She felt a lot better now that she was wearing reasonably presentable clothes: a light mauve top and a pair of practically unworn old jeans she had recently discovered she could fit into again, although it was still a bit of a squeeze. Her Zumba classes, three times a week, over the last month were already paying off. She was glad she was sticking with them, even though the first week had been tough, with aches and pains in places she hadn’t even known existed. After her body adjusted to the routine, she felt she had a new sort of energy. In fact, on evenings when she didn’t go to Zumba, she tended to feel a little listless, and so brisk walks on Bandstand served to fill that space. Right now, she was content to stroll along slowly with this strange tall fellow she barely knew.
Sahil broke the silence only after they’d already walked about a hundred metres away from the direction of her house. He turned towards her and said warmly, ‘So how’ve you been?’
‘Me? Oh. Fine.’ Trish realized with a start that she was rarely ever asked that question. It was strange, now that she thought about it. The most inane, polite form of greeting, the blandest of social niceties was hardly ever posed to her. And Sahil even sounded like he genuinely wanted to know.
He was gazing at her appraisingly. ‘You’re looking different from the last time I saw you.’
‘Different? No. Much the same,’ she said, deliberately breezy, trying to hide how self-conscious she felt about being observed so closely by him. The intensity with which he looked at her, as if she were the only other person around for miles, was definitely not something she was used to. ‘You’re probably just confusing me with someone else, that’s all.’
‘No, I’m not.’ He pressed on, ‘Why don’t you just tell me what’s different?’
She knew she had actually lost weight. Getting regular exercise had quickly burned away some of the excess fat. Even Ma had remarked on it a tad begrudgingly two days ago and that meant it really did show. But Trish didn’t want to tell him that. It seemed very trivial and silly. Why should she tell him anything anyway? She shrugged and looked straight ahead, the invisible walls going up around her again.
They walked on in silence for a little while longer, and then Sahil said, ‘I guess you’re still wondering why I came to see you today, huh?’ She nodded wordlessly, still staring straight ahead. ‘Would you believe me if I repeated that I genuinely just felt like it?’
‘Not really,’ she admitted.
‘You think I have some agenda.’
‘Yep.’
‘I don’t have an agenda, Trish,’ Sahil said earnestly. ‘I’m just going with the flow here. I feel some sort of pull …’
‘Oh, please.’ Trish rolled her eyes.
‘What oh-please?’ Sahil demanded. ‘Why are you always so … closed? What do you get by being so skeptical?’
Well, for one, I get to not be disappointed ever. But she didn’t bother to answer him out loud.
He sighed with exasperation and then went on. ‘Okay, look. I just felt we could get to know each other better, okay? Just be friends. No harm in that, right?’
‘I don’t know,’ Trish said carefully.
‘Come on, Trish! Don’t you believe it’s possible for two people to make an instant connection?’
‘We did,’ she pointed out. ‘I attacked you.’
He laughed, shaking his head. ‘Yes. I remember that distinctly. I couldn’t forget that one even if I tried. But you know that’s not what I’m talking about.’
‘What are you talking about then?’ Trish was getting exasperated with all this. This dude was too instant-karma-ish for her liking. He was much cuter with his mouth shut.
‘I just want to get to know you better,’ Sahil said firmly.
‘I’m not going to help you with that psycho stuff. I can’t.’
‘Psychic,’ he corrected automatically and went on. ‘You said that already, and it’s fine. What if I say it’s just that … there’s something about you that I really like?’
‘Then you’re even crazier than I thought,’ Trish quipped.
‘And why exactly are you so down on yourself all the time?’
‘Please,’ Trish sighed. ‘Don’t you try to counsel me. I’m fine.’
‘Of course you’re fine,’ Sahil said firmly. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. See, we’re just agreeing!’
She couldn’t help smiling at that, but wasn’t comfortable with this line of conversation any more. They were nearing her favourite bench. Without a word, she steered away from him and sat down. He followed and sat down next to her. After a few seconds, he said, ‘Do you know you’re pretty stubborn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know you’re pretty?’ Without missing a beat.
