twenty-two Begin Again
twenty-two
Begin Again
Kavya
I noticed the first symptom two days ago.
I was staring out of the living room window wallowing in self-pity, when I saw that last night’s rain had caused another pothole right outside our building.
Usually, I’d snap a photo and send it to our complex management with a strongly worded message, but I couldn’t muster the outrage.
Because right in the middle of that puddle was a stray dog, lounging.
Chest-deep in rain water with its eyes half-closed, the dog was soaking up the afternoon sun like it was at a mud spa in Turkey.
It filled me with so much warmth that I almost forgot about all the ways my life had managed to fall apart in the past few days.
Then later in the evening, when the neighbourhood bhel vendor was making his rounds on his bicycle, I called out from my window and asked him to send two plates up to my flat. I ate them both, without remembering to crib about how the flavour profile was too sweet for my north Indian palate.
And then, this morning, on the phone with my mom, I told her that the reason I hadn’t been going to work the last few days was because I’d been feeling under the weather since I got back to Bombay—Bombay, not Mumbai.
A tiny, linguistic slip that confirmed the diagnosis: I had developed early-stage Bombay romanticism.
I hated admitting it, even to myself, but the shift had probably started that night when Neil had taken me on his city tour.
You’d think that if he had anything to do with this change, then after everything that had happened between us, I would’ve started despising the city even more simply by association.
But somehow, even with the mess he’d left me to untangle, Bombay’s charm had persisted.
Which is a shame, really, because I’m fairly certain my life here was over.
Any day now, I’d get fired and would have to pack my bags for Mussoorie. And Neil …
I pulled at the hem of the T-shirt I’d been living in for the last three days and cut the thought off before it could sting.
My brain was a 1BHK and there was no room for him anymore.
I’m not going to lie, I hadn’t been quite as evolved on the day that Swati and Varun had sat me down.
For a good hour, I’d let myself entertain the idea of exposing his secret the way he’d exposed mine.
That’s when I’d noticed that he had deactivated the @devilwearscolaba account on Instagram, probably out of fear.
It should’ve been satisfying, knowing that I had the power to mess up his life.
But all it did was leave me feeling tired.
Tired of thinking about him and replaying conversations, and of trying to figure out if anything between us had ever been real.
So I took a deep breath and decided to let it go.
He didn’t deserve my anger, let alone my retaliation.
But the annoying thing about taking the high road is that it’s incredibly boring up there.
Since I’d taken the week off work (‘sick leave’, for official purposes) and had decided not to launch Operation Take Down Neil, I had no clue what to do with myself.
I’d watched more movies on Netflix in the last three days than I had in the entire year.
I’d cleaned my wardrobe twice over, overwatered all the plants in the house to the brink of murder and had initiated many (one-sided) heart-to-hearts with the homesick pigeon in my balcony.
The days dragged on, slow and uneventful.
Today was no different, except for a message Nikita had sent me this afternoon.
Nikita: You home? I have news and I want to tell you in person!!!
So for the last hour, I’d been sleepwalking through our flat like a zombie, waiting to hear the jingle of her keys. And somehow, when she did come bursting through the doors, I was still wildly unprepared for the phenomenon that was my flatmate.
‘Kavuuuu.’ A human tornado collided with my body.
I glanced down at my legs, shocked that they were still standing after the force with which Nikita had thrown herself at me.
Her head was buried in my shoulder, and arms and legs were wrapped around my body.
Despite the fact that she was at least four inches taller than me and my lower back was already screaming, I didn’t dare peel her off.
Because her whole body was trembling with uncontrollable sobs.
‘Nikita?’ I held her a little tighter, heart pounding. ‘Hey, hey, what happened? Are you hurt? What’s going on?’
She tried speaking, but it came out as a weird croak.
‘Oh my God,’ I whispered, panic rising. ‘Who … what … please just tell me you’re okay.’
‘I—’ she hiccuped into my shoulder. ‘I got it.’
I blinked, and guiding her to a floor rug, got her to settle down so I could look at her face. ‘Got what?’
‘The role.’ When she lifted her head, mascara was streaming down her cheeks. ‘Kavya, I got the role.’
My whole body sagged with relief. ‘Oh my God. I thought someone had died!’ And then, as her words echoed in my brain, I finally caught up. ‘Holy shit. You got the role?’
