CHAPTER 3
ARYAN
I walk in like I own the place—which, to be fair, I sort of do—and immediately regret nothing except the fact that I brought nothing edible.
The living room is chaos in motion: Vedant stretched out like a disgruntled cat on the couch, remote in hand, eyes narrowed at the television; Radhika perched on the armrest, knees up, shouting at the screen; and the packet of chips on the coffee table is already getting dangerously low.
The game is on full blast—India versus Australia—and somewhere between Virat’s steady hand and the Aussies’ arrogance, the three of us have reverted to thirteen-year-olds with a single mission: consume snacks and snipe at everything.
“Pass the chips,” Vedant demands without looking away.
“No,” Radhika chides, shielded behind her knees like a fortress. “You literally ate half the packet, Ved. You have sticky fingers.”
“Your fingers were sticky last week and you still ate my samosa,” Vedant shoots back. He flicks a chip with a languid finger and it arcs toward Radhika, who bats it away with a shriek. I laugh, because living with them is a sitcom with better ad reads.
“Are we five?” I sigh, dropping my bag by the door, slipping my keys into the bowl on the side table like it’s a ritual. “Pass the chips or pass me the remote. I have opinions on field placements and you all need me right now.”
Radhika widens her eyes at me and does that exasperated little groan that means she’s about to choose sides because the three-year age gap is long dead in the face of cricket solidarity. “You’re only allowed to comment if you haven’t fallen asleep during the last two matches,” she says.
“I fell asleep,” Vedant admits with a grin, “because you kept yelling at the screen. I was conserving energy for the chips.” He points an accusing finger at Radhika and she retaliates with a slur for his choice of socks.
Our mother’s voice cuts through the banter from the kitchen like a warm, scolding bell. “Enough! Behave like adults. This is not a playground.”
We pause as if someone hit a giant pause button on the world.
Even the television seems to soften its noise for a second because she’s the kind of mother who can do that without trying.
She stands in the doorway with the look that says she has lived through worse—and full disclosure, she has—but somehow still manages to be shocked by the triviality of our arguments.
Vedant rolls his eyes but vacates the couch with the slow, theatrical reluctance of someone pretending to comply. Radhika scoots over, eyes shining with mischief. “Ma, you’re being dramatic. It’s just chips.”
“It’s not just chips,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying to keep her tone level because when she gets loud she cries, and when she cries she carries grief like it’s a heavy coat she can’t shrug off.
“None of you listen to me.” Oh no. Here we go.
“Vedant, you are thirty four, you have a girlfriend,” I share a surprised look with Vedant because I will never understand how our mother shifts from one topic to another.
“But you won’t marry. Do you know how many parents allow a love marriage? Few. Selected few.” She exclaims. “I am letting you do that, and still—still you won’t get married!”
I make a face at the word marriage, which sounds like trouble. “Really, Ma?” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm as casual as a shrug. “Emotional blackmail? Classic.”
She huffs, fanning her hand like she’s casting away an unwanted fly. “You are thirty-two.” She sighs, looking up, “God, what have I done wrong?”
Vedant’s jaw tightens. He’s the oldest, which means he shoulders things in a slightly different way—he carries guilt like a second opinion.
“Ma, I’m not refusing because I’m against marriage.
I’m just—” He trails off because he never explains himself in those big terms; with Vedant, it’s always smaller gestures.
Radhika’s voice softens, and I can see the way she looks at our mother like she’s measuring the cracks. “Ma, we’re not ignoring you because we don’t want to be settled. You know Ved has Sanja—”
“She has a job, she’s working on her own projects, she’s not settling for anyone’s name,” Vedant says quickly, cutting Radhika off because he’s defensive like that when his private life is being discussed in public.
“Then why the delay?” she asks, near to tears now.
The way she bites the inside of her cheek is one of the gestures that makes my throat hurt—a tiny, defeated motion that says she’s trying to be brave and failing.
“I let you do what you want. I support you. I support everyone’s choices and yet you won’t do the one thing that would make me sleep peacefully. ”
Radhika shifts, and something in her face becomes tender. “Ma, it’s not that simple.”
Vedant folds his hands on his stomach, the way he does when he’s about to say something sensible that will probably make us all roll our eyes because sensible is his default setting.
“Everything’s moving at its own pace,” he says.
“Saanjh and I are... we’re talking about things. We’re not avoiding it.”
