PART 3 #6
But unlike them, I didn’t see myself living my entire life in a country of people who weren’t my own.
The entire world is not your family. Only your family is your family.
Gaurav’s painful stay at the hospital is a reminder of that.
I can’t leave them now. Not now, not ever.
What good is my career if Gaurav has no one to confide in, if Maa–Papa have to die a thousand little deaths alone in an empty flat?
No matter how comfortable the apartment they live in, their loneliness won’t be cured.
Today, we are finally shifting into the apartment Gaurav had bought and was insisting that Maa–Papa move into for years.
‘I knew this would happen someday,’ Gaurav says with a silly smile.
And before I can answer, he’s already on the phone, probably texting Tejal because that’s what he does all day like a teenager.
When the packers are done, I realize Gaurav’s apartment is much too big for all our possessions. The curtains are too short for the huge windows, the sofa looks tiny in the massive living room, and the entire showcase looks like a shoe rack when his 65-inch TV rests on it.
‘We need to get a few things, fill this place up,’ I tell Maa–Papa.
‘We need nothing else,’ Maa responds. ‘We have everything now.’
Of course, we do.
I leave to pay the packers and movers who are waiting downstairs.
I’m scrolling through my phone when the lift door swishes open.
A girl in loose fits, an oversized sweater and mismatched baggy jeans is standing inside, reading a thick book, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses resting on her nose. JAVA Programming, I read on the cover.
She looks familiar, I think, and then recognition flashes in my mind. I know her. She used to be much smaller.
Rabbani.
‘Rabbani!’ I say, like we know each other. Having listened to so many of her stories on the podcast, she’s no longer a stranger to me.
Rabbani looks at me sceptically, recognizes who I am and rolls her eyes.
‘Ugh, this day just keeps getting better and better!’
Rabbani’s pretty, like her brother would have been had he been a girl. I ignore her comment and the exaggerated roll of her eyes. Daksh had pointed it out in the podcast.
‘Wow, you’ve grown up so much!’
‘Congrats. You understand how time works.’
Before I can say anything though, Rabbani speaks up again.
‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ she says softly. ‘Bhaiya told me about that crazy drug thing. Hard stuff.’
‘I’m sorry about your brother’s divorce.’
‘Yeah, well, life’s a mess.’
‘It will be—’
‘It’s not like I didn’t see it coming, Aanchal,’ she says, sharply. ‘He has always been in love with you. Why else would he leave Amruta?’
What?
‘What?’
‘As if you don’t know,’ she says in a cold voice and leans against the wall. She’s pretending to read the book, but I know she doesn’t want to talk to me.
‘I don’t, actually,’ I say.
She doesn’t respond. I watch the floors pass by slowly as the lift descends.
A part of me wants to stay quiet and escape from this conversation; another part of me desperately wants her to like me even though I never did before, when she was younger; another part wants her to elaborate on how Daksh is still in love with me.
She can’t just say that and stop talking.
‘So, computers, right?’ I say to lighten the mood.
‘Gaming,’ she answers dryly. ‘I would like to make them one day. That’s where the real money is. Not what Gaurav used to do.’
Every answer of hers is an invitation to end the conversation so I decide to stay quiet.
Suddenly, she looks directly at me with piercing eyes and says simply, ‘Aanchal? Don’t hurt my brother again.’
‘Firstly, I think you should call me Didi. The age difference is considerable.’
‘We don’t have to be civil about this. You didn’t like me as a kid, I know that already. So why are you even pretending?’
‘We all change,’ I argue.
‘It’s because of you I had to leave Amruta and my brothers . . . anyway.’
The lift stops.
‘Later,’ she says.
Before I can say anything, the lift doors open, and she walks out with an energy only teenagers can muster. I wonder if there would be any right time to tell Rabbani that I love her brother. I wonder if there’s any truth in what Rabbani just said.
8.
Daksh Dey
Mata Rani Bikes is a cluster of small shops lined next to each other in Sector 11 Dwarka.
It had started with one and then the owner, Manoj, kept outsmarting the competition next to him.
Today, we are fixing panniers to my motorcycle for the long ride that’s going to come.
The air is thick with the smell of oil and petrol, and the sound of the machines and tools working on my motorcycle.
Next to my 1250 GS, two mechanics are working on a Triumph Tiger.
It’s what Jagath and Zeenath are going to ride.
I had been undecided for a long time about joining them for the ride.
