Adulting

by Neharika Gupta

  She explained how publishing houses were starting to have their own personalities and that White Dog Books was a huge MNC, but Litracy, an imprint, was unique to Delhi, with room for experimentation and play. She wanted to make Litracy its own entity, and she wanted me to do for Litracy what I’d done for myself.

  I was right for the job, no doubt. In the five months since I’d been home, I began blogging and people loved it all: how I

  looked, what I did, where I went, my makeup, skincare routine, everything. I didn’t even know there was a following for this sort of stuff. And then, I started contacting cosmetic companies and PRs of nightclubs and there was no looking back. Since the beginning of April though, I felt like there was something missing. Maybe it was to do with being without my parents, without my college lifestyle, back in Delhi after almost five years. I needed stability. So I said yes.

  I tweeted about my new job – which actually starts tomorrow – and it was overflowing with congratulatory messages. There are 263

  likes already. It made me think of the numbers had I actually been at the launch last night, but Ruhi assured me there would be more opportunities to show off my social media skills.

  It was 11 a.m. A doctor should be coming in now and discharging me soon. That’s what the on-call doctor told me last night.

  Sure enough, a lady walked in.

  She looked to be in her mid-thirties. Tall and thin, the lady looked at me with a piercing gaze. She was wearing a fitted floral shirt with black jeans. There was a white coat over her arm and she had a coffee flask in the other.

  ‘Hi, I’m Maya. How are you feeling today, Aisha?’ she said, going to the window and pulling open the curtains. Sunlight streamed in, lighting up the room.

  ‘Ready to be discharged. I don’t have a concussion. Only a nasty bruise that makeup isn’t going to hide for a week.’ I pointed at my forehead.

  She smiled and poured her coffee. Black. Strong.

  ‘That’s a good kind of problem to have, considering.’

  ‘Do you recognise me, doc? I’m Aisha, from the blog Every Delhi Girl .’

  ‘Ah, that’s you. Much more vibrant in person. And I’m not a doctor.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’m a nutritionist. I deal with people who eat, or don’t eat, their emotions. And I meant presence you know, not looks. You have more of an effect in person. Like, vibe-wise, you know?’

  ‘Oh. Wow. That’s nice to hear. So can I …? There was way too much milk in what they gave me and it did not smell like any kind of coffee at all…’

  ‘Oh yes, of course!’ Maya rinsed a cup and poured me some coffee, then settled down on the couch with the clipboard at the end of my bed.

  ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Abroad, travelling for work. I stay on my own. Always have taken care of myself’.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  She tapped the clipboard. ‘Your blood work.’

  ‘I wasn’t drinking. You won’t find anything fishy in there.’

  ‘I didn’t find anything, actually. No sodium, no potassium, hardly any iron. Forget about magnesium, calcium and phosphorus.

  Did you know zinc is an essential mineral for the body too?’

  ‘Oh. Hmm. So I need to drink more water’.

  ‘Are appearances very important to you?’

  ‘I like taking care of myself’.

  ‘That has to extend to your body, Aisha. Not just how you look in the mirror. You are slowing down everything in your body.

  Hypothetically, in an extreme scenario, if this were to continue, your body would shut down completely.’

  ‘Whoa. This is not an extreme scenario.’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘I love my body, I love how I look.’

  ‘Maybe too much.’

  I felt like I was under a microscope, I realized Maya was one of those people you couldn’t spend too much time with. Too much pressure to say the right things, one wrong move and you disappoint them – and they would tell you so.

  Maya spent a good thirty minutes giving me a lecture. She was an LSR graduate, super into ideologies and stuff. That coupled with biology and nutrition, my head was spinning with all the information. My body was stressed, she told me, and this was a wake-up call. I had to set my own standard and focus on fitness before thinking about adhering to any standard society set for me. She pointed out how even a single day with not enough food in my system had left me unconscious. I had to continue visiting her and change my diet completely.

  It was hard to believe at first, but not that hard, looking back at the year I’d had. Having returned to India in January, I’d had just over a month of regular eating with my parents. Come March and they were off again to spend three months in some remote village in northern Italy, making wine and writing another book together.

  My diet was a mess after they left, what with me promoting my blog and partying 24/7. Now that I’d just started working, I had had no time to recover or ‘listen to my body’, as Maya put it.

  Sure, that explained why my stomach was rejecting tequila and vodka, and I’d been stuck with wine all of March and April. But I’m only twenty-three. I’m supposed to bounce back in no time. I will.

  I will switch my diet around and start exercising if need be. But there is no way I will be putting on fifteen kilos like Maya insisted. I have always been the Venus in every room. I can’t be chubby and graceful at the same time. Have you ever seen a fat ballerina? It doesn’t work that way.

  Not to mention, the source of my name and fame, my blog, was a beacon of beauty, something that Delhi girls held precious. It had to reflect an ideal Delhi girl for readers to aspire to be.

  Holding up a mirror to every Delhi girl was not my intention.

