At the end of two weeks, I still had no place to live. With COVID not planning to go anywhere, it was tough to find a safe place within my budget. While Sid’s parents had been nice to me and were willing to let me stay for a few more days, I knew that a few more days was not magically going to either increase my spending capacity or sprout affordable homes for me to choose from. I had found a new family while living with them. Sid’s mother cooked me warm meals and his father liked spending time with me in the mornings as Sid liked to sleep late. Adira had more than once told Sid that she was not looking for anything beyond a platonic friendship and he seemed to have taken the hint. I knew that because I had seen him play around with his drone on the terrace on more than one occasion and the drone always returned with the phone number of a girl from the neighbourhood. His visits to Adira’s house had also decreased drastically over the last few days. The best part was that he was now helping me with data on TeachMee. While we still had a lot of unanswered questions, he managed to sort the major issue—with his data backing us up, we had thirty-seven schools and fourteen independent universities backing us. While things were going great for us, I still did not wish to burden the family and overstay my welcome.
So, by the second Friday, I had made up my mind to leave Samba with Adira and her mother and go back to Delhi. It would be tough to leave them behind, all of them, including Adira’s mother, at this stage. Times were tough and life is the most important thing for a human. With the deadly virus around us, every life was at stake. My parents, too, were worried about me, especially with the frequent moves to and from Delhi. Mummy warned me enough times not to take public transport or anything close to it at any cost. On the fourteenth day of my stay, I paid Adira and her mother a visit. The summer sun was not at all merciful and it was as hot as a desert. I wondered what had happened to the initial claims on TV about the COVID virus dying as soon as the weather became hot enough. Maybe it was not hot enough for the virus because it was clearly not going anywhere.
Reaching their house, I rang the bell and sanitized my hands. One can never be too careful with the coronavirus. Adira’s mother came to open the door and I touched her feet. She, for a change, kept a feather-light hand on my shoulder as an acknowledgement. That was new.
‘I wanted to see Samba and Adira before I go back to Delhi,’ I informed her, as she stepped further into the house. I followed her looking around and calling out Samba’s name. Not that I expected him to hear my voice and come running over. He had made his place in the house very clear when I was here the last time. The pug was seated under the table as Sid and I dined with the mother–daughter duo. I sat opposite Adira to be able to see her all evening while Sid occupied the seat right next to her, whispering into her ear at every given opportunity as I burnt from within. Adira wore a yellow suit that evening and Samba sat between her and her mother on the floor, nibbling on Adira’s dupatta. Never in my life had I thought I would say this but all during that evening, I wished to trade places with Samba as he curled up in her lap later and played with her dupatta.
I went further into the house and, as expected, found Samba lying in the living area where Adira sat on a couch with her feet up on the centre table. She was reading a book, a book that I had suggested to her. By the look of it, Adira was halfway through the book and was completely engrossed in it.
‘Hi,’ I said, to capture everyone’s attention. Adira gave me a warm smile and I noticed that she had tied her hair with a scarf, a new habit of hers that suited her well. A few strands of hair fell on either side of her face. I noticed that her face looked fuller and her cheeks were flushed. She looked healthier than when I had come to Chandigarh a few days ago. I was so happy to see her that I completely forgot about everything else and opened my arms to hug her. She looked puzzled as she first looked at me and then behind me and that was when I realized that her mother was standing right behind me. But my arms were open, and I had to hug someone to lessen my embarrassment. I sat down and looked at Samba to save my honour and not make myself look like a fool. But Samba was determined not to let anything come between me and embarrassment. He lifted his head, looked at me, made a gruff sound, and went back to sleep. Adira chuckled and I heard her mother snort. In any other circumstance, I would have been really upset but Adira’s chuckle made me look up at her. She was looking at Samba with her eyes wide and an infectious smile. I smiled along and shrugged, completely ignoring her mother.
Well, she didn’t like it, of course, and made her displeasure known. ‘He doesn’t want to hug you either,’ Adira’s mother said, with the emphasis on the word ‘either’.
I was instantly fuming at her words and felt my ears get warm. ‘It’s okay, this one is just lazy,’ Adira said, getting down on the floor and patting Samba. We looked at each other and I felt the energy in the room change, I felt the spark. I couldn’t take my eyes off her and going by the amount of time she held my gaze, neither could she. I could see her face flush and her pupils dilate. Just as I felt that she would say or do something, her mother cleared her throat and ruined the moment. Adira placed a palm on my shoulder and I helped her get up.
Just before we could have a chat, her mother got a phone call on her landline number, taking her to the room where she worked all day. Their living area had teal-coloured couches, a white centre table, and a white day bed. It was very well-lit and gave a resort-like vibe. I had never been invited to this part of the house as it was only meant for entertaining her mother’s work clients or important guests. Sid, however, would have been here and sat on those couches, I could bet my kidneys on that. However, now, as Sid was out of the picture, I took him out of my mind. I sat on the day bed as she took a place on the couch.
‘Sorry about her, I do not know what it will take for her to warm up to you,’ she was indeed apologetic and her eyes conveyed the same. I felt so bad for her. It was not her fault that her mother and I didn’t get along.
