‘No sir, we will do it the right way, we are not calling to seek permission. It is a call to inform you that we are doing it,’ he made it clear to me.
‘Let us bring her back to our home at least for the family to see her one last time,’ I begged and was told one last time that no one could see her. They had started referring to Nani as the body, and unknowingly, I too by the end of the call was doing the same. It was just the body, after all; the soul, my Nani, had left us for a better place and I was somewhere grateful to god that she didn’t have to endure a lot of pain. I cried like a child; I had grown up around her and missed her presence in my life already. I knew that I also had the task of letting everyone else know what had happened but for several minutes, I could do nothing else but cry. The seriousness of the deadly virus had hit me and also the fact that I needed to get tested too as I had visited her in the recent past. Once I was a little composed, I gathered all the courage that I had, to start making the phone calls. Somewhere, I was worried that everyone would blame me, for I was to take care of Nani and I had failed.
My morning was then spent calling and texting relatives to convey the sad news. Everyone was as stunned as I was, but no one blamed me. I had to explain to everyone how and why we couldn’t see her one last time, which was the most heartbreaking thing. It was the worst thing for my mother and her siblings—they had, after all, lost their mother, a loss that could never be measured nor be ever compensated for.
By five in the evening, I was so exhausted and emotionally drained that I passed out on the couch.
A phone call woke me up with a jolt. I woke up a little unbalanced and it took me a few seconds to take in my surroundings and recall what had happened in the past twenty-four hours. I picked up my phone to see Adira’s number on the screen. She hardly ever called me; it was mostly I who called her nowadays. Fearing the worst, I immediately answered the call. ‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hey, all okay?’ she asked me. Probably my tone gave it away but she knew that something was up and I knew that I had to tell her, too. I just didn’t want her to know before all of our family did as it was not about Adira and me; Nani meant a lot of things to a lot of people. Her passing had completely wiped out Adira’s concerns from my head for a while. When I didn’t call her for one whole day, she knew that something was not okay. I was happy knowing that she still cared and that she could still tell if something was not okay. I felt my throat welling up; it is not easy to come to terms with the loss of a family member. I sat up and placed my elbow underneath me to support my frame. Clearing my throat, I decided to tell her finally, ‘No everything is not okay. We . . . we lost Nani,’ was all that I could say before I choked again.
‘What? How?’ Her voice was high-pitched. Naturally, she was shocked.
‘COVID, it all happened so suddenly that I didn’t even have time to think. She passed away last night in her sleep.’
‘Oh Ronnie, I am so sorry. Are you okay? How is Aunty taking it?’
‘She will be better as time goes by. Nani was responding so well to chemo, you know. She was in my care, and I let this happen to her. We couldn’t even bring her body back home and unknown people have done her cremation. Can you believe that? I feel like I have failed all my family members.’ Saying that out loud for the first time, I couldn’t control a sob.
‘Ronnie, you are not at fault and you know that,’ she said. I shook my head. No, I was at fault. I was supposed to be responsible for her all through the lockdown as I was living the closest to her. I had failed everyone, including myself.
‘Are you alone now?’ she asked me in a concerned voice.
‘Samba is here, everyone else is stuck where they are.’ Never in my life had I missed my family so much. We could talk to each other for hours but could not be there even though we wanted to.
‘Come over,’ she said in a hushed tone.
‘It is not possible.’ I knew that she knew it too, but it was so good to hear her say it to me as if she meant it.
‘I am so sorry, Ronnie . . .’ she said.
‘No, I am sorry, baby. I am sorry for every time I took you or anyone for granted, I am sorry for keeping my emotions within me and not expressing myself. I am sorry for not valuing you enough. I am sorry for being in love but not saying it enough and I am sorry for all the wrongs that I did to you. I know sorry doesn’t make anything right, but I am sorry nevertheless.’ Emotions took hold of my thoughts and in that instant, I felt completely alone in the world.
‘Sometimes things happen in life for us to get clarity on our priorities. Certain accidents make us better people.’ I knew she was talking about her accident and I wanted to scream at her and say that she’d nearly lost her life because of me and I could never forget that.
‘No, lessons for me should not have nearly cost you your life. You are being too soft on me.’ That was the most that we had ever spoken about the accident. Most of the time when I wanted to talk, it was just me asking for forgiveness and she changing the topic to one of our friends or Samba.
And, as expected, Samba cropped up in the conversation. ‘How is Samba? Have you guys eaten something?’ I had not and Samba had been living off milk since last night.
‘No,’ I told her blankly as the furry pug took the cue at the mention of his name and crawled into my lap. He was being overly quiet as if he too sensed something was wrong. I think he knew that Nani was no longer with us. Dogs always know . . .
‘Eat something, I shall call you again in one hour to check,’ she told me and we disconnected the call.
An hour later I called her, but her phone was busy. I knew she had found a new lockdown friend, and no matter what I told her, I was not okay with it any more. I wanted her to be back in my life. We were meant to be. We knew each other so well, cared for one another, and had an unexplainable connection. That was the moment when I decided to end my half-hearted efforts and give it all that I had.
