by Nikita Singh
They had stood there, frozen, their eyes locked with each other. They must have been like that for only a few seconds, but Lavanya remembered it feeling like hours passed before her eyes, but she saw nothing, only her father’s eyes. His horror-struck eyes filled with guilt, remorse, shock? She didn’t know. And she never found out . . . She never looked into her father’s eyes again. Until that morning.
Lavanya had run. As soon as they had broken eye contact, Lavanya had taken a step back, then another and another till her back hit the gate. Turning, she had fumbled with the latch on it and looked up one last time before she got out. ‘Lavi, wait!’ She knew her father was going to come after her. She saw him rush away from the window, and she had run.
‘You were there,’ she said to Shourya, angrily wiping away the stray tear that escaped down her cheek. ‘When it happened. I came to you.’
‘Don’t think about it. Please,’ Shourya whispered.
‘You were on the cricket ground; I remember clearly. The PE class was going on. I ran back to you and interrupted your game. You were so mad at me.’
‘Hey! I didn’t know what was going on. And like you said, you interrupted my game.’
Lavanya looked up at Shourya. All the buttons of his jacket were undone. As were the top four buttons of his shirt; the rest were done wrong, leaving one hole empty at the bottom. He was wearing a deep grey T-shirt under it, which he had had for years. It was completely worn, torn at the edges and also had tiny holes on it at places. Lavanya wondered if he’d let her keep it.
That day, he had reluctantly left the cricket ground with her and she had dumped everything on him. Ever since then, everything that she had gone through, he had too. He had shared her confusion and her anger, and when news of the affair leaked, he had borne the bullying with her.
‘I cannot believe what I did to you, after everything . . .’ she said.
‘Ah, it’s all right. I’m a man. I got over it.’ Shourya shrugged.
Lavanya knew he was pretending it was no big deal just so she would stop feeling so bad. ‘No, Shourya, it was wrong. And I’m sorry I didn’t see that before today.’
‘Okay, enough. We’re done discussing this now. It’s all in the past, let’s leave it there?’
Lavanya nodded.
Shourya finally let go of her shoulder, and she leaned into his chest. Her head was buzzing with snippets from their fight in the morning, and every moment since then and before that. It was exhausting. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.
‘Never do that again. Never disappear.’
Lavanya sniffed. She had cried enough for the day, and refused to let another tear slip out. She rubbed her cheek against his chest and felt the soft fabric of his threadbare T-shirt. She tried to nod, but he was holding her too tightly.
She felt his chuckle reverberate through his chest. ‘Use words; nods aren’t the answer to everything,’ he said. She knew if she looked up, she would find him smiling.
‘I won’t disappear,’ she promised. An image of her medical report flashed through her head. ‘Without telling,’ she added quickly.
‘Not even after telling. And in case you’re planning to shut me out again once you return to New York, tell me now,’ Shourya pulled back and watched her expression.
Lavanya held his gaze for a second, as if contemplating, then pushed out her bottom lip and shrugged. ‘Meh.’
Shourya pushed her away at once and made a show of being majorly hurt. Lavanya laughed, chasing him, trying to pull him back to her. He dodged her and got away. But he was laughing too.
‘Before I forget, we need to call your mom and tell her you’re alive. She’s freaking out. Think of a story to tell her; I’m going to let you do the explaining.’
‘Such a gentleman.’ Lavanya watched Shourya as he dialled her mother’s number.
‘You cannot be serious.’
‘Oh, but I am.’
‘Lavanya, this is insane!’
‘I know. That’s the point.’
‘No, no, no! This is not a good insane, this is a ridiculous insane!’ Shourya studied the electric blue beast in front of him. ‘Okay, let me get this straight. This is a 1000 CC motorbike. You bought it brand new from the store, paid in full, and . . . What are you going to do with it, exactly?’
