As per their plan, they went to a hospital slightly far from where Siddhartha stayed, and pretended being husband and wife. When the baby was to be born, the birth certificate would have his name as the father. So, she could stay with him even after Karishma left. Technically, it would be invalid, but who was going to question the baby’s parentage if Vikram and his family didn’t know about it. To his colleagues, he’d say that he had adopted a friend’s baby because they died in an accident.

The baby was due in six months. It meant Karishma would have another six months to spend with her daughter.

“You are still as interested in sports,” Karishma remarked. It was a Sunday morning and they were having breakfast at her house. He had come there directly after finishing his game of tennis.

“I had slackened off, to be honest. But now I am picking up again.”

“Ah! Why now?”

“Now there is reason to stay healthy and live long,” he smiled.

He needed to live well to bring up her daughter.  Her eyes expressed the gratitude she didn’t voice.

“You will tell her about me, won’t you, Siddhartha?” her voice was heavy with longing ad emotions. With his repeated insistence, she had grown used to calling him by his name.

“Yes. I will tell her just how accident-prone her mother was,” he joked, fearing that she was on the verge of tears.

“Shut up. I am not accident-prone,” she said pouting, and smiling at the same time. His plan worked.

Geeta watched them from the kitchen door and smiled. After her initial reservations at the situation had been overcome, she had given into Siddhartha’s charm. She often found herself wondering how different he was from the men she had encountered in the Jain household and how much better off Karishma would have been with someone like him. Last night he had stuffed the fridge with all flavors of ice-creams.  He had also brought ready-made gol-gappe and pani-puri masala. When Geeta had asked him what he was doing, he had responded so adorably. “She keeps having these cravings. It will be helpful at night. You can mix the masala with just cold water for pani-puri. Will you also keep some boiled potatoes in the fridge, please?”

“Chachi. Another Parantha, please,” Karishma calling out to her brought her out of her reverie and she went back to the kitchen.

The only time Siddhartha spent at his home these days was at night. He turned up at her house early in the morning to take her on a morning walk. Then they had breakfast. After college he was back again. They talked, read, went out, took a walk and he left only after dinner. He had also taken up all the hospital and pregnancy related expenses on himself. “If you want me to be a parent to her, you have to let me take responsibility,” he had told her.

“Ouch!” Karishma cried suddenly as they walked down a narrow, tree-lined mountain road.

“What happened?” Siddhartha was alarmed.

But she smiled. “The baby kicked. Ouch again. See, can you feel it?” He put his hand on her stomach and he felt it. His eyes grew moist. Then he could not control himself. He kissed her on forehead. “Thank you,” he said. She was going to make him a father!

“Thank you,” she replied emphatically, held his hands and they continued walking in silence, but smiling with contentment.

Initially he had tried convincing Karishma that she should do something and bring up her daughter herself.

“I am no more a fighter, Siddhartha, than Anna was a feminist. If you weren’t there, if I wasn’t sure that you would happily take her responsibility and give her all the love she deserves, then I would have fought. I would have had no other option. But right now… I am decided on it. I owed it to my father to help him fulfill his old promise. She owes no one anything. She doesn’t owe even me a justice. She deserves an uncomplicated life and unconditional love. That’s what I am trying to give her.”

“Karishma. There would be more children in future..”

“There won’t be. I will get an operation done…”

“But…”

“I don’t want to bring up a child in that family. Even if it is a boy, what values will he grow up with?”

Then he had given up. For his part, he was extremely happy at the prospect of being a father. He had started arranging his life around it. From relooking at his finances and savings and taking care of his own health to stopping visits to red-light districts! His life was not going to be devoted to her daughter. His daughter!

—

“Come here, my child. I made a mistake. Left you in a bad world…” Karishma saw her father calling her.

“But Papa. My daughter needs me. How can I leave her behind…”

“She is in safe hands, Karishma. Come with me… It’s so much better here…”

Karishma woke up with a start. What kind of a dream was it?

And it recurred. Almost every night with some variation. Sometimes she saw her father in it, sometimes her dead grandfather or grandmother. All her dead relatives seem to be calling her.

She finally told Siddhartha one day.

“I am going to die, Siddhartha. But I must deliver the baby safely before that.”

“Nonsense. You are fit and healthy. Doctor has said that there are no complications. Don’t be superstitious.”

“There is superstition and there is that premonition deep inside you. It’s different.”

“Stop thinking about it.”

But he had himself become worried. He asked the doctor to do all kinds of checkups and took her through even all the optional tests that the doctor saw no reason to conduct. Everything was normal.

Seeing him worry so much, she tried to undo the damage. “I haven’t had that dream in a while now, Siddhartha,” she said, lying. She had seen it that night too. “So, don’t worry about me.”

“Of course,” he replied trying to hide his embarrassment, “I wasn’t worried about some stupid dream, I already told you. I was just being careful. We must be.”

“Right. Of course,” she smiled indulgently, “And even Anna didn’t die in childbirth.” Why did the thought of Anna never leave her?

Siddhartha retorted this time. “You are, anyway, no Anna, Karishma. You are more of a Devaki, who sacrificed and suffered the separation from her baby for its safety.”

“Forget Anna. What will you name your daughter?”

“You are asking me to name her?” he asked, surprised, but not failing to notice her use of ‘your daughter’ and feeling elated at that.

“Who else will do that?”

“Then I will name her Smriti. She will embody your memories for me.”

—

To be continued