That girl had taken to fashion like a duck takes to water, I thought proudly, as with one swift movement, she took off her Gucci shades.
Oh boy!
‘Gucci-shuchchi,’ I grinned at her, when I had finished talking to vice-president-Connaught-Place-Inner-Circle and had given up all hope in mankind.
‘Kas … you look a little different today,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at me and completely ignoring my comment.
‘You look different too, Gucci-shuchchi.’
If anyone could glare, it was Padma, and glare at me she did.
‘Nothing … usual stuff.’
‘No, it’s not,’ she said, coming closer to me, pulling a chair and scrutinizing my face as if I were bacteria in a Petri dish.
I remained silent as she studied me carefully for a few minutes. ‘You are worried,’ she declared finally.
‘No … nothing,’ I said, looking at my hands. I get uncomfortable around people who can read my face and, since we became friends, Padma had become worryingly good at it.
‘Tell me,’ she insisted, pulling her chair closer to me.
‘Padma, I am meeting Rajeev today,’ I said quietly, taken aback that this had tumbled out for I had not even mentioned it to Anu. Funny how sometimes it is easier to speak honestly with people who are not as close to you.
There was silence for a few seconds during which Padma, whom I had spoken to about Rajeev earlier, stared at me, her eyes becoming bigger by the second.
‘Did you break off your engagement to Purva because of Rajeev?’ she asked. Put so bluntly, I cringed.
But it was time to be honest. With someone, at least.
‘Partly yes, partly no.’
‘No?’ she asked me, in a voice that was surprisingly gentle.
‘Because I was getting all worked up about the wedding. I did not feel ready at all.’
‘Hmmm … and why yes?’
‘Because if Rajeev had not materialized on the scene, I would have grumbled a little bit, thrown a few tantrums, probably gotten the wedding date postponed, but not broken off my engagement with Purva.’
‘Do you love Purva?’
‘Oh, yes … of course,’ I said the next instant and then I stopped short. What had I just said? The whole idea behind cancelling my wedding had been that I did not love Purva.
‘Does he love you?’
‘When we were together, I had no doubt that he loved me.’
‘Do you love Rajeev?’
I paused. ‘Umm … he ... he is very handsome ... and…’
‘Do you love Rajeev?’ Padma insisted.
‘I am attracted to him…’
‘Do you love Rajeev, Kasturi?’
I shook my head. ‘I am not sure,’ I said.
‘Then let me answer it for you,’ she said as I looked up at a very determined face staring back at me. ‘You don’t love Rajeev and I will tell you why I know. When we love someone, Kasturi, we know it even before we know. It’s like your soul hears your heart before you hear it. Love reaches somewhere deep inside us long before it becomes apparent. I would not have had to ask you thrice.’
I said nothing.
‘Does he love you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, he says so in his emails,’ I said.
‘When you guys were together earlier, did he ever tell you that he loved you?’ she asked, smiling. I felt better and less like I was being questioned by the police.
‘Yes, of course, all the time. I wish Purva had told me more often that he loved me.’
‘That Purva did not do the same is good, Kasturi,’ said Padma calmly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Purva did not tell you each day that he loved you because it was such a big part of his existence that he felt no need to reiterate it. Like, you know, we breathe all the time, but do I feel the need to tell everyone that I am breathing? No. But when I go for a holiday to Chennai, I will tell people about it. Purva may not have told you of his love day-in and day-out but he did not cheat on you. Rajeev might have told you that he loved you each day, but…’ she paused, getting up, ‘he was cheating on you all the while. That, my dear friend, is the difference between the two men.’
I sat still. The whole atmosphere that Padma had created around me had ensconced me in a bubble of logic and sense. As she walked back to her desk, Padma turned around and raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at me.
‘People don’t change, Kas, they just don’t. Remember that,’ she said, shaking her head ominously.
20
5.00 p.m.
I called Dad. Mum picked up.
