‘Is it your parents? Will they mind?’ she asks when I don’t say a word.
Of course they will! Because in 2012, Manoj is probably 47 years old.
‘You could just come back here for good and live with us,’ Ajji says. ‘I like having you here.’
How do I explain to her that what she’s asking me to do is impossible?
‘Or maybe when Manoj starts earning, he can find a way to go and be with you in Australia?’ she suggests. Oh Ajji. If only it were about continents.
I shake my head slightly. Nothing can happen between us, and that I realise, is the essence of why I’m feeling so sad. Because there is truth in Ajji’s words. I’ve fallen for him as well.
Twenty
IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE BUT you wouldn’t have known it. There are no holly wreaths decorating the mall windows because there are no malls yet. Even so, Bangalore usually has a festive air at least a week before Christmas. Newspapers start putting up information about events and there’s excitement in the air.
Here, it’s just like any other day. I pick up a copy of the paper and only then see the date. 24th December. The newspaper seems broader and more unwieldy somehow and everything is in black and white! Also, no supplement! No page 3 pictures! Even the comic strip is in black and white. I put it away disgusted and pick up my copy of Harry Potter now that Vidya has finally relinquished it.
She’s actually trying to recover from the shock that Cedric Diggory dies in the end. And she can’t wrap her head around Voldemort but after explaining to her for half an hour, I give up.
‘Did you say kids in your country are reading this?’ she asks. ‘How can it be fiction for children when it’s so scary?’
The fourth book is a bit scary although not quite as much as the last Harry Potter book but I don’t tell her anything. I pick up from where I left off last week although that seems a lifetime ago. I’m engrossed in the book or at least trying to be or I will end up thinking about Manoj and that’s something I don’t want to do. I haven’t figured out anything yet and I don’t want to either. I’m only 16 and that’s too young to make life-changing decisions. More importantly, there’s no decision that I can honestly make myself. I have no idea when Manoj’s grandfather will find out a way to send me back, so really, what’s the point?
The house is abuzz with activity as everyone is planning for the trip tomorrow. I’m surprised. I mean, it’s a trip to Mysore, not like the trip to Dubai that our family had gone on last year. But if I recall correctly, Raina and I were only mildly excited about it. Mom had been annoyed because we kept complaining when things didn’t go our way. We got bored so easily too. If anything, I’m amused at how thrilled the three of them are about this simple day trip to a city that’s practically next door to Bangalore.
‘Will he actually drive the car?’ Reena asks Suma who nods importantly and Reena squeals in reply.
‘Oh my god! How terrifying!’ she says although she doesn’t look the least bit terrified. She’s actually jumping up and down in the room.
‘Does Manoj know how to drive?’ I ask out of curiosity.
‘How come you don’t know that he knows to drive? I thought the two of you knew everything about each other!’ Suma replies and although I don’t detect any malice in her words, they still take me aback.
‘He never mentioned anything in his letters,’ I say lightly and smile at her.
‘He’s been driving for the past two years but he hasn’t got his license yet,’ Suma informs me.
‘And we’re going to Mysore with him?’ I ask, looking uncertain.
‘He told me yesterday that his grandfather is also coming along. So we don’t have to really worry,’ Suma sounds confident of Manoj’s driving abilities.
‘How are we all going to fit? It’s a car, not a truck!’ I remind her.
‘Three in front and four at the back. Will be perfect,’ she says and I’m left confused. Three in front? What kind of a car is it?
As though reading my mind, she informs me, ‘It’s an Ambassador. One of the best for Indian roads,’ she assures me.
Supposing I get hurt in the past, what will happen to the future me? I’ve no idea how this works. Aargh! I don’t want to think of these things so I go back to reading my book while the girls chatter on about what clothes they’ll wear tomorrow.
‘What about you?’ Reena asks me after a while. ‘Do you want to wear anything special? Maybe my white churidar kurta?’
I remember how Manoj had looked at me when I wore it the last time. I shake my head.
‘You know, I’m missing my jeans. Maybe I’ll wear them tomorrow,’ I tell them.