Some fifteen minutes went by with no callback. I was tired and emotional, the warm Maggi noodles in my belly did the trick and I closed my eyes to sleep even though I could see her number flash on my phone’s screen. I could not talk in that state.
Did you ever think that meeting people would be a privilege? Talking to someone would make you realize that you were still alive? That you still matter?
Loneliness is hollowing; it makes one empty. It is draining and it takes away all that one has.
Ronnie
The next several days of the lockdown were painful, to say the least. With Nani gone, I had no reason to ever step outside the house at all. Adira and I spoke a lot and revisited the past. While my aim was for her to fall in love with me again, I found myself drowning in my love for her, memories and her. While I would want to consider that I was making some progress with her, the fact that her new friend was wooing her with the latest technology burnt my insides.
The guy and Adira had not met in person yet, but they used to talk a lot and text. Adira is not on social media any more, so he sends her jokes and memes that are new to her and she then forwards them to me—which is obnoxious and I usually do not know whether to laugh or cry at them. Taking advantage of the virtual world, I too went on a few virtual dates with her. It was not the same as going out with her, but we did fairly well. Our first virtual date was a Maggi noodles date.
On the seventeenth day of the lockdown, we made a bowl of Maggi each, dimmed our bedroom lights and I made a video call to her on WhatsApp. Honestly, I was feeling giddy and in the pit of my stomach I had a new sensation, a feeling I had never experienced before and can only describe as sharp and tingling. As I have mentioned many times before, I was in love with her more than ever and I knew that there was some competition around even though Adira kept saying that Sid was just a friend and he knew that I existed. How could I tell her that I was aware that her parents had found a boy for her in 2016. It was when we were all in college. The information had sparked fury in my head; it made me look for ways to make her fall in l
ove with me sooner and I believed that only magic could help me, black magic to be specific. I went to meet a conman who asked me to get thirty strands of her hair so that he could perform a love-voodoo on Adira. I had stooped really low and was on my way to collect her hair from her trash when luckily I heard Tamanna’s voice and the fear of getting caught saved me from doing something that I would have been ashamed of all my life. But I did know that I would have done it, I would have, in fact, done anything to make her love me back. I would have stooped lower than anything one could imagine. And if I could do it, I knew someone else could do it too for a girl like her.
Anyway, I placed my phone on the table and we started talking. The topic, to begin with, was how my Maggi was plain while she had made herself a cheesy Maggi. She was cooking again and happiness was evident all over her face. She was happy with something in her life and I prayed that it was the fact that she and I were getting back together. More than anything else I hoped it was not Sid.
‘How was your day?’ I asked, cocking an eyebrow and she laughed. A burst of laughter reached her eyes and my heart.
‘It was good actually. I spoke to Tamanna; she is very busy with little Adira.’ She forked her noodles and a few strands of hair fell on her face. She had let her hair loose that day and I was the happiest to look at her face occupying my phone’s screen.
‘Ya, I know, right! Piyush hardly has any time nowadays even for a phone call. At least Tamanna spoke to you,’ I said. I was not upset with Piyush for not calling that much any more. I was happy as they were both moving on in their lives.
‘I could never imagine them being parents especially after what I witnessed the day of my accident,’ she said.
‘What did you see?’ I asked, filling my mouth with a forkful of noodles. She told me about the fight she had accidentally witnessed.
‘There are all kinds of couples in the world, Adira. Some never fight and are always on the same page and then some fight like cats and dogs but still cannot live apart from each other. Tamanna and Piyush are the cats and dogs kind,’ I explained. ‘No two love stories are alike, no two couples are alike either.’
‘What kind of couple were we, Ronnie?’ See, I told you she and I were heading somewhere; she had started talking about the past now even though she just used a word that killed me on the inside—‘were’—the past, I was her past.
Ignoring the pang I said, ‘We are the ones who could not be away from each other. I am the jerk in the relationship and you are my angel. We are destined to be together, we are to be present in each other’s lives. Maybe as friends or something else, I don’t know. All that I know is that we complete each other and we have to be with each other after all the ups and downs. So, we are the destined couple.’ I bared all my teeth in the end, to add humour to the statement. I wanted her to feel my emotions but I didn’t want her to stop talking to me altogether because I was moving at a faster pace which might have been uncomfortable for her.
‘Sid said the same,’ she said and shocked me, to say the least. I gulped some water; I needed to quench my thirst. I was parched after her bold statement.
‘What? He said this about us?’ I was not sure what were we talking about here.
‘He says that he feels I am a part of his life for a reason and no matter what happens, we will always be a part of each other’s life. He is a very nice boy. He never lived his life for himself and I am glad that he can now live some part of it with me.’ She sounded genuine but I was furious. I had just stopped thinking about stooping low and there it was! A prime example! Maybe they were friends but they hardly knew each other to make such statements!
I stuffed my face with Maggi so that I would not say something that would cost me more than what I would gain by bashing this guy. We ate in silence for some time and then her mother walked into our date, ‘Adira, you are not done yet? I thought you had to sleep early today!’
