hers had followed a similar trajectory but hardly as equals. Avni had breezed through her exclusive high-end school while Urvi had struggled at the neighbourhood government one where fee was exempted for girls. Whether school or college, their alma maters were separated by an invisible but dominant divide which had nothing to do with caliber, class or creed and everything to do with money.

Surreptitiously, Urvi had tried to mime Avni’s mannerisms, her accent and her style. But they had never been and could never hope to be equals. She caught her reflection in the sunshades which dangled across Mimi’s ample bosom. The face which looked back lifted her mood. By some freak stroke, Lady Bounty had given her a striking beauty which gave her an advantage over Avni’s pleasingly pretty looks. Other than that, all she could lay claim to was a tenacity and grit which were a natural corollary to the survival instinct which children like her were born with. Unfortunately, it was that very single-minded determination which had cost her the opportunity of interning along with Avni at a national television channel of high repute.

On Amma’s request, Mimi had taken both the girls with her to meet the CEO. He had interacted with them and agreed happily to accept both girls. As a parting shot, he had told Mimi that the waif she had taken under her wing was made of just the right mettle needed for their field of work. They had driven back home in silence and the next day Mimi had broken the news that the channel was willing to accommodate only one intern and she would soon find another equally good placement for Urvi. Even though she had been just eighteen, she could guess what had happened and it had rankled.

She was abruptly drawn back to the present. Mimi was telling her that she should start preparing a dance for the sangeet ceremony. She nodded her consent and Avni smiled delightedly, her face suffused with a rosy glow of anticipated romance.

‘You still haven’t told me the name of the boy.’ Amma was asking. Silly question. As if the name mattered. As long as Avni liked the boy and he reciprocated her feelings. What was there in a name? It could be Sunil, Anil or…….’

‘Rahul.’ It was Avni who answered and Amma smiled warmly at her.

Mimi butted in to confirm that he was no less handsome than SRK and then went on to extoll the virtues of both the prospective groom and his family. An inscrutable expression settled on Urvi’s face.

Late into the night, she tossed restlessly on her narrow bed. Long bouts of wakefulness were interspersed with incongruous visions of Cinderella in a gorgeous cream and silver ensemble consoling a wailing Mimi who was shedding copious tears. Urvi pulled herself up and greedily gulped mouthfuls of water to slake her burning throat. Picking up her mobile, she texted a message.

*

She lowered her eyes to block the pain and bewilderment in his eyes and droned relentlessly. She had accepted the position at Bangalore and would be leaving next Thursday. It was a terrific opportunity and she had realised that her career mattered more than anything else. She was poised to fly and marriage would ground her. Besides, the Adonis of the office had proposed a long-term relationship with no strings attached. She had no inkling that he harboured romantic feelings for her and she was on cloud nine.

Urvi was rambling.

He interrupted her savagely, ‘Cut it out and get lost. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that for a person with your kind of background, opportunities outweigh relationships.’

The cruel dig was like a knife slicing through her very being. She stood up abruptly.

‘Goodbye, Rahul.’