She nodded and let out another choked sob.
It was my turn to hurl my body at her. We rolled around on the living room floor, laughing and screaming like two delirious fools at a rave.
Later, once we’d gained control over our flailing limbs, we sat cross-legged on the floor with our backs to the sofa, hair messy and cheeks flushed.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ I said, staring at her with a twinkle in my eye. ‘You’re going to be in a movie. A blockbuster Bollywood movie.’
Nikita sniffled, wiping her face with the back of her hand. ‘Well … a Netflix movie.’
‘That’s so much cooler. Online is where it’s at.’
‘I can’t believe it. I genuinely can’t.’
‘I can,’ I said, nudging her knee with mine. ‘You’re insanely talented, Nikita. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I can’t wait to tell everyone back at home that I used to live with a movie star.’
Nikita waved a hand at me, making a show of blushing, then narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Wait, what do you mean “used to”?’
I swallowed. ‘I mean … with the way things are going at work, I’m probably about to be fired. And without this job, I can’t afford to stay here. So …’ I trailed off, dropping my gaze to the hands curled in my lap.
‘Kavya.’ She shifted closer, her voice softening into a whisper. ‘First of all, I don’t think they’re going to fire you.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a finger. ‘Second,’ she continued firmly. ‘Even if—and I mean if—they do make the mistake of letting you go, you do realize that you can easily get another job, right? You’re brilliant at what you do. Look at this amazing shoot you’ve pulled off …’
I could hear what she was saying, but a louder, more persuasive voice in my head was drowning her out.
She’s your friend, of course she’ll say that.
But the truth is, you’ve ruined your reputation at work, self-destructed your dumb heart and single-handedly set fire to the life you were just starting to build.
There’s nothing left for you here now, genius.
I felt a stinging behind my eyes, a warning sign that I was seconds away from collapsing on the floor in a pool of my own tears.
‘Hey.’ Nikita lifted my chin so I’d meet her eye. ‘Stop spiralling.’
‘I’m not,’ I mumbled. How does she know me so well?
‘And as for the other reason you want to run off …’ She gave me a look that made me want to cover my face with both hands. ‘He’s not worth it, babe. No one is.’
I closed my eyes, pushing the tears back down. ‘You’re right.’
She waited patiently for my breathing to slow down. ‘Kavu, this city hasn’t given up on you. Whether you see it or not, Mumbai wants you here. You belong here more than you think.’ She tilted her head and looked at me for a few seconds. ‘So the real question is … what do you want?’
I stared at her for a long moment, letting her question travel past my eardrums and land deep inside my chest. What do I want?
The question was simple enough, but the answer was not quite as straightforward.
For too long, this city had left me feeling utterly powerless.
But somewhere along the way, it had also toughened me up.
It had pushed me, dragged me and kicked me around, but it had also shaped me.
If I’d met this version of myself back in Mussoorie, I wouldn’t have recognized her.
Hell, I would’ve probably been jealous of her. That wasn’t nothing.
A soft patter of rain tapped against the balcony glass, interrupting my thoughts.
Within a second, it had picked up speed and was roaring outside.
Nikita and I turned to watch as sheets of rain began sweeping down, blurring everything in view.
I shook my head as a soft laugh bubbled out of me.
Is this it? The moment in every Bollywood movie where the heroine falls in love with Bombay?
I got up without thinking and yanked Nikita to her feet. She yelped as I pulled her towards the door.
‘Come on,’ I said, already stepping into my slippers. ‘I know what I want.’
We skipped the elevator, ran down the stairs and kept running until we were standing outside the building, directly under the downpour.
We were completely drenched within seconds, but we stayed where we were, hair plastered to our faces and feet splashing through puddles.
Nikita shrieked and I started laughing as the wild rain washed over us.
I tilted my face up and spread my arms out, opening my heart to the sky. To Bombay.
Afterwards, once I’d showered and changed into a fresh set of PJs, I began feeling like the fog that had been clouding my mind for the last few days had finally lifted. I knew what I needed to do. So I grabbed my phone before the feeling could wear off.
The first message I wrote out was for someone who deserved the whole truth. And a chance at a future that had more in store than my emotional leftovers.