18
I Got You
Krusha Sahjwani Malkani
Anyone who has lived in India knows that love stories here are incomplete without a big fat wedding. Karan recalled the wedding day as if it were yesterday.
The visuals of the breathtaking decor, the flood of emotions running through him and the sound of the music and the voices were all so vivid in his mind. He had watched Kinjal walk down the stairs of the extravagantly decorated Udai Vilas. Her words still echoed in his ears, ‘I will get married only in a Sabyasachi lehenga.’ Karan remembered her babbling about this obsessive desire multiple times over the years that he had known and loved her. He never told her, but he had always believed that she would be the most beautiful woman in the room even if she walked out in her track pants and white tee. Especially if she walked out in her track pants and white tee.
It was a bright summer evening in June, which came with the promise of moisture between one’s thighs rather than in one’s eyes. But to everyone’s surprise and relief, as they had gotten closer to the anointed hour, the wind gods had obliged and the evening had turned pleasantly breezy. Karan was not surprised by this, for he knew that Kinjal almost always had her way with the universe. The chapters she did not study never made it to the exam. The party she couldn’t make always turned out to be no fun. It was only when they played cards that her luck would run out and Karan would emerge victorious.
Lucky in cards, unlucky in love, they say.
‘I cannot find my left earring. It was here a second ago. I cannot get married like this! What will people say?’ Kinjal had exclaimed in panic to her friends a few minutes before the big moment. Though she had spoken to all of them, her eyes had relied on Karan. She had grown used to depending on him. When she couldn’t find her textbook a week before an exam, or when she had a fight with her mother or even if she was just craving Doritos, Karan had always been her first call.
‘Then don’t get married,’ Karan had wanted to say, but, instead, he had just said, as he always did, ‘Relax. I got you, Kinj.’
Little did he know that that was going to be the last time he said those words to her—for a few minutes later, she was married to Parth. And as the couple had vowed to love and cherish each other until death did them part, Karan had silently acknowledged the death of the only romantic love he had ever known. He had watched the orange of the sun slowly fade as the couple had publicly and religiously been declared husband and wife.
It had now been eighteen months since that day—when Kinjal had become someone else’s wife—but Karan still thought of her on most days. The first two months had been the toughest. He was used to seeing her for coffee after work in the evenings, so he had to take up something else to fill that hour. He had opted for squash. He felt like it was a good way to release the negative energy he had pent up as well. It also took a lot of self-control for him to not reach for the phone to call her every time he had a free minute while in the Uber, or to not tag her every time he saw one of those hilarious cat videos he knew she loved.
With time though, it got slightly easier, but she never completely left his mind. Most days now it was just a passing thought, but some days the thoughts intensified. Like when he drank a few too many or when he watched Friends. Especially that episode. He had always believed she was his lobster. And sometimes he even closed his eyes and thought of her when he made love to his girlfriend, Amaya. But today was different. Today, thoughts of her were not like the regular background music in his day. He just could not shake her off his mind. It felt urgent. It felt like she was thinking of him too. Like she needed his help. And so, after avoiding the group chats and her missed calls for all these months, he decided to call her.
The plan was to just hear her voice, find out if she was okay and then hang up and claim it was a butt-dial. But she did not answer. He didn’t know her schedule any more. She was probably just busy. Maybe she was in dance class. Did she still go to those? Maybe she was in the kitchen. It broke his heart a little to picture her cooking. She had never liked to cook, and she was quite lousy at it. She couldn’t even make Maggi well. That was always Karan’s duty. Then again, she probably had a large staff to order around now. Worse yet, maybe after all the unexplained avoiding that he had been doing over the past year, she probably just did not want to speak to him any more. And ordinarily, he would have let it go but something was different today.
He had this growing pit in his stomach, which, despite not eating a morsel all morning, made him feel like he was going to throw up.
He called a common friend, Nisha, and asked her to call Kinjal. To his relief, she did not probe him as much as he had thought she might. Everyone was clearly a lot busier for this kind of stuff than they used to be in college. She just casually informed him that Kinjal and her husband had gone to Gir forest for the long weekend, which was probably why she was not answering calls. That explanation should have sufficed.
‘Could you please call her husband, Nisha? It will only take a minute. I just want to know that she’s okay.’ The words spilt out of him without a thought.
That invited the probing. Karan struggled to explain why it was so important for him to get through to Kinjal right now. He did not really understand it himself, so it was in vain that he tried to put it into words. And so, after a failed attempt at doing so, he hung up. He decided to distract himself till the gnawing feeling left him. He tried reading a book that lay next to his bed. Artificial intelligence and the world of marketing. He had read only ten pages in a month. That clearly wasn’t the right distraction to fall back on. Karan had never been much of a reader. The only book he had read up to the last word was some romance novel that Kinjal had forced on him. The over-the-top romantic gestures, the big weddings and the tragic endings had all been too much for him. Of course, he had known that even before he started the book, but saying no to Kinjal had never been his forte.
