PART 1 #2
But when I read her description, ‘Mother and widow at 18, twins, both cute, both annoying’, the connection was instant.
I was twenty at the time, and fate had dealt me a cruel hand as if it had something against me.
Maa had died in an accident, Baba was dead on the inside, we had no money, and I had a four-year-old sister to take care of.
I was struggling. The podcast was godsent, as if tailor-made for me, as if fate was now feeling guilty and was throwing me a lifeboat. I latched on desperately.
Her voice was a gentle balm on my frustrations of having to raise Rabbani all by myself.
I would put on my earphones and she would whisper in my ears, ‘It’s okay, everyone fucks up.
’ ‘You forgot to pack her lunch? It’s okay!
Everyone fucks up.’ ‘You shouted at your child, it’s fine, everyone fucks up, but don’t do it again. ’
Then, as I got a hang of things, and Rabbani grew, I didn’t find myself needing the podcast that much. It had helped me to the shore. I could breathe again. A year passed and then another and then another. Amruta Thakur slipped from my mind.
But then suddenly, a year ago, when we added the podcast studio in our office, Amruta popped up in my mind.
I went searching for her.
‘No one listened to my podcast, except my kids,’ she told me when I met her in her tiny office at the college in Noida where she taught history.
In my mind, she was eighteen, loud, forceful because that’s how old she was in the first episode of her podcast. But in front of me, with a pair of thin spectacles resting on her nose, a bunch of assignments in front of her, was someone mellower.
She still looked eighteen, though. Her small 5’1” frame and rather cute face were deceiving.
‘Your podcast used to be the best part of my day,’ I told her.
‘I used to get a lot of hate. Listeners used to say I didn’t deserve to be a mother.’
‘Is that why you stopped?’
‘I didn’t care about what people said.’ She shook her head. ‘My boys listened to it. They were like, “Stop complaining about us!” I don’t want to do it again.’
‘But you have to.’
She trained her eyes on me with a look like a stern teacher. ‘I don’t have to do anything.’
‘Do you mind if I sit?’ I asked her.
‘I have class in fifteen.’
I pulled up a chair. ‘I listened to your podcast when my sister was four. She’s nine now, and she’s the most amazing nine-year-old you will ever meet.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘And she’s like that because of you. Had I not heard you for all those years, I would have damaged her.’
She leans forward. ‘Parents often don’t know the unique ways they harm their children. Are you sure you have not damaged her now?’
‘Even if I have, it’s not very obvious.’
She chuckled at that. ‘My answer is still no.’
It took me three months to convince her to get back into podcasting. It took her three months to convince me that I should be part of the podcast too.
‘Ready?’ Amruta asks me.
I check the levels on her laptop, adjust the gain and pull the microphone towards myself.
‘Welcome back guys! I’m Daksh . . .’
‘. . . and I’m Amruta! And welcome to our podcast, Kids Raising Kids! Where two accidental parents discuss their parenting goof-ups and hope you do better!’
She reaches out for my hand. I hold hers and feel the warmth radiate through me.
It’s been nine years since her husband died.
When I first met her, her skin was lighter where there had once been a wedding band.
Time has filled colour in it. As I caress her finger, I wonder if I should put a ring on it.
It will be the most practical thing to do.
3.
Aanchal Madan
‘WHERE ARE YOU?!’ Vanita screams right into the phone.
‘I’m on the airport floor, bleeding from my ear.’
‘I’m outside! Come quickly! I can’t be picking up people at my own wedding.’
‘I told you I will take a cab,’ I protest. ‘And I’m not coming out without getting alcohol. If you’re really going through with this wedding, I’m not watching it sober.’
‘Stop wasting my time and run, Aanchal! Everyone has already brought alcohol, yaar.’
‘I’m buying gin and a little vodka. Is there anyone for whisky?’
Vanita sighs heavily into the phone. ‘Bring a bit of everything,’ she concedes. ‘So, there is a signboard saying Dubai Airport Taxi Stand . . . I am on the road next to it. Quick, quick, run faster. Bye!’
My work phone vibrates in my pocket. Despite a three-week notice for this holiday and multiple warnings, my team is escalating everything to me like little kids.
Some of the hires are my fault—I recruited them straight out of management schools thinking they would be skilful.
All they have is a degree. Looking at them makes me happy that I didn’t waste two years in a management college learning marketing jargon that is as useless as climate change protests in China.
I record a voice note for the office messaging group.
