by Nikita Singh
‘I used to be fat.’ Maahi curled her lip.
‘Oh, please. You weren’t exactly fat; I’ve seen your pictures. Maybe like five Kgs overweight, if that. And you lost that real quick. It’s amazing how much working for your passion changes a person. You don’t even realize how much exercise your mind and body are getting, how mentally and physically active you get when you’re immersed in doing what you love. Running around, meeting new people, facing rejection, trying harder, making shit happen. I’m proud of how much you’ve grown,’ Laila said, nodding her approval, before saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen once the bakery is open and things settle down a bit though. You might become fat for real.’
‘I look forward to the day things settle down. It’s going to take a long time for us to even break even, let alone start making profit.’
‘But it’s all going to be worth it. I’m really enjoying actually starting work, instead of going over the plan over and over and over again. God, that was driving me nuts.’
‘Yeah, I was worried about your sanity for a bit there.’
‘Sorry about that,’ Laila said sheepishly. ‘It did make you step up and take charge though.’
‘Thanks for that. There was no other way I would’ve learned.’
‘You’re welcome.’
They continued working on the research for the website. When they had enough to go on, they parted ways. Laila was working with a broker and they had a few leads on commercial spaces in Meherchand and Shahpurjat. They were going to take a look. The broker seemed very confident about one of the spaces, which got Maahi and Laila excited. They were thrilled to watch their dream take shape.
Maahi went back home and wrote emails to all four website developers they had shortlisted, introducing themselves and asking for quotes. She then started working on the menu. It was her favourite part. They already had a standard menu. She now wanted to polish it and give all items witty, quirky names. She also needed to look at pricing. They were offering a discount in the first week, and Maahi needed to calculate how that would affect their sales and profit.
She went from one website to another, looking at their menus, trying to get ideas. A couple of hours later, she somehow found herself on a middle-aged Russian’s twitter page. He had been baking and selling pot brownies in the shape of marijuana leaves for a living for twenty years and called his food truck a speciality bakery.
‘Maahi!’ She heard her mom call from the kitchen.
‘Coming!’ Maahi closed the tab and looked back at her list. She wasn’t getting anywhere with the names. She needed someone to bounce ideas off. She had tried calling Siddhant earlier but he hadn’t taken her call. ‘Is Sarthak home?’ she asked, walking into the kitchen.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in a while. He might be in his room with headphones on. Listen, Sushanti aunty and her family are coming for dinner tonight. I’m making chicken tikka masala, achari paranthas and pulao. Is that okay?’ Ma asked, adding salt to wheat flour.
‘Sounds good to me. Let me take care of this,’ Maahi said, taking the pot from her. ‘What have you put in this already?’
‘Just flour, salt and ghee. Do you think we should make raita too?’
‘Why not? I can make it. Boondi or cucumber? Ooh, wait, I can make it with potatoes and amchur and hing and everything. Really spruce it up! Where’s the achar masala for this?’ Maahi pointed at the pot she was kneading the dough in. Ma passed over the bottle to her.
‘Okay, you make the raita. Anything else?’
‘I’ll cut some salad. Nothing fancy; we don’t want to distract people from your yummy chicken. Can we make jeera rice instead of pulao? Pulao might be a bit much.’
‘Okay,’ Ma said, washing the chicken. ‘Can you bake some cupcakes too? Sushanti aunty said she wanted to taste.’
Maahi snorted. ‘Yeah, right. I’ve been baking for so long and she never wanted to try any. Now that we’re opening the bakery, she wants me to bake some for her so she doesn’t have to pay for it.’
‘Maahi, be nice.’
‘Fine, I’ll bake. I was just saying.’
Maahi finished with the paranthas and salad, and got started with the raita when her phone rang. She put down the boiled potatoes she was peeling and went to her room. It was Kishan.
‘Hey,’ she said into the phone.
‘Hi. What’s up?’
