Chapter 19
Sometimes a Girlie Just Wants Someone to Profess Their Love for Her the Way SRK Did in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Prabalmachi, Sunday
We reach the campsite after what feels like a decade. It’s a bunch of connected one-story buildings laid out over the rocky,
uneven landscape. There’s a bathroom that’s so dirty I don’t dare use it, a kitchen, a few bedrooms, and multiple tables and
chairs arranged along the breadth of the main building.
All of it looks like it might’ve been part of a village school complex, with open corridors and thatched roofs. There are
a few men here who come to help us the moment we arrive, probably Prabalmachi locals, handing us parcels of food. In each
parcel, there’s one samosa, two theplas, kaccha mango pickle, a Britannia cake, a Frooti, and a packet of chips.
“The tents are set up out back,” Jalaj says. “There’s a water cooler to your right. Take a ten-minute break—eat, drink, freshen
up—and we’ll assign you your tents.”
We sit in a row on the raised floor of the main building, a step higher than the ground.
After borrowing a first aid kit from the helpers and bandaging my wound, I set my food on my lap and scarf it down, only now realizing how hungry I am.
Rudra gets up to go fill his bottle and offers to fill mine and Priti’s.
I smile gratefully at him, unclipping my bottle and handing it to him.
After I’m done eating, I dump the parcel into the garbage bin and walk over to the wooden railing looking out over the valley.
The view from here is breathtaking.
The stars are bright, and it’s like a few of them broke off from the sky and decorated the town, lighting it up from within.
Because of the hilly topography, there are points where there’s no illumination, only the darkness of forests and shadows
of mountains, while at others, there are clumps of civilization.
It reminds me of the scene from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi when Shah Rukh Khan spelled out the words I love you for Anushka Sharma using the lights of the city of Amritsar. The first time I watched the movie, with my laptop on my lap
and a tub of popcorn in my hand, I was filled with longing to have someone love me that much one day.
God save me. Bollywood has shaped the hopeless romantic in me, and no amount of indoctrination or hypnosis will ever be able
to change that. Not that I want it to, but I wish it didn’t unnecessarily raise my expectations for romance and make me do
impulsive things like go on a whole road trip for one kiss.
“Hey.”
I break out of my flurry of thoughts, turning to look back at Rudra, who walks over. He comes to stand beside me, leaning
his arms on the railing. His hair is down again, which is how I like it most, one side hooked behind his ear while the other
flows in swelling waves.
“Hi,” I say, realizing I’m not as surprised he joined me as I once would have been.
We’ve been having all these moments together, but he probably doesn’t see them the same way I do.
For him, they’re just moments, not moments.
Because he’s head over heels in love with Priti and I’m, well, a stranger to him.
But does that even matter anymore? When both of us know Priti’s been wanting to get back together with her ex this whole time?
Or is Rudra still an option to her, in her head? A backup, if she gets her heart broken?
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he says, turning his body toward mine, making me aware of how close he’s standing.
My heartbeat snags for a second as a million possibilities of what I might’ve said to him whirl around in my head.
“About how it’s been a while since Priti genuinely looked happy,” he says, a pained emotion flitting across his face.
“It’s true,” I say, glancing over at Priti, who is playing with a few stray dogs by the water cooler. “It sounds like her
breakup with Soumyaroop really shattered her.”
Rudra gazes in Priti’s direction, his eyes conveying his conflicting emotions, his inner battle with ethics.
“That’s why I think we should do it,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Reunite Priti with her ex.”
I stare at him, letting the words sink in. He looks at me again, his eyes latching onto mine with such ardor I nearly lower
my gaze. “You mean—you want to actually stop the wedding? Like, sabotage it? End it?”
“Yes, Krishna,” Rudra says, his lips curving upward. “Stopping, sabotaging, ending. All of it. We need to make sure her ex
doesn’t go through with the wedding, or at least delay it until Priti has had a chance to confess her feelings.”
My body quivers with excitement and terror at the prospect of doing such an outrageous thing.
