by Sheryn Munir
“Oh Tara, you’re so frustrating sometimes.”
There was a knock, and Barkha rose and yanked the door open. This time it was room service with Tara’s dinner.
“Could you get another one of these, please?” Barkha asked the waiter, pointing at Tara’s order of chicken curry and rice.
He nodded and shut the door on his way out. Barkha turned back to Tara.
“You don’t think talking to Sameen might have helped?”
“She’s straight. She’s with Rohan.” She’s happy.
“How straight can she be if she kissed you?”
“It was an accident.”
“Doesn’t she get to have an opinion, considering she is an equal participant in this situation?”
“What could I say to her? It’s not like we can have a relationship or anything. I’m not going to pretend that we have a future.”
“Listen, nobody’s pretending anything. What you’re doing is jumping to conclusions. You have this ridiculous excuse that you have used for years to justify not wanting to be in a relationship. The truth is you are scared of needing someone, of being vulnerable. It’s been ten years since you broke up with Radhika because you claimed she wanted to be with a man. And you and I both know that’s bullshit. The real reason you broke up with her was that you were scared. Just like you are now. You sabotaged your relationship then and you’re doing exactly the same thing now. Have you learnt nothing in all these years?” Barkha ran her hands through her hair. “Listen, please, just talk to Sameen.”
Tara shook her head. “It’s no use. Nothing’s going to come of it.”
“This is ridiculous. You can’t run from her forever.”
“But I don’t want a relationship!”
“Fine. Then at least try and save your friendship. Get some closure.”
Tara sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask. Now are you going to share your dinner with me or what? The service in this place is so crappy.”
Chapter 23
Two weeks later, Tara came home from Kolkata and settled into her usual routine—from home to office and back. The only thing that was no longer part of this routine was Sameen. There was no sharing of taxis, no detour to tuck into delicious snacks, no hanging out endlessly in each other’s homes, no watching and critiquing television shows to death, and definitely no sharing deep, dark secrets and being there for each other in the not-so-good moments.
Though the pain of missing Sameen had lost its sharp edge, it still remained as a permanent dull ache within Tara. She tried to ignore it by going about her daily life and distract herself by focusing on her work, but the more she tried, the less she was able to push it away. The grief seemed like it was there to stay.
Even though Tara had never been a very outgoing person nor had a roaring social life, she was starting to feel like the walls were closing in around her. It was a testament to how much Sameen had changed her. Six months ago, Tara would have been happy to potter around at home, cook something, watch TV, or do a jigsaw puzzle. Now the thought of going back to that life was stifling. It wasn’t as though she’d suddenly become a party animal with Sameen, but some part of her had been slammed shut now that she was gone.
Even the jigsaw puzzles weren’t that exciting anymore. Everything felt wrong. Lying in bed each night and scrolling through the photos of Sameen on her phone—photos she couldn’t bear to delete despite her better judgement telling her that she needed a clean break—she knew she was turning into a cliché.
At least on workdays she had an escape, but when her off days came around, it was all she could do to get out of bed. Despite her natural restlessness, burrowing under the quilt felt like a refuge. The thought of facing yet another day without Sameen was too much to bear.
Barkha had started checking up on her at home, so when her phone rang, Tara snaked an arm out of her quilt and reached for it without checking the caller ID.
“Hey, wanna watch the latest Shah Rukh Khan movie with me?” Barkha asked, sounding criminally chirpy. “What’s it called? I can never remember their names these days.”
Tara had to smile. Barkha was so transparent sometimes. “If you can’t even remember the name of the movie, why do you want to watch it?”
“Because Kunal has taken the kids to play minigolf.”
“And you would rather die than spend your day pushing tiny white balls into holes with the apples of your eye?”
“Exactly. So are you coming with me?”
“Nah. I don’t feel like it,” Tara said, even though a part of her wished she could muster up enough energy to get out of bed.
“You wouldn’t be avoiding me, would you?”
“Of course not. Why would you think that?”
But she knew exactly why Barkha would think that—because it was sort of true. She hadn’t talked to Sameen despite promising Barkha that she would think about it. And she knew she wasn’t going to do so anytime soon. Even though Barkha hadn’t brought it up again, Tara could see the question in her eyes each time they met. Or maybe it was just her imagination. It was unlike Barkha to not say what she was thinking, and sooner rather than later, Tara would have to answer her persistent demand for an explanation.
Barkha made a noise that was a cross between disbelief and dismissal.
“I just feel like hanging out at home.” Tara knew the excuse sounded as lame as it actually was.
“Isn’t Chhaya there, inviting prospective grooms over to meet with you?”
“Fortunately, she’s moved on to other things. She’s cleared the study; there are no photographs or files in there anymore. The other day I was on the computer and failed to find any trace of her stupid research. I’m so glad this phase of her life is over.”
“Has she found something else yet?”
“Who knows? She’s been collecting travel magazines, but it’s early days yet. You know how it is. There is a short lull before she goes full speed ahead.”
