A few minutes later there was a ping on my mobile phone. It was a message from her—she had read my email and wanted to talk.
‘A phone call?’ I asked her.
‘Yes,’ she replied to me, and I dialled her number as I walked into the living area. Thankfully, Rajbir was in the bathroom again, because I would have never called her in front of him.
‘Hi,’ Adira was talking in hushed tones, and I followed suit.
‘Hi.’
‘Listen, I want to tell you something before we do this,’ I couldn’t help but gape at her words. Before we do this!
‘Yes . . . okay,’ I managed to say. I was surprised and excited beyond words.
‘Honestly, I didn’t think that after failing in love once and seeing my parents’ marriage fall apart in front of my eyes, I would dare to be in love again. I believed that love dies with time; it is an overrated emotion. Once it leaves your side, you are left alone. But it seems that I am still in love with the idea of love!’ I heard a little smile at the end of her rather long sentence.
Sometimes I wonder if she and I were the same person. We were both a little broken, entirely messed up and madly in love with the idea of love.
‘Love dies when you stop working on it,’ I told her in a reassuring tone. My mind was running on an overdose of emotions.
I believe a man can easily fall for beauty, but external attraction doesn’t last long. It is an intelligent mind that keeps anyone in love with their partner forever. When I say ‘an intelligent mind’, it doesn’t mean that she had completed her college degree which is why she was smart, or that she could solve mathematical problems the fastest. It means a woman with whom I could have meaningful conversations all night long. Conversations that had the ability to make one go deeper into them; discussions that keep you up all night and give you goosebumps whenever you revisit them.
Our conversation that night was like that. I remember it word for word. We spoke about life—her life, and mine. Our goals, personal and otherwise, our emotional needs; and we discussed my favourite topic on earth—love.
‘Love should make one breathless and weak. Love should allow one to let the other person into one’s soul, with one’s soul being a place which is so within me that I would change forever when love touches it!’ Sometimes, even today I hear her words, as if she is whispering them to me, in my ears. I knew that I could move mountains for her if she would love me back. That was the first time she sang for me, on my insistence, of course. ‘Tum pakar lo . . .’ a song from an old Hindi movie, Khamoshi. Her voice gave me goosebumps, and the recollection of that time still does.
When she asked me to tell her something about me that no one else knows, I confessed to her that I loved photography and was planning to buy a professional DSLR camera. I told her that she had been my muse for the last three years and promised to send her a copy of all the pictures that I had taken of her as soon as we landed in India.
At 3 a.m., I realized that she had gone off to sleep as she’d stopped talking. I disconnected the call and slipped under my sheets, smiling like an idiot!
The next day, our team had plans to go to the Great Ocean Road. It was the last weekend before we went back home, and I was excited beyond words.
THE LAST NAIL IN THE COFFIN
When I woke up the next morning, I was not feeling very well. Rajbir checked my temperature which was slightly higher than normal, and I had a runny nose.
‘We should cancel the outing,’ Adira suggested when the rest of the team walked into the room to see how I was doing. I do not know how bad I actually looked, but judging by the look on everyone’s faces, I think I looked way worse than I felt that day.
‘But why?’ Angad asked, surprising everyone. He looked at all the others in the room with his hands in the air. He was apparently not happy to miss out on his fun because of a measly-looking colleague who was sick.
‘Angad is right. We should all go. This is our last chance to go out together, as a team, in Australia.’ Rajbir was not too kind either. But I do not blame either of them as I would have reacted exactly the same way had Angad been down with a fever. I wish that Angad gets the flu soon, I slyly prayed.
‘Will you be able to manage alone?’ Adira asked, looking concerned, and I nodded, just to make her happy. Internally, I was dying and wanted someone to be by my side just in case.
‘Have fun!’ I managed to say as the team walked out. Both Adira and Angad turned around to give me a look before heading out.
I was alone and unwell. To add to my misery, Angad walked back in again. This time he was alone.