‘Where is Dad? I need to speak to him.’ I said.
‘Kasturi, he is down with a slight headache, darling. Call later?’ said Mum.
‘Can he just speak to me for a minute?’ I insisted. Dad never had headaches, but of late…
I heard Mum mumble something to Dad in the background. ‘He seems to be asleep...’ she said in a low whisper.
Drat!
‘Okay. Tell him I called when he wakes up.’
5.30 p.m.
There is a lot of noise in my head. I want it to clear up.
6.00 p.m.
Rajeev. Another hour and I will be sitting in front of him!
6.15 p.m.
Oh god. Why am I feeling all weird? Nerves?
6.20 p.m.
Why is my face in a perpetual frown? Is it just nerves?
6.45 p.m.
I sat still in the car, parked outside TGIF. My eyes scanned the parking lot and hands turned ice-cold when I spotted the familiar white Honda Civic. He had a) not changed cars and b) was already inside, just a few feet away from me. I almost began to hyperventilate at the mere thought.
People don’t change. Purva will remain honest and nice. Rajeev will remain the cheat that he was.
I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror, barely noticing the make-up I had spent hours putting on.
People don’t change. Purva will remain honest and nice. Rajeev will remain the cheat that he was.
I absently looked around for my purse, feeling increasingly restless. My lips felt cold too and I took in deep bursts of air. As I marvelled at how my body was reacting to the situation, it hit me – the reason why this was such a big deal.
By meeting Rajeev I knew I was crossing the Rubicon, the point of no return. I could look back but never come back. I would be pushing Purva to a corner from where I would never be able to reach him. For me he would have to cease to exist. The moment had come when I would have to choose between the two men. And for me, that was a big deal.
People don’t change. Purva will remain honest and nice. Rajeev will remain the cheat that he was.
‘I will go,’ I said, breathing out and settling the collar of my shirt. I grabbed my purse and, as I did so, the glove cupboard yanked open and something fell out.
Before I knew it, Mum and Dad singing happy birthday was gently echoing in the car. I was immobile for a minute as I stared down at the turquoise musical box that Purva had so painstakingly set right for my birthday. It now lay open, upside down. Desolate. Sad.
My brain burst into a whirlwind of emotion and noise. Pitajee’s and Padma’s words rang in my head. I continued to stare unblinking at the box, transfixed, unable to peel myself away from a force that tugged at me again and again and again.
I picked up the box, dusted off an imaginary fleck of dirt and put it on the car seat. I shut it slowly and the notes died out, leaving behind a silence that threatened to suffocate me. My cell phone beeped, jarring me out of my reverie. It was the reminder that I had set for my meeting with Rajeev.
I opened the box again and the familiar tune started playing, the gentle notes filling the silence in the car. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes, concentrating on each note that was ingrained in my memory and my heart. Thoughts ran around in my head, randomly at first, then aggressively and finally in a straight line as things fell into place. Like magic, in a span of a few seconds, with
the music playing in the background, the clouds parted and the sun shone.
I opened my eyes and looked around. The world somehow seemed different. Something had just happened – something beyond my reckoning and beyond logic – that had helped me make a decision. It was, I realized, an epiphany. In that one moment, I felt closer to God than I had ever before. Dad had asked me to meet Rajeev. Now, finally, as the song finished and the ballerina stopped twirling, I understood why.
With my decision made, I patted the box and smiled for the first time in what seemed like ages. I slapped the steering wheel. It felt nice to be sure. Grinning my widest, I turned the ignition of the car back on. I needed to meet Purva immediately. Meet him and tell him how horribly idiotic I had been.
Only, I never got to do that.
21
7.10 p.m.
I imagined myself to be quite the Bond girl as I swerved my little red Maruti Swift through the traffic heading straight towards AIIMS and Purva. Not another moment should be lost, I told myself sternly. Enough of the madness.