‘Do you know you’re beginning to piss me off?’ Trish’s eyes were flashing as she turned towards him. What did he mean, making fun of her like this? Pretending to flirt with her, as if she couldn’t see through it.
He laughed incredulously and said, ‘I have a strong feeling that anything I say would piss you off. But hopefully that will change over time.’ She didn’t bother to respond. She was still fuming. ‘So,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Would you like to know more about me or not?’ Sahil seemed to take her silence as an invitation to continue. ‘Since you’re clearly dying to know more about me, I must first tell you about my origins.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I come from the Aggarwal Sweets family.’ He said it with the air of someone confessing to a big crime. ‘Heard of them?’
She couldn’t keep the surprise off her face. Aggarwal Sweets was a huge enterprise, but somehow it seemed not to fit with Sahil.
‘Yes, yes.’ He sighed, noting the change in her expression. ‘I’m the youngest son, and so far I’ve escaped the destiny of my two older brothers. They’ve both been roped into the family business. But I can’t stand the thought of it. And so, since I’m the rebellious one, my father keeps threatening to throw me out of the family.’
‘Well, that’s a little drastic, isn’t it?’ Trish was intrigued, in spite of herself. ‘Why should you be forced into doing something you don’t want to do?’
‘Yes. Try telling Babuji, though. He’s one of the “Phamily business is the phamily’s business’’ types.’ Sahil gave a short bark of a laugh and then ran his hands through his brown hair. She noticed a pattern: he seemed to do this when he was thoughtful or nervous. A ray of light from the setting sun sparkled off his glasses. ‘I just can’t imagine myself handling that stuff.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Mithai, namkeen.’
‘Hey, you guys make a mean bhujia sev though.’ Trish felt duty-bound to express her loyalty to her favourite brand of namkeen.
His laugh this time was more genuine. ‘That’s true.’
‘So maybe you could just tell them that you don’t have an interest in baking or cooking or whatever it is,’ Trish suggested quickly, uncomfortable under his direct gaze again.
He laughed even more loudly this time. When he stopped, he said, ‘Trish, we don’t actually sit and make the stuff ourselves, you know, we run it as an enterprise. Sales, distribution, merchandising, advertising, finance. I still don’t see myself being excited by it, though.’ He grinned at her again. ‘You’re funny, you know that?’
She hadn’t meant to be funny, so she felt her face getting hot. Why had she gone and said something so stupid to him? Of course. Just because they ran the business didn’t mean that they were actually halwais themselves. She felt like an idiot.
‘So,’ he said, his voice getting serious again. ‘With the combination of all that stress with the family, and then the flashes returning again a few months ago, I kind of did something really stupid a while ago.’ He turned towards her. ‘I sort of tried to … end it all.’
She wasn’t sure she had heard him right. ‘You did what?’
‘Well, it was also kind of an experiment,’ he said quickly, sounding defensive. ‘I was getting really stressed out and couldn’t accept that what I had successfully suppressed for so many ye
ars was coming back to haunt me again. And then Dad gave me this ultimatum. It was all kind of closing in on me. So I figured that I might as well put my “powers” to the test. I mean, I always wondered if I’d see a vision of my own death, so I thought I’d check what would actually happen if I planned it.’
‘Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense,’ Trish said sarcastically.
‘I know it sounds nuts. It was nuts. But it didn’t work anyway.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Oh, stop with the sarcasm for a minute, will you?’ he snapped at her, looking actually angry. His eyes had darkened, turning to molten chocolate. ‘I’m telling you stuff I’ve never told anyone else.’
‘Well, I didn’t ask to hear all of this, Sahil.’ She was stung by his tone. It was the first time he had spoken to her like that.
‘So you don’t want to know?’ he asked challengingly.
Trish tore her eyes away from his and looked at the ground. ‘Go on.’ She paused, then added softly, ‘Sorry.’ She stole a glance up at his face again. He was smiling at her, the light back in his eyes. Her heart skipped another beat, which annoyed her a little.