“Yeah. It’s like she’s recharging her batteries before diving into something new.”
Tara shuddered at the thought of whatever new project her mother would pick next. She ended the call with Barkha, and forced herself out of bed.
Her mother was sitting on the living room sofa reading a book on hill-station getaways when Tara came in with a bowl of cornflakes and settled down next to her. Chhaya took off her reading glasses and ruffled Tara’s hair.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Catching up on your sleep lately?”
Tara shrugged.
“Sweetie, are you feeling okay? You seem a little down these days.”
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“I worry about you, you know.”
“Don’t. I’m fine.”
Her mother sighed. “I know you’re okay, but…I don’t want you to be all alone. Who will look after you when I’m gone?”
“Mama, what’s wrong with you? Why are you saying things like that?”
“You know, meeting your father, being with him, and then losing him made me realize one should never take love for granted. When you find it, you should respect it and nurture it. You must hold on to it with all your might because you never know when it will disappear.”
The cornflakes turned to ash in Tara’s mouth. She took a deep breath, put the bowl on the table, and gently clasped her mother’s hands. “Mama, I know you want to see me get married, and I don’t want to hurt you or be difficult, but it’s not going to happen.”
“I know.” Chhaya sighed.
Tara’s eyes widened. That was another loaded statement. Her mother returned her gaze, and Tara felt acceptance and understanding wash over her like a warm bath in winter. She understood then how much she needed her mother’s support, and how easily she could have it whenever she needed it.
They sat in silence for a minute before h
er mother asked, “Why doesn’t Sameen come around anymore?”
“What?” Tara blinked at her.
“Did you two have a fight?”
“It’s complicated.” Tara’s voice caught in her throat.
“She’s a good person, and good people are hard to come by. You must ask her to come over soon.”
Not trusting herself to respond, Tara nodded. There were no words to explain to her mother what she was going through. She got up and stumbled into her room, no longer able to hold back her tears.
There was something magical about coming home to Bangalore, something almost surreal. Like entering a parallel existence where the complications of real life melted away into oblivion. Well, perhaps oblivion would have been stretching it somewhat, Sameen thought as she lay curled up in bed. It was more like her problems, her questions and dilemmas, the decisions she needed to make, and the things she had to sort out were all locked away in a box far, far away, and didn’t need her attention as urgently as they had seemed to back in Delhi just last evening.
The familiar pale pink-and-yellow-printed curtains rippled by the window. Through the crack where the curtains didn’t quite meet, Sameen could see a bright sunlit day outside. If she were to hazard a guess, she would say it was well past nine o’clock. That was another thing about being here—it was so easy to fall back into this whole cycle of waking up deliciously late.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t had any dinner last night, what with the flight being so late. Masala dosas were probably waiting for her, with a steaming tumbler of homemade filter coffee, the welcome-home breakfast her mother invariably arranged whenever she returned to Bangalore. Yet her courage failed her at the thought of getting up and making her way downstairs and along the corridor to the big airy kitchen, where the ancient Revathi-akka, the cook, would take one look at her and set the griddle to heat to make fresh dosas.
Sameen turned on to her other side and stared at the wall. Despite having slept through what had been left of the night after she’d arrived, she felt like the energy had been drained out of her. She closed her eyes, the rhythmic squeaks of the fan swaying above her, lulling her back into a state of drowsiness.
Her phone pinged and she jumped. She reached for it automatically, for one insane second her heart leaping at the thought it might be Tara. A pang of guilt immediately ripped through her for not assuming it might be Rohan. But it was neither—just Vodafone welcoming her to Bangalore and telling her that she could have free 4G data if she clicked on the link.
She pulled herself up, her heart as heavy as the millstone Revathi-akka had used to grind rice when Sameen had been a girl. Her head spun with the sudden movement and she had to wait a moment before she could think of standing. The weight of all that had happened in the past few days came tumbling back to settle on her shoulders. The wall she had built to keep it all at bay crumbled in an instant, laying her pain bare.
“I can’t do this,” Sameen whispered, her voice breaking. Rohan’s face rose unbidden in her mind again, the shock and hurt written all over it when she had told him about Tara. Whoever said the truth sets you free clearly didn’t know what they were talking about. Look where the truth had brought her.
I am a bad person, Sameen told herself. I promised Rohan forever, and then I turned away.
Yet the thought didn’t wreck her like she had imagined it would. She hated herself for that. And for feeling relieved that he had seemed to understand when she had said she needed time and space. He had reappeared the morning after her confession, his eyes red and downcast, and they had spent that entire week talking about nothing but this, rehashing Sameen’s feelings, their relationship, the future.
She could see him standing at the door with his bags at the end of that week, this time saying he was going to step away until she figured out what she wanted. He had looked calm and collected from the outside, yet Sameen could see he was coming undone inside.
Though what was it exactly that she needed time and space to decide? On the one hand was the stable relationship with a person she had known for years, who she had been pretty sure was the one. And on the other hand was Tara.
