Rohan laughed unabashedly. “Quite a few.”
“I mean, what’s your problem with my modesty?”
“Nothing. Your modesty rocks.” There were no expressions on Rohan’s face.
“Listen, Rohan Brady. I admire your brains, and all the work that you do. I love that you want to help a great cause. I recognize that you have put your life on hold for the conference to be a success.”
“Why thank you, Matron. Does it hurt to be always nice? You look pretty when you are….”
“I do not care for your ridiculous persona. I don’t fall for it like your bimbettes and harem girls.” I stuttered to keep up with the speed of angry words sputtering out of my mouth. Grand Central was a busy terminal. Unlike Delhi, where two dozen grimy faces would huddle around those arguing, people in New York walked past us, and no one interfered.
“What persona? You mean my indomitable charm?”
My heart rate increased. “Charm, my foot.”
“Ahana…” Rohan tried to get a word in and offer comfort, but I jerked away. I was like a cargo train with failed brakes headed for an accident.
“Don’t try your stunts with me.” I wagged my index finger at him. “Don’t make me lose any respect I have for you.”
He looked shocked—probably that I had any respect for him to begin with. We both sat quietly and far away from each other in the train as we rode up to Hartford. My legs were crossed, eyes closed, with hands resting on my knee.
Aside from the necessary conversations with the sponsor in Hartford, Rohan and I didn’t talk to each other. I did the interview and disliked every second of being on air, though I acted professionally. “We also promote the need for changing norms and the behaviors of men and boys, and advocate for gender equality and women’s rights.”
The interviewer wanted to know why I quit my cushy job in banking and started to work for a nonprofit. Dev’s face appeared in front of me. My hands handcuffed on my birthday—because he wanted it to be “special.” He never once asked what I wanted, which was an intimate brunch with my family. Mumma was supportive of my decision to work toward empowering women, but she too never asked why I changed my career. And here a stranger in a foreign land wanted to know about my inspiration and reasons for supporting women’s rights when my own people hadn’t asked me the why. First Ms. Roy, and then Rohan too, didn’t ask if I wanted to be the face of No Excuse; he informed me that I was expected to do the interview.
“No Excuse will help women stand against violence and educate them to find their voices.” I delivered answers to the interview questions with all the verve of a person reading a menu.
The train ride back into Manhattan was scenic; I stared out the window. As soon as we reached Grand Central, I walked out on Rohan and took a cab back to Naina’s apartment.
I felt like a foreigner in my own body.
* * *
When I returned to work the next morning, Rohan didn’t say anything. I acknowledged that I’d overreacted at Grand Central. I could have told Rohan what I felt without being obnoxious about it. Rohan could have said a lot that afternoon. I am not exactly a saint. But he stayed quiet.
We went about the day as if nothing had transpired the day before. There were more in-house meetings, and brainstorming sessions, which Rohan spearheaded, but not once did he make me feel like I was going to be reprimanded for having rebuked him.
At the end of the day, I asked Rohan whether I could speak with him. He opened the door to his office and asked me to wait inside a few minutes. He had to assign his assistant, Crystal, a few tasks and send a report to his boss, Michael Hedick, who was in London for a big meeting.
Ten minutes later, Rohan walked inside his office and closed the door behind him. “Sorry; I got held up.”
“That’s OK.” I tugged my hair behind my glasses.
“How can I help you, Ahana?”
Rohan addressed me by my first name. It sounded strange in his mouth.
“I am sorry about screaming my head off at you last evening.” I got up from my seat and spoke with my hands intertwined with each other. “You must be upset?” I could feel sweat beading on my forehead as I walked around his office. “I’m not saying what you did was acceptable.” I kept pulling my fingers apart and bringing them together.
Rohan sat down in his seat. There was an eerie silence in the room for a few seconds. I sat down too.