‘Namaste, Aunty,’ I said, as was customary, and she just nodded in acknowledgement.
‘Ya Mummy, we are almost done,’ Adira told her mother.
We were done? No! I had so many things that I had to talk about. I wanted to say so many things, hear so many things, talk about this Sid guy too. But Aunty was Aunty.
‘I might move close to you after the lockdown,’ the abrupt statement fell from my mouth. There was a non-concrete plan—it was more of a thought bubble really, but now it was out in the open. So there had to be a concrete plan in place.
‘Really?’ was Adira’s response and ‘Why?’ came from her mother.
Ignoring the older lady, I nodded and added, ‘I just need a place to live really, where Samba is not a bother either.’
‘We do not keep PGs,’ her mother chimed in.
This woman had just crashed our date uninvited and was now getting on my nerves. ‘We can keep Samba for you and then you can look for a regular PG,’ said Adira, who had always wanted to keep Samba since Nani was not well and I used to take him to her every weekend. With Nani’s passing away, I knew that she wanted to be his new mommy. Having Samba there would mean I would be there most of the days too. It was indeed a perfect plan.
‘How will you manage your job?’ Aunty wanted me either to react or was genuinely concerned. I would put my money on the latter.
‘I can work from home for many months at a time, the company allows it.’ Really? Does it? I so wanted to kick myself for the web of lies that I had started spinning.
‘Adira, I am getting your medicines. End the call soon.’ She finally walked out of the room switching on the lights on her way out and successfully ending our virtual date night.
‘You know, Ronnie, this sounds good. If you can move here, it will be good for you too, especially because your family is away. Mummy can cook you dinner every night,’ she winked.
I added nothing else—her mother might slowly poison me through those dinners. Adira knew that too.
But I had other things to worry about, like the work-from-home set-up I had just bragged about.
Adira
When you hear of someone passing away, it is sad, no matter whether you knew them enough or not, whether you liked them enough or not. Apart from the fact that the news is sad, it is also in a way jolting because each one of us till then takes their time on the planet for granted. My memories from the accident had still not left me and then the news of Ronnie’s Nani passing away arrived. The world was not the same with the pandemic and this bit of news jolted me.
It is funny how when we are in distress or when we are scared, we want to be with people we love the most. I had believed till this moment that I didn’t love anyone other than my mother and, of course, myself. But I was so wrong, my heart ached to be with Ronnie and pacify him. He sounded broken and alone. But I couldn’t go to him even if I wanted to. The world was locked, people were dying and we just couldn’t go anywhere as per our whims and fancies. Moreover, I didn’t love Ronnie any more—I reasoned with myself. I knew it was a lie; I did love him, probably not all of him but definitely a version of him that was frozen in my memory. This stupid feeling of love was just hiding somewhere deep within my heart. Sometimes the matters of the heart get complex; there is this constant battle with oneself that one cannot escape. I was in the middle of nowhere at a constant battle that would not resolve itself without any effort.
Honestly, it feels awful to miss a person like that. You think that someone is out of your life, that you are ready to move on after you have been hurt enough and grieved over and over again and then . . . bam! They are all over your thoughts again. You miss them again, you crave to be with them again. But life doesn’t give many people second chances. I had planned to do as I wanted to, to act upon every impulse without much thought. And yet I could not ignore the constant dull pain in my heart. I knew that I was longing to see him. Where would it lead us? I didn’t want to give it a thought just yet. All I knew was that I had to see him if I couldn’t be with him, so I made a call, a video call, and he instantly pick
ed it up as if he had been waiting for me to make the move, as if he had been waiting for me to decide.
Ronnie’s face flashed on my screen and my heart raced. It was stupid really, I was not a teenager to feel like that. I shook my head and looked at his face again, his eyes had dark circles underneath them and he looked tired.
‘How are you?’ I asked, even though we had spoken just a while ago.
‘The same,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’
Ronnie
Adira never initiated a video call so as soon as I saw her number flash on the screen, I got worried. I picked the call before the second ring and was relieved to see her face. She was lying in bed and her bedside lamp had bathed her face in a golden light. I could see the scar on the left side of her forehead. The stitches had left a mark there. Other than that, her face was as perfect as it had been the day I’d first seen her. When her mother had told me that she needed to rest, I, too, had retired to bed. I was tired and my body hurt after so much emotional turmoil through the day but looking at her, I forgot all that I had been through.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked her and she smiled as she said, ‘Confused.’
‘Confused? What happened?’ The first thought in my head was of Sid.
‘Nothing,’ she shook her head and her dark hair fell on her face. As she lifted her hand to tuck it away, I saw how empty her wrist looked without the bracelet. She had started wearing her emerald ring again, though.
‘Did you take your medicines?’ I asked her, taking my mind off the temptation to ask her if she missed the bracelet.
‘Yes, I did. How have you been coping? I was worried for you.’ This made me feel warm. Knowing that she still cared even just as a friend. Since the accident, she spoke at a slow pace, trying to cover the slight stutter. I could feel that every time she paused after a word or sighed before beginning a sentence.
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