They were in front of her house. Lavanya was on the other side of the bike, which stood in the middle of the narrow path that led to the main door, cutting the lawn in half. She ran her fingers over the windshield and looked at the bike gleefully. ‘Always wanted to have one of these. Road trip? It’s on my list. We could go to Rishikesh—I’ve heard they have lots of adventure sports stuff there. Or we could go to see the Taj Mahal? I’ve never been to Agra.’
‘So basically, you want me to ride it and take you on a road trip?’
‘Are you saying you have a problem with that?’
Shourya thought about it. ‘It does sound like fun,’ he relented.
‘Then what are we waiting for? I checked everything. Rishikesh is about 223 kilometres away by road, and Agra is 212 kilometres away. But they are both in the opposite directions. So we can go to only one. In a day, that is. We could go to the other one on the next day.’
‘Whoa. Slow down, there.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I am not saying we have to, I am just saying we could. It all depends.’
‘On?’
‘What you want to do,’ Lavanya said softly, looking at Shourya with large eyes.
‘Don’t make that face at me! Fine, we can go to Taj Mahal first, and see if going that far on a bike is worth the hassle.’
‘Can we go to Rishikesh first? I’ve never been river rafting befo— Toughy, no!’ Lavanya ran after her puppy, and pulled her slipper out from between his teeth.
‘I have,’ Shourya said absent-mindedly, checking out the bike in front of him. ‘But I’ve not been to the Taj Mahal, which is a shame. It is one of the seven wonders.’
‘Okay, fine. Tomorrow morning, first thing. It takes less than three hours to get there by road. We could get there in two!’
Shourya chuckled at Lavanya’s enthusiasm. They had spent every waking moment in last couple of days hanging out with each other. Lavanya had insisted on carrying her to-do list everywhere, and she had checked off another item by shoplifting a lipstick from a mall. He found it strange that she should have such a thing on her list, but she said she had always wondered if the intimidating security systems in big malls actually worked.
She had expected the store security to arrest her and hand her over to the cops. Or at least for the buzzer to go off when they stepped out of the store, but nothing of the sort happened. Lavanya was visibly disappointed.
‘Why not one hour? I could ride the bike at 200 kilometres per hour,’ Shourya prodded.
‘Are you serious? I don’t think it’s safe to drive over a hundred, is it?’
‘We’ll see.’
Shourya knew that even though she’d bought a superbike in a mad moment, and the idea of taking a road trip had her excited, she was going to freak out as soon as the speed touched eighty. He wasn’t sure she even knew what a hundred felt like on a bike.
‘Taj Mahal it is!’ she said excitedly.
He was right. Only, it did not even take them to cross eighty for her to start panicking. Lavanya freaked out just hearing the sound of the engine.
Shourya reached her place at five in the morning as they had decided. As soon as he started the bike, the beast roared into life. The sound was loud enough to wake up the entire street. Shourya could feel the engine grow hot underneath, and he revved up the accelerator, making the engine growl even louder.
‘Oh my God. What is happening?’ Lavanya cried from the back seat.
‘Just your bike starting up,’ Shourya grinned.
‘No. No, no, no. There is something wrong. It was not making this noise when the guy delivered it.’
‘Did he ride it to your place?’
‘I . . . don�
�t know. But there is definitely something wrong with this. Do you think the silencer is broken?’
Shourya could tell by the tone and shrill quality of Lavanya’s voice that she was terrified. He adjusted one of the rear-view mirrors so he could see her. It was dark outside, but the dull yellow light coming from the street lamps showed him Lavanya’s petrified expression.
He brought her arms around his body and placed them on top of each other against the tank. ‘Bend forward. You have to relax your back—you can’t sit straight!’
‘This feels so weird—’
‘Hold on tight!’
‘Wait, no!’
He couldn’t hear anything she said after that. Her arms were clutching his stomach tightly in the beginning, but she relaxed gradually and held on to the tank instead. Shourya tried to let her ease into the experience, slowly increasing the speed as he felt her get more comfortable.