“I am sorry too. Even if it was not in any way meant to hurt you, I crossed a line.” Rohan spoke in an apologetic tone. “You seemed so intense that I was trying to defuse the situation by being funny. That’s how I handle stressful situations. Humor. On one hand, because we have communicated over the phone all these months, it feels like we know each other; on the other hand, there are so many nuances that we don’t understand until we meet in person. I think we both need to be patient with each other.”
I started to walk around his office, again. I paused in my steps and looked at him. “Thing is Rohan, when you joke with me that way, I feel like you are disrespecting me. You are….” I pulled my skirt down.
Rohan got up from his chair and sat on the edge of his table so he was facing me. “I what, Ahana?”
“I take a lot of pride in who I am as a person. I respect you and expect the same in return.”
“You respect me?” Rohan sounded surprised.
“Of course I do. Why is that a surprise to you?” I brought my eyebrows together. “I talk to you and seek out your advice often enough—and you’ve seen that I am not exactly the social and chatty type.”
Rohan started to count. “Let’s see. You rarely speak and mostly scold. You always refer to my fictitious harem members in our conversations.” He stared at the ceiling as if attempting to recall something. “I never bother to correct you because, from whatever little I know of you, once you make up your mind about someone, I have rarely seen you change your opinion.” Rohan shrugged his shoulders.
“You are the one who started the joke about women and all the flirting.”
“Ahana, I like to joke. You can’t take everything so literally.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I am not some philanderer who jumps from one woman to another. I am not some fucking sadistic psycho who lies and does things behind anyone’s back.”
“That’s a fair point.” I spoke without hesitation.
“Did none of your guy friends ever talk about women?” Rohan looked inquisitive.
“I’ve never had close male friends.” I said it as a matter of fact. “They were friends in college, but they never talked about….”
“What? Women? Boobs? Who they were going to hook up with?”
I looked shocked at the revelation and Rohan’s sense of ease with who he was.
“Maybe not to your face, Ahana.” He shook his head and continued. “Boys will be boys—doesn’t matter where they grow up.”
I looked away. That’s the justification Dev’s mother gave me when I filed for divorce. She used similar words to excuse Dev’s sexual violence toward me. She had even gone on to confess that her husband did the same to her, and that we women should accept that as a positive part of our lives—husbands were giving their wives, not mistresses, attention.
“Are you all right?” Rohan asked in a kind voice.
I spoke abruptly. “I have an American friend, Jay Dubois, and he never talks about women and their bodies. He mostly talks about feelings, knitting, gardening, and cooking.”
“Gay?” Rohan folded his lips.
“You have an answer for everything, right?” I stared at the floor and rubbed my sandals against the carpet.
“All I am saying is that we have one life to live. Don’t make it so hard.” There was genuine affection in his voice. Mumma too would often remind me to be kinder to myself.
“You swear to always treat me with respect?” An intense situation was defused, all thanks to Rohan.
He asked with a smile, “Do you want me to give it to you in writing? By the way, I a
lready respect you more than I respect most people.”
“No, I trust you. Don’t try so hard.”
“I’ll give it an honest shot. But you also need to relax a little.” He looked out his office window and stared at the East River. “I tease you because we are friends, but I don’t mean anything by it.”
I stood next to him. “But when you make remarks about my looks, and so on.”
“Ahana, you are beautiful!”
I felt my face flush.
Rohan took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face. “It’s hard not to appreciate that sometimes. But I will work on it. I adore our friendship. I’ll never do anything to jeopardize what we have here.”
He paused dramatically. “We both need to at least try to believe that the other person only has our best interest at heart. How we respond and communicate might differ because of how and where we have been brought up.”
“Valid point.” I shook my head.
I knew I wasn’t perfect. I was judgmental and had rarely done anything vicarious, as Jay often reminded me. From my therapy group, I had learned that my opinions were mostly rock solid and rarely was I flexible about them. This attitude of mine was unfair.
“You shook your head like a pendulum,” Rohan smiled and offered me his hand. “Are we cool, Matron?”
