Chapter 6
Why Would Anyone Name Their Bluetooth Jimi Hendrix’s Groupie?
Mumbai, Friday
The route is pretty straightforward. We experience the worst traffic on Mulund–Airoli road, but it’s smooth from there on,
all the way to Mumbai–Pune expressway. It takes more than an hour to commute within the city itself, but that’s just how it’s
always been navigating traffic in Mumbai—a real pain in the ass. We picked a time when it would take us a minimum of four
hours to get to Pune, so this is better than usual.
Rudra drives like he knows the roads like the back of his hand—which he probably does since he’s lived in the city all his
life. I don’t even have to navigate the route to the expressway half the time. He’s cool and silent, as usual, and I almost
forget that, until a while ago, he was actually making conversation with me.
As for Priti, she looks like she’s having a grand old time in the back seat.
She’s lying down, a car bolster placed under her head, her long legs resting on the window ledge.
She barks out a laugh, and I turn, squinting at her reflection in the window, to find her watching a scene from the K-drama Srishti and I asked her to binge with us last month. Back then, she gave us a dirty look.
Now look at her, snickering away there.
At least Rudra’s playlist is nice. He’s got a decent collection of songs, mostly English, a far cry from my curated Bollywood
road trip playlist, which would suit the current vibe better. But I’m not comfortable enough asking him to share his Bluetooth
with me.
I turn back to my phone, glancing at the map, and frown. “Hold up, why are you getting off the highway?”
“Tank’s almost empty,” Rudra says. He turns the car into the petrol pump station, doing that hot rotating-the-steering-wheel
thing. Because he’s wearing a half-sleeved shirt, his right bicep pops up when he does it, and it takes me a whole five seconds
to realize I’m staring.
I swiftly turn back to my phone, dousing the heat creeping up my face.
Priti sits up as Rudra stops the car in front of the pump. He presses the button to open the tank and steps out of the car.
“Where are we?” Priti asks me, slipping on her shoes.
“Navi Mumbai,” I say, and jump out of the car.
“Already?”
I almost say, If you’d look away from your phone for a second, you’d know, but I just nod instead.
We wait as Rudra tells the attendant to “???? ????? full ???.”* I stretch my limbs, taking a deep breath. I’ve always loved the smell of petrol. It’s so satisfying.
Priti heads to a nearby tuck shop, leaving Rudra and me alone. Again. It goes from zero to awkward in less than two seconds. And like the idiot I am, I left my phone in the car, so it’s not like I can avoid him, much less contact anyone if I get kidnapped here, like Alia Bhatt in Highway.
Rudra just stands there, hands in his pockets, watching Priti as she buys some gum from the shopkeeper. He has the smallest
smile on his face, and my suspicions about him having feelings for Priti are only further confirmed.
He turns to find me looking at him, the hint of a smile gone. Oops. I need to initiate escape mode, which means only one thing:
say the first thing that comes to my mind.
“So does Priti make you watch K-dramas with her?” I blurt, regretting it a second later. Rudra does not look like the kind
of guy who is itching to have K-drama discourse. Worst conversation starter ever.
“Yeah,” Rudra replies shortly, and then adds, “But she watches anime with me in exchange.”
Wait, seriously? “Any chance you’re into manhwa? One of my favorites got adapted into a K-drama.”
“Tried it. Same with manga. But I’m better with purely visual stuff. I have dyslexia.”
“Oh. Filling out applications must have been tough for you, then. For Juilliard, I mean. The portals aren’t exactly accessible.”
“Yeah, Priti helped me out,” Rudra says, feet fidgeting. Am I making him nervous? Fuck me. “We filled out our applications
together.”
“What applications?”
“For US colleges?”
What.
The.
Actual.
Fuck.
I am so shocked by this piece of information that I go stock-still for a moment, just staring at Rudra. Rudra frowns down at me, noting the change in my body language and expression.
Just when I thought Priti and I could start being cordial to each other . . . I discover she’s been lying to me. This whole
time.
My mind flips through every moment we discussed our post-summer plans, when my cousins would ask me to show them pictures
of Johns Hopkins and I would eagerly tell them how stoked I was for college, and Priti would not say a single word. She said
she had been giving entrances to go to NIFT.
But the whole time, she was applying to American universities?
Rudra’s starting to look suspicious, so I swallow my shock and crack a smile. “Yeah, she said something about that. Which
colleges was she applying to, again?” If Rudra and she were applying together, the chances are at least one college in New
York made her list. I make a quick guess. “I know of FIT.”