‘I think she is not your type and you should step back,’ he said, almost aggressively between clenched teeth. His eyes were cold as if he were threatening me. Wait, he is threatening me!
‘What?’ I attempted to get up from my bed, but failed. I seemed to be really weak. My reactions, which are usually quite slow, were the slowest they had ever been.
‘Do not think you are fooling me. I know what you have been trying to do for the last few days. I can see what you feel for her, but trust me, she has no feelings for you or anyone for that matter, at this moment. She is a good friend of mine. I have known her for months now, and I can tell you that she is not very comfortable with your attempts to be all over her, so back off!’ there was a severe warning in his tone. I could see that he was trying to mess things up.
‘Really?’ I faked a laugh, and ended up coughing like an old man. ‘I have known her for far more years and months than you have. She is a grown-up girl who can speak her mind. If she has a problem with me or in being with me, she is very capable of telling me herself. You don’t need to speak for her,’ I growled at him, thanks to my sore throat, and before the unnecessary argument became more heated, I ducked my face under the duvet. There is no point wasting your time on a conversation with an arsehole like him, I told myself. My head was hurting as if it were going to burst with all the anger and rage in me, and to add to all that, there was this bloody Australian flu. Somehow, I always knew that Angad was trouble.
I had never been in a situation like this before, fighting over a girl with a man. I think I should talk to Adira and tell her to put her friend in his place, I decided, and dialled her number after I heard Angad stomp out of my room without closing the door behind him.
Surprisingly, Angad picked up my call. What the . . . words evaded me, and he didn’t take long to say, ‘I told you not to bother her.’
I decided to lie down and take a nap as I felt exhausted after the unwanted war of words.
Later, I lay in bed looking at the white ceiling above my head. The fever, as well as Angad’s words, had hit me hard. It is evident that she doesn’t want you to bother her. She did not even pick up your call. That was true, but it was also true that we had had such a fantastic time together; we had had such nice conversations, and she trusted me enough to tell me about her parents. Even that morning when she’d spoken to me, she’d sounded so concerned. It was not adding up. If everything was actually as good as I thought, then why had she not taken my call? Why did she allow Angad to talk to me? My own thoughts and Angad’s words kept rushing through my brain. I recall waking up a few times with disturbing thoughts about Adira and Angad in my head. Adira will enjoy her day in my absence with Angad . . . I was being as melodramatic as a Hindi film actress. I was the good guy in our love story but failed miserably when a surge of anger filled my heart. No thoughts, rational or otherwise, came to me. I was thoughtless and blank for the first time in ages. I could think of nothing, and soon I drifted into the world of nightmares.
When I woke up, I was feeling much better—physically. The fever was gone. I could tell that without the aid of a thermometer. I felt lighter in the head as the throbbing pain was gone, even though my nose was still blocked, and my throat hurt as if someone had mowed it using a tiny lawnmower.
I adjusted my pillows to sit up, and did what anyone does once they wake up—I aimlessly scrolled on my phon
e. It was not connected to the hotel Wi-Fi, so I had nothing new to look at. I plugged my phone into free data and went into the loo while it synced. When I came back, to my surprise, there were a few WhatsApp calls as well as messages on the phone—mostly from Adira and Rajbir.
I responded to Rajbir’s messages to let him know that I was feeling much better and was happy that they were enjoying their trip. Adira too had asked me if I was okay, but I chose to ignore her courtesy texts. After my heated conversation with Angad last evening, I needed time to figure out where it was all going, and honestly, I had entirely convinced myself that she was toying with my heart and feelings. My ego, which I believed I termed as self-respect then, raised its ugly head from under all the love that I had for her and ruled my actions.