‘Just helping Ma in the kitchen. We are having guests over for dinner.’
‘Ah. Do you have some time to meet up before that?’ Kishan asked.
Maahi looked at the round clock on her wall. It had a giant owl with huge eyes on it, which was quite scary at night, especially because of the radium. It was almost six. They were expecting Sushanti aunty around eight, which by Indian time would mean somewhere around nine thirty.
‘Okay,’ she said.
They decided to meet at a CCD close to her place. Maahi finished making the raita and got dressed. She told Ma she would be back in an hour. She had no intention of spending more time than that with Kishan, and he knew she had to get home for the dinner, so she had a legit excuse to take off in case things got awkward.
Maahi walked to the coffee shop with a weird feeling in her stomach. She didn’t have a chance to ponder over it; she was there before she knew it. To her surprise, Kishan was there already, waiting for her. He got up as she pushed open the glass door. He walked to her and gave her a hug. Used to hugging Siddhant and Sarthak, both taller than Kishan, Maahi felt awkward when she rose on her toes and her face didn’t completely disappear in his chest. She had never noticed that before.
She was disoriented for a brief moment—he smelled and felt so different from what she remembered, still somehow familiar. She pulled back. ‘Hi,’ she said, looking up at him. He still had that U-shaped beard enclosing his face, but it was thicker than before. It wasn’t long, just about a centimetre, but more evenly distributed; he had a moustache too. Maahi could see that he put a lot of effort into grooming his facial hair. He was wearing a white shirt, untucked, with olive-khaki pants and Oxford shoes. His hair looked thinner and he might’ve gained a little weight—his face looked fuller, even under the beard—but other than that, he looked the same. Same dark eyes, looking at her the same way as always.
‘Hey. It’s so nice to see you,’ Kishan said.
‘Same,’ Maahi said. She walked over to the table where he had been sitting and put her handbag down.
‘I just got a coffee. What do you want?’ he asked.
‘I’ll get it,’ Maahi said, picking up her bag again.
‘No. Tell me—I’ll get it.’
‘It’s okay. I’ll—’
‘Come on. Don’t be a stranger,’ Kishan cut her off.
Maahi sighed. ‘Fine, a masala chai would be good.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah.’
Kishan raised an eyebrow and laughed. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, thank you.’
As he walked to the counter, Maahi wondered what was so wrong with masala chai. She enjoyed the flavours and combination of cloves, ginger and cardamom. And what did he mean by ‘don’t be a stranger’? They essentially were strangers at this point.
Kishan walked back and sat opposite her. He smiled. He seemed very confident, which made Maahi nervous, for some reason. It was as if he didn’t feel the need to make a first impression, or behave a certain way. All of the things she was feeling. He was as he had always been with her.
‘So, how’s everything going? You look amazing,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ Maahi blushed against her will. ‘Everything’s great.’
‘Yeah? I heard you’re into baking and stuff now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Nice. How’s that going?’ Kishan asked. He sat with his legs apart, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. The same way he sat the last time she had seen him.
‘Quite good. We’re opening a speciality bakery in South Delhi. We have fu
nding and are looking for a space right now. There’s a lot going on. Hopefully everything will fall into place soon,’ Maahi explained.
‘That’s great! Can’t believe you bake! Show me your hand—do you burn your fingers a lot?’ Kishan laughed, pulling her hand into his, turning it over to inspect.
‘No. I’m actually quite good. I didn’t know how organized I was until I started baking. I’ve learned a lot about myself. Like, I had no idea how particular I am—to the point where I think I have OCD. I have to get everything exactly right,’ Maahi said. She felt the need to defend herself and her work, which agitated her.
‘Quite the perfectionist, huh? Meticulous and disciplined. I like that.’
Maahi didn’t like the way Kishan stressed the word ‘disciplined’ and looked at her teasingly. A waiter brought her tea and she thanked him, glad about the distraction. She wanted to finish her tea quickly so she could leave.