He resumed, ‘So as part of my great big jackass plan, about three months ago, I went out to Marine Drive. I know it’ll sound dumb to you, but I can’t swim. Never tried. I guess I’m kind of afraid of the water. It was really rough that day. I parked my car and waded into the sea, fully clothed and all. I guess I had this idea of being swallowed up and all my troubles coming to an end.’ He exhaled heavily. Trish was holding her breath. She was getting a weird feeling about this. ‘But I couldn’t even get my suicide act right. It was a really secluded spot, but somehow I still got spotted and pulled out. Someone told me it was a woman that had stopped to buy a bhutta who raised the alarm. They said she jumped in to try and save me; I couldn’t find out anything about her though. My father had me taken out of the hospital as soon as I regained consciousness. I think he paid the cops to let me off from the attempted suicide charges or something.’ He laughed lightly and then became quiet. ‘I’ve often wondered who she was.’ He turned towards Trish now. ‘You know what I mean? Who would do a thing like that for a random stranger?’
Trish, whose jaw had been dropping further and further as she listened, quickly snapped her mouth shut and tried to look as neutral as she could. Her heart and mind were racing. It couldn’t be. Too much of a coincidence. She just couldn’t believe it.
It was him that she had saved? This was stuff right out of the movies. She couldn’t let him know about this. He was already into this whole kooky scene of other-worldly happenings and following his gut and instant connections. Next he’d be telling her about the law of attraction and giving her a copy of The Secret. He already kept popping up like this when least expected; if he found out she had saved him from drowning, he would probably decide he was meant to be her shadow for life. It was all just a strange coincidence. No need to panic. She would have to end this conversation now or she would end up giving something away.
‘It’s getting late,’ she said, trying to maintain an even tone. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get home now.’ She got up quickly from the bench. A little too quickly because the sudden movement caused a wave of dizziness to overcome her and she teetered a little.
‘Whoa. Are you okay?’ He was on his feet in a second and caught her by the arms to steady her.
She managed to regain her balance and immediately tried to shake herself free, though she was still feeling disoriented. She stammered a quick thanks.
The physical contact was strangely magnetic, like the previous time. It was as if there were some sort of electricity between them; her arms were tingling where he touched her. He seemed to feel something too, because his hands stiffened and tightened their grasp before he finally let go of her.
She glanced up at his shocked face and saw something strange in his eyes. It was an intense flash of understanding. No, it was more than that. Recognition. For the first time, Trish realized a part of her had always believed him.
She turned away from him and began to walk quickly. Fully aware of his gaze boring into her back, she broke into a trot, and soon, she was practically running the rest of the distance home.
15
A Working Day
‘What are you doing?’ Ba snorted. ‘Why are you making foolish moves?’
His gruff complaint startled Trish back into the moment. She looked down at the chessboard, trying to see what he was talking about. Checkmate. Already? ‘The king is dead,’ she announced in a deadpan manner, trying to lighten his mood. ‘Long live the king.’
Ba swept the pieces off the board with childish petulance. Trish noticed the trembling of his hands seemed to be getting worse. ‘There’s no point in playing with you, Trishna,’ he barked. ‘You aren’t even trying.’
‘Hey, Ba,’ Trish said gently. ‘Come on, you know I haven’t played chess as long as you have.’
‘Hah. It’s not that,’ Ba said with a shrewd expression that rarely appeared on his face these days. ‘Your mind is elsewhere.’
Chess made Ba far more lucid than anything else, which was why she tried to get in a game with him as often as she could. Ma still refused to learn the rules. She claimed it was because she was ‘too old to learn new things’, but Trish privately thought it was probably because she couldn’t stand to lose at anything.
She sighed and glanced at the clock. The day was getting on and she had yet to start working. Ba was right, her mind was all over the place and she found herself unable to concentrate. She looked out of the window. The waves were calm and slow, approaching the shore with majestic ease, breaking over the black rocks gracefully before retreating and then advancing again in a rhythmic manner. Much like those thoughts of hers, insistent and repetitive. Once again, she tried to push them away.
