She goes on to list about sixty things.
In other news, it’s my bachelorette tomorrow. Yahoo!
25 November 2013. Fifteen Days to Go for the Wedding, 9.00 a.m.
Worryingly, I have no recollection of what happened at my bachelorette.
11.59 a.m.
Oh.
Now I do. And so do 879 others.
Noon.
‘Paddy,’ I try to yell into the phone, only the voice that comes out is nothing but a hoarse whisper.
‘Shut up, da,’ Padma says, her voice groggy. ‘Stop screaming. My head hurts.’
‘Take those bloody pictures off Facebook!’
‘Which pictures?’
‘Pictures of my bachelorette ... the ones where I am dancing on top of a table,’ I say.
There is stunned silence.
‘You danced on table-tops?’ a shocked voice asks.
‘With you by my side,’ I reply despondently.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Her voice is a stunned whisper.
‘And you have shared them on Facebook!’
‘Dear lord,’ says Paddy.
‘Dear lord it is,’ I say, nodding my head and hoping fervently that neither Anju Aunty nor her hundred sisters/brothers have been on Facebook in the last two hours.
12.02 p.m.
Self-explanatory text from Pitajee: ‘Bawahahahahaha.’
How I hate him!
2.00 p.m.
The pictures were taken off Facebook, but not before a couple of incidents took place.
Since I was tagged in the pictures, I have received about ten friend requests, including one from a certain Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman.
Hotty Singh also wants to be my friend.
Just before we took the pictures off Facebook, a couple of notifications popped up. Lata Taiji had ‘liked’ a picture – one that had me sitting cross-legged on a table, looking dazed and drinking from a jug that was larger than me.
The head hurts; I think I should sleep.
36
28 November 2013. Twelve Days to Go for the Wedding, 9.00 p.m.
The café was an odd choice for our last huddle before the two weddings but, we all agreed, we did not want to meet anywhere else. The café had witnessed me falling in love with Purva, heard the many sweet nothings that Pitajee had murmured to Anu, seen me walk away from Purva, looked on, amused, as I’d tried to win him back, been aghast as Anu and Pitajee parted ways and smiled indulgently as Purva and I got back together.
Now it looked at us, the bittersweet memories hanging heavy in the air.
‘I won’t be present at your wedding … that is tragic!’ said Anu, smiling weakly at Purva and me. Without another word, Purva got up from the chair that he had pulled close to me and went to sit next to Anu. The two of them stared at each other, speaking to one another without saying anything. They do that sometimes.
Purva ruffled Anu’s hair. ‘Silly girl,’ he said, smiling and pulling her into a hug.
Anu smiled as well. She was determined to be happy this evening but there was something wrong.
‘Is everything okay, Anu?’ I asked.
Anu laughed bitterly and I looked down at my hands, mentally thwacking myself on the head with a rolled up newspaper. What a silly question to ask! I should not be allowed to speak.
‘Honeymoon tickets booked?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Brazil it is!’
‘I hope you guys have a great time,’ she said, putting a hand on mine ‘I will probably see Dr and Mrs Dixit when they come back, all tanned, from Brazil!’
I inched closer to her. ‘Anu…’ I said, my eyes pleading and unwilling to even look at the stone-faced man who sat next to me. ‘Think this through … please … the wedding is still a few days away … anything can happen … if … if the two of you want to…’
Anu stilled, her face paled.
‘Wha…’ I began, but Pitajee cut in.
‘Let’s not go there again, Kas. It’s all been decided.’
Helplessness filled me with despair. ‘So … what now? The two of you never meet?’ I asked angrily.
‘Relax, Kas,’ said Pitajee. ‘We’ll be friends … if, of course, Saumen does not have a problem…’ he said, looking at Anu.
‘Friends?’ I repeated, tears welling up in my eyes. Anu and Pitajee were parents who were divorcing each other and I was their child whom neither knew what to do with. I smiled as my fertile brain sketched images in my head.