The suspicious look on Rudra’s face vanishes. My guess was correct. She did apply to FIT—Fashion Institute of Technology.
New York City is just three hours away from Baltimore.
This is too much to take in, even for me, and I usually have a high tolerance for anything Priti related. Worse, it hurts. It hurts so bad tears spring to my eyes. I’m trying hard not to let them roll out because it would be super embarrassing to
start crying in front of Rudra.
His attention is off me, though, and back on Priti, who’s walking our way. I quickly swipe at my eyes as Priti approaches,
holding out a palm piled with blueberry-flavored Big Babol strips.
“Gum, anyone?”
Rudra takes one. I shake my head stiffly.
I rarely lose my wits, but I want to smash something hard right now.
Only, I have to be smart about this. I can’t tell Priti I know.
Not yet. I’ll just use this piece of information as a trump card instead and fling it at her when she’s least expecting it.
Maybe then I’ll be able to get her to be honest. For once.
The attendant signals that he’s done, and Rudra moves past me to pay him, whispering, “Excuse me.”
I stay quiet, but Priti’s hawk eyes note the sour twist to my features. “Why are you sulking?”
“I saw you,” I grit out.
Priti looks slightly taken aback by the intensity of my tone, but she doesn’t sway. “Saw what?”
“I saw what you were watching. In the car.”
“So?”
Rudra gets back, and that’s a sign we need to leave, but the challenging arch of her eyebrows sends me over the edge, and
I can’t help it. “What do you mean, so? Priti, Srishti and I asked you if you wanted to watch the show with us and you said you weren’t interested. You could’ve just said you didn’t want to spend time with us.”
Rudra looks comically confused at having waltzed right into the middle of our silly fight, but we both ignore him.
“I had work to do,” Priti says, her nostrils flaring. “And that was the only time you asked. Otherwise, you usually don’t bother. You’re always giggling away in the corner, sharing jokes. Completely
ignoring your other cousin—me!”
“Ignoring?” I say, and it comes out in a high-pitched squeak of disbelief. “I try to bond with you every time, for fuck’s sake! Every
summer I’m here. And everyone—not just me—ends up getting snubbed.”
“Hey,” Rudra says, glancing over at the few people in the petrol pump, who are all beginning to look in our direction. “I
think we should leave—”
I step toward Priti. “You know, even though you’ve been so nasty to me this whole summer, I still hoped we might be able to have a decent trip. But you make it impossible.”
“I make it impossible?” Priti takes a counter step, and we’re practically fuming in each other’s faces. “I know what you call
me, you know. Ice Queen. You think I don’t notice you rolling your eyes every time I’m in the room, but I do.”
“If you weren’t so horrible to me, maybe I wouldn’t. Mocking my accent, my Hindi—”
“I wouldn’t do any of that if you didn’t try so fucking hard all the time.”
“Try what?”
“To be Indian.”
“I don’t try to be Indian. I am Indian.”
Priti’s eyes turn dark. “Wearing a saree for prom or posting about your Desi identity for brownie points doesn’t make you
one of us. It just makes you a wannabe.”
I shrink back like I’ve been struck across my face. Those tears teetering at the edge of my eyelids finally slip out and roll
down my cheeks. I’m stunned more than hurt. The headlamps of passing vehicles become muddy puddles of light. I don’t know
why I’m crying. All I know is Priti is standing in front of me, Rudra too, and both are looking at me while I’m crying, and
that is humiliating.
“That’s enough,” Rudra says, suddenly and sharply. He shakes his head at Priti. “Too far, Priti.”
“Why me? She is the one who started making a big deal of nothing.”
“That wasn’t cool,” Rudra says, sounding firmer than I’d ever imagined him being. “Get in the car. Front seat. You’re navigating.”
“No.”
“I didn’t ask you. Don’t forget it’s my car, and I’m driving, and I can drop both of you back in Mulund right now.”
Priti stares at him in disbelief for three whole seconds before turning on her heel and stomping to the car. At first, I think
she’s going to slam the door after she sits inside, but she doesn’t.
Rudra starts walking toward the tuck shop, and after a moment’s hesitation, I follow him, my head swirling with a torrent
of emotions.
I am furious with Priti, but more so with myself for crying in front of the two of them, because the only thing that managed
to do was satiate Priti’s malice. Her words keep echoing in my head no matter how hard I try to drown them out as I look through
all the snacks on the shelves.
Priti pricked a sore point for me. The rational part of me knows she was wrong and just being nasty to hurt me, but it still
stings.
Wearing a saree for prom or posting about your Desi identity for brownie points doesn’t make you one of us. It just makes