Since the bedside book had failed him, he switched on the television. After spending minutes trying to decide on what to watch on Netflix, he gave up and started pacing the room. Eventually, he decided to call Parth himself. He knew he was probably overreacting, but he just needed to know that she was all right. So much so that he was ready to put himself through this awkward call. Karan did not care much for small talk and had managed to stay out of Parth’s way ever since he had met him at the engagement. They had barely exchanged ten words since. Kinjal had pushed Karan to make a bigger attempt but he had always blown her off with some joke like, ‘Are you marrying him or me? Do you want me to take him out for coffee too?’ He wondered if Parth even had his number stored.
‘The number you have called is currently switched off.’
People switched off their phones on vacation. Forests often did not have network or charging points. All plausible reasons. But Karan’s feeling of panic began manifesting itself physically now, in the form of an incoming anxiety attack. He had never experienced one before this. He just had to make it stop, and so all his inhibitions flew out of the window. He decided to call Kinjal’s mother, hoping her number had not changed.
If there was ever one person who would know where Kinjal was at all times, it was her. And even if Karan did not know Kinjal’s schedule any more, he was sure this was something that marriage would not have changed.
‘Hello? Karan?’
She had answered!
‘Hi, Aunty. I am sorry to bother you. I wanted something urgently from Kinjal. I know she is in Gir, but any chance you have spoken to her this morning? I was trying to reach her . . .’
‘No, beta. I have been trying to reach her myself, but she has not answered since morning. Maybe she has gone for the safari or something.’
Karan felt like he was choking but managed to say, ‘No problem, Aunty. I will speak to her later.’
Something just did not feel right. Maybe it was the anxiety, but it felt like crippling thoughts were placing themselves one on top of the other in his mind, like in a game of Jenga
—and that it was only moments before something tugged at the wrong piece and it all came crashing down.
He opened her Instagram account. No new stories. It was very unlike her to not post anything while travelling. He needed a better distraction. She was scheduled to be home tomorrow, as per Nisha, so he just needed to pass the day without doing anything stupid, but his mind was not cooperating.
We all have certain moments in life when we are magnetically drawn to do something without any logical explanation to justify it. And so, with a heaving chest, Karan sat in front of his laptop and, with trembling fingers, typed ‘Gir forest’ and chose the news section. Anyone would have thought he was crazy. But a moment later, he really wished he were. He wished he was hallucinating and that his eyes were deceiving him due to his paranoia.
A young couple dies on the spot in a jeep accident . . .
He did not even need to read it further. There weren’t any names disclosed at this point, but he just knew. He tried to go through the rest of the article, reading through his tears.
Hours later, a call from a flabbergasted Nisha confirmed the news. He had not moved from his spot since he had first read the article. He did not call anyone to inform them, because there were no confirmed names and he knew the news would reach them all soon. He saw no reason to bring them pain before it was time. In any case, he felt paralysed from the anguish.
Nisha rambled on about how she could not believe his feeling had been right, but her voice had just become noise to him by this point, like the creaking fan or the buzzing insect in the room.
The next few months passed in agony. People sympathize with you when you lose a friend, but they put a limit to the acceptable threshold and length of your pain. If you lose a child or a parent or a spouse, then the rules are different. But Karan was not the husband. He was not permitted to grieve the way he wanted to. He had already acknowledged the death of his love once at Kinjal’s wedding and he had fought through it by telling himself that the worst was over. If only he had known. After the wedding, her social media had at least given him a glimpse into her life and reaffirmed to him that she was happy—but now he yearned to feel her presence. He had not known a world without her in his entire adult life.
Six months later, he sat in front of the television, watching that episode of Friends for the first time since the dreadful news. And he watched his phone accidentally dial her number. No one would have believed him or understood it, but it did not matter. He knew she was visiting. And so, he went and brought her favourite fuzzy blanket and made two bowls of Maggi. One with more cheese and less schezwan, just as she liked it.
And then he whispered, ‘I got you, Kinj.’
19
The Other Side of the Road
Hamsini R.
Rashi tapped her pen impatiently on her desk. She was looking at her book through sleepy, unfocused eyes. It was the last period of the day and the bell was taking an inordinately long time to ring. Uninterested in the lesson, she furtively glanced to her left. Rajat sat a few rows ahead of her, staring at the blackboard like his future was laid out on it.
‘It probably is,’ she thought, smirking to herself. Studious boys like him never missed a day of school and filled their copies with endless notes. She watched his ink pen fly across the page, fascinated by his tiny, cramped handwriting, barely visible at this distance. She smiled to herself when he wrinkled his nose to adjust his glasses for the umpteenth time.
‘Is there something funny you want to share with the class, Rashi?’ her teacher asked sarcastically.
Everyone turned to look at her. Catching Rajat’s eye, a warm flush rose to her cheeks. She murmured a quick sorry and trained her eyes back on the book.
She risked a look at him again. His fingers were unconsciously tapping his ‘Class Leader’ badge pinned to his shirt. The small window between classes, when he would stand in the front of the class, was her favourite time. She would talk loudly to her friends, trying to attract as much attention to herself as possible. Invariably, he would notice her and give her a warning look.
‘Rashi, please don’t make noise or I will write your name on the board.’
