Ultimate Reunion

After her classes were over for the day, Piyali led Mukundo to her favourite hideout - the clearing in the forest.

"Why did it fall apart, Mukundo Babu?" she asked on their way, "Did your wife find out... about us?"

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"Even if she did, it wasn't her problem."

"Huh?"

"Because according to her promiscuity was a given with the artists. 'I don't care who you sleep with,' she had said."

Piyali looked uncertain on how to react to that.

"Do you also think so?" he asked, "That because I am an artist, I go around sleeping with women."

"No," she said, "The way you beat yourself up over one, I can't imagine you would survive sleeping with many."

He didn't smile. "Apparently she had grown up seeing her father's rather colourful love life. She doesn't see him with the same lens as I do. Had I been blind with my respect for my guru?"

"That's possible, right? She was his daughter. She would know more."

"Hmm..."

"And probably Pandit ji knew that you weren't like him. And that's why he had wanted his daughter to be married to you – to a good man. Carrying the legacy was just... an alibi?"

"Hmm... Why couldn't you learn from Pandit ji, Piyali? What was the problem?"

She gulped, "I... I don't know."

"Was it the money? Because he won't take a student for lower or no fee?"

"Why are you asking that?"

"I just want to know."

"I don't know for sure. But that might be the case. When Gayatri Ma had mentioned me going to you, I was hesitant. I told her, I couldn't afford the fees. She had said that you weren't like Pandit ji in that regard."

Mukundo sighed, "He hadn't started with a silver spoon in his mouth. He can't be blamed, can he?"

"Not at all. I don't blame him. If my Baba was half as practical as him, our lives would have been different. I would have performed much earlier. With you..."

"Why didn't you perform?"

"Don't judge her for this, Mukundo Babu, but Ma hated the idea. The penury Baba had left us in, she couldn't trust music to earn our livelihoods any more. 'Even if the money comes,' she would say, 'It lasts as long as the fame does. And that can disappear any time.'"

"You had refused me because of your mother?"

"Yes."

"But she doesn't mind now?"

"This job has helped, Mukundo Babu. It has turned things around. She feels much more secure now. Even if I had earned ten-times as much by performing, she wouldn't have been at peace."

They stayed silent for a while and then she picked up the original thread again. "It couldn't have been your decision to end the marriage. What was her problem then, if not me? Your wife's?"

"That I had stopped performing and was becoming a nobody."

"And she left Sumedha behind?"

He nodded and they grew silent again.

He looked around when they reached the clearing and asked with a smile, "So, this is your favourite place in all of Darjeeling?"

"Yes."