Radhika reaches over and squeezes his arm like she’s trying to anchor him in the present so he doesn’t float away into hypothetical futures. “She’s not a footnote in your life, Ved. She has plans. That’s the point.”
Ma looks between us, her mouth a thin line, and for the first time tonight she looks tired in a way that isn’t theatrical.
The kind of tired that sits under eyes and doesn’t leave after a single night’s sleep.
It’s been three years and she’s still rearranging the furniture of her life around a space where Papa used to fill the largest chair.
We don’t mention the ways that absence shows up: the half-empty cups, the quiet at dawn, the way she hums the radio more loudly some nights as if sound can stitch seams that time left frayed.
“I want to see my kids settled,” she says again, and it’s not a demand so much as a small prayer that keeps surfacing in the same breath. “You are my life. You are my everything. I don’t have anyone else.”
I feel that tug in my chest. It’s a familiar pressure, the thing that used to keep me up at night when Papa was around and it was loud with arguments and his stupid dad jokes—now it’s quieter, the kind of quiet that makes rooms seem larger than they should be.
I want to tell her that she has us, that we’re stubborn, that we're her people, but that sounds like a script she’s memorized and I’m not sure she believes it the way I say it.
“Ma,” I start, because sometimes saying the obvious is the only thing that counts.
“We are trying. It’s not that we don’t want to make you proud. ”
She sniffs and rubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“Proud? I just want to know you have someone to talk to at midnight if life is hard. I want someone to make you laugh. I want you to have someone who will be there when I’m not.
” I hate how small I feel when I hear that.
Not because I resent her—God, no—but because I know how those wishes have the potential to become barbed.
Wishes like those can wrap themselves around decisions until decisions become obligations.
I glance at Vedant and Radhika. Vedant’s jaw is a hard line, Radhika’s fingers are white where she grips the fabric of the couch.
We’re a family that knows how to armor ourselves with jokes, but armor doesn’t stop the ache from getting in when it wants to.
Radhika leans forward suddenly, the jitter in her that only shows when she’s trying to be brave.
“Ma, you remember when Papa used to watch cricket with us? He would shout at the TV, and then he would apologize to the bowlers as if they were family. We can still have those moments. We don’t need to rush everything into a wedding to get them. ”
Ma’s face softens. The mention of Papa shifts something in her that is unseen but deep.
Her hands fold in her lap. For a second there’s just the murmur of the commentators on the TV and the steady thump of Vedant’s foot against the carpet.
“Your father loved this game,” she says, voice small.
“He used to say that cricket brings people together. Maybe that’s what I miss.
The ordinary things.” The word ordinary lands like a pebble in the pool.
Ripples spread. I step forward because there’s something I need to do that isn’t a speech or a grand gesture. It’s small. It’s human.
“Ma,” I say, and my voice catches because the tight place behind my ribs is trying to be louder than everything else.
I can’t make promises I don’t mean. I can’t promise weddings or tidy futures.
But I can do the thing that matters tonight.
I move forward and kiss her cheek, quick and warm.
She jerks away, shrieking in that beautiful, exaggerated way she does when any of us get affectionate, and I pretend like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“You are a grown man now, stop doing all that,” she scolds, half-laughing, half-serious, and swats my arm with a tea towel but the motion is fond.
I clutch my chest in mock offense. “What happened to you will always be my child?” I gasp, because theatrics in the family are genetically predetermined.
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t resist when I step in close and place a real, steady kiss this time on her forehead. It’s a small thing, but it’s medicine.
Radhika wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand like she’s embarrassed by her own softness and, as if on cue, my phone rings. I pull out my phone as I stand and pick up the call. “Hey dude,” I answer.
“At Rudraksh’s? In ten minutes?” Siddhant asks.
I chuckle. It’s a ritual, we have watched every important match at Rudraksh’s house since we were eight.
Siddhant and I are more alike, Rudraksh is the more calm, scary kind.
Sometimes we do wonder how the fuck is he our friend but whatever no matter how grumpy he is, he is a great friend.
“You think Rudrani will let us watch anything?” I ask.
“It’s her bedtime in an hour, I really miss that kid.” He huffs.
“Despite her almost breaking your nose?” I raise an eyebrow as a laugh escapes from me.
“Dude, it was one time and I told you don’t ever mention it again.” He sighs.
“Why will it hurt your ego that a four years old kid almost broke your nose?” I tease.
“Shut up,” he groans, “Are you coming or not?”
“Would never miss it.” I smile as I walk towards the door.