Kishan looked uncertain for a second, and then said, ‘Look, I don’t mean to come across as an asshole. It’s just really easy to go back to how things were with us, talk to you the way I always did, because even with all these years of distance between us, we were once closer to each other than anyone else. Having known you like that, I’m sorry but I can’t pretend to be a stranger.’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Maahi said. ‘I never asked you to be a stranger.’
‘Yeah. I can see that you’re not very comfortable, so
I thought I should say something. Anyway, forget I brought it up.’
‘Okay.’
Kishan met her eyes. He was studying her face, as if to find answers. Maahi looked away. He was exactly the same as before. For a second, she let herself wonder how things would’ve been if they hadn’t broken up. She would’ve been in her last year of engineering, her parents and neighbourhood aunties would be happy, she would be protected from the outside world, with a stable career ahead of her. She might even have been happy. For a long time, she had thought that all she needed to be happy was to be with Kishan.
‘You must be wondering why I asked to meet you,’ he said. Maahi looked at him. ‘I just … the way things ended … I can’t tell you how horrible I felt when I left your hostel that night. I was an asshole. I was trying to settle into this new life, with new friends, colleagues.’ Kishan shook his head. ‘Even now, when I try to think about that time—it’s all a blur. It was my first job, first time I was earning, living away from home. I was changing and unintentionally, I was trying to change you too. I was new to all that and you were even younger … I shouldn’t have done that. I’m really sorry.’
Maahi shrugged. Not knowing what to say, she picked up her cup and took a sip.
‘I began to feel like we weren’t right for each other. I was constantly struggling with the relationship, and that night, when you asked me if I wanted the relationship … I wasn’t sure. We should’ve talked about it. And I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m sorry I let you go so easily. I didn’t know what I was doing.’
Despite herself, despite all the years, Maahi’s eyes filled with tears. She tried to compose herself. She couldn’t let him see how much he had hurt her, and how he was still affecting her. She sipped her tea and sniffed softly. ‘And there was that girl, Payal.’
‘It wasn’t like that!’
Maahi met his eye. ‘There was never anything between you two?’
‘Well … after we broke up, for a very brief period of time.’
‘I knew it.’
‘There was nothing between us when we were together—trust me,’ Kishan said.
‘Don’t lie to me. It was happening right in front of me.’ Maahi gritted her teeth.
‘I’m not lying. Maybe there was a … chemistry. But we didn’t act on it until you were gone.’
That stung. He made sure she was gone before anything happened. Or that’s what he wanted her to believe.
‘Say something,’ Kishan said.
Maahi looked up at him. She remembered how badly she had needed him to say something that night, how his silence had felt like a stab in the stomach. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’
‘Of course it does. Don’t even pretend that it doesn’t affect you. I know you, I can read you.’
Maahi despised that. ‘Talking about this reminded me of that night, that’s all. Now you have apologized, it was a long time ago and we can all let it go.’
‘But I can’t. I need to make sure we’re okay. I have to know that you’ve forgiven me.’
‘I have.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ Kishan said, peering into her eyes. ‘It’s important to me.’
‘But why?’ Maahi asked, trying to make sense of the situation. Why, all of a sudden, was she so important to him?
‘Because I never stopped loving you.’
Maahi set her cup down slowly and gulped the tea. Her throat went dry.
‘I couldn’t,’ Kishan said. He leaned forward and took her hand again. ‘What we had was real. And I shouldn’t have let you go. I realized that immediately, but I didn’t know what to do about it. For a long time, I thought it was best for us to not be together. We were too different and you’d be happier without me. But it’s not true—we’re not different! We know each other so well. It’ll never be the same with anyone else.’
Maahi pulled her hand back. ‘I’m in love with someone. I have a fiancé.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I have to go. Please don’t contact me again.’ Maahi picked up her bag and got up. She walked away before Kishan could stop her.