“Yup!” I smiled and gave Rohan a thumbs-up. He was back to addressing me as Matron. It felt comfortable.
As I started to leave, he called out, “Matron, smiling looks good on you. Whatever shit is bogging you down, I’d say give it a rethink. It’s not worth losing your happiness over.”
I walked out with the folder clutched to my chest.
* * *
I went back to Naina’s apartment in the evening, and after a short meditation session, thought about what Rohan had said. He was right. How long would I hang onto memories and nightmares of my past? How long would I chase perfection? How long would I punish myself for a mistake I didn’t commit—be it my inability to predict that Dev would change after marriage, or to see that Mumma had heart troubles. I had assumed responsibility and started to feel guilty about things that had nothing to do with me. I had been this good kid and perfect daughter while growing up. I was organized and predictable. I was overprotected. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t make peace with my reality: my life was imperfect and I couldn’t control any of it.
I played some jazz and read in the living room of Naina’s two-bedroom 1,400 sq. ft apartment. After a little, I got up from the sofa and made herbal tea—for a change, it wasn’t chamomile. I sent the picture to Rohan.
“Rebel! Don’t drink too many of those,” he replied right away with three smiley faces at the end.
- 13 -
A few mornings later, I called Rohan. “Can you meet me now?” I spoke fast, but stuttered. “I am sorry to bother you.” I couldn’t believe that inside of ten days of spending time with Rohan and getting to know him, I had started trusting him.
“You OK?” He sounded groggy.
I paced up and down my bedroom. My face was burning.
He yawned, “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll see you at the French coffee shop near Time Warner Center.”
I took a cab to the Time Warner Center. The sun was just about coming up. The air was cold and crisp, but the streets of New York were busy. There were runners out for their morning jog like the morning walk devotees in New Delhi. Unlike Delhi, there was no garbage littering the streets. There were no rich, drunk guys driving on the sidewalk and taunting traffic policemen at the crack of dawn. No milkman, with his face wrapped up in a woolen muffler, making home deliveries in steel cans on his bicycle. Even amid the crowd and chaos in New York, I found rhythm.
I shivered as soon as I got out of the taxi and quickly buttoned up my autumn jacket. Rohan was standing outside the coffee shop, dressed in work clothes. I ran to him in panic. “Since his return from London last evening, Michael Hedick has contacted a number of the major speakers to introduce himself, making it look like he’s as or more important than you or me!” I shouted.
“Are you sure? Dracula is a dick, but this is really low, even for a sleazeball like him.”
“Haven’t you seen your emails? One of the speakers, Nancy Gomez, who doesn’t want to work with Hedick, reached out to me last night. She copied you on the email.”
“Sorry; I haven’t checked my emails since last evening—didn’t get home until 3 a.m. The meeting with Manchester Distillery, the company sponsoring our cocktail reception, ran over.”
I showed him the note from Nancy Gomez.
Rohan’s face grew red and intense. “What the fuck?”
I rubbed the tip of my nose. “I can’t believe it, Rohan.”
“I am so sorry, Ahana. This conference is all because of you. No one should be allowed to take it away from you. We’ll figure this one out.”
“How?” I felt embarrassed and tried to wipe the tears with my hands, but my eyes betrayed me.
“Nancy Gomez cannot be the only one who doesn’t want a sexist pig like Hedick organizing a conference that empowers women.” Rohan rubbed his chin. He turned toward me. “How about, in the press release due later this week, we specify that it’s an event spearheaded by a woman for the women? Dracula will never put in any hard work if there is no scope for him to get credit.”
“No, we can’t do that. You are a part of the conference too, Rohan.”
“If we want to keep Dracula from stealing the limelight, we have to do this, Ahana. I am not working on this conference for credit. I truly believe in it and you.”
I silently cried into his unbuttoned jacket. Rohan cradled me in his arms. “Shhhhhh.”