I overtook another car and got screamed at by the driver of another. This whole mad dash across the city thing, it so appealed to my sense of drama. Beautiful girl in a red car, zipping across the city to tell a handsome doctor that it was him her heart beat for. Aah. The theatrical zing.
When I had agreed to marry Purva, I had done so as a compromise. Purva was even sensitive enough to realize that. I remember, he had said, gruffly, ‘I know, Kasturi, that you do not love me, but I hope that one day you will.’
My wounds, then, were too raw, the hurt ran too deep for me to be capable of real, true love. Purva, obviously, loved me and, having walked away from a man who did not return my love, all I’d wanted was someone who loved me more than I loved him.
Purva had fit that bill perfectly. Too perfectly. He was a man I could trust without an iota of doubt. He was a man who would risk his life for me. He was the man every girl wanted.
Except, of course, me. I just wanted Rajeev.
Yet, I egged myself on to forget Rajeev and limped towards Purva, who stood waiting patiently for me, his arms wide open, ready to collect me in a warm hug. Rajeev’s treachery aided me and each time I faltered, I thought of him with Teena and ran a little bit faster towards Purva. Initially, I just pretended that Purva made the world all right for me, but gradually I began to forget Rajeev.
Mum, Dad, Pitajee, Anu – everyone loved Purva for his gentle manners and kind ways. They thought I had hit the jackpot with Purva. As I began to forget Rajeev, the hurt and misery began to become foggy as well. However, he was with Teena and that thought alone continued to sear through me as if it were a sword on fire that had been shoved through my heart.
And then, just when I had immersed myself completely in making paranthas, came the emails. Out the blue they arrived, bursting through the fabric that I had woven and wrapped myself in. Simply put, they turned my life upside down. They took me back to a time when I’d had a man in my life whom I had loved so much that I felt I would burst. I recalled how a single look from him could have me smiling for hours, how one hug from him would keep me warm for days and how one kiss from him would linger on my lips for weeks. That made me restless, so restless that Purva seemed like a handcuff, something that stopped me from being with the man I was secretly pining for. Upset, confused, bewildered at the tricks my heart played with me and scared of what I felt, I decided that I should not marry Purva; not in such a state of mind.
Or so I thought.
Then Dad asked me to meet Rajeev.
A lot of people told me that I was being stupid but the words that really hit home were those of Padma’s. It was when I was sitting in the car, Purva’s box playing the little ditty in the background, that I understood why Dad asked me to meet Rajeev; he had known that it would be the moment of reckoning. Faced with the choice, I would know which man I truly loved. He had been right.
I was so busy trying to forget Rajeev, so engrossed in not letting him overpower everything in my life, that I had not realized something important. Along the way, I had, unknown to myself, fallen in love with Purva. I smiled now, glad that my head was clear. I could finally breathe easy. At last I knew what I wanted and who my loyalties lay with.
My cell rang. Mum’s number flashed on the screen.
‘It must be Dad,’ I said to myself, ‘returning my call.’
It was not. It was Mum. Breathless.
Ten seconds later, I had stamped my feet so hard on the brakes that a car behind had rammed into me. My car skidded a few feet before coming to a halt.
‘Say that again, Mum?’ I said into the phone, feeling the blood drain from my face.
‘Dad’s being wheeled into the OT,’ she said, surprisingly calm.
‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’ I screamed, already hysterical.
‘They … umm … need to operate.’
‘Operate on what?’ I asked. Maybe it was his foot, he had had some ligament issue last month. I knew even as I asked the question that this would not be the case.
‘Umm … don’t get scared, Kas, it’s…’
‘It’s what, Mum?’ I said, getting more restless by the minute.
‘It’s his brain … there … there has been some bleeding… ’
I was stunned into silence.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not something major … umm…’ struggled Mum, ‘… umm … can you come?’
I had already careened my car around and, pausing only briefly to check if my credit cards were with me, I sped towards the airport, brushing away anxious tears that were already clouding my vision.
