Chapter 8 Raghav
Raghav
The stiff silence between us stretches out, thick and heavy inside the near-empty airport.
It’s made worse by the deadness of the night.
The only sounds are the low hum of the ventilation system, the rhythmic snoring of others, the muted chatter of news reports on the television playing at the lowest volume, the patter of the rain.
Aditi is on one end of the bench, resting her head on her bag, her eyes closed, trying to sleep, but I know she’s antsy.
I’m on the other side, trying to find ways to apologize.
Why did I have to meddle? After a few minutes, I clear my throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the quietness of the night.
‘You’re right,’ I say, not looking at her. ‘I don’t know your story.’
She opens her eyes, a little too quickly, as if she were expecting the apology. She nods and then turns to me. ‘What’s your story?’
‘You know what you know,’ I say, shrugging, being evasive. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘You keep checking your phone every now and then,’ she says, straightening up. ‘But Megha’s asleep? What are you waiting for?’
Suddenly, it feels silly. But I think I owe it to her. As an apology. So I open my email and show it to her. There’s a new mail from my sister, Shilpi.
You okay?
‘Who’s that?’ she asks me.
‘My sister,’ I begin, finally looking at Aditi. ‘She’s fifteen . . . she’s stuck. Between them and me. In the middle.’
‘I don’t think there’s any middle in your story,’ she says. ‘They are wrong and you’re right.’
I nod. ‘She gets how wrong my parents are, but she won’t leave them. She tells me that she has board exams this year, that she can’t afford the distraction, but she doesn’t say the real reason why she didn’t come with me. Or reasons, I should say.’
‘Reasons? Plural?’ she asks, leaning forward slightly.
‘She thinks we are too young. Twenty-three is no age to decide who you’re going to spend your life with,’ I say. ‘Of course she’s saying what my parents said to me. Who, by the way, got married at twenty-five.’
I don’t know why I’m spilling out to her like this.
If Megha were here, she would blame my momo-sutta friends.
That’s what she calls them. All you do is eat momos and smoke with them.
What value do they add? I tell Megha, nothing, they add happiness to my life.
And she tells me, and when you’re sad? Nothing.
We don’t go there. We roll up our sadness and instead go out and eat momos.
I can’t tell Sumrit that I wished Shilpi was on my side.
I can say that as an off-hand remark, but I can’t really get into a conversation.
That would just be weird. Momos are easy.
‘I knew at twenty-one that Aman was the one,’ she says, breaking my train of thought. ‘But I get it. All my friends say the same thing. You’re too young, blah blah. Anyway, so your sister . . .’
‘She keeps saying Megha and I will break up. Or you know, we won’t be able to sustain ourselves,’ I say.
‘What does that mean?’
‘That I would have no support from the house. It’s just been a year since I have been working .
. . my salary’s fine, but I wasn’t saving a lot.
But now the security deposit and broker’s fee has wiped out my savings entirely,’ I say and immediately regret it.
Megha and I had decided we will skimp, and things will be fine.
That I don’t need to worry about it. We have the numbers calculated.
We will be fine. I steer the topic back to Aditi.
‘And second, she doesn’t want to abandon them. So she’s choosing to abandon me.’
‘That must be hard,’ Aditi says quietly.
‘I mean . . . a little? She used to follow me around. And she . . . for large parts of my life . . . she was . . . anyway . . . So it feels like a betrayal,’ I admit.
‘Has she met Megha?’ she asks me.
I shake my head.
‘So she hasn’t seen how hot Megha is?’ she says.
That makes me crack up a little, but the laughter dies in my throat, leaving a familiar ache. ‘She once told me, “I don’t know what you see in her.” Just parroting my parents.’
‘For the record, I see what you see in her,’ Aditi says, offering a small, genuine smile.
I smile back. ‘I can’t blame her, you know. She’s in a difficult position. But she still emails me. Secretly. My parents wouldn’t check her email. So that’s that. Always sends the same thing—“You okay?”’
