When Hari Met His Saali

by Harsh Warrdhan

  It’s true what they say; all the good ones are taken.

  The next two days went by quickly and although it was busy she had a nice ‘heavy conversation-free’ dinner with Stephan one evening. She was liking the new her. To just be. Life was simple and not complicated.

  But on her flight back to L.A, after they had dinner and the inflight lights were dimmed, Tia’s tirade, her rant at Hari’s house, was replaying in her head.

  She felt guilty. She had a valid point in declaring their secret marriage, but she had let her emotions get in the way and had said many things she now wished she could reel back.

  I gotta get Jenny into this. Oh God, I had even had a fight with her!

  It was true. When Jenny had dropped by at her apartment to offer her help in whatever way she could, Tia had accused her of not supporting her enough. It was as if Jenny wanted Hari to be with Simi, she had told Jenny. And not only that, she had also accused her of liking Simi because she could control her, because she was like a helpless girl from a third world country and it gave her, Jenny, a white woman’s superiority complex. Jenny had simply told her, because she understood what Tia must have been going through, that she was not going to sever their friendship, and still told Tia to come to her when she had her head checked out. Then she had walked out.

  Now remembering all the things she had said to her, to Barry, to Mary — not to mention to Hari and Simi — Tia felt embarrassed and inferior.

  Oh God, I have truly come off of my wheels and I am hurtling towards destruction via nihilism and I am taking everyone else down with me.

  She wanted to crawl into a small dark hole and never come out.

  Three hours later — Los Angeles

  Stephan had been a true gentleman. He didn’t comment even once when all that shopping Tia had done in New York had invited excess luggage charges from the airline. He paid for it and now he had accompanied her to her apartment in the company car. Only then did he bid her goodbye.

  ‘Again, don’t do anything I wouldn’t,’ he said like an elder brother.

  Agrhhh … not the brother-sister relationship!

  But it was obvious that was how he saw his role in Tia’s life. And by this time, Tia had come down off her ‘fuck you, fuck you’ high horse.

  ‘Stephan, I truly want to thank you for being there and being supportive. Both of you and Clara as well. I shall hopefully have an opportunity in the future to be as good a friend to both of you,’ Tia said to him when he was leaving.

  ‘Now you sound like the heroine of one of those romcoms you like so much,’ he said smiling before he left.

  The next morning

  Tia made peace with Jenny and apologized to her.

  ‘I am just screwing up and apologizing to everyone these days, Jenny. I said some mean things to Hari and his parents.’

  Jenny advised her to make peace with them.

  ‘Regardless of what happens between you and Hari, his parents don’t deserve to be treated like that by you. They are such good human beings.’

  Tia agreed and was at Hari’s house by the afternoon. The house seemed quiet. Barry was already at the hospital and only the ladies of the house were there. They were understandably cold towards Tia.

  She had apologized unconditionally and the elders were glad to forgive her. But then Tia asked where Simi and Hari were. Mary hesitated before telling her, but she set it up in such a way to lay it gradually on Tia.

  ‘Since Xavier’s condition was not improving and he may not recover, Barry and the other doctors felt that he should be amongst his people back home in India. There he could be better looked after and so his ashram was informed. One of Xavier’s managers, Mr. Ayyangar, flew in the next day and it was decided that he should be transferred …’

  Tia was wondering what all of this had to do with Simi and Hari, but she didn’t know that Mary was letting her in on it slowly.

  ‘After that night when you … when the whole marriage certificate thing happened, the next day Simi went to see Xavier with Barry. She insisted on going. I went along with her and that poor girl … your sister, Simi, she begged and cried and emptied her heart out to Xavier, pleading with him to help Hari and you. She asked him to restore peace in our lives. She told him she felt responsible and guilty, but of course Xavier never … responded. He was in a coma.’

  Hearing Mary recall Simi’s episode so emotionally made Tia’s eyes well up too.