‘YOU GUYS ARE ONE MORE MESSAGE AWAY FROM SHITTY APPRAISALS! NO. MORE. MESSAGES!’
Last week, I received a stern e-mail from HR.
Apparently, I was being ‘too friendly with the juniors’, and that ‘can backfire if one of them complains’.
I delete the voice note even though I don’t have to.
I’m on my notice period after five crazy, but amazing years at the start-up, DeliverFood.
In the years, DeliverFood has given me everything: fast-track success, but stress so bad I don’t remember what it’s like not to have a headache; bosses who have grabbed my ass at off-sites, but other bosses who have picked up my slack and taught me everything I know; some friends, some assholes, experience, a rich CV, hair fall and a ton of savings.
In the spirit of gratitude, I instead send the team a mail.
Because I need one last favour from DeliverFood: a glowing letter of recommendation.
Dear Team,
As you would appreciate, I’m on leave and unable to respond to any work calls. I will prioritize all concerns the day I’m back.
Regards
Aanchal Madan
VP, Marketing, DeliverFood
‘LATE!’ screams Vanita happily as she hugs me.
She’s gotten fitter for the wedding, which is saying something because she’s anyway always been all muscle and no jiggle.
It’s like hugging a granite sculpture of her and not her.
I can’t help but feel a twinge of envy and motivation all at once.
She takes my suitcase and tosses it on the backseat of a rented Mustang with ease, as if it’s a plush toy and not luggage.
‘You shouldn’t be allowed to drive,’ I tell Vanita as she zips dangerously through the impossibly wide Dubai roads and incredibly fast traffic. ‘. . . and all this . . . this is reckless.’
‘I can drive with my eyes closed, hands tied behind my back. I have been driving since I was twelve.’
‘First of all, that’s bad parenting,’ I point out. ‘Your parents should be ashamed of themselves. And I’m not talking about driving, but your marriage. Who gets married at twenty-five?!’
She rolls her eyes. ‘If you pull up all-India statistics, literally every girl in India gets married by twenty-five!’
‘Girls with careers, I meant. Of all the girls in our class, how can you be the first one to get married? At twenty-five! Twenty-five!’
‘To be honest, mentally I feel like I’m twenty-three.’
If getting married at this age is her first mistake, having the wedding in peak season in Dubai is her second. I had told her she was better off setting a pile of cash ablaze. She called me Uncle Scrooge who would die clutching wads of cash.
‘We are going to make a quick stop at the tailor’s, some last-minute adjustments to my lehenga.’
‘Are you making more space for your abs to fit it?’ I ask her.
‘Soon I’m going to have a married lady paunch,’ she tells me.
The tailor tells us to wait for another half hour.
We step out of the store and make our way to the nearest restaurant.
I reach into my bag and pull out two cans of gin and tonic from the stash I bought from the airport and wave them in front of her eyes.
She squinches her eyes as if it was not her who introduced me to alcohol back in SRCC.
Back in college, I was smitten with her and followed her like a lamb everywhere.
Her word was gospel. I wanted to be her.
In the first months of college, I would skip over the metro stiles to save money while Vanita used to be driven to college in her father’s army car.
She would sashay in the corridors like she owned the place.
She was the one who introduced me to fast-fashion, subsidized alcohol, daytime parties and dance societies.
If someone considers these to be markers of a girl gone awry, she’s the one to blame.
Before I entered college, I had no idea what fun looked like.
It has never been on my list of things to do.
All I wanted was to get to SRCC, the first step to escape my lower-middle-class existence.
SRCC was supposed to be my escape velocity away from a life of kirana shop loans, frayed uniforms, hour-long waits in front of water tankers, living in a one-room house with peeling paint and creeping algae, and sweating during power cuts.
I knew I didn’t want that any more. But what did I want? How should life look like? Vanita helped me draw the schematics.
‘You’re drinking both of them,’ Vanita points to the cans. ‘I have long days, can’t be drunk all the time. It’s my wedding, I don’t want to black out and not remember anything.’
‘BORING! You’re already getting old!’ I protest, my can already half empty. ‘Who cares if you black out? We will have videos!’
I’m not an alcoholic even though my weekend enthusiasm might lead someone to mistake me for one.
But I would never drink a) alone, b) on weekdays, and c) beyond slight tipsiness.
On weekends, I like how in those fleeting moments of tipsiness, all the stress and worries temporarily dissolve into nothingness.