Reena shrugs. ‘Sure, your wish,’ and I wonder if I have hurt her or if she thinks it’s a rebuff. But I want something to remind me of what normal is all about. Nothing better than clothes to do that.
Ajji is in the kitchen preparing snacks to take tomorrow and soon she calls all of us and recruits us into helping her. There’s a mountain of sev that she’s prepared along with murukkus and other fried goodies and we’re helping her pack them into packets for the journey. I help myself to some of the crunchy snacks and look up to see Ajji smiling at me.
If she thinks of Manoj as the son she never had, then thanks to my heart-to-heart discussion with her the previous night, she’s begun thinking of me as her daughter-in-law. That has to be the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. I look down immediately because I don’t want to encourage her line of thought.
‘So we’re leaving very early tomorrow morning,’ she informs all of us as we sit down to a quiet dinner.
‘I don’t want anyone fighting over who will take her bath first. Manoj will be here at exactly 6.30 am and we will be ready to leave. I want to get back home before it’s dark and Manoj will drive slowly so we need to leave early in the morning.’
‘Yes Amma’, Suma sounds exasperated, a lot like I do when mom starts grumbling. Six thirty in the morning is way too early but I don’t argue, especially not when Ajji looks so forbidding. She insists that we all go to sleep soon because otherwise we won’t wake up in time.
In the room, the excitement finally catches up with me. I don’t want to think much about how I’ll be spending the whole day with Manoj tomorrow. A part of me is secretly thrilled about it. I was the one who wanted things to be back to normal, like how they were before Manoj started getting all weird on me. But after insisting that he behave normally with me, I miss that special something that was going on between us.
I’m just confused. I don’t know what I want any more. I put my arm over my eyes and try to shut my ears to the sound of Reena giggling to herself. Sleep takes a long time in coming but it seems as though I’ve just slept when I’m being shaken awake by Suma.
She sounds uncannily like mom does when she wakes me up in the morning.
‘Tamanna! Wake up!’ she’s whispering loudly. I turn over and try to block her voice but she doesn’t relent easily and without realising it, I mumble, ‘God, you’re the same even in 2012.’
Twenty-one
‘WHAT?’ SHE ASKS LOUDLY and I open my eyes, slowly. What did I just say? I don’t remember.
‘You said something about 2012,’ she says, glaring at me.
Uh oh! ‘It’s nothing,’ I dismiss her and try to go back to sleep but she won’t let me.
‘Amma wants you to bathe first. Hurry up! You’re delaying all of us,’ she whispers again. What godawful time is 5 am for a bath? In December?
I’m shivering and my teeth are chattering when I come out of the bathroom clad in my jeans and top. It was summer when I left 2012. Obviously my top has tiny sleeves and goose pimples are breaking out on my arms while I rub them vigorously.
While we’re waiting for Reena to come out, I watch Suma as she braids her hair. Thankfully mine isn’t very long and just needs a few minutes with a brush. I look at Vidya who is waiting her turn in the bathroom and I realise she is again looking at the Harry Potter book. Seriously, what is it with th
is girl?
‘Tamanna? There’s something I wanted to ask you,’ she says softly.
‘What?’ I ask her, brushing some lint from my beloved jeans.
‘Why does it say that the date of publication is 2000?’ she asks me. Suma looks up with interest. Oh shit.
‘Must be a printing mistake,’ I assure her but she looks mutinous.
‘How can it be a printing mistake?’ she asks.
‘Show it to me,’ Suma says and takes the book from her. I’m suddenly nervous. I can’t tell them the truth! They’d want to know everything about the future like Manoj. And Suma would totally freak, to say the least.
‘It’s definitely a mistake,’ I say assertively, getting up from the bed and yanking the book away from Vidya’s hands. The two of them look surprised but I hold the book tightly to my chest.
‘There’s something fishy about you,’ Suma says. ‘That thing you had with you when you came here? The radio? How come it’s not working? How come we never saw you listening to it even once?’
Gosh, my cell phone. Why are these girls making such a witch hunt out of this?
