I pulled my coat tight around me and stood a few feet from the rest of them, close enough to find some comfort in the gathering but far enough to know that no matter how hard I tried, how many friends I made, how hard I worked, I could never be a part of their world. They might have let me visit, but they would never let me stay.
I felt a flash go off and held my hand up to shield my face. I did not want any reminders of this night.
Sabah, Addi and Saloni were standing a short distance away from me. I tried not to look at them as they pressed together, laughing and giggling, their closeness just another reminder of how alone I was.
Their heads tilted up in unison as a rocket whizzed up and showered the sky with blue and green teardrops.
It was my own fault, I thought as the sky erupted into a million colours. I hadn’t been careful. I had let my guard down. I’d thought that Noor liked me for who I was, when the truth was that she had pitied me. I tried so hard not to cry, but I was drunk and tired and so completely alone that the tears slipped out. I turned my face up to the sky so that no one would see. I had suffered enough humiliation for one night.
Something made me turn around, the sound of my name or perhaps just instinct, but there she was.
Noor. Unsteady on her feet, swaying.
Vineet was hovering by her side, trying to steer her towards the house, but she kept pushing him away, clearly not drunk enough to forget what he had done. A few feet from them, Ankit stood clutching a bottle of water, perhaps waiting for an opportunity to swoop in and save her.
Let him.
‘Alia,’ she called out, ‘I don’t feel well.’
I thought about the promise I had made to her earlier that day when I told her I would stay by her side, and instantly pushed it away. She was on her own now. After the way she had humiliated me, I didn’t owe her anything.
‘Alia. Please. I want to go home.’
She sounded broken, desperate. I knew she needed help.
I knew she needed my help.
I turned around. I pretended I didn’t hear her. I decided she deserved a little pain after what she had put me through.
And as the fireworks shrieked into the sky, hissing and whistling before they exploded, shattering the still winter night into a million colourful pieces, I imagined her dead. It made my love glow brighter. Picturing her gone made me realize just how much I would lose, how much worse things would get, but more than anything else, it made me realize that no matter how badly Noor treated me, I would go back to her. Because ultimately it came down to this: I needed her.
I brushed the tears away. I told myself I would let her suffer tonight. And then when she called me tomorrow, which I knew she would, I would accept her teary apology. I would forgive her.
She would see that she had been wrong to humiliate me like that.
She would see that she needed me just as much as I needed her.
I let a smile flicker across my face as a rocket sizzled into the sky and small orange lights began to sparkle, as though the entire sky was filled with fireflies, fluttering, dancing, glimmering for a few seconds before fading away one by one, leaving us in darkness.
Yes, I thought. I would let her suffer alone tonight. That would teach her a lesson.
An hour later, I went home and crawled into bed, already planning in my head the conversation I would have with Noor the next morning. The apologies, the tears, the promises.
I never had that conversation.
My grandparents woke me up at the crack of dawn. Nani held my hand while Nana uttered the words that would splinter my world forever. Noor was dead, he told me. She had bled to death on her kitchen floor.
ALIA
Fifteen years ago
The funeral took place the next day.
I was there, standing next to Javed Uncle, when Faraz burst in with his mother.
I stood with them as they lowered her into the ground.
I wept with them as we cleared out her room and packed away her clothes.
I laughed with them as after months of mourning, the grief lifted.
I was there for all of it and slowly, deliberately, I became a part of their family.
I never told anyone what I had done and even as the guilt gnawed away at me, I became her proxy in death.
Meanwhile the case that the police had brushed off as teenage debauchery became a talking point. Noor’s death sparked something off in a nation that had until then made their peace with a system that failed its people again and again. The country wanted answers. The same people who had called Noor a slut took to the streets demanding justice. The candlelight vigils and silent protests continued for months and yet the police did little.
They arrested the college student who had uploaded the video on the website, then released him. They arrested the man who owned the auction site, then released him. They called in more than twenty Wescott students for questioning. But Noor and Vineet were both minors, and the act itself had been consensual so legally there was nothing to be done. I became known as the misguided, but innocent, sidekick and Sabah the mastermind behind Wescott’s decadent parties. Noor’s allegation that Sabah had been the one who sent the video out became something of an open secret, an unconfirmed rumour that was widely discussed in the Wescott crowd but only in hushed whispers.
I kept waiting for someone to question why Vineet would send that video to Sabah in the first place but no one ever did. The guilt was crippling. In my blind desperation to be accepted, to have friends, I’d ruined the very person I most wanted to be accepted by.
And yet, every time I saw him afterwards, I looked away, refusing to acknowledge our shared guilt, turning away from the moment when I’d set into motion a chain of events so twisted, I’d be left grappling with the repercussions years later.