I’ve never intentionally screwed up a major event for someone before (emphasis on the word intentionally, because I might’ve accidentally done it, like that one time I knocked over a drinks table during someone’s wedding reception).
“You’d do that?” I ask.
“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I? It’s for Priti.”
“Because you’re, like . . .” In love with her. “Because I didn’t think you were the sort of person to ruin someone’s wedding.”
Rudra bursts into laughter. I watch him, amazed and mesmerized at once, because this is the first time he’s laughed in front of me, with his full chest, eyes sparkling. A smile breaks out on my own face because his laughter is so infectious.
It makes me want to find every chance to make him laugh like that, again and again, until I’m sick of it.
In that moment, I fall for him twofold—no, tenfold—in a manner there’s no coming back from. And it’s not just because he’s so freakin’ cute, those dots in his chin popping
in and out of view, eyes crinkled and lashes sticking out, hair escaping the trap of the curve of his ear. It’s also because
I’m awestruck by how he’s able to set aside his own feelings and think about Priti’s happiness instead of his own. I don’t
think I’d ever be able to do something like that—get over that crass bite of jealousy and think about what the other person
wants.
Krishna Kumar, you’re fucking screwed.
“Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he says, smiling down at me. “Not everyone’s as chaotic as you.”
A blush creeps up my neck and pours into my cheeks. “Well, you’ll learn. I’ll teach you.”
“I’d love that,” Rudra says, running his fingers through his hair. “We should go—it looks like they’re leaving.”
The campsite is a half-minute walk from the compound where we ate, tents arranged on a grassy patch of land overlooking the gorgeous view.
When we get there, Jalaj asks us to split up into pairs because the tents are twin sharing.
I turn to Charu expectantly, ready to crawl into a tent and get the sleep I’ve been lacking.
But then the most bizarre thing happens.
Priti turns to me—me!—and says, “We’ll share.”
I gawk at her. But I’m not the only one. Everyone—Digha, Charu, Varun, Jalaj, and Rudra—looks even more surprised than I feel
at her sudden declaration.
But I should have been anticipating this, what with all the looks Priti’s been giving Rudra and me this whole time. I’m more surprised she hasn’t confronted me already.
Okay, she did, in Pune, when Rudra flirted with me right in front of her, but I denied her assumptions. A lot has gone down
since then.
Guess I’m not getting that sleep tonight after all.
When I merely nod, the others quickly recover and pair up. The tents are small, just enough to fit two people, with a Solapur
blanket laid out at the bottom and lending warmth to the space. I’m a bundle of nerves when Priti and I crawl into the tent,
because she looks deadly calm.
The moment we’re inside, though, she doesn’t waste a breath.
“Okay,” she says, folding her arms over her chest. Her features are hard, set in stone. “What the actual fuck?”
I avoid her gaze, taking off my fanny pack and placing it at the edge of the tent because I need something to do. “What?” I try my best to keep my expression blank, but I know it’s probably in vain.
“Look,” Priti says, her voice low but lacking any anger, which is surprising. Instead, she just sounds exhausted. “I don’t
know what’s going on between Rudra and you, but I’m not stupid.”
“I know that.”
“Which means you also know that all your whispering and secret conversations haven’t gone unnoticed.”
I know that too. But a wishful part of me hoped Priti either wouldn’t care or would ignore it. Now that part of me just feels
silly, having wished for the impossible.
“Did you hear us?” The question is out before I can stop it, and I regret letting it slip like that. Even if Priti’s right
about her suspicions of whatever’s been brewing between Rudra and me, she can’t know of our plans. She’ll lose her shit if she finds out we’re trying to help her. She doesn’t appreciate unsolicited help,
ever. I would know better than anyone.
Four years ago, during one of my summer vacations in India, I finished her eighth-grade holiday homework for her when she
fell asleep at the table the night before her submission. I’d been an idiot to hope she’d wake up all teary and happy to find
her work complete, like the shoemaker from the story about the elves that magically finished his work overnight, and that
she’d finally stop being mean to me.
Instead, she started panicking, even though I’d tried my best to emulate Priti’s handwriting and had used the same color pens
she had. When she found out I’d done it, she started yelling at me so loud there were tears pouring down my cheeks by the
time she finished.