‘What’s happening?’ Ajji asks from the doorway and I look at her gratefully. I need to get out from here because the atmosphere has suddenly become hostile. Still clutching my book and pulling out my phone from the drawer on the bedside table, I head outside, almost crashing into Reena who is just coming out from her bath.
‘Where are you going?’ she asks me. Even Ajji is looking at me expectantly.
‘I’m going to Manoj’s house,’ I tell them, surprising everyone including myself.
‘Why? He’s coming here in another half hour right?’ Reena asks. I note that Suma has a pinched look on her face and Ajji looks thoughtful.
‘I want to talk to him. It’s important,’ I say and before anyone can stop me, I head out of the house into the cold morning air.
By the time I reach Manoj’s house, I’m freezing. This is sheer craziness, coming out of the house without even a pullover or a shawl but I wanted to escape Suma and Vidya’s questioning. They’re starting to get doubts and that can mean potential trouble for me.
Manoj opens the door and I burst out laughing at his face. He looks comical with one half of his face covered with shaving cream. He’s wearing pyjamas and looks bemused to see me at his doorstep.
‘Move aside. Let me in!’ I say, shivering as I walk into his warm house. Ooh. That feels good. But my teeth are still chattering and Manoj shakes his head at me.
‘What happened? Why are you here?’ he asks. I can hear the sounds of some thumping and clattering from the room beyond. His grandfather, obviously.
I quickly update him about Suma and Vidya and how they were getting suspicious of my origins.
‘This is not good,’ he mutters, rubbing his hand on his face absently. He looks flabbergasted when his hand comes away with a fat glob of shaving cream.
‘I’ll be a minute. Make yourself at home,’ he calls out as he sprints in the direction of the bathroom presumably.
I look around the familiar dank living room and I’m a little surprised that it looks a little cleaner than last time. Has Manoj actually wiped those window panes, I wonder as I walk up to them and peer outside. The early morning street is unlike anything I am used to. There’s no clanging of the garbage collector’s bell or the milkman banging on our door. Although it’s almost 6 am, the streets are empty except for the odd cyclist who skims past the house, ringing his bell. It’s so serene that I’m a little lost actually. I forget all sense of time as I stand at that window, staring outside at the world of 1982.
I could live here if I wanted to, the thought appears in my head all on its own. I step back in shock. There’s no way I can stay back here even if it’s for Manoj. It’s not possible. If I stay here, then how will I be born 14 years later? It doesn’t make any sense. Just as I’m feeling the beginning of panic inside me, Manoj’s grandfather steps outside. He looks like he’s stepped out from those old Reader’s Digests of the 1960s that Ajji likes to hoard even now, half a century later.
His clothes look like they’ve been kept folded for way too long because there are creases below his knees as well. There’s also the distinct smell of mothballs around him. He looks at me surprised.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks, clearing his throat.
I don’t know how to explain it all to him. So instead I ask him, ‘Have you found out a way to send me back yet? It’s a week now since I came to 1982.’
He shakes his head and I look at him frustrated. That’s when I notice that he has a camera slung around his neck.
‘Is that …’ I ask him and he nods. So that’s the camera that took the picture that sucked me into 1982.
‘I don’t know what was special about that picture that it worked only then,’ he mutters to himself. ‘I’m trying to figure it out somehow.’
Manoj emerges from his room dressed smartly in jeans and a t-shirt and I can almost forget that the two of us are not teenagers in the same period of time.
‘Is that the book Vidya was reading?’ he asks and I nod. He puts his hand out to take it and I give it to him. He turns it over and looks at it from every angle and then opens it and skims the pages.
‘You know, it seems like magic, this whole thing?’ he says as he weighs the book up and down in his hands. It’s a book about magic, I want to tell him but he goes on in his vein of thought. ‘How you came here and brought all this with you? But my grandfather and I have been studying this phenomenon of time travel through photos. I think the answer lies in molecular physics but he thinks it’s something else altogether.’