After Sabah’s attempt to sabotage my birthday, I’d seen Vineet at the Viva concert. The bomb that I had dropped about Sabah and Mohit had had little effect on Sabah and still seething from what she had done to me, I pulled him to one side and told him that Sabah wasn’t the virgin queen she pretended to be. I hadn’t quite realized the power of that revelation until I saw his face. For a moment, I was scared that he might hit me, but then I realized that his fury was directed at Mohit. I can’t explain how I felt in that moment. No matter what she did, Sabah was untouchable. I knew she would find a way to spin this. She would cry and offer Vineet an over-the-top apology or tell him that Mohit had taken advantage of her being drunk or vulnerable. However she did it, I knew she would find a way to manipulate the situation and draw Vineet back to her. I couldn’t stand the idea that after everything she had done to me, she would still get what she wanted.
I looked at Noor and Sabah, arms linked, hips bumping as they screamed lyrics in sync with the band. I was sick of being the outsider. No matter how close Noor and I became, Sabah kept getting in the way. The only way to secure my position as Noor’s best friend was to wrench Noor and Sabah apart once and for all. I was so consumed by jealousy, I didn’t stop to think twice. Vineet was glaring at Mohit, ready to pound him for touching the girl he had been pursuing for months. I stopped him. I lied. I told him that instead of focusing on the girl who cared so little about him, he should focus on the one who loved him.
Who, he’d asked, the anger on his face melting away as confusion, then arrogance took its place. I didn’t hesitate. I pointed straight at Noor.
SABAH
I twist the key in the lock and push the front door open into darkness, setting my car keys and bag on the console table before wandering into the kitchen. I pour myself a glass of wine in the white glow from the fridge and go into the living room.
Something’s niggling at me. A little piece of the puzzle that doesn’t quite fit.
By all accounts, Noor left the party with Vineet at about one a.m. Vineet dropped her off, she went inside, a few hours later her father found her with a note to say she had killed herself.
I close my eyes and press my fingers int
o my temple. It’s right there.
Assuming the note wasn’t forged, she was coerced into writing it. Which means it couldn’t have been the staff or a stranger. Someone she knew made her write that –
My eyes snap open.
I scroll through my phone and ring Addi.
I cut through the pleasantries and get right to the point.
‘Where did Vineet drop her off that night?’ The words tumble out as my mouth tries to get in sync with my brain. Alia had told me that when they left for the party that evening, the house had been empty. Javed Uncle had already left for the constituency and Fatima Aunty and Faraz were out of town.
‘At her house. We’ve already been over—’
‘Yes, but where?’ I cut her off. ‘Did he go inside?’
‘No, of course not. It was late, she got off outside. Sabah, what is going—’
I hang up. We used to get dropped off outside the house whenever we were sneaking in. We would slip through the gates and go in through the servants’ entrance. But if Noor was the only one at home, she didn’t need to sneak in; Vineet would’ve driven through the gates up to the porch.
I sink into the sofa.
Someone had been at home that night.
The Qureshis had always maintained that the house had been empty that night. It was the one undisputed fact in a case that was riddled with gossip and speculation. I run through the little that I know for sure. Faraz and Fatima Aunty had been out of town but Alia had told me that Javed Uncle had been at home when she got there that evening. He had called a press conference and she’d said the whole place had been teeming with TV crew and reporters. But when riots broke out in his constituency, he was forced to adjourn the press conference and rush to the scene.
When my parents and I visited the day after the funeral, Javed Uncle had told us that leaving the house that evening would always be the biggest regret of his life.
I think back to one of the many afternoons Noor, Alia and I had spent at my house. Alia and I were working on a Physics project but Noor had been bent over her sketchbook as usual. When I realized she was using me as a model, I insisted on seeing the sketch. I close my eyes as the memory comes back to me, as clear as if it were yesterday.
‘This is incredible,’ I’d said, amazed at the detail, the way she’d caught the curve of my nose, the tilt of my eyebrows. The sketch was so precise it could have been a photograph.
Alia leaned in to sneak a look. ‘You should apply to art school.’
Noor hesitated for a second before laughing it off.
I can still see the pained look that appeared on Alia’s face as she tried to figure out what she had said wrong.
I tried to warn Alia silently, willing her to let it go, but she pressed on, unaware that Noor’s laughter hid layers of hurt and anger.
‘Why not? You’re so talented, any programme would have you.’
Noor flipped the page and started covering it with furious, black strokes, the charcoal crumbling between her fingers. ‘Abbu won’t let me.’
Javed Uncle was always described as progressive but his liberalism extended only to his politics. With his children, he was strict, harsh even, disciplining them at the slightest hint of misbehaviour. When the scandal broke, people assumed that Noor behaved the way she did because she was looking for attention, but I’ve always believed the opposite. The drugs, the drinking, the boys, it was her way of escaping it.