‘It doesn’t matter to me,’ I shrugged as I confessed.
Her face fell instantly and she muttered in a very low voice, ‘But it matters to me.’
That was the ray of hope that I had been waiting for and she had given it to me without her even realizing what she had done. She wanted me and her mother to get along because she cared for both of us and was torn between our constant cold war! I always knew that the mother–daughter duo was a package deal, Adira’s mother had been with her when she needed her, her love was selfless and there were months when her mother had cared for her like a newborn child when she couldn’t move after the accident. It was not fair for me to make her choose and it was not fair for her mother to make her choose either. Having said that, I also knew that the woman in question had gone through a lot in her own life and I had to try to make it better with her.
‘I will try and win her over, for you,’ I proclaimed. She patted Samba who was making himself comfortable under her feet again on the lush carpet. I couldn’t see her face after I told her that I would try and mend my relationship with her mother, but I hoped that it gave her happiness and showed that I was pretty serious about our relationship and what I said. Adira had her loyalties in place and that was one of the things that I loved most about her.
‘So,’ I began. I had to tell her why I was there. I didn’t want to leave this city, not at this time when we were finally getting somewhere but I had tried everything I could. ‘I couldn’t find a place,’ I said.
She looked up and stared at my face waiting for me to complete what I wanted to say, and I continued, ‘So, I will have to move back and I do not know how I will be able to come back to see you.’ I didn’t want to break down in front of her. But with everything that I had been through over the past few months, with Nani’s passing and my parents being stuck in another country, I was in a very vulnerable space myself. While I tried to maintain that I was strong and emotionally together, the fact was that everything around me was collapsing and I was not blind enough to not see it. Adira and I were in a better s
pace, but we were not where I wanted us to be. Going back and living alone in Delhi was going to be a nightmare but I had to do what I had to do. So, that evening was going to be a ‘goodbye meeting’ and we were to not meet each other for as long as it would take for COVID to leave us and things to get normal again.
‘Did you ask the Sharmas to let you stay over for some more time?’ she asked me a question I didn’t want to answer. They would not say no but I was indebted already, and I could not take more from them.
‘They need some family time,’ is what I told Adira. She nodded in understanding. ‘So will you be taking the fuzz basket with you?’ She was referring to Samba, of course. Though my initial plan was to leave him with the women he adored much more than me, I was having second thoughts sitting there. Would I be able to live alone in the house without him? No matter how useless I felt he was around the house, he was a constant presence, a warm, fuzzy, perpetually hungry presence that helped me take my mind off things that kept me awake at night.
When I moved my head indicating a yes, she looked at him and gave him a tight hug. ‘I do not think Mummy would like that,’ she stated the obvious. I had seen her mother talk to Samba more often than she had ever spoken to me. She took him out for walks every morning and evening and fed him by hand when he was fussy. I just sighed and nodded in response. Of course, she was going to miss him.
‘Who is taking whom?’ Her mother stomped into the room as if on cue to make the conversation more awkward. I looked at the older woman and saw how difficult it would be to let the dog go. At that stage, I didn’t know that the said dog was going to change my life for the better.
‘Ronnie has to go as the Sharmas need more space in the house and he couldn’t find a house in his budget; he is also taking Samba back to Delhi,’ her daughter informed her and I observed the older woman’s eyes go twice their size. She was not expecting this. She looked at the animal in question and walked over to sit next to Adira.
‘What is your budget?’ she asked me the embarrassing question. Honestly, I did earn enough to support myself but I was not a manager like Sid or a businessperson like Adira’s mother. I had a future to think about and I was saving for that future. I saved a lot, which meant mercilessly cutting my budgets. But I had to tell her the ballpark amount that I had in mind so that she could help if that was her intention.
‘Fifteen thousand with food and bills,’ I told her honestly.
‘You cannot find an independent place in that amount. See, I am not belittling you, but Chandigarh is an expensive place.’ She didn’t need to tell me that. I had been house-hunting for the past several days and knew that already.
‘Why won’t the Sharmas keep you?’ The same question, a different person, and I gave her the same response. They need more family space, a lie, but it made things less awkward. ‘Okay, but you can’t take him,’ Adira’s mother stated, as if Samba was her dog and then realized that she had been a little out of line to say it that way, so she turned around and added a suggestion, ‘You can stay here.’
That statement sounded so unreal, I felt the earth move and I am not even exaggerating. I knew that it could have been the heat of the moment, but I was not letting the opportunity slide.
Rewinding the clock doesn’t reverse time but sometimes, life gives us a second chance just so that we can do things over again.
Let us start over again
Let You and I be strangers again
Let me make a space for myself in your heart again
Let me make you laugh again
Let us unlearn what we know about each other again
Let us make new memories and give each other a chance again
Ronnie
I did not waste any time in taking up the offer and moved in with Adira and her mother the same night. My bags were already packed as I had plans to move back, so exactly half an hour after I was given the option to move in, I did so. The first thing that I did after moving into their home was to hand over 15,000 rupees to the landlady, fondly known as Adira’s mother.
