by Rohan Dahiya
“Chanda? What are you doing here so late –”
“Oh didi you’re back so early… uh I-I was well I was, obviously, I mean there was a lot to do today you know because well Vikram wasn’t there so I had to – um – take care of everything mostly on my own.”
It was the middle of summer but her skin was icy cold when Sunaina touched her, Chanda hadn’t been in the kitchen after all.
She looked her all over taking in the slipshod appearance.
“Why are you still wearing the suit from yesterday?” she asked slowly.
Chanda protested with her eyes in a way that told Sunaina she shouldn’t be asking questions she didn’t want answers to. The stretching silence sent shivers down her spine. The next words that came out of Chanda’s mouth were rushed and barely registered, thrown halfway over her shoulder as she hurried into the night.
Sunaina stood there, stupefied and utterly beaten down. There were certain things she was hyperaware of in that moment; that it was night, the humidity had her hair sticking to the nape of her neck, and that she wanted to kill herself. She sensed her heart softly thumping somewhere underwater, her brain trying to move her but she walked disjointedly. Fingers went through her hair to tie it up. Lock the main door. Press the glass door into the kitchen. All movements carried out in simple perfunctory steps. She walked in and reached for a glass, the glass was made of glass and it was cool against her skin. The superficial image of her father standing only in pajamas was in front of her trying for nonchalant conversation. He was shirtless. He was rummaging through the fridge for something, half swallowed up by the double doors. When he poked his head up to stare at her it was obvious that she was supposed to respond.
“What?”
“How was your night?”
“Oh fine… I had a date.”
“Oh oh that’s good!” she’d never heard his voice that high. “Yeah in fact I remember you saying something about a date … with Laksh right? How’d it go – um – because you’re back really early for a date I mean it’s only, what, eleven o clock right?”
Hassan grew uncomfortable under her prolonged stare. In her mind she knew there was an answer to the problem; it was simple arithmetic but her brain wasn’t ready to put two and two together.
“Well, how was it?”
She straightened her spine and set the glass down.
“It was fine” she exhaled “I ordered myself a drink, waited for about like two hours and then decided he wasn’t coming because I called him and I texted, his phone’s dead, no one’s heard from him so there’s a chance he’s, well, dead too. And then I came home, papa.” She held the glass aloft, hoping for armour. “Now why don’t you tell me how your night was?”
He surveyed her closely.
“Fine, nothing special at all really –”
“Oh oh really? I assumed Chanda had to stay late for some work because –”
“Sana” his voice boomed, “Chanda stayed this late because she had to help me –”
“ –With what exactly… because I have a feeling she spent last night here too.”
“What the fuck are you talking about!?” he crossed his arms defensively.
Sana cringed, finally aware of how low his pajamas hung. “Why was she in the same fucking suit as yesterday papa?”
“HOW the fuck would I know? She’s poor so obviously –”
“For fuck’s sake are you sleeping with her?”
A shower of magnets fell to the floor when he slammed the doors shut. For the first time in a long time Sunaina felt like she was talking to her father and not just a random man because Hassan physically grew taller in his rage.
“What the fuck do you want from me? That bitch up and left like this is some fucking joke, and we obviously don’t mean shit. Now she’s fucking her way through Europe and you”, he thrust an accusatory finger at her, “you expect what?”
The glass went flying into a wall. She winced, a static rang through her ears.
“Don’t I deserve to find love once more, to begin again, make things okay or whatever you call it … How long am I expected to suffer?”
Another glass shattered against the wall. Sana swayed where she stood.
“How long?”
Another glass.
“How long!”
“Papa” she leaned against the marble island, “are you in love with the maid?”
Her vision faded to black.
Sometime during the final overture of Ariel’s song, Gayatri entered. The bed was a mess and Sunaina lay entangled in the sheets, the last dregs of diamond dust scattered across an iPad screen. In the corner was a barrage of her last hangover-fueled shopping spree. On her phone she swiped at her shopping cart and blinked away the confirmation message. Gayatri approached with caution.
“Hey is your mom back?” Her lateness was made worse by the casual tone.
“What shit? Also where were you?” Sunaina pulled up the covers to hide her nakedness
“Tina aunty, I can smell her perfume.”
She looked at Gayatri completely at a loss.
“The whole house smells of Chanel no. 5 ya, is she back or what?”
“No. It was probably the maid,” she burrowed deeper into the fortress of pillows.
“Chanda?” she set her purse by the table and pulled off her heels.
“Yeah I think she stayed the night.”
“Why would she do that? It’s ridiculous …”
“Because I think papa’s having an affair with her.”
The silence stretched between them reaffirming what Sunaina already knew. That she was out of coke, out of luck, and soon short of one best friend. Gayatri climbed onto the bed next to her without another word. It was then that she really took in the change a simple haircut had rendered on Sana’s appearance. Gayatri told herself that this would be the pivotal point in her friend’s life, the start of something that’d change her life forever.
They stayed that way as the little mermaid saved her prince from drowning.
“I’m leaving.” Gayatri whispered.
She didn’t say anything back.