  ‘Simi told Barry and me that she was going back to India with Xavier and Mr. Ayyangar. She had made up her mind. She left in spite of both of us trying to convince her otherwise. She did not even say goodbye to Hari. In fact she had us promise not to tell him. But the following day, we had to …’

  ‘Simi’s gone back to India?’ Now it hit Tia. ‘But her suitcases are here.’

  ‘She left them here. ‘There’s nothing important in there for me,” is what she said.’

  ‘And Hari?’ Tia asked.

  ‘When he heard that Simi had gone back to India, he … he went too.’

  ‘Went where?’

  ‘To India,’ Mary almost whispered. It was obvious she didn’t feel comfortable being the one always givingthe bad news to Tia.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night!’

  Tia got up and put Simi’s suitcases into her car.

  ‘Hari must have some emergency work in Hyderabad!’ she said to herself.

  Mary, who already had a son who had gone off his rocker, didn’t want Tia to lose her mind too.

  ‘Tia, Hari has not gone for work. He has gone because Simi is in India.’

  ‘Accha! OK then,’ Tia said simply.

  ‘All I want, all we want, is for you kids to be happy,’ Mary shouted as Tia was driving away.

  Twenty days later

  Hari was still in India. Tia had stopped visiting Mary. She had stopped doing anything and in fact, simply existed, like millions of others.

  ‘It’s not so bad; I am just a statistic now like millions of others. My life is not special and it’s OK,’ she would tell herself.

  She would go to work and on her way home she would stop by at a local Ralph’s supermarket, pick-up a two-gallon tub of ice-cream, come home, change into a sweatshirt and sweatpants, flop down on her couch, put a movie into the player and watch it while eating the ice cream straight from the tub.

  A quick calculation would tell you that 1 gallon = 3.8 liters, and so a 2 gallon tub = 7.6 litres and that was how much ice cream she was consuming every night.

  The girl who would barely have a hair out of place barely had one strand in place these days. She was bloated, puffy-eyed, un-manicured and most probably smelly. Her deodorant spray became her new friend. Her clothes were not neat, her nails were uneven and she had not waxed her arms or legs in two weeks. She had not looked at herself in the mirror in the mornings for days.

  She needed two or three different alarms set at regular intervals to wake her up in the morning and would often find herself on the couch in the morning. The apartment was messy, the dishes were piled up in the sink and the milk in the refrigerator had gone bad.

  One night, bored by her routine, Tia had poured wine into her ice cream, and then having eaten half of it, she added some banana, some pieces of apple and chocolate syrup to it. She liked this exotic-sounding, but in fact disgusting-tasting, concoction. She had woken up in the middle of the night and had vomited into the toilet bowl. She was exhausted trying to get it out of her body.

  She felt her life was like a bicycle. Till the time it was speeding, hurtling someplace, the balance was there. But no sooner did it slow down, the balance wavered.

  Oh mighty Tia. How easily have you crumbled!

  It was a classic case of self-loathing and self-pity, but usually the person doing it is the last one to see it.

  One evening she had just settled in on the couch and was watching a DVD when she stopped eating for a moment. She had to breathe laboriously now because she was so pumped up with sugar. She loo
ked around her home. It had all the latest gadgets and appliances, top of the line upholstery, paintings on the walls … but there was so much sadness in the air. There were balls of crumpled tissues and discarded Chinese takeaway boxes on the floor. She bent down to pick them up, but lost the motivation and just said ‘Ah, fuck it!’, and then ventured back to eat her ice cream on the couch.

  The doorbell surprised her and when she went to open the door a very jovial looking Mary, Badi Mama and Nana entered the apartment.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello!’ Badi Mama pinched Tia’s cheeks as if she was three years old.

  Since Nana was such a slow walker it took her seven minutes to get from the front door to the living room. By that time Mary and Badi Mama were already in the kitchen. They soon reappeared with wine glasses.

  ‘I have brought some alu-gobhi paratha mixture as well as Badi Mama’s saag. We’ll have some wine and then have a proper dinner, OK?’ Mary ordered Tia around as she took away her ice-cream tub and started picking up tissues from the floor.