‘Wait,’ Kishan called. He came after her as she walked out of the coffee shop, acutely aware of all heads turning to look at them. ‘So that’s your reason?’
‘Do you need a stronger one? I’m in love with someone. I’m going to marry him,’ Maahi said, trying to impress the gravity of the situation upon him.
‘You don’t want to talk to me because you have a fiancé? Not because you hate me for what happened between us? How things ended? Not because you’re still angry, because it still affects you? It still matters?’ Kishan held her shoulder to stop her and asked.
‘No, because it’s not about you anymore.’ Maahi hated that he assumed he still affected her enough to play a role in deciding what she did or didn’t do in her life. She jerked his hand away and said, ‘Don’t create a scene.’
‘Fool yourself all you want, but I know.’
‘Look, I don’t have a problem talking to you. We can be friends. Just as long as we’re just that, and you don’t try to start something.’
‘Start something? It never ended between us—not for me. And I know it didn’t for you either. We loved each other so much. It doesn’t end overnight.’
‘It’s been three fucking years!’ Maahi exclaimed. She started walking away from him.
‘Then why are you still so angry? Why are you running away, Maahi?’ Kishan called from behind her. ‘Because you know you still love me too?’
She didn’t turn.
When Maahi got home, Sushanti aunty and her family were already there. They had started dinner. They asked her to join, but she said she’d eat later. She went to the kitchen to bake, listening to the conversation at the dining table, which didn’t help her mood at all.
‘Beta, we heard about your bakery,’ Sushanti aunty called after a while. ‘We were just telling your parents how proud we are.’
‘Thanks, Aunty,’ Maahi said.
‘We can’t wait to taste some of those cupcakes.’
Maahi stopped whipping the batter. She went to the living room and said, ‘You’ll have to wait for the bakery to open. I just realized we don’t have all the ingredients I need.’
‘We don’t?’ Ma asked.
‘No. Sorry, Ma.’ Maahi hated to see her mom’s face drop. But she really didn’t want to give Sushanti aunty what she wanted. ‘We do have Laila’s cookies. I’ll warm some of those up and serve them with ice cream and othe
r toppings for dessert. If that’s fine with everyone.’
‘Oh, we were looking forward to your world-famous cupcakes, but what can we do?’ Sushanti aunty said bleakly.
Maahi felt petty in her small victory. She went back into the kitchen and pulled her phone out. She called Siddhant, and when he didn’t take her call, she texted him.
Maahi: Where TF are you?
She started working on the cookie sundaes, her fingers unsteady. She got a response from Siddhant a little later.
Siddhant: At the hospital. What’s up?
Maahi: Why TF are you never there when I need you?
Siddhant: Aww, I’m sorry. You know I can’t really do anything about it. What’s wrong?
Maahi: Nothing. I just fucking need you sometimes but you’re never there.
Siddhant: You’re scaring me now. Is everything okay?
Maahi: Yes! Is it too much to ask for to talk to my own boyfriend? No, wait. My FIANCÉ. Just for one minute???
Siddhant: I’ll call you as soon as I can.
Maahi: Don’t bother. I don’t want to talk to you right now.
Siddhant: Sorry you feel that way. Wish I could say that this is going to end soon, but this is my profession. Thought you knew that from the beginning.
Maahi: Yeah, thanks for reminding me.
Maahi dropped the tray she was holding. She was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Is everything okay?’ Ma called from the dining table.
‘Yes,’ Maahi called back, picking up the tray and placing the dessert bowls on them. ‘Sarthak, can you carry these out?’ she asked weakly.
Later that night, Maahi felt terrible about the way she had behaved with Siddhant. She wanted to hear his voice so badly, her throat felt constricted every time she thought about him and their fight. It wasn’t really a fight; she had blown up on him for no reason. It was totally uncalled for.
Her phone vibrated and she picked it up immediately. She had kept it close to her pillow, anticipating Siddhant’s call.