  3

  Love Gaps

  – RUHI –

  Monday, 1 June

  To Do:

  Litracy

  Fix epson covers colour for current 2 comics with In-house designer

  Conference with Ani about T’s book sales and marketing Suggest LGBT author for DU talk

  Schedule meeting w designer #2 for next 2 adventure comics –

  delegate

  Send final pdf of historical fiction to author – delegate Proof detective novel #3 – delegate Mountain Echoes

  Finalise Tejas’ s panel with Siyahi & brainstorm topic

  Decide which authors, books to go and how many copies, if any, to be signed

  Revise list and see if any other authors are available to go AIS for all 12 authors and novels – delegate

  ‘Ruhi? Are you here with us?’ Farah said. ‘Would your mind like to join us today?’

  ‘No. Yes,’ I mumbled, covering my list with my elbow. ‘I’ll get in touch with Siyahi.’

  That got me a look.

  It was two weeks after Tejas’s book launch and we were sitting in our monthly edit meeting, something I detested. On the first Monday of every month, my mother would come in to the Litracy office instead of the White Dog headquarters in Gurgaon. I hated these visits as Farah would come in, throw her weight around as editor-in-chief, and undo weeks of work.

  I had a vision for Litracy, and a plan in the back of my notebook while still an editorial assistant at White Dog Books. I believed that the future of publishing was in creating a niche, indie, author-driven market, like the comic book and graphic novel publishers abroad. There were far too many people writing all kinds of things. People had enough choice and would begin to bore of the half-witted romances and must-read literary novels and would gravitate towards genre-bending writing by authors who really had it – that X factor. It was already happening with music, people had their own signature taste. Even Apple Music and Google Play were using listener preferences to suggest songs to users.

  A whole year of ideation and reader statistics went into creating a world-class presentation complete with an AV. Farah was impressed and let me present it to the Asia Head and I
was assigned for a trial, which, a year later, has been going superbly. I thought my dog days were over, but Farah’s micromanagement has only intensified.

  We were discussing representation at Mountain Echoes, the litfest in Bhutan, as the book was creating a lot of buzz.

  I’d told Farah before the meeting how much Tejas hated public speaking and to not push for a big audience to start with.

  He was scowling at the room, looking everywhere but at Farah.

  Aisha was looking resplendent in a sheer aqua tunic that reached her ankles. My mother had chosen to wear blue with jeans too, and was pleased at this symmetry. She was in awe of Aisha and had warmed up to her over the past fortnight.

  Aisha gave her good reason to. She was the only one appearing attentive out of the three of us, jotting down notes with her long, manicured fingers.

  She and Tejas were on either side of me while Farah sat across from the three of us. We were at the only conference table in the office and had a view of the lake.

  The rest of the gang, which included two designers, sometimes Ani, and a few interns, were in the office on the floor below.

  I know my opinions about my mother were very strong, but in spite of my doing a great job, she never got what Litracy was about, or if she did, chose to regard it with disdain. She played with her hair, nodding at a point Aisha was making. It was a hairstyle out of Cosmo, which she’d taken along with her to the salon. Like a blunt chin-length cut that highlighted the severity of her face.

  I’d suggested a softer look, but she’d turned it down. Hard on the inside, prickly on the outside, and now her hair was edgy too.

  She spent the remainder of the meeting ignoring my points, focusing on Aisha and Tejas, though frequently checking to see if I was paying attention.

  Two years working with her and I still wasn’t used to her berating. It was one thing at home, but in the presence of my colleagues: entirely another. It always put a dampener on my day.

  Luckily I had better things to occupy my mind with, like being in love.

  Back in February, I was intimidated by the brooding author we’d signed on. I’d met him only once and he’d hardly email back or talk for very long on the phone. This went on for weeks and weeks until I decided to meet him and talk about the edits we wanted from him. He wouldn’t come to the office so I had to go see him at his house.

  Tejas’s place was lavish. He lived alone in a farmhouse-mansion in south Delhi. His parents were hardly around so the house was mostly full of his stuff.

  There were rooms with papers and notebooks of writing and rooms with books. His dining room was full of drafts and the sitting room with poems.

  His book, Carnival of Dreams , was a series of vignettes, of characters and places he’d come across. We’d considered making it a memoir but taking into account his next book, which was to be fiction, we decided to launch him as a novelist. This gave him more creative freedom for his book as well.

  When we began editing, he’d prefer meeting me at his home. My mother assumed I was ‘building a personal relationship’ with the

  author, like all editors ought to, and a very personal relationship developed.

  At the beginning, I was startled by his strict schedule of waking at 5 a.m. and writing till 11 p.m. I guess he had a lot to say.

  Even when I reached early on a Sunday morning, he’d have breakfast ready and be sitting with a book.

  As I got to know him, I found him increasingly interesting. He’d read everything from the Harry Potter books to Greek mythology.

  He said I was the first person he showed his poetry to.

  When he told me he liked me, I did not know how to deal with it and didn’t meet him for a week. I have to admit, Tejas was not the kind of guy I expected would go for a girl like me. I could only ascribe one word to him: intense.

  I had only known him some twenty-one days when I began exploring the possibility in my head. I needed time.

