by Vani Mahesh
‘I want my old school, Mumma. I don’t want to go here,’ he sobbed.
Anu’s heart sank. ‘Vicky, what do you not like here?’
He mumbled many things but what she could gather was he had to do too much writing, could not talk in the class or walk towards friends. He did not like his separate desk and chair. He wanted to sit on a bench with a long table like in his old school. Anu sighed. Does he need to be educated this vigorously? The school coordinator had explained how they had a new method of fast-track teaching. But Vicky was happy in his slow-track school. Sumitra aunty’s school was anything but old fashioned. She had created a very open and friendly environment for learning.
As Anu sipped her coffee sitting in her usual spot at Coffee Day, she looked around. All those waiting for someone had their heads buried in their phones, those with a special someone took selfies, and the ones with ordinary everyday friends intermittently checked their phones. The waitress made coffee while checking her phone, the window-cleaner hanging from a rope listened to music on his phone, the maid mopping the floor was busy chatting with someone. Anu had a wild thought of taking away all their phones and dunking them in the bucket of water the maid had. What would happen? Someone would murder her for sure.
She began thinking about her life. She had to do something. Maybe give her resume to schools in and around that area so that she could work till Vicky’s school ended. Or, work in a library or part-time somewhere. None of the thoughts was appealing. Maybe she should just enjoy her time for a while as Sumitra aunty had suggested. Just when her thoughts began to exhaust her, the phone rang. Pooja. Well, that was a surprise. The girl only messaged at best!
‘Aunty, are you busy? Can I talk to you?’
‘All yours. I am at Coffee Day.’ Anu sipped her coffee.
‘Can you go shopping with me? Like now?’
Anu spilt a little of her coffee. Why would Pooja want to go shopping with her?
‘Hmm … we could. But no shop opens before eleven, Pooja. It is only eight-thirty now!’
‘Oh … didn’t think of that. I want to talk to you too. Can I come to Coffee Day?’
‘I will come back home instead. Let us meet at the coffee shop there.’
‘I thought you don’t want to pay for the coffee there.’
‘I don’t. But that is a good meeting point!’
Anu walked to the cake shop next door and got six blueberry muffins packed. Both Pooja and Pete loved those.
Settling down on the bench (Shwetha had told her it was made of expensive Italian marble) that rimmed a large circular gazebo, Anu handed Pooja a muffin and helped herself to one. That gazebo was so beautiful; the dark black granite flooring, the sloped roof of Mangalore tiles and wooden pillars with carvings holding the roof up. That entire structure sat bang in the middle of a lush green lawn.
‘Aunty, I spoke to Akash, that guy who invited me to the party. And I am joining them today afternoon for a movie.’ Anu saw Pooja that excited for the first time.
‘That is so fantastic, Pooja! Is that why you wanted to go shopping?’ Anu exclaimed.
Pooja bit into her muffin and nodded. ‘Yeah! But they are starting at twelve. So I don’t I have the time to shop. The problem is, all of the girls there dress very differently from me.’ She looked at herself. ‘They wear tiny shorts and tank tops. Not full jeans and round-neck T-shirts like me.’
Anu hummed and hawed and let Pooja continue. The girl had more to pour out. ‘My mother is quite conservative. Also, I grew up in Muscat. So I don’t dress like the others here.’
‘Different is fine,’ Anu packed up the rest of the muffins for Pete. ‘You look great any way.’
‘No way. I am so dorky.’ Pooja sounded convinced about what she said.
‘Let me see.’ Anu gave Pooja a deliberate and slow once over. ‘You stand at five feet seven inches. Slim. Your designer jeans and D&G top fit you like a second skin. You can model for hair and skin at any time of the day. So yeah, you are very dorky.’
Pooja laughed. ‘You are so funny, and you are quite cool for your age.’
Anu smiled at her. ‘Thank you. Next time compliment me without the age bit. Also, Pooja, all our lives, women are told to fit in—fit into a pretty dress, fit into a good-girl group, fit into a family. Instead of sawing your edges off to fit in, search for what fits you
Pooja sighed. ‘That is so true. Thank God for you and Pete!’
They saw Pete jogging towards them. Anu had asked him to join them after half-an-hour. Given how little Pooja talked, that was more than enough time for their girl talk.