‘And now you are smiling,’ said Pitajee, inching closer to me. ‘You are deranged, you know.’
‘Shut up!’ I said and hit him on the back of his head.
Before I knew it, Pitajee had pinned my hands behind my back. ‘Say you’re sorry!’
‘Never!’
‘Now.’
‘I will die before I say I’m sorry,’ I said hotly, enjoying every minute of this. As we fought, from the corner of my eye, I saw Purva stare at Anu, an odd expression on his face. He had seen something. Something that had made him still, something that, for a second, gave me chills and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Before I turned away, I saw Purva murmur something to Anu.
Later, as Purva and I walked to his car, I looked back to see Anu and Pitajee who had fallen behind. The two seemed to be deep in conversation.
‘What did you say to Anu when I was beating up Pitajee?’ I asked Purva.
‘To speak up and not bottle things up inside her,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders.
‘Should we wait for them?’ I asked, not really sure of what he meant.
He looked at the two silhouettes in the dimly-lit parking lot of AIIMS.
‘No, let them talk,’ he said quietly and opened the door of his car, beckoning for me to hop in.
11.30 p.m.
The car came to a neat halt in front of the house that, for the first time, I no longer shared with Anu. She had left to move into a five-star hotel that her mum was already settled into, in preparation for the wedding. Speaking of parents, mine arrive tomorrow, armed, I have been told, with six huge suitcases and seventeen boxes of mithai.
Purva rested his hands on the steering wheel and looked at me, a slow, beautiful smile lighting up his face. He stared for a few seconds, not blinking.
‘Hi,’ I said brightly, uncomfortable with the silence.
Purva threw his head back and laughed. ‘In time, Kasturi,’ he said, letting a hand rest lightly on my cheek, ‘the Delhi government will slap an entertainment tax on you.’
I tried to look indignantly at him, but could not, with that idiotic grin plastered across my face. Instead, I took his big, wide hands into my tiny ones and stared right back at him. Increasingly, these moments, where it was just us, were becoming rare and I fiercely treasured the little time we managed to get together. Honest and simple, kind and gentle – Purva, the man who was to be my husband in ten short days. I searched myself for doubts and breathed easy when I could not find any. It is funny, sometimes, the confidence you can find in the peace of a decision well made.
I slowly fingered the scars on his hands, as always, fascinated by them.
‘I love your scars,’ I said, grinning at him.
‘I love the whole of you,’ he said, grinning back. I made a face at him – my usual response when he said something filmy. There was a moment’s pause before he spoke again. ‘Are you stressed about the wedding?’ he asked gently.
‘No, not at all,’ I said, already feeling sick at the thought of being surrounded by a hundred relatives who would, no doubt, scrutinize everything from the flowers in my hair to the little ant that dared wander into the living room. Bleh!
He smiled, seeing right through the lie.
‘There is something I want you to keep,’ he said, still not switching on the light in the car. Bathed in the yellow glow of the rickety street lamp, Purva untied the watch on his wrist.
I gasped theatrically, bringing my hands to my face, much like a newly crow
ned Ms Universe. Under the Bollywood-esque drama that I was shamelessly indulging in, I hoped I was disguising genuine surprise. Purva, for reasons best known to him, has never been seen without this watch. We have teased and bullied him about it and received no response other than a quick, hurried smile that never quite reached the eyes.
‘This,’ he said, handing the watch to me.
‘Your watch?’ I asked, perplexed. ‘Why? I mean…’
He shook his head.
‘Eh?’
‘Dad,’ he said, in a voice so low that I had to strain my ears, ‘died in a car crash.’
My heart skipped a beat for this was only the second time Purva was speaking voluntarily about his father. Anju Aunty had mentioned his untimely death to me once but, not wishing to upset her, I had refrained from asking her anything more.
‘I was thirteen,’ Purva continued, his large expressive eyes boring into mine. I felt his fingers clutch my hand tighter and a lump appeared in my throat.
