Chapter 18 Aditi
Aditi
I walk out of my room to find Raghav already at his laptop, hunched over the dining table that has become his permanent office.
There’s tea in a cup, covered. He has this look he gets when he’s working—as if what he’s doing is a waste of time.
Which he often says his work is. Sometimes, he’s wearing a shirt over his shorts, in case there’s a Zoom call.
It always cracks me up. He’s not grateful for his job—which pays him well, sometimes too well, what with out-of-turn bonuses and whatnot—but I am. It lets him stay at home.
Sometimes I wonder where would I be in the world without him.
We both tell each other that we brought bad luck for each other, but I believe it could have been even worse.
What would have happened if I were alone on that airport that day?
Where would I have turned? Where would I have gone?
Back home? To my parents? To Bhaiya—where they would have mocked me for life?
Even now, every few days, Bhaiya asks me to come back and tells me that they will forgive me.
Forgive me? Ha! I know why they want me back.
There must be questions swirling in the air.
Where am I? Which city? Where am I working?
I’m sipping tea when I see Raghav’s posture change.
A subtle tightening in his shoulders. A frown.
I have gotten accustomed and attuned to his facial expressions, as he to mine.
We know when a depressive episode beckons.
I watch him as he leans closer to the screen, and the muscles in his jaw clench.
I can read his silences better than anyone’s words.
‘What is it?’ I ask, leaning against the dining table. ‘Some office bullshit?’
‘Have to go in,’ he says, his voice flat. He closes the laptop and leans back into his chair.
‘I mean, they pay you . . . so it’s kind of okay, no?’
‘I don’t want to,’ he admits. ‘And they fucking want me to come to office at least two days a week. What kind of bullshit is that?’
I am about to tell him that it’s the employer’s right when I watch his eyes flicker towards the front door, and I know instantly what he’s thinking. The thought hangs in the air between us, heavy and ugly: Naman.
I had been too drunk last night to register what happened but now that the fog of the hangover is receding, I remember it. My heart jumps a little. ‘You’re worried he’ll come back?’ I ask.
He doesn’t answer, which confirms it. He’s worried about leaving me here alone.
‘I would have defended myself, you know,’ I say. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’
‘We are both weaker than we look,’ he says. And then, he scans me and smiles sarcastically. ‘Also, you? You’re so small.’
My smile vanishes. ‘Right.’
The word is ice. It’s not his fault. I’m small. He gets up and gets ready as I finish the cup of tea. When he leaves, I watch him pause at the door. Then, he points at the locks.
‘Please, don’t be overconfident,’ he says. ‘Lock the door.’
‘Because I’m small—’
He has left by then.
It’s not really his fault. I’m misdirecting it to him.
Because that word, small, chhoti, they trigger a wave of memories.
I feel hot across my face and it takes me back to all those times Bhaiya had slapped me.
How my brother-in-law had. In the past year, I have had plenty of time to count those slaps and really ruminate and wallow in the humiliation they had dished out.
I have wondered, though, would they have dared to hit me as much if I were as tall as Didi is, neck-to-neck with Bhaiya?
Would pulling me by my hair have looked ungraceful enough for them to stop?
I remember the times they pushed and pulled me like I was a fucking rag doll.
How did I allow them to do that? Who allowed them to do that?
Is that what family is? The ones who have the right to inflict violence on you?
In Naman last night, I saw my brother. All these fucking men trying to bully me.
I had told myself I wouldn’t leave the house.
But I can’t stay at home. This is too clean.
They need to hear everything that I have wanted to tell them.
They need to know of all the anger I have for them, all the disgust. Why shouldn’t they?
Won’t they live their entire lives thinking they were right?
Worse, thinking that I deserved what I got because I went against them? No, this has to happen.
An hour later, I’m on the metro, the screech of its jagged movement competing with the voices in my head.
The train is packed with people living their ordinary lives.
Have they gone through something like I have?
I’m sure they have. But they go on. Unlike me.
I feel ashamed. I don’t decide where I’m going, but my feet know.
They carry me through the crush of bodies at Rajiv Chowk, on to the Yellow Line, and into the suffocating chaos of Old Delhi.
My breath’s ragged. I know I should turn back.
What’s left there? Nothing. And yet, I am there.
In ten minutes, I’m in the lane again. Chawri Bazaar. And then I see it.
Gupta & Sons, Est. 1988. Wedding Invitations & Fine Stationery.
It’s smaller than I remembered.
Right now, neither Papa nor Bhaiya are there, just Chhotu.
I shouldn’t be here. But shouldn’t I? Screw them.
I walk straight towards the shop. I walk past the stacked reams of paper outside, a scent of ink and glue filling my nostrils.
Chhotu now turns and spots me as I sit on the small, worn wooden stool behind the counter.
‘Didi, aap?’
‘Go, get a chai,’ I order him.
He looks at me, confused. It’s been a couple of years since he last saw me.
Then, not wanting to say something he doesn’t intend to, he scoots off.
I look around. Unlike Bhaiya, I haven’t spent a lot of time here.