‘There goes my jogging,’ Pete sat down and picked up two cupcakes. ‘Go on with your discussions. Don’t mind me.’
Anu turned to Pooja. ‘Here is what you can do. Get your hair and face done by eleven. Then start trying outfits from your super-filled closet. By eleven-forty-five, panic starts hitting you because you are running out of time. That will force you to settle for something comfortable and head out. Your mom will yell at you for messing up the room, but you can handle that after you are back.’
Pooja started to laugh again. That girl looked so good when happy. ‘That is your advice?’
Pete chimed in. ‘Why agonize for forty-five minutes? Start trying only ten minutes earlier.’
Anu shook her head. ‘Works in a man’s world. For us, an hour of agony is ideal.’ Then she got up and stretched. ‘Shilpa Shetty would have shot her yoga videos here. It will be so nice to do yoga here than in that hot hell.’
‘Why don’t you?’ Pete asked, wiping his hands on his face towel.
‘Yeah! Why don’t I?’ The idea started to appeal more and more to Anu. ‘Will you both join me?’
‘I have never done yoga before,’ said Pete. ‘But I can try.’
‘I don’t know. If someone spots me stretching here in public, it will be quite humiliating,’ said Pooja. ‘Can we do it after dark?’
‘Sorry, Pooja. It has to be at this hour. When Vicky is at school, or else he will be climbing all over me like a monkey each time I hold a pose.’ Anu turned to Pete. ‘Pete, you wait here. I will change and bring two mats. Pooja, you are right. You will look dorky stretching with us in a gazebo. You run home and agonize over outfits.’
Pooja stood there looking doubtful. ‘How long will you do it?’
Anu shrugged. ‘Half hour max.’
The day had started to look good already! Yoga in a gazebo. How nice is that!
25
Pooja, despite her concern about peers, joined them with a mat. While Pete was pathetic, Pooja was very graceful and lithe, and Anu was somewhere in between. That was the first day. It was quite a herculean task to teach Pete Surya Namaskaras, but Anu was not one to give up.
Then it was Day two. Though she was dying to know the details of Pooja’s outing the previous day, that had to wait till after . They were going to meet at nine-thirty every morning for their ‘Gazebo Yoga’.
‘Let us start with Surya Namaskara again.’ Anu began.
‘I can’t remember the sequence of stretches,’ Pete sounded a little dejected.
‘Didn’t you Youtube it?’ Pooja sounded surprised.
‘Nope.’ Pete shrugged. ‘Why would I spend time on twice in a day? This will do.’
‘Let us do only four sets of Surya Namaskara.’ Anu suggested. ‘What do you say, Pooja?’
‘Perfect. I hate it when I have to go on and on and on a thousand times.’ Pooja rolled her eyes.
Anu taught Pete four postures and asked him to do only those. A proper guru would be horrified at that sort of teaching and maybe even curse Anu, but it worked for Pete. He touched his knees instead of toes, he mostly bent his neck backwards than his torso, but Anu smiled approvingly. Any kind of bending was better than no bending, right?
They did a quick and easy ten minutes of Asanas and then five minutes of Pranayama. In twenty minutes, they were done and had rolled up the mats.
‘Is what we did of any use?’ P
ooja was doubtful. ‘The sessions elsewhere usually last for an hour-and-a-half.’
Anu grinned. ‘Look, it will give us enough flexibility to scrub our own backs. That is enough, right?’
‘Yeah, whatever. My mom is off my case for now since I am doing yoga and tennis! So works for me.’
‘I have never done yoga. This more than works for me.’ Pete waved goodbye before taking off.
When Anu and Pooja got down the steps of the gazebo, Anu saw a familiar face staring at her. The Meanie Meena! Anu groaned inwardly. She had begun to forget about her existence.
‘Done with yoga?’ Meena asked.
‘Yeah. Done.’ Anu smiled as well as she could.
‘There is a proper studio, you know. But it is a little expensive.’ Meena attacked. Anu expected it though.
‘It is expensive! Why pay and suffer in that sweltering heat?’
‘So, would you be in the sweltering heat if it was free?’ Meena laughed at her own words.