‘Are you thinking about a boy?’ Ba asked, frowning at her curiously, his bushy white eyebrows knitted together. His perspicacity amazed her. But Trish and Ba had never had a serious conversation about anything of this sort before, and she certainly wasn’t going to start.
She forced a laugh and repeated, ‘A boy? Ba, do you think I’m a teenager or something?’ She sighed again. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s nothing.’
‘Well, I want you to know,’ Ba spoke fiercely now, ‘only a really special man could ever be good enough for my Trishna. And it’s all right to wait, beta.’ He reached out, patted her hand briefly and then leaned back against his pillows. ‘And he had better ask me first.’
This was so unexpected from Ba, and it sounded so ludicrous, that Trish’s laugh was genuine this time. ‘I’m not waiting for anything, Ba.’ She couldn’t help feeling touched by his fiery speech. She continued lightly, ‘Some people are better off not getting married.’
Ma’s voice floated in from the other room. ‘Are you two talking about me again?’
‘Yes!’ shouted back Ba immediately, looking irritated. ‘We were just talking about you only.’ He lowered his voice and winked at Trish. ‘We were, you know. Some people are better off …’
‘Ba!’ Trish scolded, a little shocked but barely able to control her giggling at the same time. ‘You wouldn’t have had me if you guys hadn’t married!’
‘That’s true.’ Ba suddenly looked very tired and Trish saw that his eyes were far away again. He patted her hand again, but now it was just a mechanical gesture, almost dismissive.
‘You want to sleep?’ she asked gently.
He nodded, no longer looking at her. His gaze was fixed out of the window again. For about the hundredth time, Trish felt a familiar sense of disappointment. The feeling of having lost her father – again.
‘So what’s all this I hear about a handsome man coming to see you at home?’ Akanksha’s voice demanded over the phone. Trish rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. Couldn’t people just shut up about this nonsense?
She shot a malevolent glance towards the kitchen where Ma was currently in the process of h
arassing Munni. She growled in a low voice into the phone. ‘Akku, you know I hate it when Ma and you talk about me.’
‘Oh come on, Aunty’s just concerned! And you guys can’t have a conversation without fighting, so she ends up telling me stuff.’
‘Well, I’ll start fighting with you if you don’t cut out this gossiping with Ma. You know she’s got a twisted view on everything to do with me. If you want to know what’s going on with me, you’re better off talking to me directly, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Akanskha’s voice was gleeful and curious. ‘So come on, come on, who’s this mystery man of yours?’
‘No one. I mean, he’s just … a guy I, uh, ran into.’ Trish bit her lip and then repeated, ‘No one, really.’
Akanksha let out a sigh of defeat. ‘See? This is why it’s more fun to talk to your mom than to you. She at least tells me whatever she knows, I don’t have to coax things out of her!’ She changed gears. ‘So listen, how’re you placed today? You think you’ll be able to …’
‘Bring Lisa over,’ Trish said gruffly. ‘It’s been a while since she’s been here, it’ll be nice to have her around.’
‘Well, I must warn you, she’s gone back into this brooding phase again. I don’t know. She’s always fine around Vinay and Dad, but sulks with me. I’m telling you, it’s tough to raise a girl these days.’
Trish didn’t see Akanksha doing too much active raising, but decided it wouldn’t do to be judgemental. ‘She’ll be fine here, she’ll just read or something. What’s Uncle doing, would he like to come and have a cup of tea later?’
‘Oh, thanks. But Dad’s going for a checkup today, so he’ll be out for most of the day. That’s kind of why I need you to watch Lisa.’
‘Is he okay?’ Trish asked, recalling the tall elderly gentleman. He’d looked so fit.
‘Pink of health, honey,’ Akanksha sang out gaily. ‘Just his annual medical checkup. He’s very careful about looking after himself, especially after Mum passed on. So anyway, thanks so much for keeping an eye on Lisa! It’ll just be for two hours in the afternoon.’
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