Chapter 32 #2
“That’s not right either. There’s a whole spectrum—”
“Maybe save the Kinsey Scale explanation for another day,” Simran whispers.
“Actually, people use the Klein Grid …” Kavitha stops herself at the look on Simran’s face. “Got it. Not the time.”
Veena perima looks right at Kavitha. “Are you still going to be a lawyer?”
“Yes, of course, why would that change?”
“And you still want to get married?”
“Yes, but—”
“And have children?”
“Yes.” Kavitha blinks several times and begins to loosen her hold on Simran’s hand incrementally. “I still want all of that.” She glances at Simran, who can only stare back at her. “Amma, you’re okay with this?”
Veena perima takes a small pile of the mail and dumps it in the recycling bin before moving to the stove to pour herself another cup of chai.
“Aiyo, I wish you girls would give me some time between these things. Yesterday I find out Geeta is pregnant. Now you are telling me you are gay. What’s next? Simi, you have something for me?”
Simran freezes. Before she can jump in with her own confession, Veena perima barrels on.
“What am I going to do? Am I going to stop loving you? Stop talking to you? Nonsense. Your father is safe and sound now, your sister got married yesterday, and soon there’ll be a grandchild, a kuti paapa.
These are blessed times for us. Tschh. Life is life, you do what you can, you keep your family well, and you accept the rest.”
“You heard it here first, folks: Life is life,” Kavitha jokes, but her grin is true in a way that Simran doesn’t think she’s ever seen before.
“Tomorrow, we’ll start the marriage search,” Veena perima says, almost talking to herself as she drains her tea. “I’m sure there are very nice girls who are Tamil, have a good job, live nearby, and are gay. Anyway, I’m going to sleep now, it’s been a long week.”
She walks out of the kitchen. As she passes Kavitha, Veena perima cups her cheek and pulls her face down to kiss her forehead before continuing on her way.
Once she’s gone, Kavitha pivots on her heel to face Simran, mouth open in joyous surprise.
“Did that just happen? Did I just come out to my mother and she was fine with it? Am I in an alternate universe?”
Simran has no answer. This is no alternate universe; they are in a brand-new world.
“Do we have any champagne left from the wedding? I feel like this warrants a toast. I want to clink something,” Kavitha says, rooting around the refrigerator.
She emerges with two glass bottles of Thums Up, an Indian Coca-Cola knockoff that tastes better than the real thing.
She grabs the bottle opener and the metal caps come off with a tinkle and a hiss.
“To …” Kavitha’s smile is as fizzy as their drinks. “To me.”
“To you,” Simran agrees. The heavy glass bottles make a clunking sound as they cheers. “How should we celebrate?”
“I’m too tired to do anything that requires standing upright.” But she doesn’t look tired. It’s as if Kavitha had been on a screen dimmed to fifty percent. Now she is at full brightness and what a difference it makes. “Let’s do what we always do, Pinky.”
“Try to take over the world?” Simran asks.
“Nah. Watch DDLJ.”
They settle in the living room and Rishi and Geeta join them.
Simran hasn’t watched a movie with her youngest cousin in decades and she quickly realizes she may never do it again.
Geeta talks through the whole thing with Rishi.
They are continuously shushed by Kavitha and both blithely ignore her.
A little more than halfway through, after a comment by Rishi, Geeta gasps and threatens to annul their marriage.
“I’m just saying,” Rishi tells her.
“Stop saying! Stop speaking at all!” Geeta shrieks.
Rishi wilts under the three burning glares aimed at him. “It’s not that DDLJ isn’t great! I’ve watched it twice in two weeks!” he says. And then adds, “But as far as rom-com-fam-drams go, I think I like Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani or even Dil Dhadakne Do more.”
Kavitha runs to the TV and spreads her arms wide to put a hand on either side of the flat screen where the movie is still playing. “Shhhh! It’ll hear you!”
“Isn’t it a little problematic and patriarchal?” Rishi insists. “It was made in the nineties!” Simran replies.
“It has flaws, but you love it anyway,” Kavitha says slowly, like she’s explaining this to a very small child.
Rishi shrugs. “Meh.”
“Meh?” Geeta repeats, incredulous. She looks around the room and says, “My baby has no father.”
“Man, I need Leo here. He’d have my back,” Rishi grumbles.
A hush comes over the group as they all look at Simran. She feels it deeply—how incomplete this is without him. How incomplete everything will always be without him. She knows she needs to talk to him.
But there’s a promise she has to keep first.
So instead, she turns back to the movie, and it occurs to her that the one thing Shah Rukh’s and Kajol’s characters never do—no matter how overbearing her father is in the movie, no matter how many obstacles get thrown in their way, no matter how much others tell them to—is leave.