They did not stop even once on the way. Lavanya helped him with the directions by checking the GPS on her phone. With the roads empty that early in the morning, they reached Agra in a little over two hours.
The sky was lightening. They were on a road that gave them a nice view of the Taj Mahal. As Shourya pulled up and looked for space to park the bike, he asked, ‘Do you see that?’
‘What?’ he saw Lavanya lift up her head from his back and look at him in the rear-view mirror.
‘The sun.’
‘Where?’
‘East.’ Shourya rolled his eyes. ‘Trust you to ruin a perfect cinematic moment.’
‘What? I wasn’t looking,’ Lavanya made a hurt face before she looked at the sun, which was starting to peek out of the clouds, lighting up the sky with an orange glow. Shourya parked the bike outside the accessible area; there was a sign stating no vehicles were permitted within 500 metres of the monument. Lavanya got down and stretched her arms.
After two hours of listening to the constant roar of the bike, they found themselves in sudden silence. Shourya’s thighs and hands were warm from the heat of the vehicle, despite the December cold.
‘That was . . . something,’ Lavanya said.
‘This is something,’ Shourya pointed at the Taj Mahal.
The morning sun came out from behind the orange clouds and illuminated the city with a soft glow. The Taj Mahal stood before them, hiding under a translucent white veil of mist.
‘Shall we?’ Shourya asked.
Lavanya gave him her arm and they started walking towards the monument. He had seen innumerable pictures of it ever since he was a child, but it was only now, when he was so close to it that he realized the magnitude of it. If it could look this magnificent from half a kilometre away, he could only imagine what being inside was going to feel like.
The walk up to the entrance was lined with craftspeople selling souvenirs and all sorts of gift items, from small replicas of the Taj to necklaces, refrigerator magnets, embroidered handbags and handmade key chains.
Even though it was early morning, there were plenty of tourists around. Shourya was annoyed by the security checks and the long queue, but as soon as they were let inside, it was as if they had stepped into another era. The gardens were green and lush, the Mughal architecture exquisite. When they walked in through the east gate, the Taj Mahal stood before them in all its glory. Walking leisurely, almost in a daze, they took their time reaching the monument.
Still some distance from the Taj’s entrance, Shourya paused, and held Lavanya’s hand. ‘Wait. Let’s stay here?’
She didn’t protest.
They moved to the side, and out of the way of the tourists. They were facing the sun, which had climbed up on the clouds and was shining brighter. It seemed almost lazy, the way it stood in the background, not harsh, not interfering with the cool breeze that made their hair dance. Hers shone with a red sheen, flying away from her face.
‘So?’ Shourya looked at her and asked. She had not spoken in a while.
‘It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?’ Lavanya gushed. She shivered and pulled her jacket closer to her body.
‘You okay?’ Shourya whispered.
She nodded.
‘Again with the nod.’
‘I’m okay. Much better than okay. I’m great,’ Lavanya murmured, looking at him before turning her attention back to the clouds that seemed to change colour every few minutes.
It was as if the air cast a spell on the two of them. They did not care about seeing the Taj any more. They found a romance with the clouds and forgot everything else.
14
There was an overwhelming acidic smell in the room. She was finding it difficult to breathe. The smell was familiar in a way, but also very alien at the same time. Cat urine—that is what the room reeked of. But there was something else mixed with it, something sweet and sickening.
She stank of it too. Not only had she smoked it, she had also slammed it into her veins. She could feel it dance inside her, moving in her body, coursing in her blood. She had a strong impulse to slash her wrist and let the venom flow out.
She could feel the toxins in her body long after the effects of the coke had disappeared. Her hair, gathered in a chic bun at the nape of her neck the previous night, had come undone. It stuck to her face and neck. When she looked down her nose, she could see that her mascara had managed to reach the tip of it.
She supported herself on her knee, before clutching the doorknob and trying to pull her body up. Her legs refused to support her weight, but she did not give up. It took time, but eventually she managed to crawl her way outside. Once she reached the road, she ran.