From the dark clouds that now gathered in his eyes, I knew he was briefly reliving the horror and the pain. I gulped as I recalled what a wreck I had been, at twenty-seven, when my dad had had to spend a few days in the hospital. Thirteen is so young, it is so cruel.
‘And Vikram was nine.’
I tried to not imagine the two boys, aged thirteen and nine, dealing with such an immense loss.
‘I … I’m sorry … it could not have been easy,’ I mumbled uncomfortably. Where was my brain when I needed it to come up with something comforting? Where were the bloody words? I looked on helplessly.
‘When you look back, Kasturi, can you think of a moment that completely changed your life and defined you into becoming the person you are now?’
IIT Jee results? In spite of my best efforts I had not gotten through, but my idiotic study partner had somehow managed. I vaguely recalled crying non-stop for fourteen hours. The entire household had come to a standstill. The drama!
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘I can,’ he said softly. ‘We were to head to Disneyland in a week’s time when it happened. I grew up in an instant – went from being a child to head of the family with a mother and brother to take care of in a matter of minutes.’
Silence.
‘Dad was the only earning member and he was gone…’ he said, more to himself than to me. ‘I don’t even know how we survived till Mum started working again. I tutored kids for the money…’ he said and then smiled a slow smile. ‘I was such a horrible teacher!’
In my head flashed the image of a scared thirteen-year-old taking charge of his mother and brother, the boy-man. The head of a shattered family.
People are not born beautiful. They become beautiful. Through despair and struggle, pain and suffering, they come out armed with a kind of sensitivity that enables them to empathize with the pain that others are going through a lot better than the rest of us. As I sat there listening to Purva, his ways began to make sense to me.
‘I worked very hard for so long and from such a young age that I don’t know any other way now,’ he said, almost by way of an apology.
I nodded my head. I understood. Finally.
‘Vikram is only four years younger but you know…’ he struggled, looking for the right words. ‘I think, no, I know … I am sure … he is like a son to me. I knew that he would follow my footsteps, so I wanted to do everything correctly, for my sake and for Vikki’s.’
And he had. His younger brother was also a doctor, a promising surgeon, saving lives, just like his Purva Bhaiyya.
I took Purva’s troubled face in my hands and kissed him on his forehead, my heart welling up for the thirteen-year-old boy that still lingered somewhere in those dark, deep eyes. From tutoring kids for money to becoming an incredibly successful surgeon, Purva’s journey suddenly weighed more. It had to be a story of grit and gumption; a story that, if I’m lucky, someday the shy, quiet man in front of me will share with me. Till then, I shall wait.
I could now understand why he liked me best when I was goofing around, laughing carelessly and why he would smack Pitajee for upsetting me. For in my madness, he glimpsed a freedom he had never had the luxury of. It was a madness that could only be a part of you if you never had to teach to support your family, if you grew up with both parents at your beck and call, if did not live your entire life feeling completely responsible for your sibling.
‘You make me happy, Kasturi ... happier than I ever thought I could be,’ Purva said, bringing me back to the present. His face looked a little relaxed now.
I traced his eyebrows, lost in thought. I wished I could go back in time and give the thirteen-year-old Purva a hug, hold his hand, tell him that it would all be okay … or wait, would it?
‘Don’t let anything take your spirit away from you, Kasturi. Not your work, not family, not me,’ he said, holding my hands tighter.
‘Yes, boss,’ I said and forced myself to grin.
‘This watch,’ he said nodding at the watch that he clutched tightly in his hands, ‘survived the crash without a scratch. I have never voluntarily taken it off … till now.’
And then he put the watch in my palm.
‘You want me to have this?’ I asked, shocked and touched and teary and perplexed. This was the man I walked away from? Really, Kasturi Shukla? Really?
He smiled and pulled out my hand. Tying the watch on my wrist he looked critically at it.
‘It’s a man’s watch, so you may not want to wear it … but I want you to keep it.’
