15. Sona
SONA
I t had been years, and Ajay was no longer a memory, only a putrid taste still lingering in my mouth. I barely remembered the exact sequence of events, but I distinctly recalled how it felt. The churning in my stomach, the dipping of my heart, the metallic taste in my mouth, the pounding in my head as he declared I wasn’t worthy of him. All because his mother had determined so.
I’d been only months away from defending my doctoral dissertation, and Ajay had been courting competitive offers from two companies. We’d been like any other young couple at that age. We’d fought, loved, laughed, bickered over who’d take care of cooking, cleaning, and doing the dishes. Over the fifteen months we’d known each other, he’d never once given an indication that he’d drop me in a flash if his family didn’t approve.
That morning had promised to bring me a lifetime of happiness, but instead, two nights later, I’d been sleeping on my friend Payal’s couch.
While having coffee on a lazy Saturday morning, he declared his intention to introduce me to his family and get the ball rolling on our wedding. That evening, early Sunday morning in India, we placed a video call to his parents. They seemed amicable and asked me questions, none too offensive, but they had taken one look at me and decided I wasn’t the right woman for their son. They confided in him later that night while I slept my na?ve sleep of innocence. Ajay didn’t share this with me immediately, but after two days of distant and angry behavior, I forced him to come clean.
He said with absolutely no guilt, “My mother doesn’t think this is a good match for me.”
“Why does she have a say in this? We’ve been good together, haven’t we? Shouldn’t this be about us?”
“But she’s my mother. I can’t do this to her.”
“Is it because my father is a Christian?” I frowned. “You knew that when you asked me out. It’s in my name, Sona Thomas .”
“Of course not! My parents are not narrow-minded bigots, for heaven’s sake,” he cried.
“Then what’s their problem?”
After I had repeated the question three times, he blurted, “My mother thinks you’re a bit dark.”
“ Excuse me? ” I screamed.
“Dark skinned,” he elaborated in a low voice.
“You and your entire family have the exact same skin tone as me!” I exclaimed.
That rattled him. He frowned. “It’s not about that. You have to understand their point of view.”
“And what would that be?” I crossed my arms across my chest. I knew what this was about. It was about the notion of an ideal daughter-in-law and the different shapes it took in people’s imagination.
He expressed as much in the next sentence. “Look, it’s not just about us, alright? It’s about my parents and their hopes for me. They do have a say in my life.”
“Are you seriously defending them? Defending their ideas of colorism? Men like you have no business being in a relationship, Ajay,” I yelled, “if you are going to upend it to appease the messed-up ideas of your parents.”
That’s when he started it. He unfurled his scroll of litanies against me. In addition to my color, there were several other things lacking, apparently. I wasn’t as thin as he would have wanted, I couldn’t cook, and I expected equal distribution of household labor. It didn’t matter that I was a kind person and a loyal friend. It didn’t matter that I’d had his back every single time.
After that, I didn’t even have to think about it. I grabbed an overnight bag and crashed at Payal’s apartment. She had just started seeing Jaya, and they both supported me unconditionally. I was sure I’d messed up their sex life for a while, but I was out of their hair in two weeks. I found an apartment and scared up some low-cost furniture for the final months until my Ph.D. defense. With Payal and Jaya in tow, I went to my former home and packed my belongings in under two hours while Ajay was at his lab.
That evening, I’d received a text from him. It hadn’t been one of apology or regret about how things had ended. Instead, he had asked for my share of the rent for two months until he could find another roommate. This from a man who would have begun accruing a handsome six-figure salary in a few months. A man whose student stipend had been twice as much as mine because he’d been in the engineering department, working on a project funded by a giant tech company. My stipend, by contrast, had been based on a nine-month teaching and research appointment in the social sciences.
There is a word in Marathi that my mother often used: daanat. It’s a small word that encompasses a multitude of meanings. It indicates generosity, moral character, munificence, goodness, virtuousness, or kindness. In essence, it signifies the intent and the will to do the right thing. Ajay knew he had insulted and hurt me, but instead of apologizing for it or even displaying a semblance of empathy, he had chosen to reduce our relationship to a contract.
I had instantly realized I had lucked out. I had been in a relationship with a man who had no conviction for his beliefs, no backbone, and a highly suspect daanat. I had asked my parents for money—the first time in my grad school career—and sent him my share of the rent. Not for two months like he had asked, but for the remainder of our lease.
And that was it. I’d never again spoken to him or about him until I met Tara. One lazy evening, after she shared her story of having been jilted by Sameer in college, I shared the tale of my shame.
I had long concluded that men were assholes, especially Indian men. So steeped in their family, culture, and prejudices, they could never do right by any woman. That was the reason I was happy when Tara started seeing her then-boyfriend, Sujit. Sujit was an anomaly—soft-spoken, humble, kind, and, not that it mattered, but a literal billionaire.
But even after she’d let down Sujit to be with Sameer, Tara had still ended up with a pot of gold. Not only did she get the man she really loved, but she had also found a nice, supportive family to cheer her on. The thing I had assumed didn’t exist was staring right in my face. Taunting me. Tempting me.