She ran and ran and ran, but she could never run away from it. It was in her. It was a part of her, and it was there to stay.
Lavanya woke up with a jolt. Her hair was sticking to her skin, strewn all over her face, neck and chest. She pushed it away angrily and sat up. The nightmares needed to stop. She had forgotten the difference between memories and dreams. Were these nightmares just nightmares, or had the things she dreamt of actually happened? There was no way to tell. It’s not like coke helps cognitive behaviour or memory.
She remembered how it happened. Diving into her studies, and then into work, she had only woken up to her need for a life and friends when she had been having a terrible time at the office. She knew most lawyers did cocaine to help them stay up and work, and they met up at the pub downtown every weekend to snort up. She thought that could be the opening she needed, and had forced herself a few times to go there. But she was never able to build up the courage to join her colleagues at the PSM table. That’s when a man with a tiny ponytail had approached her. He worked at some firm on Wall Street; she had seen him around at the pub a few times. One night, after a particularly bad week at work, she had taken him up on his offer and joined him at a house party at his friend’s place.
Her recollections of the party were mostly hazy. She remembered up till the part where she was snorting cocaine, she had done it a few times before in law school too. But she must have been very high to have agreed to inject it with a needle.
The dreams only served to distort her memories of that night further.
When Lavanya woke up the next morning, she found herself tired of running from everything, all the time. She decided she had had enough. She was prepared to face the realities of her life, and that meant she had to find courage to call up Dr Shah’s office and set an appointment.
Lavanya had run away from AIIMS after getting the tests Dr Shah had recommended done. Ever since then, Dr Shah’s secretary had been calling her daily to set an appointment with the doctor to read and understand the test reports and work on her treatment plan. But Lavanya had been ignoring her, fearing the reports. Those reports could be her death sentence. They were going to decide whether her disease could be controlled or if it had already proceeded to AIDS.
All reason told her that it could not have, not so soon. She did not feel particularly sick; her body ached, but it had to do with riding pillion in a crouched position on the lo
ng bike rides and the mixture of cold breeze and hot sun they had faced later that day.
If she was right about the time when she got infected, which she was sure she was, the disease had been diagnosed relatively early. Lavanya could not think of anything other than sharing a needle that could have infected her with HIV. She had had a quiet and dull life, except for periodic bouts of rebellion when she had lost herself in the sweet smoke of weed and the oblivion of white rum.
Lavanya picked up her phone and called the doctor’s office before she chickened out again. As it turned out, Dr Shah’s schedule was packed for the day, but her secretary managed to squeeze her in the next day. He also reminded Lavanya that her reports had been ready for a week. Lavanya promised him that she would pick them up from the hospital the same day.
Her next call was to Shourya, to see how the plan for the Rishikesh road trip was coming along. As soon as he picked up, she said, ‘Next stop, Rishikesh!’
‘Nope,’ came the dreary response from the other end.
‘Shourya.’
‘Don’t Shourya me. I’m not going. It’s not going to happen.’
‘Why can’t we go? This is so unfair. You are no fun,’ Lavanya complained.
‘I’m okay with not being any fun as long as I don’t have to ride that bike for 500 kilometres in a day,’ Shourya said grumpily.
‘You said we’d go to Agra first and see, and if it’s worth it, then we’d go to Rishikesh. We had fun on the Taj Mahal trip, right? You said you did.’
‘I did. But only up to the point when we got there and stayed outside. It was all downhill from there, and you know it.’
They had explored the monument and the Mughal architecture around it, but by the time they had finished, they had found themselves fighting to stay together. The place had got way too crowded for them to explore idly. After eating a breakfast that was incredibly greasy, but not delicious enough to make up for the excess oil, they had got back on the road. By the time they reached home, the sun had set. It had taken them twice as long on their way back because of the afternoon traffic. The sun added to the incredible amount of heat the bike generated and they had to take regular breaks to allow the vehicle to cool down and keep themselves from burning.