“How can Hedick take over substantive control of the conference? He has never had to visit a colleague in the hospital because she was gang-raped in broad daylight in the middle of Delhi; Hedick has never been groped every day of the week he steps on public transportation in Delhi; Hedick has never had a motorbike rider start masturbating in traffic right next to his window, and have it be an obscene but everyday occurrence. What the hell does he know about women and violence? What does he know about feeling violated every single day in your life?” I whispered into his sleeve.
Rohan pulled me away from himself. He stared into my eyes and asked whether I wanted some water.
I nodded.
He handed me his handkerchief. “Not a sarong substitute before you scold me, Matron.”
I smiled a little.
He bought a bottle of cold water from the breakfast cart nearby and urged me to sit down at the tables outside the cafe.
“Ahana, I’m going to ask you something. If you don’t want to talk about it, then that’s fine. But…” He sucked his lower lip, “what happened with you in Delhi?”
I blew my nose into the tissue. I took a sip of water. I could hear my heart beat. I scratched my forehead and slowly looked at Rohan. “Remember, you asked me if I ever loved someone?”
“Yes.”
“His name is Dev.”
“You guys dated?”
“We were married.”
There was an awkward silence.
“What, you don’t talk to divorced women, is it?”
“C’mon, Ahana. I am trying to process everything.”
“Such a good, Indian woman, I am. Right? Right, Rohan?” I stood up with my hands across my chest. “Divorced in my early thirties. Don’t even look Indian. Don’t like to cook. Tall and thin like a palm tree.”
“What are you talking about?” Rohan got up.
“I get taunted all the time for not fitting the Indian standards.” I came closer to him.
“Whoever says such stuff is fucking ignorant.” Rohan paused. “What happened with your ex?”
“I became the biggest cliché in my life. That’s what happened.”
“He hit you?” Rohan clenched his jaw.
“No….” I gulped some water.
Rohan didn’t push me for clarification.
“Dev pursued me throughout college. He was charming and handsome and successful. He had a line of women waiting to date him. He didn’t stop chasing me until I eventually said yes. It was familiarity that I liked. Dev and I were from similar families and shared similar tastes. It was easy. But love isn’t supposed to be easy.”
“You lost me.”
“Dad and Naina disapproved of Dev. They always felt he was too influenced by his mother and there was something untrustworthy about him. Mumma was impressed by his charm, and, perhaps fooled by it for several years. She was one of the big reasons why I accepted Dev’s proposal.” I remembered when Dev raped me, I couldn’t fight him off. My body, sometimes, responded to his aggression even though I didn’t want any of it. But it was still rape, and I had nothing to be ashamed of; I still had to learn to accept.
“I am sorry, Ahana.” Rohan looked at me earnestly.
“He was the only guy I ever dated. He wanted me to turn into a posh socialite who discussed diamonds and European vacations. I was his personal….” I couldn’t complete the sentence.
Rohan sensed my discomfort. “You refused the opportunity to be Princess Kate of New Delhi?” He nudged me. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
I smiled, and it felt good. My insides felt refreshed. I no longer carried the shame of being a divorcée or a sexual assault survivor. New York allowed me to be what New Delhi never did.
“You don’t judge me?”
“I always do,” Rohan grinned. “But what about specifically?”
“You know,” I kicked a pebble, “because of my past.”
“That would make me a douchebag. C’mon; you know me better than that.”
“It’s just that where I come from, a divorced woman is a free-for-all. That was another reason I screamed at you the other day at Grand Central. I felt like you too were…”
Rohan completed my sentence. “Taking advantage of you?” He shook his head. “I flirt and tease because I like you as a friend and we understand each other. At least I thought we did. I respect your devotion to your work and your commitment to making the world a better place.” He took a sip of water. “I’m from the South. We’ll tell it like it is. None of us has a thin skin, either. Seems to be working out well enough for me in a place like New York.”
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