Chapter 6
— RITU —
She paused at the mouth of the gully leading down to the beach.
Mumbai, on a regular weekday, was a whirlwind of life around her.
A sudden pang of homesickness hit her. She missed Mumbai.
Standing here, in one of the most beautiful spots of this city, with the most beautiful part of it scintillating in the setting sun, Ritu realised that she would not get more than a few peeps of this.
Her Green Card was in. She was now a US citizen.
And she did not plan to come to Mumbai much.
There was nothing left on this side. Not even periodical visa formalities.
Maya, MM and Gautam were here. Maybe she would compel herself to come back once every year.
But it would always be a week or two of vacation. Not coming back home.
A gust of hard wind made her break out of that thought.
She had been whiling away the good moments, the pretty sunset, thinking about a time when she would not be able to see this sunset.
Ritu shook her head, dislodging the locks of her bangs from the loose ponytail that she had tied while zooming in the open rickshaw.
She tucked the locks behind her ears, not caring about her appearance.
In her trusty, stretchy black leggings and her favourite loose Harvard Boyfriend T-shirt that hung to her thighs, she had borrowed Maya’s rattiest flip-flops.
They were bubblegum pink and not her at all.
But they were about to get sandy, and she did not care.
Ritu pushed her tiny sling bag to the back of her hip and marched on.
The roar of the sea rose, making goosebumps rise on her arms. She had lived in front of the sea ever since she had returned this time.
And yet there was something about the beach.
The salt in the air, the shimmer of the waves, the golden sand winking like it hid troves of treasures.
Ritu ran down the three carved stone steps and felt sand invade her flip-flops and grate against her feet.
Her sole slid out to rub against the chafing gold. Heaven.
She untangled her toes from the footwear and placed her foot in the warm sand.
It sunk. She let her weight fall on that foot and felt Mumbai absorb her into it again.
The scenery welcomed her, the sun looking like the strangest half-round orb diffusing light the colour of those childhood Pepsi Colas that Maya and she would sneak into her house because they came for 50 paise and were apparently made of ‘sewage water.’ Bright, brilliant orange that left their tongues red. But what taste!
A shell pressed into her sole, and she giggled, using her toe to play with it.
“Doctor.”
Her giggle fell off her mouth at the sound of that deep voice.
She raised her face in time for him to round her and block the sun.
His chest was broad, broader than she had perceived it in his fancy dress shirts.
It was now encased in a black workout T-shirt, the material slinky enough to stick to his muscles.
Ritu quickly raised her gaze to his, but not before noticing that he was wearing matching gym shorts that fell loosely to his muscular quads, just before his toned knees and calves ended in a pair of black chunky sneakers.
Since when had she started noticing parts of a man?
His eyes were bored again, squinty. But his mouth was curled.
“You are twenty minutes late,” he held his Apple Watch up.
“You seem to be doing fine without me.” She turned towards Beach No.1, away from the main beach where the evening crowd was getting loud.
“I tried sitting on the sand,” he caught up with her, striding. She slowed down.
“How did that go?”
When he didn’t say anything, she looked at him, and at the face that he made. Ritu couldn't help the snort that bubbled out of her. His face quickly retracted into neutral territory.
“Did you walk barefoot on sand?” She glanced pointedly down at his sneakers.
“Sitting on the sand got me bored. This noise is not helping either. I was about to go back home when I saw you.”
“Hmm,” she pulled her feet out of her flip-flops one by one and even without her asking, his hand came to catch hers. Ritu glanced down at it, and he immediately let go — “For balance. Sorry.”
“Take off your sneakers,” she ordered.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this… maybe I’ll join power yoga or meditation…”
“Just take them off.”
His mouth thinned. Then he reached down, unlaced them, and pushed out of jet black shoes that looked like they belonged in a museum. They looked like diamonds next to Maya’s tattered flip-flops. He got rid of his socks and made a face again as his bare feet set into the sand.
“Come on,” she reached down to hook her fingers into her shoes, making him do the same to his. “Straight to the sea and that sunset.”
“You want to race me?”
“No!” She exclaimed, whipping her face to get rid of the lock of her bangs stuck to her nose. “Walk. Slow and steady. Just walk.”
He huffed.
“Like this, see?” She set one foot in front of the other.