While I had more than a few dreams related to being close to Adira, they came crashing down as soon as I got to know that I had been assigned a room close to her mother’s. I knew the reason why she still didn’t trust me enough. It was like the saying, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’. Samba was the friend, and I was not. So, I was as careful as possible, ensuring that I never lingered around too long near her daughter’s room when she was alone in there. We usually sat and talked in the living area and that too mostly when her mother was around us. The only two times when we were on our own during the day were when her mother went out with Samba for his walks. I had asked her if she wanted me to do that, but she insisted on taking him out on her own. She trusted me around Adira for those fifteen minutes and I never abused that trust. Mostly when she came back home, she found us sitting on the terrace or in her study chatting about general stuff. By the third day, her mother had warmed up to me a little and had started asking me what food I would like, which was comforting as I was away from my mother. My customary calls to my parents every evening lasted longer nowadays because Adira always wanted to see my niece and talk to my sister and mother while Papa and I looked at the ladies and wondered how much they had to talk about!
Honestly, I was extremely happy with the way things were turning out with Adira’s mother warming up to me and maybe even the idea of ‘us’. Okay, I agree that the thought of us was not that welcome yet, but my parents were over the moon. Sometimes the two mothers too chatted a bit; they had less in common which meant there was always a scarcity of topics of conversation. It was mostly the usual pleasantries followed by, ‘Aur sab theek?’ (Is everything else okay?) And that was that. From the day I moved in, Sid became a visitor in the house while I lived in there and he naturally understood that Adira and I went a long way back. His intrusion in my life was minimal as he limited his visits now, not that I was complaining about anything. Adira had taken up her job as the client manager in our venture very seriously and was in talks about a meeting with the clients soon for a 10 million dollar funding approval. Sid’s visits were mostly related to him helping her out with the project. Incidentally, he had made more female friends and had to make visits to their homes, too, so usually he had limited time.
Speaking of friends, Tamanna and Piyush called regularly every week and gave me an update on their baby. I knew that Tamanna spoke to Adira more often than Piyush spoke to me and they always exchanged pictures of her namesake. Adira always forwarded them to me. Those were the only messages that I got on my phone from her since I had moved in as their paying guest. It was obviously because we were living under the same roof, and we could talk about anything that we wanted to in person. Having said that, I also learnt that it was not very easy to talk about everything in person, especially if the things that one needs to talk about are matters pertaining to the heart. One more reason why I wanted her and me to interact with each other over texts and WhatsApp a little more was because it was so easy to revisit the conversations in texts. I did that every night before I slept. It was an old habit that sounds crazy but is very soothing. I scrolled through our chats before sleeping and smiled like a lunatic remembering something or the other. But now all I had to scroll through were a lot of baby pictures and our customary good morning messages. I still sent those and she usually responded with an emoticon.
On the first Saturday after I moved in, I was in for a surprise. As much as I want to tell you that the surprise was from Adira, that was not the case. The surprise came from her mother instead. At around five in the evening, she called me to her study and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie.
‘With you?’ I was puzzled and she gave me an ‘Are you out of your mind?’ look.
‘I mean the two of you. I know we intruded the other night.’ So she knew what she was doing and still did it! I was not amazed by the truth but was amazed by her confession.
‘Yes, I mean if she wa
nts to watch a movie, then it’s a definite yes!’ I was squealing with happiness. How often does the mother of the girl you love ask you if you want to take her daughter out for a date? Technically, we would still be inside the house as going out was not an option then, but she was still arranging it for me.
‘Great! I will ask her then,’ she said and then quickly changed her mind. ‘Or you can ask her. I will be gone for a couple of hours today and I would rather have you guys watch a movie than do something else,’ she said, looking at me with one raised eyebrow and channelling her inner Nanny McPhee. What exactly did she think I was planning to do with her daughter when she was out of the house? I wondered how shallow a person she thought I was or how weak did she think her daughter was? I could vouch my life for the fact that no one, I mean no one in the world, could make her daughter do things that she didn’t want to do, and she definitely didn’t want to do ‘those’ things with me then. The things that her mother thought I was after, what I was looking for like the rabid animal she believed I was. I loved her and cared for her but that didn’t mean I thought of just having sex at the first opportunity with her. I mean I did think of it but not all the time and never in her mother’s house in the bed that she had had since she was a kid. Nah, that doesn’t float my boat!
‘I would ask her for sure, but I would first want to assure you that I have no intentions of doing whatever you thought I was going to do in this house,’ I replied. The new courage could have cost me my new place; she was also my landlady, after all.
However, she didn’t react; it was as if she’d not even heard me and resumed her paperwork. Her study was full of papers and I wondered if she was really making money out of her business or just spending all the money on printouts. She had, with her silence, dismissed me like a good-for-nothing butler but I still stood there. I had been itching to ask her a question and my stupid self believed that the only time that she had been nice to me was the right time to ruin it all! So I waited until she glanced up from the pile of paperwork again to look me in the eye. ‘Did you ask Sid to come and join me that day when we watched the movie?’ Her eyebrows shot up and I knew that I had asked the wrong question, but the words had been spoken, the question had been asked and she had to answer it.
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