How could she have feelings for Tara while she still loved Rohan? How could she hate herself for hurting him while her heart still yearned for Tara? How could two such conflicting truths exist?
How messed up am I?
She rubbed at her face as a noise at her door made her look up. It was her mother. “Oh good, you’re up. Come on downstairs. Everyone wants to meet you.”
“Already?”
But of course. There was a wedding in the family and that was always an excuse for added bonhomie.
She dragged herself to the bathroom to freshen up and get into some respectable clothes. As she walked downstairs and approached the drawing room, high-pitched laughter cocooned her and the uneasy veil of surreality descended again.
A gaggle of aunts and girl cousins had taken over the space, spread out on the various sofas and the floor. Tea and snacks were being passed around.
“Sameeeen!” Her cousin Shazia, the one the excitement was in honour of, leapt up from the floor and engulfed her in a hug. “Finally!”
She was pulled down on to the floor, squeezing in between Shazia and an ample elderly relative who pulled Sameen’s cheeks like she was five.
“Sameen, my child, how you have grown.”
“Uff, Aunty, you saw me only last year,” Sameen protested.
The aunt gave Sameen a friendly smack on the arm. “I remember you from when you used to run around in my garden.”
Sameen rolled her eyes at Shazia, and they giggled.
“Aunty hasn’t forgiven you for all those trampled flowerbeds,” Shazia said.
“We were just saying,” Shazia’s mother, a tall, thin woman seated on the sofa opposite, called out, “that after Shazia it will be you, Sameen.”
“Me what?” asked Sameen an instant before she realized what they were talking about. She stiffened. “Oh.”
“She should have been first anyway,” said Shazia, “as she’s older.”
The last thing Sameen wanted was for the conversation to veer towards Rohan and the possibility of a wedding.
“Yeah, by two months.” She nudged her cousin and rooted about in her head with desperate urgency for a change of subject. “So, all set?”
Shazia opened her mouth to respond, but the portly aunt on Sameen’s other side got in first.
“What is this I hear about some boy back in Delhi, Sameen? Have you set a date?”
“A date?”
“Of course. For the wedding. Are you planning to do it all in secret? Ha ha ha.”
Sameen attempted a grin.
“Roshan, is it?” a much-older cousin asked.
“Rohan,” Sameen said weakly. Her head pounded.
“Hai,” another aunt lamented, slapping a hand to her chest, “Shazia marrying Baljeet, and now Sameen and this Rohan. What’s wrong with these girls? Are there no more good Muslim boys anymore?”
There was a second of uncomfortable silence.
Then Shazia piped up. “No, Aunty, your generation gobbled them all up.”
Laughter filled the room as Sameen dragged herself up, muttering something about going to get breakfast.
Chapter 24
A glittering bejewelled aunt sidled up to Sameen at the buffet line and nudged her in the ribs. “So,” she said, nodding over her shoulder, “is he the one? What a handsome chap.”
Sameen’s eyes flew wide open. She looked to where the aunt was gesturing, half afraid Rohan had indeed turned up. But all she saw was a group of obscure male relatives, plates in hand, laughing at something. Then she spotted Milind in their midst.
“No, no, of course not,” Sameen said, annoyed. Why was it that the more distant the relationship was, the more these au
nts felt they had a right to poke into your private affairs? “That’s Milind. Don’t you remember him?”
A many-ringed hand flew up to the aunt’s mouth. “Milind? The same Milind you went to school with? Oh my, he’s changed so much. He was so skinny and he cut off his curly hair. Is he married?”
Sameen gave a snort that she hurriedly turned into a cough. She wondered whether the truth would give the nosy aunt a heart attack. “No, but there’s someone.”
The aunt was now piling biryani on her plate, seeking out the choicest pieces of mutton without shame. “All the girls in the family are married now. It’s just you left.”
A knot formed in her stomach. The fragrant biryani suddenly made her nauseated.
“I’m not sure I’m ready,” Sameen said truthfully. “Or that I will be anytime soon.”
“Nonsense. You’re almost thirty. What do you have to be ready for?”
Sameen slammed her plate down on the serving table between the mutton biryani and the malai koftas, and turned away, ignoring the indignant cries of the offended aunt. There might be words later about her rudeness, but she didn’t care.
She cut through the tables set all over the lawns, weaving between groups of overdressed guests, and made for the hotel lobby. Apart from a lone woman at the reception desk and a couple of guests, it was empty. She sank down into a sofa and closed her eyes.
Sameen felt the cushion dipping as someone sat next to her. Opening her eyes, she found Milind crossing an elegant leg carefully over another and brushing out the creases in his sherwani. “I saw you running away,” he said by way of greeting.
“Some old bat was trying to marry me off to you.”
“Oh dear. Been that sort of night, has it?”
Sameen sighed. “And this is just the engagement party. How am I going to get through the rest of this?”
Milind took her hand. Then, noticing a couple of giggly teenage cousins of Sameen’s watching them, he let it go hurriedly. “Look at it as a distraction?”
“I can’t. It’s…the more I try to push it away, the more it pushes back.”