More than Angad, I was angry and upset with Adira. She had made me believe that she felt something for me. We were friends, and she could have told me directly if she was not interested. I never crossed my limits. Who is Angad? Why had she involved him? I recall saying such things to myself all day while analysing and overanalysing the situation. The rational ‘me’ should have just waited for them to return and talked to Adira about what had happened between Angad and me. But the rational ‘me’ was not well, and the new me was high on ego, the worst of human emotions. I decided to overthink and make matters worse. I was only interested in shutting her out of my life and forgetting the last three years of my life which I had mostly spent thinking about Adira. It is never easy to forget the first love of your life, even if it is a one-sided love affair; all the memories come back to haunt you, all night, every night. But I had to try no matter how difficult it was.
This was the beginning of a new phase in my life, the worst period in a way.
I slept in all day on Sunday as well despite feeling much better. I had neither the company nor the will to go out and explore or enjoy my last day in Australia. I packed my bags and ate all three meals in the hotel room watching old Hindi movies on Netflix and crying. I am not someone who cries at the drop of a hat, but that Sunday was one of my few weak days. I felt alone and very lonely. I called my parents who were attending a family wedding, and the feeling of being ignored by them made matters worse. My sister was somewhere at a doctor’s clinic in London and was too busy to take my call. She was not unwell as my mother later told me. She just had to visit a doctor that day for a regular check-up.
Finally, at around 9 p.m., the group returned from their second outing. It was still quite bright outside, as in Melbourne the sun sets around 10 p.m. in the summer. I heard their happy banter and laughter through the walls of the corridor and felt sick in the stomach again. I could hear Angad’s voice followed by Adira’s laughter. The noises brought more tears to my eyes. For some unknown reason, I felt that I shouldn’t see Adira ever again. She had said nothing to me, and had done nothing wrong either. In fact, she had been the nicest to me in the past few days, and things were exactly as I had wanted them to be. It was Angad who had planted the seeds of jealousy and made me feel betrayed. The feeling was not going to let go of me so quickly or easily.
We had an early morning flight at 7 a.m. the next day. Cry all you want tonight as tomorrow will be a new day, I promised myself, and covered my face with my duvet the moment I heard Rajbir’s footsteps inside the apartment. My luggage was stacked in the living area. Rajbir called out my name a few times. When I didn’t respond, he gave up and started packing his own bags. Half an hour later, all the commotion died down, and the only noise that remained was Rajbir’s soft snores.
MY HOME, NEW DELHI
THREE DAYS LATER
I had finally completely recovered from the flu and was to join work the next Wednesday. That gave me a few more days to relax, but typically, I utilized the next few days in overthinking and ensuring that my mind did not go back to its normal rational state. Physically, I was much better than when I left Melbourne, but mentally I think I was at the lowest I had ever been in my life. My uneasiness did not go unnoticed, even though I wanted it to. My mother, who like all the other mothers in the world has hawk-eyed vision, figured out that something was extremely wrong but couldn’t put her finger on exactly what was troubling her child. She had been worried about me ever since I’d come back home and had been trying to guess the reasons, primarily focusing on flus of all kinds known to man.
‘You have come back with some foreign flu which is not going away. You must get yourself checked for swine flu as well as bird flu. I have asked your papa to check with Doctor Mehra if it could be Ebola,’ my melodramatic mother said with tears in her eyes. That was the moment I figured out where I’d got my overthinking, my over-worrying nature from—it was all in the genes.
‘Relax, Mummy. It is nothing. Moreover, I feel much better today compared to the first day in Melbourne. All I have now is a bit of cold. It will go on its own in a few days’ time,’ I tried my best to reassure her, but she was not the type to be easily convinced. Thankfully, she had not discovered Doctor Google then, or she would have declared that I had cancer of some kind for sure.
I had last seen Adira at the Indira Gandhi International Airport where our flight had landed three days ago. Thankfully, I was given a seat next to a stranger on the long, exhausting sixteen-hour flight. I was glad to have some comparatively warmer Indian food, which the flight attendant on our Air India flight served smilingly. Despite being unwell as well as heartbroken, I was delighted and relieved to be going back, to my people, my country, my home. I slept through most of the flight as there was no point in hurting myself looking at Adira and Angad sitting close together in the seats opposite mine, watching movies and laughing. My only interaction with Adira throughout that day was when we had first entered the airport. She asked me why I had not replied to any of her calls or texts the day before. ‘I was and am unwell,’ I told her without looking at her.