  He was very cordial and took every opportunity to make me feel comfortable. He even emptied out a room for us to sit in and I’d notice there’d be a different book collection each time, which he thought I’d like to read and let me borrow from.

  Months after working together, I found a handwritten note he’d put among my things asking me out. It was during the week we sent the book to press and I gave in.

  He’d cook for me often, and on days when I was stressed, he’d spend hours patiently listening to me whine about my mother. Not that he’d talk much anyway, but he’d make me feel welcome in every conceivable way – something I found myself needing outside of home, more and more.

  ‘Let’s grab lunch, guys?’ Aisha said, snapping me out of my daydream. Farah had finally left. She had a working lunch in the city with a publicist.

  ‘Sure,’ Tejas said. He never had lunch in the office. Things were changing for me – how much a few kisses could do.

  I had the usual: a bowl of salad from home and a cold coffee.

  Tejas got black coffee and a sandwich from the cafe below.

  Aisha opened her three-tier tiffin box and spread out a salad, a bowl of curd and steamed vegetables. She began clicking pictures of the spread.

  ‘I was prescribed this by a nutritionist,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘She wants to keep track of my diet.’

  ‘I hear you were in New York,’ Tejas said. ‘What’s it like to be back?’

  ‘Good, but I miss everything about it. I had to find things to do here. I put all my energy into my site when my parents left.’

  ‘Left? Left you alone?’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been on my own since I can remember. Boarding school, college hostel, summer schools. They love to travel.’

  ‘Aren’t they worried about your safety, here in Delhi at least?’

  I said.

  ‘It’s a safe community. And I’m really good at taking care of myself. That night was a freak incident,’ Aisha said, looking at me. ‘I can take care of myself. My parents are okay with it.

  Different people, different parenting.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by that–’

  ‘It’s okay, Ruhi. It’s tough for some parents to see their kids grow up,’ Aisha said. ‘It’s no secret around here that Farah makes office tough for you.’

  ‘I don’t care about that. I just don’t like hiding our relationship. I don’t like hiding anything.’

  ‘Ruhi. You’re not used to being independent. When you do, you’ll stop guilt tripping,’ she said. ‘You’re as codependent as your mother is.’

  ‘Hmm...’ I finished my lunch quietly, pondering over this.

  Codependent? I. Was. Not. She didn’t know a thing about me or my life.

  Tejas found me later and could tell I was upset. He took me to the cafe and we talked over macaroons till I felt better.

  To Do:

  Once there was a boy whose face was tanned with the sun of seas beyond. When he smiled he was remembering a different time and place. The clothes on his body never really seemed to fit, they were mere conformity. His journal was his most prized possession, a companion to life, and it made me jealous. Did this man have an identity of his own? Or was he made up of his travels, nothing and everything at the same time…

  I’d had some three cups of coffee after lunch and finished everything on my list. I had three dedicated interns helping me and was done for the day.

  Our operations at Litracy were small, there was only editorial, design and now social media, which were in-house. Marketing and finance of all imprints of White Dog were handled by the big teams at the WD headquarters in Gurgaon. Even the production of our books was done at the WD printing presses.

  This gap between work, which never happened at WD, was precious and not infrequent at Litracy. It was when the best brainstorming took place. However, this day, this gap was being filled by thoughts of a dashing author I knew.

  I tried to concentrate as Aisha talked. She was working on an article and told me I was perfect for
‘Makeover Madness’.

  ‘It’s a monthly feature on my blog where I give one lucky girl a makeover, so she can channel her beauty from outside to in. I’ve done it for all my friends. My followers love it.’

  ‘Ah. Um. Well.’

  We were in our glass-walled office. Aisha was pacing the room, talking and planning. I shuffled together the papers on my desk and started correcting a manuscript proof.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed how differently people treat you when you’re dressed up?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It’s even better when how you’re dressed comes from deep within, like self-expression. Like Tejas and his book.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Ruhi. I can tell, your mind is elsewhere.’

  ‘Oops. Sorry, Aisha.’

  ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were thinking of a certain writer. Come, let’s get some fresh air’.

  By fresh air, Aisha meant a smoke. We headed out to the staircase where she lit a cigarette. I didn’t smoke, but I could use a break. It was going to rain and the weather was perfectly romantic.

  What a wondrous feeling, to be lovelorn. I could stay with it forever. I told Aisha about the day I first met Tejas.

  It was a chilly but sunny day in February. The office was quite empty. He was scheduled to meet me and was early, standing outside and smoking. I wanted to stand in the sun but somehow felt shy and pretended not to recognise him. I tried to rush inside when he stopped me and introduced himself.

  I felt my cheeks grow warm and I couldn’t help giving Aisha a goofy smile as I told her this.

  ‘Go on,’ Aisha said.

  ‘It’s so good to talk to you about this,’ I said. It was.

  Since I’d been dating Tejas, I’d had to protect my love like a little Gollum. I couldn’t talk to my mother about it, nor Ani, and did not feel like confiding in the designers either. Within office hours, I’d keep my feelings pushed to the back of my mind, like the box of keepsakes from our dates that I kept in the back of my cupboard.