I still remember the look on Javed Uncle’s face when he discovered the drugs that Noor had smuggled into the house. He had dragged her out of her room and into the guest room further along the corridor, his grip on her arm tight, the fury in his voice uninhibited, unconcerned by my presence. He had locked her in, refusing to let her out even to say goodbye as I packed my things and left. She’d told me later that he’d kept her there all weekend and that she had felt like she was going crazy, trapped in a room with nothing to do and no one to talk to. I’d always thought that his actions, however shocking, were necessary, that he was doing it out of love for his daughter, but it occurs to me now that there were undercurrents of shame there too. The more pious Muslim communities in the country expected Javed Uncle, as their leader, to embody good Muslim values and while he could, and did, force Noor into wearing a hijab, there was little else about Noor that he could control.
The gossip and rumours that started after the video went viral would have been embarrassing for any parent, but for someone in Javed Uncle’s position, someone constantly under the gaze of the media, it had the power to destroy everything. For the first time, I find myself thinking about the impact that scandal must have had on him not just as her father, but as a politician. Something that sordid, that public . . . Political ambitions have been squashed for less than that.
The scandal should have meant the end of his career, the end of the legacy he had spent his whole life building. But before things could get to that point, the tide changed. As news of Noor’s suicide swept through the nation, public opinion shifted. It didn’t take a political genius to understand that Javed Uncle’s win in the next election was driven, predominantly, by sympathy.
My brain struggles to put this together.
Javed Uncle loved Noor, I tell myself. He disciplined her because he loved her. He wanted the best for her. He had been distraught when she died.
But letting a scandal that big go unchecked would have meant the end of his career.
It meant he had reason enough to kill his own daughter.
ALIA
Noor hovers but I cannot afford to let myself get sucked into the past so I fill my brain with work instead. I focus on the latest version of the campaign funding spreadsheet and press on with the calls that I have to make. It’s not grit, rather impatience that drives me on, pushing me to cut through the bullshit and face the worst.
Omar knocks on the door and I wave him in, gesturing to him to sit down while I grovel on the phone, kissing up to my biggest donor like a schoolgirl.
‘Well?’ Omar asks after I finish the call.
I shake my head. The donor’s hedging his bets till the nominations come out, just like every other donor I’ve spoken to over the last week.
Omar nods before swiftly moving on. He hands me a slim folder. ‘The call with the party president is in an hour. I’ve got the statistics you asked for here.’
‘And?’ I say, tetchily.
‘It’s not looking good.’
The call to go over the party’s strategy for the general election has been scheduled for over a week now but I know that’s not what he will want to talk about today.
After Faraz’s comments about the crisis centre, the party president had already warned me to reel him in. Whatever your differences, he’d said, our parties are still an alliance and if your allies don’t trust you, why should the country? By country, what he really meant, of course, was the party and the cabinet. What it all meant was that unless I could turn things around, not only could I forget about winning the election, I could forget about getting the party’s support for the nomination.
I can feel the recklessness searing through me.
I can’t take that call, not until I’ve done some damage control first. I pick up my phone and my wallet. I need to know what I’m up against. Right now.
‘Tell him I’ve had to go to the constituency on urgent business. Reschedule the call for next week.’
‘But—’
‘Just do it, please. And those interviews you were setting up about the sexual assault committees – move them all up. Mine should be the only face the country sees for the next two weeks.’
‘Alia, always a pleasure,’ Faraz says, getting up to greet me. He motions to the sofa across from him. ‘Sit, please. Tea?’
‘I’m not here for pleasantries, Faraz. I thought we were on the same team.’
‘We are,’ he says, unfazed.
‘At least have the decency to be honest. I know what you’re trying to do.’
He just lo
oks at me with that polite, infuriating smile.
‘Do you really think discrediting me, dissolving the alliance, will do anything to help you? There’s no way in hell that you can win the election without us. We can still find a way to keep the alliance together, find you a more prominent position. Maybe in one of the parliamentary committees or a seat on the Rajya Sabha like your father?’
He lets me finish, then leans back in his chair, nodding thoughtfully, and I almost sigh with relief.
The promise of power. It works every single time.
Faraz stands up and takes a step towards me, his eyes level with mine.
‘Who said anything about dissolving the alliance? My father built this party from scratch. He created the alliance so that he could help the Muslim community. I don’t want a trophy position, I want the ministry.’
It takes me less than a few seconds to come up with a response, but I know from the glint in Faraz’s eyes that I’ve given my hand away.
‘Funny you say that, and yet in all these years, your father never let you run for even a municipal election. Because he knew you would lose.’
The smile disappears and with it any semblance of civility as a flash of malice passes over Faraz’s face.
‘Let’s just see, shall we? Abbu always underestimated me. I’d advise you not to make the same mistake.’
I leave the Muslim Congress headquarters seething. I had assumed Faraz was going to dissolve the alliance and run against me in the general election and with their threats and speeches, Faraz and Saeed had inched me along, adding fuel to my belief. I had been worried, of course, but the situation was still salvageable. I could find new funding and though Faraz running against me would split the votes, I still had a decade’s worth of work to rely on as proof and the backing of a large political party. The negative buzz they were generating would make it a harder fight, but it was still a fight I knew I could win.
Can You See Me Now? Page 22