‘Why? It is your most prized possession, Purva!’
‘You never met Dad,’ he said quietly. ‘He would have loved you like the daughter he never had. I want a bit of him to be with you.’
No, I am not going to cry.
‘And you?’
‘I have the memories,’ he said, bending low to plant a kiss on my cheeks and lingering there. ‘You take the watch.’
Mum, in a fit of wisdom, once said that simple words, because they are simple, find it easiest to reach the soul. I think that explained why I pulled a surprised Purva into a fierce hug and cried bitterly into his shoulders. I cried for the helpless thirteen-year-old boy, I cried for the selfless twenty-nine-year-old man and I cried because my heart ached.
Maybe this is love?
Maybe I am finally, truly in love?
37
6 December 2013.
Three masis and two chachis stood around me in a circle and continued to exchange quizzical glances. Clad in a yellow salwar-kurta, as instructed by Panditji, I was sitting in front of a kalash that had been stuffed with neem leaves.
‘Do you know what to do?’ I asked a bewildered-looking masi.
‘Not really … I think the plan is to simply make up the rasams as we go along,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders.
‘What? What? What?’ said the balding panditji, who had overheard our conversation.
‘The rasam, Panditji,’ Mum said with folded hands.
‘Kanya koh prastut kiya jaye,’ he said in a monotone, staring at me. Insolently, I stared right back.
‘No, not Kanya! It’s Kasturi!’ said Padma, quite scandalized at the faux pas. The masis and chachis burst out laughing. Panditji, disapproving of all laughing that was happening, cleared his throat.
‘Haldi, haldi,’ he shouted and proceeded to bark out instructions to all and sundry. Today was the day of the haldi rasam and, before the hour had passed, five aunts with their heads covered and with many fond words of endearment, had delicately put haldi on my forehead, shoulders and knees.
Mum cooed in the background and Dad, clad in a posh kurta-pyjama, behaved like a man possessed by his SLR camera.
Pitajee, for whom Mum has a very soft corner, was the only man invited to put haldi on me. Both Mum and I were very aware that similar ceremonies were taking place in Anu’s house as well. The burden that the smiling Pitajee carried was not lost on us and we had pledged to do whatever it took to keep him distracted. Pitajee p
roceeded to daintily touch my forehead, shoulders and knees with haldi, then, grinning his most evil grin, he smeared the yellow paste on my face with one grand sweep of his hands.
The aunties howled with delight and I screamed my lungs out. Panditji shook his head.
‘Children these days,’ he said ruefully as, leaving aside all the coyness of a bride-to-be, I charged towards Pitajee.
Anything to keep him distracted, I thought to myself. Even if it means wrecking my haldi ceremony.
Anything to keep him distracted.
4.00 p.m.
I was looking at the pictures that Dad had taken during the ceremony. The ones that really made me smile were the ones where Pitajee and I were at it again. Beating each other up, I realized with a start, has pretty much been the backbone of our friendship. Purva told me once that he did not know who was a worse influence on whom between the two of us. And I guess it’s true.
7 December 2013, 8.00 a.m.
Some puja.
Noon.
Another puja.
2.00 p.m.
I am just getting out of a family meeting that lasted an hour. Before we left the meeting room, Mum huddled us together for a picture that would go on her blog as part of a post titled ‘Dimple’s wedding: Organizational skills needed’. Most of us – well, everyone except yours truly – came out of the session with at least one list and one duty. Here’s a sample:
Ila Mausi responsible for Purva’s naniji. Fuss around her and make her feel important.
Mukund and Bikram to man the food stalls. Please make sure caterers do not distribute, and then later count, more plates than are needed. If possible, try and stop people from using more plates than necessary.
Prabha and Vineeta responsible for Anjuji. Fuss around her and make her feel VERY important.
Abhi to make sure Panditji is awake and not drunk. Also make sure he has all the samagri.
The last one on the list caught my attention:
Can This Be Love? Page 18