‘I wouldn’t know because it is not free!’ Anu walked on.
Pooja started to laugh. ‘No, you wouldn’t get into that hell even if they paid you! But who was that woman?’
Anu sighed. ‘I call her Meena the Meanie in my head. You can call her that too.’
‘Totally a meanie! But you are not bothered by her.’
‘The one perk of getting older is you worry less about what others say. Now spill the beans about your outing yesterday.’
Pooja shrugged. ‘It was okay. They are a clique and it is too much effort to break into their group. I may not go again. When my results are out, who knows where I will be going to be.’
Anu nodded. ‘That makes sense. If you are not even going to be here, why invest energy in belonging to the clique.’
‘Aunty, was yours a love marriage?’ Pooja asked out of the blue.
‘It was.’ Anu smiled. ‘We were neighbours.’
‘That is nice,’ Pooja added after a pause. ‘I knew this guy in high school. We sort of went out for a couple of years. But it was too hot and cold.’
Anu nodded. Pooja talked only if the other person was quiet. ‘He called me yesterday. Asked me if we can meet sometime.’
‘Oh, okay.’ Anu gave a very noncommittal reply, though a hundred questions bubbled inside her.
‘We brought out the worst in each other and the best in each other too. Don’t know if I want to meet him now.’ Pooja chewed on her lower lip. ‘Should I meet him?’
‘Do you want to meet him?’
‘I don’t know. Would you meet him? I mean, if you were me?’
‘Hmm, may be as a friend.’ Anu patted Pooja on the back. ‘Sleep on it. See how you feel tomorrow. And, don’t text him tonight!’
Pooja smiled and nodded. ‘That is sane advice.’
Anu felt relaxed as she started walking home. She had begun to feel comfortable in the new place, but Vicky’s agony about school bothered her.
Sanju called as she was walking. ‘Anu, we are going out tonight with Dave and a few colleagues. At 7 p.m.’ He sounded too excited to Anu’s ears. ‘Be ready.’
‘Who are the colleagues?’ Anu asked suspiciously. After the dinner debacle from the previous time, she dreaded these groupie dinners.
‘None from the last time. Relax,’
God, let there not be another fiasco this time! Anu prayed silently. She had to get Geetha to babysit Vicky, which meant she had to cough up more money.
The dinner was sombre. It was a new and swanky lounge bar. The gathering was mostly single people on a short visit to India from the US, which meant the conversation was all office gossip. Anu managed her time wisely between listening and tuning out. The music was retro, and the furniture was elegant, wooden and uncomfortable, and very un-lounge-worthy. But Anu quite enjoyed the music—The Beatles, The Eagles and Pink Floyd—being played. Occasionally the guy next to her asked her something out of politeness or because he was drunk. He was Scottish and Anu couldn’t understand a word of what he said. She simply smiled at everything. She was sure she smiled away at his questions too.
She felt all warm and fuzzy until the bill came. Anu peeked at Sanju’s share on the credit card machine. Eight thousand for what they ate and drank! It was not more than three even if you added a twenty five per cent tip! Why couldn’t everyone pay up for what they consumed?
While she and Sanju walked out, someone at the far end of the table caught up with her. ‘So I heard you have started a class? Is that allowed?’
Anu almost tripped and fell. What kind of wild rumour was this? ‘We just stretch together. That is not a class.’
‘Oh, is that so? But my neighbour Meena told me you have started a class. She was worried you may not have taken the property manager’s permission.’
‘It is a public space! If we don’t need permission to sit, we don’t need permission to stretch!’ Anu sounded a bit too defensive to her own ears but who was this woman? Everyone was walking around them, pretending not to hear them but the woman had made sure everyone had heard her.
Sanju was angry. She knew it by the way he sat and drove. Well, his pursed lips and knitted brows were quite a giveaway too. If she had any doubts left in her, his next words confirmed his anger. ‘What is all this nonsense, Anu? People will think we are classless.’
‘I told you I am doing yoga with Pete and Pooja. Why is that classless? That Meena who is spreading these rumours is classless. Not me.’ Anu’s eyes started to well up against her will.
Sanju drove quietly the rest of the way. She was well-liked in her circles—be it when she was studying or at work. Nobody hated her. Nobody thought she was classless before. Especially, Sanju.