Aditi lets out a breath. ‘Wow.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, putting my phone away. ‘But my parents were quite manipulative . . . She’s fifteen. She can’t win against them. They threatened to kill themselves if I married Megha. I told them they wouldn’t. They’re just scared people, living scared lives, obsessed with what others think.’
‘You said that to them?’
‘My dad came at me, wanted to hit me, but stopped. I think he realized I wasn’t a kid any more. I was bigger than him. And I think they knew it too when they called her a . . . a two-paise slut.’
The words still taste like acid.
I continue, ‘Papa left the house. And Shilpi was with Maa all night. Consoling her. That’s when I knew she would not come with me.’
‘We shouldn’t have to go through this,’ she whispers.
I look at her. ‘I’m sorry. I just told you what I did because these little lies we tell to survive, these things that we hide—they blow up later.’
‘What kind of lies?’ she asks.
‘The easy ones at first,’ I say, the memories come flooding in. ‘“Yes, I’ll tell my parents, Megha.” “No, they’ll definitely agree, Megha.” “I’m sure they’ll come around, Megha.” Then they got bigger. “No, they don’t think you’re bad.” “I’m not having second thoughts.”’
‘I get it,’ she says, nodding slowly.
‘So now she and I have decided not to hide anything. We don’t have to be alone even in the only relationship we have left.’
She leans back into the bench and sighs.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t want to dump all this on you.’
‘Thank you for doing that,’ she murmurs.
I find myself going back to that same day. Shilpi in Maa’s room, and me, in mine, feeling utterly alone. That’s when I feel Aditi’s hand on mine.
‘You know it’s good to have someone in the same boat. Unfortunate, yes, but . . .’ she says, her voice trailing off. She’s quiet for a moment, then a small, mischievous glint appears in her eyes. ‘Good for us?’
‘For us?’
‘I mean, think about it,’ she says, her eyes suddenly bright. ‘We could be each other’s couple friends, no? We could meet every Saturday and bitch about our families? Won’t that be cool?’
I know what she’s trying to do. Yank me out of my thoughts. That’s kind of her because it works.
‘I wouldn’t say cool. Therapeutic? Maybe,’ I concede.
‘Now all we want is for Megha and Aman to get along,’ she says. ‘Aman’s pretty likeable.’
‘Megha’s not likeable?’ I ask, raising an eyebrow.
‘Megha’s hot, no? Hot people can’t be trusted too much,’ she says, and then when she sees me frown, she adds, ‘I’m sure Megha is likeable too.’
I smile.
‘I’m going to doze off for a bit,’ she says.
She puts her head against her backpack and closes her eyes. I too lean my head back against the cold plastic bench and close my eyes. Eventually, sleep wins. For maybe ten minutes.
And in those ten minutes, I dream.
The sounds are muffled, distant. The sharp, clinical white of the airport walls seems to glow.
In the dream, I’m standing at the arrivals gate.
The doors open, and Megha walks out. She’s wearing the dress she wore on our first date, but her face is tired.
She doesn’t look at me. She walks past, smiling at someone else, someone behind me.
I turn to see who it is, but there’s no one.
Just an empty corridor reflecting my own confused face.
Then Aditi is beside me. She says nothing.
Just holds out a boarding pass. The flimsy paper feels cold in my hand.
It has my name on it, but no seat number. Just the word: Standby.
I wake up with a jolt. Sweat on my forehead. For a second, the harsh airport lights feel like a continuation of the dream’s strange glow. My heart’s racing for no real reason.
Dreams don’t mean anything. I’m not stupid.
I look at Aditi. She’s smiling in her sleep. Clearly a different dream.
Just then, her phone lights up. A message. I see her stir, glance at it blearily. She opens one eye, checks her phone, smiles and then goes back to sleep.
It has to be Aman. Is he up? Is it time for the flight yet? I check my phone. No texts from Megha. Just the wallpaper of us at the temple, a relic from a different lifetime.
Outside, the rain has finally stopped. I take a deep breath.
Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. A happy day. A sad day.
A day when the past will end.