This was never mine. Not that I ever wanted it.
But over the years, I have seen all the cards they have printed.
Some really ornate ones too. My idea of love came from them: these declarations of love.
But this was before I knew most of these marriages were happening not out of true love, but because the parents thought it was best for them. But by then, it was too late.
I pick out the cards and start reading them. Like I used to.
And then, a voice, crackling with static, erupts from a small speaker on the ceiling. From the CCTV.
‘What are you doing here, Aditi?’
Bhaiya. I lean back on the stool and look up at the camera lens of the CCTV.
I smile at it like a lunatic. I know he will lose it.
There will be no niceties I’m sure. Once all the dignity of a relationship is gone—once you have been hit, pulled by your hair, locked into your room, your clothes that were deemed too provocative thrown away—there’s no need for courtesies.
You can jump right into the evil that you are.
But that’s what the most irritating part of this is.
They don’t get it. They don’t know who they are.
‘Nikal yahan se, get lost!’ he says.
‘Why should I?’ I say, while flipping through some of the cards they have made. ‘Shouldn’t all of this be mine too? Though I will say it’s not something to be wanted.’
His voice crackles over the speaker again: ‘Why are you here? Left the house, started sleeping with that man? And you’re still back? Did he drive you out of the house? Realize you’re nothing more than a randi?’
‘All those years I spent tying you a rakhi and this is the language you use? Despicable, Bhaiya.’
‘What . . .’
I know this will hurt him. When we were younger, he used to rail against everyone who spoke fluently.
And I used to echo the same feelings and say, ‘Look at these snooty South Delhi people, using language to prove they are better.’ But soon I realized it was never a noble argument.
He was rejected one too many times by girls and this was his comeback—their snootiness, their hollow arrogance, their morally corrupt character.
‘I meant, terrible. You don’t know what despicable means. Not trying to be elitist, Bhaiya, but you kind of went to the same school. Seems like you were just dumb.’
‘Oye sun—’
I scream now. ‘Oye! Saale, tu sun!’
‘How are you talking to me like this?’ he screams. ‘I will fucking cut you!’
‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re not going to do anything of that sort. You also know that. Because the list of things you do is long, Bhaiya. Eating non-veg. Those paid girls. I have proof of everything,’ I say.
He laughs. ‘And yet you’re here. No matter where you go, behen, you will miss us. You will always be incomplete. Like a chor, you will keep looking at us.’
‘You think I’m here because I miss you?’ I smile, and though it’s wrapped up in hate and loathing, I do miss him. What do they say about Stockholm syndrome?
‘Why are you here for—’
‘I’m here—’
He cuts me. ‘Did he have enough of paying for you? Had fun and left you?’
I fumble for a bit, my rage taking over. ‘1.8, Bhaiya.’
‘What?’
‘Aman’s compensation,’ I growl. My teeth grind together. ‘It’s 1.8 crore. Not everything is about money. But I do have it now.’
There’s silence on the other side. I know it’s going to pinch. Money’s everything to him. The speaker crackles with his rage. ‘You think that money will buy you happiness?’
It’s cute that he goes there. He knows that money can buy him happiness.
‘It’s better than sitting in this shop with all these dusty cards and haggling for five hundred rupees,’ I tell him.
‘While you spend the rest of your life as a shadow, a puppet waiting for Papa’s approval, I’ll be enjoying my money.
Whose approval? Papa. Who himself is a bit of a failure, is he not? Think about it.’
Now, I hear my father’s voice. ‘We should have killed you,’ he grumbles.
‘Haan Papa, that’s more your thing. The kind of person you are, female infanticide is right up your alley,’ I tell him. The words are painful to say, but it’s needed. It’s like cauterizing a wound. ‘Where was I, Papa? That you’re a loser too. Loser samajhte ho? Good for nothing.’
‘I can’t believe she’s our daughter,’ he says.
‘Neither can I, Papa,’ I say. ‘Neither can I. All Aman wanted was to love me. And you couldn’t allow that.
Because why . . . you’re a proud fucking baniya .
. .’ I let out a bitter laugh, and pure rage flows through me.
‘What’s there to be proud of . . . Some day .
. . some day . . . I want you to look in the mirror, rub your hand on your bulging stomach, look at your daughter whom you got married to a cheating, abusive husband .
. . and also . . . look at your wife whom you never loved, and ask yourself what’s there to be proud of?
Nothing . . . You’re nothing, Papa . . .
listening to me? Nothing . . . You deserve nothing.
You don’t deserve life. Aman did. Aman would have been the thing you could have been proud of.
But you told him Bhaiya would cut him to pieces?
’ I let out a laugh. ‘Fucking losers both of you. A lineage of filth.’ I look straight into the camera’s unblinking eye, a conduit for all my rage. ‘You guys only deserve hate.’
Then, I turn and spit on the family picture.
And with that, I turn and walk out of the shop.
The victory, if you can call it that, feels hollow. The caustic energy drains slowly away. I feel empty, my fingers tremble.
And finally, I walk home.