26
Anu tried her best not to let out a sob. That would be so uncool. She stared out of the window and tried to register the shops and the streets that buzzed past her. Though her mind kept slipping and going back to the classless remark by Sanju, she fought tenaciously not to dwell on it. She was tempted to text Shwetha but refrained. Sometimes talking about your hurt would only further the pain. It is better to swallow the hurt like a bitter pill and hope for it vanish forever. There she was advising Pooja that she didn’t bother with what people said. Such hypocrisy! Then again, Sanju was not people. He was her soulmate – what he said had to matter.
Her vision blurred as they passed by half-shut hotels, bars and humongous malls with glass facades. She saw riders on small scooters zip right next to monstrous trucks and double-decker sleeper buses. Everyone coexisted, mostly peacefully too. Why was it so hard for her at Verdant Green? Why did Meena dislike her so much? Should she talk to her? The very thought was as appealing as jumping off a multi-storeyed building.
As she watched absently, Sanju not uttering a word, they were almost home. It was eleven-thirty and she had to call Rathnamma to pick up Geetha. When she picked up the phone to make the call, Sanju spoke. ‘Anu,’ he sighed. ‘Don’t be bothered by all this. You will be fine. You are fine.’
Sanju never apologized but he always made up quickly. Anu nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Shall we watch a movie?’ Sanju offered.
‘Yeah, if Vicky is asleep.’ Anu smiled.
The following Monday, Vicky’s blues hit a crescendo. He didn’t want to get up. Anu coaxed him saying the little puppy at the school would be waiting for him. That got him till school. She made sure they were a good twenty minutes early. To her distress, there was no puppy. Anu looked under the drain and over a compound wall, with Vicky trailing and mimicking her actions. No sign of the puppy. Vicky crawled back into the car. Anu heard the first bell ring and her heart started pounding. The coordinator had reprimanded her in a gentle voice that Vicky cannot miss the assembly every day.
‘I think the puppy went to its mom. It will back in the afternoon.’
‘Okay. We will wait here then.’ Vicky was clear about his decision.
‘Vicky, it will be too hot to wait here. You get inside the school till the puppy is back.’
‘No. I will not go until the puppy is back.’
‘If you don’t go to school, how will you get a job? How will you get a house?’ Anu tried reasoning now.
‘I don’t want a job. I already have a house.’ Then he added. ‘Rakesh also does not like this school.’
‘Is Rakesh your friend? He will be waiting for you, Vicky. Go now.’ Anu tried every arsenal in her kitty.
‘No. Rakesh has many other friends.’
Anu’s patience started to wear thin. But losing it with Vicky had no happy ending. He would wail and then she would have to coax him for another hour. Maybe she should put him on the school bus but she laughed at the thought. Unless the bus driver got a crane to separate Vicky from her, the boy wouldn’t get inside that bus!
Leaning against the car, Anu looked at the imposing and cold school building. Its high compound walls, the security guards pacing as they did in front of the Buckingham Palace—the school felt intimidating to her. What about her poor Vicky? She looked at him slumped in the backseat. Her heart melted. Vicky was hyperactive and never gave them a moment of peace, but he was never morose. He hardly cried but in the last month, he had cried enough for a year.
Anu made up her mind. Right then and there. She picked up the phone and called Sumitra aunty. After a ten-minute chat, though Sumitra aunty wasn’t at all convinced by Anu’s plan, she agreed to help her.
Anu turned to Vicky. ‘Fine then. No school today. We will go someplace else.’
She drove for thirty minutes and landed at the school she had visited with Shwetha. The simple homely building with a sleepy guard on a chair. Vicky walked beside her happily. He was wide-eyed at the play area that looked like his old school. He looked curiously at the kids in the common area sprawled on the floor drawing. Anu walked into the principal’s chamber.
‘Come in, Miss Anu. Sumitra had just called me.’ The principal, Janaki, looked as kind as Sumitra aunty.
‘Hi, Vivik.’ She flashed a wide smile at Vicky.
Vicky smiled and shook his head. Anu felt deliriously happy. Sumitra aunty had told the principal that Vicky gets amused when someone mispronounced his name.