But seeing Gaurav handle himself so well after being released from the rehabilitation centre has given me the confidence to leave him with his family.
We misjudged just how much Gaurav needs us.
He’s eating well, sleeping well and looks happy.
Right now, he’s firmly in Tejal’s grasp, like a loyal pup listening to its kind master, following her every instruction.
I’m happy for him. In a different world, Jagath, Zeenath, Gaurav and I would be riding our motorcycles together. Unfortunately, that will have to wait.
‘You can’t just stand here the whole time,’ Manoj says to me. ‘It’s your motorcycle, not your girlfriend. We aren’t going to fuck it.’
‘The welds are too big, don’t need them. And secondly, you’re a father of two, Manoj, some grace would be nice. And of course, I’m going to stay here till you finish the work. Can’t be stuck on a road in Italy and curse you guys.’
Manoj shrugs, goes to the front of the shop and starts to make conversation with the waiting customers.
I hear a familiar voice.
‘Any helmet would do,’ I hear the voice say.
I turn to see Aanchal sitting on a parked steel-grey Honda Activa. Manoj dangles a pink helmet in one hand and a yellow one in the other, in front of her. She shakes her head and asks for a darker colour.
‘Take a carbon fibre helmet,’ I offer. ‘That’s what saved me from your brother.’
She looks up and sees me. Then she turns to Manoj and asks for carbon fibre.
‘You have become a cliché, Daksh,’ she says, pointing to my motorcycle behind me. ‘You left your wife, you bought this bike, next you will get a tattoo.’
‘Any suggestions?’
‘Get a scorpion, or Chinese lettering, something extremely wannabe,’ she says.
She slowly pulls the helmet over her deep black hair, watching herself in the mirror as she fastens the buckle beneath her chin.
The black carbon fibre shimmers in the sunlight.
I want to look away, but like every other time, I fail.
Despite my trying, my imagination runs amok, and suddenly I’m thinking about us on a ride together through the European countryside, the sound of the engine roaring beneath us, her arms wrapped around me and her body pressed tightly against mine.
Fuck.
Here we go again.
I had thought of avoiding it this time. The inescapable trap that is Aanchal.
Every time Aanchal comes into my life, it’s like looking through a kaleidoscope.
I see her in an entirely new light. This time she is softer, more relaxed.
Her beauty has acquired grace, strength and wisdom.
She has changed. In the past few days, I have seen her every day take long walks around our building for hours on end.
Then pick out fruit from the nearby market, and in the evenings slowly sip a hot cup of tea on the balcony with her parents and Gaurav.
She’s absolutely stunning in this new serenity.
Today, as my eyes linger on her lips, the curve of her neck, I feel time winding back.
I feel the want for her return. Despite my efforts to banish her from my thoughts over the last two years, Jagath, Zeenath and even Gaurav had sensed the inevitable—they knew she’d cross my mind again.
As my relationship with Amruta started to crumble, thoughts of Aanchal crept in more and more.
I soon learnt about her split from Saket, yet I still tried to keep her out of my mind.
I was oblivious to the fact that I was building a dam against an unstoppable force.
It’s built, and built, and built, and when I finally saw her again, all my defences crumbled, and I was drowning in thoughts of her.
Basic, so basic, Daksh, I kept telling myself. A fucking cliché.
But the nature of my desire for her has changed.
Once, I would have wanted to ravage her, hold her by the neck and take her right here with her exhorting me to fuck her harder.
But now I know, our kiss would be of a different nature.
Soft and unhurried, yet infinitely more powerful.
We had fucked earlier; it was pure passion, but this time it would be an act of love that could stop the world from spinning on its axis. If it would be anything, that is.
‘You’re a little late in doing all this, no?’ she says.
‘I’m finally catching up with you guys, that’s what,’ I answer.
‘I never got a tattoo.’
‘But that’s the thing. You had the option. Like you guys, my twenties were my thirties. A bad marriage, kids. So my thirties are going to be my twenties where I do stupid stuff like this.’
‘And of all the things you could do, you pick up driving a motorcycle and annoying your neighbours with a broken silencer?’
‘You’re not going to be a neighbour for long. I’m guessing you’re going back to the US?’
‘I have already mailed my resignation letter,’ she says with a smile. ‘I’m going to be around.’
‘Not unless you’re coming to Europe,’ I tell her.
‘What?’
I point to the motorcycles behind her. ‘That’s Jagath and Zeenath’s motorcycle. And that’s mine. We are riding across Europe for the next three months.’