Mimosa with Samosa, Manisha (Part-4)

“Manisha, these are the messages that your clients left when you were in India”, my father in law walked in with his notebook that he takes down the messages for me. This was exactly half an hour after we landed from a seventeen hour flight. They just don’t care for other lives. It is always the son that matters. He should eat well, and he should drink well. Rest will survive. They don’t need to be loved. They will love us though, because we are your parents. I wish I had the guts to tell the old man not to disturb me till the next morning, but I say my usual “Ji Pappaji” and put the notebook to the side. I called all of them before I left and I told them that I won’t be available for two weeks. But my clients think a realtor cannot have a life of their own. They call me for anything and everything. I can’t blame them also. They are doing the biggest purchase of their life and they want to make sure they did a good decision. For me it’s just another house that will bring in my commission but for them it is the house that they will live in.

No one noticed that Madhuri looked pale and weak. For once I was glad that my family was so full of themselves and didn’t care for anything that didn’t matter to them. I told her to rest in her room, and asked Nimisha not to disturb her. No one asked me how my mother was, but I didn’t care much. Probably because my mother wasn’t sick at all and it didn’t matter if they asked me. I rest my eyes and get ready to clean the house and shop for the groceries so that Jignesh can have a proper meal tonight without having to worry about the family. Jignesh sounds more as an incompetent boss of the family scouting for respect rather than the head of the family that everyone respects. My kids and I are so detached with the rest of the family. It’s as if there are two units here. My daughters and I. Jignesh and his parents. We live together for convenience. I don’t make enough money to support my daughters on my own. He can’t take care of himself or his parents if I am gone.

I go through the notebook returning calls, and I notice a new name. Iyer. Looking for a house in coto de caza. A gated city as I call it, in Orange County where the richest people live. Two 18-hole golf courses and a wonderful weather almost year round are something that can’t be found everywhere. And not many kids. Probably no kids in the community. I have never seen any when I take my clients. Average house costs 3 million dollars. Hope Mr. and Mrs. Iyer thought before deciding on this location because Manisha Shah is not ready to sell another house in Turtle Ridge when she can push them to buy in caza.

I loved the good old days when a client picked a house, and got financed to buy it irrespective of his credit or repayment ability. I could make a quick buck and have happy clients. These days things have changed. The bank appraises the properties and then goes through series of credit checks and then approves the loan. With the unemployment in two digits, it’s only luck on my side if the client wasn’t laid off by the time everything was done. Saurabh and his wife lost on a historic property in Pasadena when Saurabh got laid off. They did have enough money to put a fifty percent down, but the bank wouldn’t listen. All my time and efforts were wasted on that case. I decide to prepare a questionnaire to screen my clients and see what it is that they want rather than guess. People always take the written questions seriously and answer them more faithfully than the spoken ones.

Tired, I wanted to sleep around eleven, when Jignesh came home from work. I have no idea what he does at work this long. The economy never affected him. He always worked twelve hour days unlike others who had fun with families when things were better. I just hope he doesn’t have another family somewhere else. On second thoughts, he can’t even take care of one that is legitimate, he won’t dare to have another one. He talks in monosyllables and bound by habit, I still ask many questions, hoping some day he will answer them with an open heart.

I ask for too much. I see couples in love every day. May be that is the problem. I see the husbands showing the wives the houses as if giving to them was the sole purpose of their lives. I have seen wives see each room as if it is up to them to make this a heaven for their husbands. Jignesh and I never felt that way. When we bought a house, Jignesh just signed wherever I asked him to, and saw the house casually. You and kids spend more time in it than me was his reason. I wish he was like other husbands. A little imperfect so that I could crave for perfection.

I served him dinner, and cleaned up the kitchen and came to the bedroom. Jignesh was asleep already. I didn’t hope that he would be waiting for me with his arms open to hold me and whisper in my ears that he missed me when I was gone. But a little talk would have been good enough for me. I routinely go to the kids’ room to check on them, and see that Madhuri is too sound asleep. I shake her slightly to see if everything was alright, and there! There she lay in a pool of blood, oozing from a slashed wrist!

I dial 911 and help arrives in less than two minutes, and the whole house woke up at the sound of sirens. They didn’t know what happened, but they were already blaming me that something happened in India and I probably didn’t pay attention. I ignored them as I ignore a wall in the hallway and followed the ambulance praying to the Gods up there to leave my daughter alone. I murdered her child cruelly but I wasn’t ready to lose my own child. I threatened God that I will kill myself if something happened to Madhuri. As if he would care. For me, or for Madhuri. Or even Nimisha. If he did we wouldn’t be with Jignesh and his parents who are probably more worried about their son not getting a good night’s sleep than the granddaughter fighting life and death in a hospital bed.