  ‘It’s OK, leave it,’ Tia said lazily.

  ‘What leave it? This place is so messy.’ Nana was panting as she finally sat down.

  Badi Mama had expertly uncorked the wine bottle — she was eighty-seven don’t forget — and had glasses in everyone’s hands before sitting down. She took a big gulp of her wine and smiled.

  ‘Aah! It’s a journey. Even a grape has to go from the vine on the farm to the place where it’s inspected, then crushed, filtered and whatnot before it becomes a fine wine.’

  ‘Why are you sitting here at home being depressed?’ Nana asked.

  ‘What are you going to solve by locking yourself in your place and not doing anything?’ Mary chimed in.

  ‘Is this any way to live a life?’ Badi Mama asked.

  ‘You are just wasting your own life, and for what?’ Mary said.

  No sooner had Tia started sipping on her wine than the rapid-fire questions came hurtling towards her.

  Don’t they ever give up or get tired? When I am their age, I am not going to give a fuck about anyone else.

  But she didn’t tell them that.

  ‘What else can I do? It’s my fault I drove Hari away with my shenanigans.’

  ‘What shenani … ni …’ Badi Mama couldn’t pronounce it. It made her false teeth come loose, but she finished her thought.

  ‘It’s nobody’s fault.’

  ‘Really, it’s nobody’s fault. This is life,’ Mary explained.

  ‘No, no. It IS my fault,’ said Tia. ‘Mary, you know, I haven’t been myself for so long that I don’t even know who I truly am. The past few weeks I have gone from being a mean woman to a sweet woman to a mean one again. I have been selfish, self-centered and self-indulgent. In between all that, what I have not been is a normal, decent human being, which I think I am. And realizing that makes me scared. Makes me feel alone. I have hurt everyone, especially those whom I love and respect the most. I have become this horrid woman, Mary, and I don’t know how to undo it.’

  All those thoughts, which must have been building up inside Tia, suddenly came pouring out.

  ‘It is my fault, I take responsibility and I am ready to live like this all my life,’ Tia said dejectedly.

  ‘Bullshit!’ Badi Mama loudly declared. ‘All these big words and over analyzing. What has happened, huh? What? Why are you crying like a weak woman …?’ Badi Mama, it should be said, was already on her third glass of wine and was inching towards the edge of her chair due to the adrenaline … and yeah, was just getting started, now that she had everyone’s attention.

  ‘Let me tell you a little story. I got married in 1947. On one side India had just won its freedom, people were celebrating; and on the other side, I had lost mine. There I was with my husband whom I had not seen, whose face even I had not seen. Not even during my wedding night. But what did I do? For the next sixty-five years I loved that man like no one could have, and when he died he had only one name on his lips — mine! I set up my family with him in a small village called Pabana. The population there at the time was ninety … ninety! Not even one hundred, but n i n e t y. For the first twenty-five years I did not even remove my ghungat. I only saw the world around me through it but still I worked like a man on the farm. No one could herd buffalos like I used to, not even my husband. I taught myself to read and write, had a bunch of kids, sent them to school, taught them culture and values, right and wrong. I taught them that life is nothing without love and respect. Even though I had myself never been outside of my own village, I even sent them to America to study further, because they wanted to. And I attended each and every relative’s celebration. Happy or otherwise. Even their funerals. And all with my head held high and a smile on my face. And now look at me — the woman who would draw water from a well every morning so that no one in the house would go thirsty all day, and who would drink milk straight from the buffalo — look at me now, enjoying retirement in America, drinking wine. That is called a life well-lived!’

  Everyone was stunned. Jaws were on the floor, especially Tia’s.Even Mary and her mother, Nana, were touched. It was not just the content of her story, but also the way she had narrated it, with such passion and pride, that made it stick.

  Just a quiet ‘Wow’ escaped Tia’s mouth.

  Suddenly, as if someone had lifted a veil from her mind, life looked different from a new perspective. She had clarity.

