MY NINA

She walked in through the door, that elephant of a school bag on her shoulders. Daddy was on the couch as usual, flipping through the television without the volume on. It was his routine: to watch TV from afternoon on till Arnab Goswami’s news hour at 9 p.m., all muted. What he gets out of it I don’t know. 

But then there’s my nephew who always has the TV on no matter what he does. He is seated opposite that TV the whole day doing something or another; either reading or texting or talking on the phone, but never really watching or listening to that box. He visits often.

Jordan joins Daddy at the news hour. He doesn’t turn up the volume because it is forbidden by Nina, and a father couldn't refuse his daughter, could he?

The prime time news hour is the twilight of Nina’s daily study time. She really is an unruly child. Only for those four hours in the evening she sits down quietly immersed in her homework. So, naturally, this is time at which all other house work is also frozen for fear of disturbing her, and consequently, the peace. We have a humble home: three small bedrooms all attached to one end of a common hall, at the other end of which are the kitchen, a balcony and a bathroom.

On July the 27^th, at 2 p.m., Nina burst in through the front door and flew into her Grandpa’s arms. It was her routine. She would break into a grin and in an excited blast of energy she would narrate all of the day’s happenings. She wouldn't be taken away to freshen up and eat until she’d finished her stories. And what stories they were! She could make trees walk and birds and bees talk. Sometimes I feel her school turned out to be just right for her, taking them on nature walks into botanical gardens, insect hunting at the fringes of the school yard, wall climbing, ghost story sessions in tree houses, craft sessions at schools for the physically handicapped, terrace yoga sessions, candle making and sale of them at the bazaar on a particular day and so on; keeping them busy with unconventional activities all year. And on days when it was regular school for them, she’d have stories about teachers that she’d analyse rather grumpily. 

Nina was a grumpy child. She wore a certain grimace on her face that scared off anybody who didn’t know her and had caught her unawares. On the contrary, anyone who met her while she was in the mood for socialising found the best friend in her. She saw the good in people; refused to believe that anybody was bad. Nonetheless, that changed as she grew older, I dare say.

As usual, here I was washing her tiffin box and readying the table for her to lunch at while she told her stories to Daddy. Oh, dear little darling!

“Mamma! Mamma!” She had come running into the kitchen and toppled a box of hot roasted groundnuts in her excitement.

“Oh bother! Go wash up while I clean this ghastly mess you've made.” I had scolded.

She was a messy child; always breaking or spilling things. When she was a toddler, it had been a penchant of hers to snap the heads off all her dolls and play with those heads alone, loading them into a truck or a toy train and so on. But she never purposely destroyed her study things or her clothes or anything else, for that matter.

That day when she had galloped into the kitchen, she had come to confess to having lost her watch, one that was designed as the Power puff Girls and was a gift from a cousin of hers. She had scuttled away to the bathroom, crying, after my admonishment and I hadn’t run after her to comfort her. No one had. And so it has been on many occasions through her school life here at home.

Thus, it wasn't surprising to me that she chose her grandfather to tell her stories to rather than me. She thought I wouldn't listen. I had to eavesdrop and Daddy knew that I did. 

Three years after that day, Daddy died in my brother’s house. He was 94. All Nina said about the death at the funeral was, “I liked Grandpa. His face drooped. And the more it drooped, the chubbier it got.” 

Within a year of that, deaf Mummy died too, in the same house as he. She was 86. That’s when Nina began to grow. She matured into a beautiful and sensible young lady, albeit one that still distrusted my confidence in her.

She always says that I don’t understand her and that I’m always too worried to think clearly. After Daddy’s death, she had no one to tell her daily stories to and she never did; at least not under our roof. Jordan had always been aloof and still is. He made sure of the monetary side of things at home and that was it. He never wanted much out of life. When not working, “sleeping and reading the paper were the best things to do,” he said. And of course those prime time news sessions with Arnab Goswami. 

As Nina grew older, she permitted him, one by one, to turn up the TV volume at 9 p.m. and to smoke inside the house with the windows open. Yet he kept the old habits. I rather think he vented out his daily frustration by imagining himself shouting and abusing in Arnab Goswami’s guise. That aside, 25 years together hasn’t taught me whether his mind is simple or hidden. 

Nina has gone away to college now. She lives in a hostel. I haven’t seen her for a year and on the telephone she only tells me a bare minimum of her life, enough to keep me content with the knowledge of her good health and pure faith. But, you see, I know everything. I always have. I have never depended on her to tell me. I have only ever needed Daddy. 

When my sister died, twelve years ago and three thousand miles away from me, I was the first person she told. When my second sister died eight years ago in the same house as the first one, it was in her arms that I cried from three thousand miles away. Mummy got her hearing back after death and has been a good gossip collector. And Daddy, well... he still lets me eavesdrop on his conversations with Nina. 

So you see, Ive always known all about Nina and I've always understood her for who she is. And she has always been a good girl, she has. My Nina.