Chapter Six
Vasudha Patil
Garware Ladies Hostel
Fergusson College, Pune, India
January 1983
Sureva Bhalekar
St. Mary’s Ladies Hostel
Charni Road, Bombay, India
Dear Suru,
Last night I dreamed that you lost your ring and I woke up so scared because it felt like we had lost each other. It was one of those dreams that feel no different from reality and the sensation in my heart was exactly the same as when we both moved to college, when we were separated from each other for the first time in our lives. I had to remind myself that unlike our rings, our friendship isn’t something that can just slip from us. You were right, living in different cities for a few years can’t be bigger than a friendship that started when we were born.
I do wish I liked living in Pune as much as you like living in Bombay. I’m sitting at my window as I write to you and looking out at the street and Pune feels so ordinary now. Remember how awestruck we were when my appa first visited the city? I think we were five. When he got home, we jumped and jumped until he let us sit on his lap, you and me on each side, and he told us how truly big the big cities were. How the roads were coated with black tar that turned sticky in the afternoon sun and smelled of coal and metal, how lamps hung along the streets on high poles, and how water flowed out of bronze taps at will? All of it sounded to us like stories he was making up.
And yesterday I got a letter from my aie which was filled with nothing but her complaining about how the water in the house had to be shut off for some repairs. She seems to have completely forgotten that there was no running water in our village just ten years ago. Remember when that Tanaji plumber came to lay pipes and installed a tap over the drain in the kitchen and a toilet in the main house and in your quarters? We followed him around and watched him work the entire time.
Remember how scared I was to squat over the new ceramic hole-in-the ground toilet and you couldn’t stop laughing at me? But then you showed me how and I stopped being scared. How quickly we forgot what life was like before water came to us through pipes and electricity through wires. Now my aie acts like the sky is falling on her head when it’s gone for a few hours.
I suppose I’m no different because I just called Pune ordinary.
How big it seemed in Appa’s stories—like a foreign country. Now look at us. I’m here at one of the biggest colleges in the world and you’re in Bombay, where everything about Pune must feel small to you. Is everything in life a matter of scale? Is anything actually large or small?
I dream of visiting you in Bombay some day. I dream of seeing all the friends you write about. Thanks for sending those pictures in your last letter. I love the one from your visit to the Taraporewala Aquarium. The statue of the shark made me laugh. How do you think they got the fish into the tanks? They had to have put them in other tanks and then put those on trucks and driven them to the aquarium then transferred them from tank to tank. Your scientist brain had to have asked that question the moment you entered the aquarium. I’m right, am I not?
You keep asking in your letters why I haven’t made any friends yet. Why do you ask when you know the answer? You know how that goes for me. The girls who sound like us, like village girls, are too scared to talk to me because they’re from where we’re from and they already know how big a man Appa is in our district and they assume I’m a spoilt brat with my nose up in the air. The ones who wear Western dresses and Hindi-movie saris and speak English are embarrassed by the way I speak and dress. Or maybe I’m the one who’s embarrassed. I know that’s what you’d say. You’d purse your lips and furrow your brow and you’d scold me for projecting my feelings on others. You’d tell me to be more bold. So I’ve done it myself, pretended to be you as I scold myself in your voice. I supposed I’m not used to being you for me by myself yet, even after two years apart.
I can see you shake your head at my silliness. But you’re smiling, aren’t you? Making you smile used to be the best part of my day. Now the best part of my day is writing to you and looking at the photos you send me.
I know it isn’t cheap to take photographs and have them processed and I have to be patient until the roll is finished. But I’m including twenty rupees so you can buy more film rolls. Please don’t be angry with me for sending money. I know you have a scholarship and a stipend, but I also know you send everything you can to your aie. Appa and my aie keep sending me things and food and I don’t have anyone here to share it with. I’m sending you one of the two salwar suits Aie had stitched for me. Green looks better on you than me. I look like a giant raw mango in green. And there are rava laadoos. Please don’t share those. Those are just for you. I’ll send more next time and you can give some to your friends. Even to Varsha, who is in all your pictures. Does she like rava laadoos as much as we do? Do you know the things she likes to eat? Don’t frown. I’m happy that you’ve made new friends. I really am. Who can resist you, Suru?
Fine, I’ll stop being cranky now. I’m probably only being this way because of the cold. I dislike Pune in the winter. Why is it so cold here? But don’t worry, I have a woolen blanket that the Home Minister sent Appa from Delhi. Appa says the Pune cold is nothing compared to the Delhi cold. Does Bombay get cold at least in December? Actually, I know you will not tell me because you think I’ll send the blanket to you. And I know what you’re thinking—how will I know if you’re cold if you don’t tell me? You know I always know when you lie (but there’s also the Times of India that I can check for the Bombay weather). Actually why am I asking you? I’m going to put this letter away and go to the library to find out how cold Bombay is.
See, you did what you always try to do: got me to leave the house (or my hostel room in this case). I do try, you know. I try to do the things that would make you proud of me. Like studying (it’s just not as easy for us mere mortals as it is for the brilliant science scholar Sureva Bhalekar), and trying to enjoy it (who other than you enjoys filling their brain with overly complicated information?), and going outdoors (where I’ll only get dark and then Aie will cane me before washing me in milk and baking soda until the tan washes off), and keeping up with my music (but what’s the point? Aie and Appa will kill me if I sing outside the house).
Turns out you were right, my life is a prison. You thought if I studied and let Appa send me to Fergusson College I’d leave the prison behind. But can we ever leave our prisons behind? They built them into us. It’s all they’ve ever done from the day we were born, turn us into our own prison cells. It didn’t work with you. But you know it worked with me. I know you wish it hadn’t. I know you wish I was stronger, cleverer. But at least I made it here. I never would have if I hadn’t believed that you would be here with me. You were supposed to be here with me. I’m not angry that you went to Bombay instead. I’m really not. Like everything else, I just wish it weren’t so.
I wish I were you, Suru. I know you hate to hear me say it, but all I’ve ever wanted was to be you. To hide away in your shadow. Sometimes I think that’s the problem. That I never learned to live as separate from you and I don’t know how to change that. We’re like our rings. They were forged to fit together. Now we’ve separated them and each one just looks and feels odd without the other half. Sometimes I stare at my half and I’m filled with a sense of its incompleteness. Then I think of you wearing your half and everything falls back in place. You do wear yours, don’t you? I know you do. I know it’s not actually lost.
Now, don’t be sad because I said all this. Please. I’m not sad, I promise. This is the happiest of moments because I’m writing to you. If I don’t say these things and remove them from my heart and hand them to you the way I’ve always done, they’ll turn to acid inside me and eat my flesh. So, thank you for letting me.
All right, now I must go to the library and check on the temperature in Bombay.
Yours lovingly,
Your friend,
Vasu