‘Come, Adira,’ I heard Angad call her, and she walked away from me. From her expression, it was evident that she was hurt with the way I responded to her, but I was protecting myself and my heart. I saw her go and join her friends, and I closed my eyes to hide my pain and strengthened my resolve. I had to get over her.
It was unlike me, but my thoughts didn’t take a break, even on the flight. I recalled how the last few days had brought us together in an inexplicable way. I saw it as the beginning of love, but it was most definitely not the way Adira saw it, or that was what I believed then. I had decided that she looked at me purely as a friend. All she wanted was friendship, and all she was ready to give was friendship. When she spoke to me openly about her feelings, when she held my hand in the cab, when she placed her hand on my shoulder, I had started building my dream castle, slowly and steadily, while for her these were clearly only friendly gestures.
I had wanted more, but she had placed me in her friend bucket. I was lying in that bucket, struggling to get out and attract her attention. I was trying to get annoyingly close to her. I felt disgusted every time I recalled the fact that she did not tell me on her own that she wanted me to back off. Instead, she assigned the job to someone else. Maybe because she thought of it as a waste of time—that I was a waste of her time! Negative thoughts with no solid foundation sprout in my brain at the slightest of provocation. While it takes me ages to find positive thoughts and convince them to make my head their home, negative thoughts seldom need an invite.
After skipping more than a few get-togethers at my cousin’s house, I finally gave in to my mother’s request of accompanying her to a Sangeet ceremony. It was one day before I was to go back to work and meet Adira, pretending that nothing had happened. I had been ignoring my mother’s pleas and avoiding meeting anyone, but it was about time I came out of my self-created gloom. So, I agreed and saw my mother’s spirits lift. She had some plans for me—a surprise as she put it. I almost knew I was in for a shock later that evening.
Most of what happened that day is a blur in my memory, maybe because nothing significant had happened in my life since my brawl wi
th Angad. In the evening, I accompanied my mother and met a lot of my cousins and distant relatives.
There was a lot of noise, chaos and irritatingly happy vibes at the Sangeet ceremony. Everyone was happy about someone else getting married, and I was probably unhappy because they were not focusing on me. In a Punjabi family, a relative who has returned from abroad is the centre of attention, although things are changing a little now as more and more people travel internationally, courtesy of their companies. Families now regard the ones who are either permanently settled abroad or are there for their studies as more important. Foreign returns like me were plentiful in all families, and we were considered second-class citizens compared to our NRI relatives.
At this point, I think it is important for me to recount what happened earlier that evening. We are a big family, and more than a few of my cousins, including both close and distant ones, get married every year. Around the time when the marriage season is in full swing, we hardly ever stay at home, any evening. There is always a function to attend. While Dad and I need only a few minutes to get dressed, Mummy begins her ritual in the afternoon for an evening get-together. My dad and I never disturb her, and I assumed that the same protocol would be followed that evening too. But to my surprise, my mother spent most of her time that evening in my room, selecting and rejecting clothes for me to wear for the function. ‘I do not think anyone cares about what I wear, Mummy. I only go to parties to stuff myself with good food,’ I told her, shamelessly grinning at my own joke, for the first time in many days.
‘Here, try this combination,’ she handed me a white shirt, beige trousers and a black jacket. I took the clothes from her and went into the bathroom to change. I could not help but overhear my mother talking to someone on the phone while I was getting dressed.
‘Yes, he is. He just returned from Australia,’ I heard her say. Bragging to someone over the phone. Oh, how much I love my mother. She was so proud of me while we were at home. But her mood changed as soon as we entered the wedding venue and were greeted by the laughter coming from the end where my NRI cousin was playing a flute.
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