I grimace because Manoj looks like he’s going to talk more scientific stuff to me. ‘You lost me at “phenomenon”. Let’s go, we’re getting late,’ I tell him. His grandfather has been observing our exchange with interest and I realise my face is a little flushed.
Adjacent to their house is their garage which is open. It’s slightly dark inside so I can’t make out the colour of the car. Also, Suma had mentioned that it was an Ambassador. I’ve only seen them in old movies or sometimes when government types zipped around in them.
Manoj goes inside while his grandfather and I wait outside. I wonder what to call him. I’ve never heard Manoj refer to him by anything. Maybe I can call him by his name but with a Mr attached to it, so hesitantly I ask him for his name.
‘Prakash,’ he says looking surprised. We don’t talk any more because Manoj has brought the car out. It’s a strange looking car, the colour of cement actually. I keep my face impassive as Manoj parks the car near the sidewalk because I don’t want him to fly off his handle about the better looking cars that we obviously have in 2012.
‘Well, get in!’ Manoj says and without another thought I get in the back seat. Manoj drives down the road carefully and we reach Ajji’s house in less than five minutes. I wonder what kind of reception I will have from Ajji and the girls after the escape act I just pulled off now.
I’m still inside the car with Mr Prakash in the front seat as Manoj gets down and rings the doorbell. The door is opened by Ajji who asks him to come inside for coffee. For a change, Manoj refuses and insists that they come out now and we leave immediately.
I can’t ignore them as they all come outside and gather near the car waiting for Ajji to lock up the house. Manoj unlocks the back door and Suma enters silently eyeing me. By the time all three girls fit themselves inside, it’s already a tight squeeze. How will Ajji sit?
‘You sit in front between Manoj and Prakash,’ Ajji answers my unasked question. How? I look at the seat in front and realise that it’s like a bench. I scramble out in an ungainly way and realise that Mr Prakash too has stepped out. He intends me to sit next to Manoj while he sits at the window. Err …
I get inside and watch warily as Manoj opens the door on the driver’s side and sits down while Mr Prakash does the same on the other side. I’m effectively trapped between them in this seat here. And hey, w
here are the seatbelts?
I forget to ask the question because I’m looking at this dashboard and how different it is from the ones I’m used to. Where’s the gear box? What is this? A car?
Then Manoj starts the car by turning the key in the ignition and moving this funny looking stick that is extending from the wide steering wheel. That is the gear. Sheesh!
‘Everyone ready?’ Manoj asks, barely turning around because he knows that everyone is seated at the back comfortably. This really is a roomy car.
‘Yes, let’s go!’ Reena says jumping a little on the seat. I smile at her reaction and turn to look at Manoj and it’s like it never went anywhere—that sudden surge of attraction between us. Before I can look away and pretend there’s nothing, Manoj’s face breaks out into a smile, one that is dazzling because he looks insanely happy. Just happy to be here, doing this, going to Mysore, with me. I smile back at him because I feel the same.
Twenty-two
WE ARE SPEEDING DOWN the highway in 1982, listening to a mixed tape of Hindi songs that I’ve never heard without being remixed. Manoj tells me the names of the films and who acted in them and it’s like a history lesson in Bollywood. I nod quietly but from the back of the car I can hear Reena and even Suma singing along and it’s quite catchy.
On my other side is Mr Prakash who looks lost in his own dreams and thoughts and I hope he’s thinking of a way to get me back home. We haven’t had breakfast and I wonder where Manoj will stop. The highways are totally different in 1982. They’re not all smooth going and the roads are in disrepair. Also, there are none of the comforting Café Coffee Day and McDonald’s signs that I’ve got used to seeing. But it feels like an adventure. All those little hamlets along the way and the trees and the wind! It helps me maintain that good mood that we started the journey in.
Finally at a secluded spot, Manoj stops the car and we all clamber out stretching our legs. I wonder what breakfast will be because I’m ravenous. At the same time I am a bit wary of Suma and Vidya but thankfully they have either forgotten what happened in the morning or they’re planning to ambush me later.
No Time for Goodbyes Page 8