Chapter 9
KABIR
“Kabir!”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, smoothing his expression out before turning to see who was approaching. Yash walked over, his intent gaze seeing more than Kabir wanted him to.
“What are you doing all the way over here?” Yash asked, coming to a stop next to Kabir.
“I was…” Kabir looked around, floundering a bit, before landing on, “Looking at the potatoes.”
Yash glanced at the neat, orderly, rows of tomato plants. “Right,” he murmured, straight faced. “The potatoes.”
After a moment of awkward silence, he said, “So, Kabir, I actually came out to ask you for a favour.”
“Name it.” Kabir turned to face Yash.
“Advik has his heart set on a post graduate robotics program in New York. He applied and got a full scholarship to it.”
“Alright! That’s awesome!” Kabir grinned, his chest puffing up with pride. “My little bro is the shit!”
Yash winced. “Yeah, he’s that alright but also, he’s…” Yash’s voice trailed off before he added, “Shy?”
“He’s quiet,” Kabir corrected. “And intentional. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, he’s the best of us in so many ways.”
Yash nodded, still looking worried. “I wanted to ask if you’d-“
“Mamu come on! Do you even need to ask? He’ll stay with me and I will Big Brother his arse all through college and life in New York.”
Relief flooded Yash’s face. “I bet he’ll be thrilled to live in that man cave of yours. It would beat any dorm room or flat we could find him.”
Kabir smiled. “I would love to have him with me. And I travel so much, he’ll more or less have the place to himself. But if he wants the dorm experience, we can figure that out too.”
“Thanks Kabir.” Yash murmured. “It’s a weight of Maya’s and my mind to know that he’ll have at least one family member there.”
“What do you mean?” Kabir frowned. “Tani’s there, and unlike me, she doesn’t travel like a crazy person, so she can check in on him more often. If I’m not wrong, her new job only starts in January.”
Yash paused. “You don’t know?”
Something dark and heavy settled in Kabir’s gut. “Know what?” he asked, though some part of him guessed what was coming.
“Tani turned the job down. Jay and she are relocating to India.”
Kabir’s head spun. What was New York without Tani in it? He’d known he wouldn’t get to see her too often once she was married but there had always been the hope that he would see her once in a while. “They’re moving back after the wedding?”
“They already have,” Yash replied, blissfully unaware that the bottom had dropped out of Kabir’s world. “Jay wants to live in India, raise children here. They’re not going back, Kabir. They’re back for good.”
“But the job at the investment banking firm on Wall Street,” he said, his voice sounding strangled, “it was her dream job.”
Yash shrugged. “I guess dreams change. I know she’s been talking to Karam and Aakash about setting up her own consultancy firm here.”
Dreams change. Kabir’s gaze was drawn to the farmhouse. Intermittent bursts of laughter and chatter erupted from the building, floating over to them on the quiet morning breeze.
How had her dreams changed so drastically? How had the Tani he’d known, the one who’d worked her butt off at college to graduate on the dean’s list, to land the job she’d wanted since she was a teenager, chucked it all up for a man? Especially that man.
Had her dreams changed or had she? It felt like he stood on the precipice of a dark, swirling vortex, one in which the Tani he’d loved forever was a stranger.
“I don’t get it,” he said quietly, his voice shaky.
“I don’t either, son,” Yash replied. “I really wish falling in love didn’t have to snuff her light out. But it seems that this is what she wants. So, this is what we’ll all support her in getting.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face before adding, “At least the excessive drinking has stopped.”
Kabir gaped at him. “The excessive what?”
Yash winced. “Yeah, um, Tani went through some kind of a phase when she got back. But she’s stopped now.”
“Now?”
Yash frowned, thinking back. “Yeah, around the time you came back actually.”
“So, in the last two days?” The vortex was growing deeper and darker. It was now the sinkhole that led to hell. “She stopped drinking excessively in the last two days?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Yash slapped Kabir on his back and nudged him towards the farmhouse. “Shall we join the rest for breakfast?”
“Mamu.” Kabir took a deep breath and stopped walking, forcing Yash to stop as well. “Do you like Jay?”
Yash took his time thinking that one over. “I barely know Jay to have an informed opinion. But in my brief interactions, he seems polite, articulate, and completely smitten with Tani.” And he added dryly, “There is the very important fact that he is Tani’s choice.”
Tani’s choice. The words tasted like poison on his tongue. This time when Yash started walking, Kabir followed, swallowing the thoughts that festered inside him and clamoured to get out.
“The real question though, Kabir,” Yash mused, as the farmhouse loomed over them, drawing closer. “Is do you like Jay?”
Kabir glanced at his uncle, who was watching him closely. “The truth?” he asked.
“Always,” Yash replied.
“I can’t stand that small dick fucker.”
Yash’s lips twitched. “You have proof of this? The size thing? Should I even ask how you know?”
Kabir rolled his eyes at him, fighting his own grin.
“Well,” Yash said prosaically, pushing the front door open and leading the way into the farmhouse. “You know what they say…it’s not how big it is but how you use it that matters.”
Kabir choked. “That dickhead,” he began but didn’t get much further before a hand smacked him on the back of his head.
“MA!” he complained, rubbing his head. Damn, his mother had a ferocious backhand, probably something she learned in criminal court given she was one of the biggest names in criminal defense attorneys in the country.
“Language!” she snapped back, glaring at him. Then she peered around him and into the crowded dining hall, her eyes bright with interest, and asked, “And who is the dickhead?”
“A small dick dickhead fucker, apparently,” Yash murmured to her, gesturing discreetly towards where Jay and Tani sat, their heads together as they spoke quietly.
“Ahh.” Aayushi looked at Kabir and then back at Tani and Jay. “How small is it?”
“MAAAA!” Kabir groaned. “I’m not having this conversation with you!” He stormed off from there, bypassing the ravenous hordes falling on the breakfast spread out for them.
“You started it,” Aayushi called out, laughter in her voice.
Kabir shook his head and kept going, his glance catching on Tani. She was watching him but the minute their gazes collided, she looked away from him, refocusing on Jay and smiling prettily at him.
And the vortex opened up and swallowed him whole.