“I’m going to live in Bombay for a while.”
Sunaina stared into space, coiled like a viper.
“It was really random actually I like just walked in for a casting call one day and they shortlisted me and I couldn’t believe they actually did and then I auditioned in front of a camera like a test shoot or whatev and I ended up meeting the director and literally dad had to fly in that very evening because they like wanted to sign me and … Ugh I don’t know why I didn’t tell you sooner.” She sat up straighter. “Are you even going to say anything or not?”
“You should go.”
“I’m going.”
“And so you should,” she reached over and lit a cigarette. “When are you leaving?”
“End of this week I guess.”
“Good for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Sunaina tucked the sheet under her arms and sat upright, no longer worried about her exposed back.
“I mean literally that’s good for you Gayatri. Because to be completely honest I like didn’t see much happening for you here anyway. Except maybe a job that you’d get fired from in a few months because even though they’d say it has flexible hours you’d always be late and leave early by giving some dumb bimbo excuse,” she blew a puff of smoke between them, “and truthfully that is if you don’t end up in an early marriage to some beefed up Punjabi retard from Chandigarh or worse Canada who would be super eager to marry you just so he can make a trophy wife out of you. And then his fat mother who’d seem nice at first would literally start demanding babies ASAP and you’d either divorce him or make him move to a different but only slightly less shady part of Canada. Or like Ludhiana. Take your pick.”
Gayatri sat there, flushed as if she’d actually been slapped. “You’re such a bitch.”
“Oh I’m not done Gayatri. Because you know why
this is really a good opportunity for you, it’s because you hate everything around you. Like you even hate your dad who’s quite possibly the most level headed adult I’ve met in my life, like I would trade for him any day but you can’t forgive him for marrying Geetu bua. That’s why you’re so miserable in life and you’re such a slut because of it. Yeah, I heard all about the shit you and Ankit Kalra were up to at my party and really congratulations, because I think even Anki is fucking aspirational for you, you fat fucking whore.”
Gayatri eased off the bed but she wasn’t done yet.
“In fact, I think you should take him with you. Get him a job in Bombay and ease him from his fucking misery. I’d tell you to stay safe because, even for a B-movie career an untimed pregnancy can be fatal, but Ankit seems like he’d have a weak sperm count to begin with.”
Gayatri swallowed the bile and slapped her. Even as Sunaina’s face flew away from her, she was vibrating with the anger and the hurt.
“I cannot believe how many years I’ve wasted in being your friend when I should’ve just known better.”
Sunaina clapped.
“Well you can go off now, you cunt. Go and claim your future. At least this way you’ll stay off my ass and maybe learn the value of some actual work, if for nothing else but to at least pay for your own coke. Good luck with having to fuck fat old men in hotels, I’m sure Ankit would totally get off on whoring you out like that anyway. Go forth into the gaudy light of mediocrity, Gayatri.”
“Fuck this. I’m done with you.”
“Close the door behind you”, Gayatri stormed off without touching the door, “bitch.”
Naked and alone in her room, Sunaina waited for something to push past the numbness. Till it did, she stood there glassy eyed, smiling, and truly alone in the world.
Chapter EIGHT
LOVE IS A LASERQUEST
Gayatri sat scrubbing her clammy palms together hoping no one would look her way. The room was so empty it was hard to look anywhere else, even the chipped paint had blurred behind her. She was on a simple stool, tan unpolished and three legged. She scolded herself for losing focus, the stool was irrelevant. A lit cigarette slowly burned between her fingers.
Her eyes shot up at the sound of a clearing throat. The room was a reticent cave. She could feel the millions of eyes on her, she felt them on her skin.
“I guess it started, as most problems do, in school. It’s not surprising when you think about it actually, kids can be so horrible to each other it’s shocking. I mean sure now we’re more aware of it because bullying can actually have life-lasting effects and people are trying to put a stop to it. I don’t know, maybe it’s just an American problem and we’re still ignoring it.”
No one answered. She pulled a long drag.
“There was this girl, I don’t think anyone had looked at her twice before that but puberty hit her like a brick wall and then like stacked dominos all the girls in my class grew out their boobs and, well, as you can see I didn’t get my fair share in that department.” She smiled ruefully.
“The thing is though that I only had these hormonal changes over the summer vacations that year which let me tell you by the way is the worst ever because suddenly you’re a completely different person. No one recognized me at first. Like, I came back at least five or six inches taller and with my hair all grown out – you know I was the tallest girl in my entire grade of about two hundred kids. I mean forget about the guys, the shorties didn’t even make eye contact with me if I was coming down the hallway, and the others I mean … I don’t know. I guess they just found it easier to make fun of me than think about how insecure I made them, I used to run competitively back then you see. That paired with the girls literally poking my stomach had me perfectly messed up in school.”
She looked at her interlaced ankles and smoked.
“Do you know how absolutely terrible kids can be? One day I had a bruise on my knee because I’d slipped and fallen while running on the field and they started a rumour that I got it from offering blowjobs to old guys in my apartment complex. Including like the watchmen and stuff. First it was just the people in my class, then it spread through the grade, and one day someone I’d never seen nor spoken to came up to me and asked me if I’d do it free.”