That was the day I learned my lesson—don’t help Priti. Not unless she asks you for help personally. Which she never will. That’s why what Rudra and I are doing isn’t just risky
because it involves a very messy plan to secretly help her sabotage a wedding involving two individuals we don’t even know—it’s
also because we’re doing it for Priti, who hates to be at anyone’s mercy or owe anyone anything. Including her best friend.
“No, I didn’t hear you,” Priti says, scoffing. “I don’t pry, although I did wonder for the longest moment what on earth you two might have in common to talk about. And when you both started getting all lovey-dovey with each other, it genuinely made me want to throw up inside my mouth.”
The pent-up anger and frustration from all the years of being snubbed and taunted and talked down to by Priti well up inside
me like a volcano minutes from erupting.
“Why, Priti?” I seethe. “Why is the idea of us together so bad?”
“Together?” Priti’s face tightens. “Together?” Her voice is high-pitched, cracking. “How long has this been going on?”
“Just since the road trip started, for god’s sake! Not long.”
Priti looks almost . . . heartbroken. “Then how the fuck are you two together already?”
“We aren’t! I didn’t mean together together. We’ve just been, I don’t know, flirting! I don’t even feel that way about Rudra.” The last part comes out in a
stream, but it’s a total lie. I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to think about that right now.
Priti leans toward me, her voice dropping to a whisper and a scowl spreading over her face. “Oh, so you’re just messing around
with him, then? Like the way you messed with Amrit before getting bored of him?”
I erupt.
All the rage inside me just bursts out like the lid popping right off a pressure cooker. “How dare you!”
“How dare I? How dare you! You’ve been crushing on that Acharya dude all summer, and now suddenly I find out that you’re using Rudra? This is out of
nowhere!” Her voice breaks unnaturally. “You stay the fuck away from him, Krishna. Or else I’ll—”
“Or else you’ll what?” I get to my knees and jab her in the shoulder. “Or else you’ll what? Try to get with him yourself, the way you’ve been wanting to all these years?”
How can she be so possessive, so jealous, so judgmental, when she’s doing something so much worse than I am? She’s ready to ruin someone’s wedding because she is still in love with
her ex, but it’s never been clearer that some part of her loves Rudra.
Priti blinks. “What?”
“Admit you’re in love with each other, already!” I say, chest heaving. “And keep me out of it!”
I can’t help the dreadful thought I had yesterday in the restaurant creeping back in. About Rudra doing all this just to get
a reaction out of Priti. Because if this was all part of his master plan, it’s working. A hundred thoughts sprint through my mind, sending me into a tizzy.
It seems too unreal for him to have caught the same kind of feelings for me that I’ve caught for him in this short span of
time, especially when he’s been pining after Priti for years.
No.
It doesn’t seem believable.
And perhaps all that sincerity I saw in him is just a facade. Priti is right. All of this is so out of pocket, so out of nowhere.
Guys like Rudra don’t fall for girls like me. And when guys like Amrit do, I drop them.
I am so stunned by my own jarring thoughts I can’t speak, can’t move. I feel embarrassed, more than anything, because I should’ve
known this was coming. Admittedly, finding out that Priti was still in love with her ex made me think I might have a chance
with Rudra, when I should’ve trusted my gut all along and not let his flirting get to me. A guy says a few nice things to
me and I tumble ass over kettle for him.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” I cry, frustrated, when Priti just keeps staring at me.
“You’re such an idiot” is all she says.
“I am,” I say, sick of how malleable and easily puppeteered I am. “I’m stupid because I knew you guys liked each other this whole while, and yet—”
“Krishna, can you shut up for a moment?”
I’m surprised to find my mouth clamping shut.
Priti rubs a hand over her face, then turns her gaze to the top of the tent. “I can’t believe this is how I’m going to come out to you.”
I stare at her. “What?”
Priti exhales heavily. “I am not in love with Rudra. And neither is he with me. Because I’m into girls, you idiot. I’m a lesbian.”