“Like that, huh?” He deadpanned, moving his feet sideways.
It made her chuckle, and when she looked at him, he was smiling.
Ritu turned and began to walk towards the water, the strip of the setting sun lying orange on the bed of the sea in front of them.
A path inviting them into the far distance, where nothing but the horizon awaited.
The low tide had pushed the water back, leaving shells and enamels embedded in the soft, wet sand.
“Can you feel it?” She asked.
“What?” His bored voice came from behind her.
“The tingling?”
“I can feel dirty wetness.”
“Are you a Mumbaikar?”
“Almost.”
“Explain ‘almost?’”
“Something that is short of fully.”
Ritu glared at him over her shoulder.
He huffed — “I came to the city for the first time when I was four. Kept coming regularly. But settled here only after I turned sixteen.”
“And in all this time, you never walked barefoot on sand? Played in it?”
“Did you?”
Ritu searched his face to check if he was being sarcastic. He wasn’t. He was following her footsteps and looking at her curiously. That made her tongue loosen up.
“A lot,” she reminisced, turning back towards the sea.
“On Chowpatty Beach. Maya and me, whenever Maya came to live with us. With friends, it was never the beach, always the building compound. But when Maya came, it was a week-long party. She never lived without turning every day into a party. Plans in the morning, plans in the evening, plans at night, plans at midnight — even if it meant raiding the fridge and eating leftover dhokla. Every evening 4-7 was Chowpatty. Making sand castles, sand cakes, burying each other and making mermaids, wrestling…”
“Wrestling?” His amused bark sounded as he came to walk by her side.
“We look delicate, but are not.” Ritu joked, but his answering smile was not as deprecating as hers. She glanced sideways. Why was he staring at her like he wanted to stare more? She looked away, pointing at the flock of black birds flying across the orange sun in a V.
“Have you painted a water-colour painting like that?”
“Yeah, who hasn’t?”
“You must have been good at painting and arts.”
“Very.”
Ritu gave him a look.
“I was also good at being humble,” he added.
“Past tense,” she pointed.
“Past tense,” he smirked.
They reached the edge of the sea, and she stopped him.
“What? Why are we stopping? No dipping your feet in the water? Or that’s not part of the therapy?”
“No! You wait for the sea to come to you! Stand here. Wait. The waves will touch you when they are supposed to. Not a moment before it.”
“And what would happen if I walked five more steps and touched them on my own?” He banded his hands behind his back, shoes dangling from his fingers.
“You won’t feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“It.”
“What’s it?”
“You’ll know.”
“Doctor, the waves are receding.”
“They will come back. Stand here.”
“My feet are sinking.”
“They will stabilise, let yourself loose.”
“My toes are silty.”
“You’ll clean it later on, play with it.”
Silence. The roar of the sea. The sun setting.
“Deep breath,” Ritu inhaled, feeling him inhale with her.
She released it, and felt his go too. She did not say it again, just took deep, cleansing breaths.
And his breath automatically synced with hers.
She saw it then, the waves flow ashore. She kept breathing deep, eyes ahead, feeling his body still more and more.
Water lapped over her toes, and she knew it was lapping over his too.
Ritu remained still, breathing, feeling the cool water throw itself over her feet and ankles, submerge them into itself. Deep inhales, deep exhales.
The water began to recede, and took with it the silt that had held her feet steady. “Oops.” They began to sink and she caught herself in time, giggling, just as his hand reached out to catch hers.
She stabilised herself, leaving his hand and turning to him. “It?”
His eyes rolled skywards and he turned to the sun that had now fully sunk into the sea, leaving behind the last of its shine in a quickly darkening sky.
“It?” She pushed, sensing how his breaths were slower, deeper, the tautness of his face and neck relaxed.
“Fine.”
“It?” She kept pushing.
“It,” he repeated, just as a new set of waves crashed ashore and over their feet. This time her feet sank again but his hand closed around hers, holding her steady. She held on, letting both of them find their grounds just as the water swirled around them and stalled.
He let out a long exhale. Out, out, out. It felt like that exhale wouldn’t end. The huff that followed that breath was even more immortal.
“How long has life been?” She asked.
“Mmm?”
“How long has life been?” She repeated.
A pause. Then — “41 years.”
“How long has it felt?”
Silence.