The silence was deafening. Gayatri tossed her hair over the shoulder and puffed out a cloud of smoke. The light hit her in a way that threw every bony edge, every crevice in relief. She was a ghost of the girl she once was. If she sat upright you’d see the ribs through her white shirt.
“I mean, okay let’s be real for a minute, no one grows up with the knowledge of what body dysmorphia even is really but I got the feeling that something wasn’t right when one day my arts teacher pointed something out. I had fine arts as one of my subjects you see, and I was really close with my teacher. She pointed out that all my human figures were distorted. I remember stepping back and seeing that she was right, the torsos were fine but the legs stretched almost all the way down the sheet. It was hilarious but I did wonder what the hell was wrong with me, my proportions shouldn’t have been that off considering we had exams coming up!” She gave a mirthless laugh. “I knew she was going to shout at me telling me I haven’t practiced enough and I’m just wasting time between samosa breaks and running track so I lied saying it was a new style I was trying out. I don’t know she bought it at the time so I just continued doing it, I really impressed myself with that one.”
She leaned over and picked up her mug of coffee, the day’s fourth.
“You know I think that’s really the starting point of it all, of the … oh I don’t know what’s the right word for it – desire? The Need? The desperation to be thin? Compulsively checking my weight? You get the idea, right? Anyway, I started trying out diet fads like they were jeans, like literally trying them out recreationally. You remember that time, I think it was the first time the GM diet became a real thing in India and everyone was like losing their shit over it. That was my first time.
“I started smoking even before I graduated from school because I read somewhere that it helped you lose weight. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not the reason I smoke now I just like to keep my hands busy – all the coffee and the Red Bull leave me jittery. So yeah, none of the diets ever really worked the way that I wanted them to, I don’t know why but I’d just wake up every day and still find cellulite on my body. I remember I used to stand in front of the mirror in my underwear and just pinch and pull at it as if I could rip it off my body and I would tell myself every day that I was fine, I was going to be thin soon, everything would be okay. I wasn’t going to stop till I was the thinnest girl in school. It didn’t happen though and after the last round of exams I just stopped eating altogether.
“I would eat a little in front of my mother then not at all for the rest of the day. Soon I just started lying to her telling her I’d already eaten every time she’d ask me. Really, can you imagine how checked-out a parent has to be to believe their child just like that? It was just too easy. She worked at a PR firm then and I mean you can only imagine what her life was like. I shed thirteen kilos that month of May.”
Gayatri reveled in the raised eyebrows. They were like putty in her hands now.
“It was amazing.”
She could sense how awed they were.
Shashi leaned in and whispered in her ear.
“This is my favourite part.”
“I was beautiful.” she almost-whispered.
The camera zoomed into her face slowly, close enough till she could see her own pores blown up on the 20x50 foot screen. Her eyes were burrowing through the feed and then the video cut to black before Neil’s monologue began.
Gayatri wasn’t as impressed as Shashi though, her eyes were burning and goosebumps crawled all over her legs. The pads of her feet throbbed against her shoes and she could feel the exhaustion radiating in waves through her. She promised herself that the next time she’d walk a red carpet, there’d be a change of shoes at hand.
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She wondered if this was possibly the longest February in the history of time. Her month had begun in New York from where they went to Rome, and now Berlin. She was measuring time through flights, red carpets and screenings, and what felt like an endless barrage of tittered conversation. The director had only given them one piece of advice – walk like you’re already among their ranks. He wasn’t taking them as newbies; they were to be seasoned stars. And stars they were when they walked through the salons and talked cinema with the crème de la crème.
She couldn’t have heard it enough. How lucky they were, so lucky to have been selected from thousands of applicants and then to get the chance to showcase their film. The critics, the foreign press, the inevitable catapulting to fame. She’d heard it all and now she had the worst headache of her life.
By the third week, Gayatri had taught her mind to leave the physical realm and meditate. The glittering commotion belonged to another world then. The movie never changed, it didn’t end differently. It was the same hollow stares, the same fights, pacing her apartment, reliving their total loss of control, picking up Neil off the street, and dying for the camera over and over and over again. It was the same. Staring at her dead face blown up into larger than life cinemascope, it was numbing her. Always followed by the same awed silence and the same fast banter later on. The same giggle and humbled dip of her head to misplaced commentary on the actors’ finesse in speaking English despite not being native speakers.
She hugged her jacket tighter, Berlin was beautiful in February but if Kabir Baruacha didn’t know her penchant for fur she might’ve frozen.
Neil eyed her jacket with jealousy.
“You sure you can’t share?”
“No, help me up let’s get a drink,” she held onto his hand and stood up. Her feet were going to give up in those shoes.
“I’m so confused today, aren’t you? I can’t decide if I’m having the time of my life or so terribly homesick I could cry.” She could see him fight the urge to check his hair.
Neil was shifty, hunting for the nearest reflective surface and she couldn’t blame him. Were she as comfortably dressed in pants and a jacket she’d have taken a quick nap too.