‘Go ahead, I don’t care,’ she would reply defiantly, daring him to pick up the chalk and write her name. He would sigh angrily and write her name on the ‘disruptive students’ list. That moment of interaction was always worth the inevitable punishment.
When the bell finally rang, Rashi packed her bag slowly. Maybe today was the day she would work up the nerve to ask Rajat for his science notes. It was the perfect excuse to talk to him. She walked towards where he was still seated, his elbow propped up on the desk, chin resting in his open palm.
‘Er . . . ahem!’ She cleared her throat noisily. Just as she was about to ask for his notes, he turned around and looked at her. His dark eyes, complemented by a charming, cute face, had a puzzled expression in them. She was momentarily speechless and forgot what she wanted to ask him.
‘Do you want me to move my bag?’ he asked, pointing towards his abnormally large book bag with two buckles straining against the sheer number of textbooks in it.
‘Yeah, how can anyone walk to the door if your bag is blocking the way? What do you bring in this anyway? Rocks?’ She arched an eyebrow at him.
She winced. What happened to asking for his notes nicely?
‘It was a simple yes-or-no question,’ he said.
She was still debating asking for his notes when he quietly picked his bag up and walked out. Great, now she had hurt his feelings. She followed him out of the classroom and walked towards the cycle shed, where her friends were discussing summer holidays, just a few weeks away.
‘How can anyone carry this bag of rocks out of this shed if you’re blocking the way?’ Rajat asked with a twinkle in his eye. Smirking, Rashi moved out of his way. He unlocked his cycle and left the shed.
She waved to her friends and unlocked the shiny new BSA Ladybird her father had given her for her birthday. She had insisted that a cycle was the only thing she wanted that year. It had nothing to do with the fact that the cycle would give her a few more minutes with Rajat in the cycle shed. Of course not.
Outside the school gate, she was about to pedal away when a movement caught her eye. She spotted the familiar lopsided white socks, navy blue trousers and white shirt. Rajat was on the opposite side of the road, trying to strap his oversized bag on to the tiny backseat of his slightly rusty Atlas bicycle.
Intensely aware of his presence, Rashi pushed her cycle forward. The road stretched between them comfortably, giving her the space she needed to steady herself on the handlebars before she resolutely marched ahead, resisting the temptation to look at him. She counted to ten, knowing that by then he would have started pedalling, and looked across the road. With a pleasant jolt, she realized he was pushing his cycle on the other side of the road, parallel to hers.
Tiny goosebumps sprouted on her arms, defying the May sun. She smiled to herself when his voice snapped her out of her reverie.
‘Why are you pushing your cycle?’ he asked.
She considered his question. When nothing rational came to mind, she chose to reply with a question of her own. ‘Why are you pushing yours?’ she asked.
He didn’t respond and they walked in companionable silence for the next few minutes.
‘Do you live nearby?’ she ventured.
‘Yes.’ His monosyllabic response came swiftly.
After some time, Rashi saw the familiar fork in the road that led to her house. She sneaked a peek and saw him pushing his cycle farther down the other road in the fork. Reluctantly, she took the turn to her house, watching him walk away.
The next day, her name was on the blackboard, as usual. She smiled at his handwriting hugging her name in chalk letters. After classes, she left for the cycle shed and pushed it to the gate, waving to her friends.
Her mind registered his presence before her eyes noticed the glint of his perfectly white shirt gleaming in the
hot sun. They walked in complete silence, on opposite sides of the road, till it was time for her to take the eventual turn to her house. She had no idea why neither of them pedalled—but there they were, day after day, pushing the damn things on their own sides of the road. It was the best part of her day.
One evening, her parents were unusually sombre, as if trying to break bad news to her. After dinner, her father motioned her to sit down.
‘Rashi beta, do you remember when we moved here five years ago?’ her father asked her gently.
She nodded, not sure what this was about.
‘Well, I have received my transfer orders to move to Pune next month. I tried pushing it by a year, but this year the transfer is inevitable. We have to apply for school admissions when we get there, find a place to live, there’s a lot to do . . .’ Her dad trailed off at the stricken look on Rashi’s face.
‘Papa, I like my school. I’m doing better in my studies here. Can’t we stay?’ she pleaded. But she knew it was hopeless. Her father couldn’t refuse a transfer order any more than she could avoid moving with them. It was the nature of her father’s job. They had been moving to a new city every few years. She knew the drill. She usually welcomed the grand adventure in a new city. But this move was different. She didn’t want to leave here. Her stomach felt hollow.
The weeks soon dwindled into days and the last day of school arrived.
Rashi dragged her feet to school. She had told all her friends about her move, taking their numbers, promising to be in touch. She hadn’t quite figured out how to tell him and, more importantly, ask for his phone number.
She looked back at the freshly wiped blackboard, where her name used to be. There was an air of excited anticipation in class, which did not match her sombre demeanour.
She watched the back of his head from her usual seat. Determined to do something, she hurriedly tore a piece of paper from her notebook and wrote in it. She crumpled it into a ball and threw it as hard as she could towards him.
You Are All I Need Page 13