‘I am on my way, Mum.’
‘Central Hospital, ask for the Neurosurgery ICU.’
22
Indira Gandhi Airport, 9.00 p.m.
‘Ma’am, I can give you a choice,’ said the lady in the business suit, in a very important and heavily-accented voice.
Shut up.
‘You could … let me see … either take the last flight out; I have an economy ticket available for seven thousand rupees or…’
Shut up.
‘…I could give you the next flight out, but we only have a business class ticket available…’
‘How much?’ I asked listlessly, the decision already made.
‘Twenty-three thousand rupees.’
‘I want it,’ I said, pretty much a second before she had finished speaking.
9.20 p.m.
I have called Mum so many times that she has actually threatened to not answer any of my calls. Even in this situation, she is terrorizing me!
As we speak, Dad is in the OT getting prepped for the surgery. Since Dad had been having headaches which would not go, they had gone for a quick MRI scan today without, of course, telling me. They were expecting the scan to be clean; give Dad a few multi-vitamins and pack him off for the day.
When I had called Mum, they were actually in the diagnostic centre. The scan was disastrous and showed the brain shrivelled and pushed to one corner with the rest of the sac filled with blood from an injury. Mum now recalled Dad hitting his head a few weeks ago and blacking out. Being a doctor, he had simply ignored the whole episode, until, of course, now.
The operation, Mum insists, is very simple, but it’s my father whose brain the doctors are fiddling with and it is not cool.
So not cool.
9.22 p.m.
‘Mummy,’ lisped the little boy tugging at his mother’s kurta and pointing at me, ‘is this didi mad?’
I glared at the little boy who hid behind his decidedly embarrassed-looking mother. I realized that it was probably not the boy’s fault. I had been, for the last ten minutes, pacing the airport lounge, wringing my hands and muttering, ‘My dad is going through brain surgery,’ repeatedly to myself.
I hastily scraped my loose, and by now wild, hair into a ponytail and sat down on my hands, in a desperate attempt to look less mad.
10.00 p.m.
Dad’s operation has begun. I
am about to board the plane. Mum is waiting outside the OT.
I imagined her alone and the tears, a result of sheer helplessness, refused to stop. I will now be airborne and will not even be able to speak to Mum till half an hour after Dad comes out of surgery.
God, please … please be with Dad.
Midnight.
I am out of the airport but Dad is still not out of the OT. The darkest thoughts have been plaguing me for the last hour.
21 May 2013, 1.00 a.m.
I called Mum from the airport and even her ‘Hi, Beta,’ sounded different; relieved. I took a deep breath the moment I heard her voice.
‘Is Dad out?’ I asked. ‘Why did they take so long?’
‘Seems like there was another emergency.’
‘What happened to Dad?’ I shrieked into the phone. I was in a car that one of my cousins was driving and we were speeding towards the hospital.
‘Naah,’ said Mum dismissively, as if no emergency could ever possibly happen with my dad, who was being wheeled out of an emergency neurosurgery operation. ‘Some other guy. Dad is fine. They needed the doctors there.’
Another deep breath.
‘All went okay?’ I asked.
‘Yes, Kasturi, all was okay.’
I paused for a second. ‘All okay?’ I asked, again.
‘Yes, Kas,’ said Mum.
Another pause.
‘All o-’
‘Shut up, Kasturi Beta.’
4.00 a.m.
‘Only one person can go in,’ said Dr Kulkarni, looking at the bunch of us huddled outside the Neurosurgery ICU. Dad had been shifted to the post-operative ICU an hour ago. His extended family were all there, standing with solemn faces.
‘You go, Kas,’ Mum said, nudging me.
I froze.
I stared at my feet, willing them to move, but they would not listen. An inexplicable sort of fear began to creep up inside me. I had always seen Dad healthy and strong. I did not know if I would be able to take the sight of him in a hospital bed; every cell in my body revolted at the idea.
Can This Be Love? Page 10