  Badi Mama had leaned back and was catching her breath. Mary got up and poured her some more wine.

  ‘Last one, OK?’ she told her affectionately.

  Badi Mama nodded like a schoolgirl.

  ‘Look, what she is trying to say is that all these things we do, and we all do — buy things, plan things, want things — they are all fine, but life is made up of relationships, of love, and care, and thought and giving up …’ Mary was trying to close the pitch, when Nana also added her two cents.

  ‘Giving up and not giving up!’ Nana said pumping her fist in the air.

  ‘That’s right, and not giving up. And to know when to not give up,’ Mary said, sitting next to Tia.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tia asked, genuinely wanting to know.

  ‘That means if you love Hari, go and get him!’ Mary said firmly. Tia looked at Badi Mama and Nana, they both nodded.

  They must have planned this.

  Tia couldn’t believe how effortlessly they had brought her out of her depression. These were no ordinary ladies.

  ‘You mean, I go to …?’ Tia asked, now with a smile on her face.

  ‘At least go and find out,’ Nana said.

  ‘If it is meant to be, he will come back to you,’ Badi Mama told her.

  ‘And of course he will, if you truly love him!’ Mary said, finishing the pitch.

  Oh, I gotta learn how to pitch from these women. It started so innocently and it ended with such an impact.

  Tia was so impressed by the delivery of their message.

  ‘Now let’s eat. I am hungry,’ Badi Mama said finally, just as she used to say it back in the day after her ploughing and planting seeds on the farm was done.

  Tia got up onto her feet and hugged them one by one.

  When they left Mary looked content — she had done a mother’s job. There was one last piece of advice.

  ‘You know how many sacrifices I made in my life? Hundreds! You know how many I remember today? None. Learn to let go! Go for happiness, even sometimes for someone else’s happiness. Go with that mindset!’

  Tia nodded ‘I promise.’

  10

  Tia Comes Home

  Tia had a long chat with Stephan and she was brutally honest with him. She told him that she was deceiving herself that everything would be fine and was just mindlessly working while she still needed closure in her personal life. She told him she was going to India for a considerable time.

  Stephan, as always, was very accommodating. Before lunch, they had worked out a makeshift plan so that the New York job wouldn’t b
e hindered.

  ‘And don’t worry about a thing here. You’ll always have a job at this firm, and you’ll always have me and Clara as friends no matter what.’

  Tia had gone to the Malibu Hindu temple with Mary. She had not visited the temple in ages. It was nestled in the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains in the city of Calabasas. It was a temple of Venkateswara — a God worshipped mostly in South India.

  ‘They say whatever you ask for with a clean and genuine heart, God always gives you,’ Mary told her.

  Then she saw Tia close her eyes and join her hands in a silent prayer. No one knew what she asked for that day. Tia did not know it at the time, but her relationship with South India had just begun.

  She was going to land in Mumbai and then take a flight to Nagpur. She was excited to see Hari and Simi at her home. All through the long flight she was in an upbeat mood. Although she was a little apprehensive, shameful in fact, about seeing her mother after six years, she was also looking forward to mending things with her. It would be nice to have her Simi and Hari together to resolve this thing once and for all. She had a clear agenda and a clear plan.

  She was prepared for the possibility that Hari would never be brought back from Simi. He was probably too far gone having spent so much time with her. She was also aware of the fact that Hari’s affection has started working on Simi. She was a simple girl who had probably never had a guy like Hari fall in love with her like he pretended to. Or really had.

  She was ready for any eventuality.

  I am going for happiness, even if it is someone else’s!

  In India

  When Tia was about to reach her home in Nagpur, memories from her childhood and early life came flooding back. She could have told you she had forgotten it all, put it behind her, but now she found herself identifying which shop used to be there, which one got replaced, which neighbor lived where, what place she used to play in the evenings, what streets she would ride her bicycle, where she and Simi would play hide-n-seek and how her mother would shout for them from the window.