I had convinced myself I didn’t want any of that, and for a while, I hadn’t. I was still working non-stop toward my tenure, and until a year ago, I’d had Ben, who had been my saving grace when I’d needed sex. I’d met him through a friend at a time when both of us were on the rebound. We’d hooked up and made a pact to call each other before we went looking for one-night stands. We’d met up once every few weeks, both task-oriented, and enjoyed the task a lot when we were in it. Outside the hook-ups, we’d been friends. Not someone we hung out with regularly, but someone we’d hug if we ran into them on the street. A perfect arrangement.
One evening after we’d finished, he sat naked on my bed, sipping the chai I’d made to prove to him that chai tea was neither chai nor tea. It was an abomination. In his naked state, he had no choice but to agree.
“So, what caused the breakup?” he asked for the first time since we started doing our thing. I saw no reason to hide, so I told him.
He sat speechless, the teacup frozen in his hand. “That’s…so bizarre!”
“Do you suppose it’s an Indian thing?” I asked.
“Probably not. Assholes exist in all ethnicities.”
“Would you categorize yourself as one?”
He smiled, placed the cup on the side table, and jumped off the bed. “No, but some of my exes would.”
“So most of us are assholes until we meet the right person?”
“No, but some are objectively so,” he said, pulling up his jeans.
“Ajay?”
“Objectively an asshole, and as a scientist, I don’t need to prove it. It’s axiomatic.”
I had slept like a baby that night and every night after…until I met Mihir. Last year, Ben had met his ideal partner, and our arrangement had reached its predicted, happy end.
Only now, this thing with Mihir was promising to ruin me. The unapologetic lust in his eyes, his thoughtful behavior and authentic care toward me, not to mention a mother who seemed to dote on me, had me rethinking my own desires. Sometimes, I did long for a man worth fussing over, a family who would love me and have my back, like my own. But Mihir was bound to end it eventually, and by then, I would be in too deep to walk away unbroken.
That’s the reason I was running away like a scared chicken.
The cab dropped me off at the departure level. I opened the airline's app to access my gate pass, and when I looked up, there he was.
Propped up against the wall where the security check-in line started, Mihir stood with feet crossed at the ankles, his massive arms across a broad, angry chest.
“Really? This is how you choose to leave?” He held up the note I had left for him. “That was very mature.”
I frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t care that you slipped out of my house and took a cab to get here. But I promised Tara I’d see you to the airport, and I am a man of my word. You should know that about me.”
“Are you done fuming? I left you the note.”
“You want me to thank you for it?”
“Ugh.” I heaved my tote down onto my roller bag. “Alright, I’m sorry I snuck out without telling you. How did you get here before me?”
“I drove fast.” He uncrossed his limbs and ambled toward me. “Do you want to talk about it like an adult?”
I frowned and fumed like a dragon.
“Yeah?” he challenged. “I dare you to contradict that.”
I sighed, silently accepting the immaturity of my behavior.
“Well?” he demanded with an impatient nod of his head.
“We shouldn’t have done it, Mihir. It was a mistake. I should’ve known better— we should’ve known better.”
To my surprise, he took no offense at my words. “What’s got you spooked?”
I merely shook my head in response.
“You don’t need to run away like this. All you need is to tell me we are through. That’s it. Are we through?”
I had no idea how to answer that. And I was beginning to hate his knack of rendering me speechless, powerless, and guileless like this. I frowned once more.
“You told me you aren’t looking for serious, and I respect it. I wanted to see you again because you are fun, and I find you genuinely intelligent. You seem to know a lot about everything under the sun, and I enjoy that.”
“I know nothing about corporate turnarounds and restructuring,” I said matter-of-factly, but it brought a bright smile to his face.
He stepped closer. “You’re unique, you know that?”
“Is that a polite way of saying I’m weird?” I drew my eyes up to his with another genuinely honest question.
He placed a single tap on my head. “No. It’s my way of saying I like you. Now, stop looking at me with those big, curious eyes and batting those long lashes, or I’ll kiss you right here.”
When I gasped in response, his voice turned tender. “Look, I know there is a reason you’re running away from me. I’m not going to push you to tell me about it, nor am I going to push myself into your life. But if you ever want to share, I’ll be here. As a friend, if you need me to be one. And this has nothing to do with the hot sex we had.”
“Shhh, lower your voice,” I whispered. “I don’t want every single person at this terminal in on the fact that we had sex.”
“ Hot sex,” he corrected with a smug grin and pulled out his phone from his jeans pocket. “Also, I don’t have your number.”
I rattled off my cell number as his surprisingly nimble fingers entered the digits into his phone.
“I have to go,” I said, looking at the time. “The check-in line’s getting longer.”
“This is DFW. You’ll be inside in no time.”
He was right. I was at my gate in ten minutes. As I looked around, a strange thought hit me. Mihir was like the DFW airport: big, clean, and organized, with no major messes or delays, everything rather simplified. I, on the other hand, was more like LaGuardia. Try as I might, I couldn’t address the clutter, the crowd, and the delays.