Unsaid Words

Carter returned to an empty house after dropping Sana to the airport. This time when he dropped her, he did not wait till she checked in, or kiss her goodbye. She had not called him back either to let him know that all was well and she had reached the gate for boarding her flight, her typical ritual. As he drove into the garage to park the car, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost time for her flight to take off. He checked his phone to ensure there were no missed calls or messages. He slightly regretted not saying a good bye to Sana and fighting with her in the last minute.

Every time Sana left for her consulting trips, he hated getting back home. He hated the silence. As he walked into their closet to change, he noticed her clothes on the floor which she had packed and then taken out because of excess baggage. He removed the couple of strands of her hair that had fallen on the restroom counter while she straightened her hair with an iron. The fragrance of Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue still lingered in the air. He was a cleanliness freak. He begun straightening out the mess that Sana had left behind. Their voices, the argument in the car echoed in his ears.

“Carter, stop doing this every time I have to leave.”, Sana had pleaded. “You knew you were marrying a consultant. You knew I would have to travel every week. I asked you a zillion times before I said yes to this job. Now, saying such things ,when I am headed for a long week ahead, doesn’t really help, you know”, spoke Sana raising her voice more than she usually did. She was headed to a client on the west coast and it would take her the entire day to travel.

“Yes.. I did and I let you do it for four long years now. I am tired of eating my meals alone. Staying alone. Sleeping alone. We had an agreement, remember. That you would ask for a local project. Do you even freakin’ ask?” He sped past a yellow light as it transformed to red, his jaws clenching in rage.
“What the fuck do you mean by do I really ask? You think I love getting back to a hotel room alone everyday?”, she raised one eyebrow.
“Oh come on now. Don’t give me your hotel room bullshit. You guys don’t even return to the hotel room before 11. You dine outside everyday with your team, with those bunch of desperate bastards who don’t think twice before making a pass at their colleagues”
“Carter, I told you I stopped going out with those guys. We work till nine everyday. It’s all about being billable, and you know that. You have been a consultant in the past. I screwed up my utilization rate last quarter because of refusing to work weekends”, she spoke, looking at Carter through the rear view mirror.
“Never mind. This will never reach a conclusion. You go for your fucking tour and ignore me. One day you will return and won’t find me waiting, I am warning you. It’ll be over.”
Sana had stared in disbelief at what Carter had said. Tears had welled up in her eyes. She controlled them from spilling over to avoid smudging the dark kohl that outlined her lower lid. The tip of her nose had turned red, as a consequence of holding back the tears. Her ears had turned red in rage. They had reached the airport. She got off the passenger seat without a word and slammed the door shut. She walked to the boot, took out her black twenty one inch spinner, flung her laptop bag over her shoulders and walked away into the airport, her high pony moving from one side to another, her stilettos tapping the ground loud so her footsteps could be heard from far back. Carter had not waited. He drove away in anger, disturbed. He calmed down as he drove. As he approached their suburban house in Washington D.C. and the white garage door opened automatically, he regretted what he said. He regretted it enough to say “Sorry baby” in his mind but not enough to call her and say it loud.

As he was finishing up cleaning the clutter, Carter heard the door of the house unlock itself. Noone else had the key other than Sana. He called out. “Who’s that?” pacing down the stairs. He heard the tapping sound of Sana’s stilettos. “It’s me”, she said in a slow voice. He paced down faster and reached the foyer. There she was standing at the doorway, with her luggage next to her, struggling to drag it in while she unlocked the door.

Carter was overjoyed at the sight of Sana. But he didn’t express it. He just moved quietly towards her taking hold of the long handle to help her with the luggage. “Leave it. I’ll take it in”, she spoke softly, his hands touching hers.
They looked at each other and dropped everything else.
They hugged each other. Sana’s tears finally seeped out and wet his neck.
“I am sorry, baby. I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I love you more than anything else in this frikkin’ world”, he said patting her head, holding her tight.
“It’s ok”, spoke Sana softly, sniffing multiple times to control her tears. “Let’s go in”
“But what happened? How come you returned?”, he asked as they walked into their living room. She opened her stilettos at the entrance of their house.
“I quit my job”, replied Sana turning her head around to catch his reaction.
“What the ….”, was Carter’s first reaction. He paused and then smiled, “No you are joking.”
“Yes of course I am joking. If you know me you would know that”, she smiled and took his hand in his. “My flight got delayed due to bad weather. I won’t be flying out until tomorrow morning. So I get to spend the entire Sunday afternoon and evening with you”
“Thank God for bad weather! I get my wife for a few extra hours”, said Carter looking up to indicate thanking God. “I don’t want you to quit your job, baby. I am proud of who you are. But I do pray and hope sincerely that you travel less”
He sank into their brown sectional and pulled her towards him as she tried to walk away towards the refrigerator. “Wait wait, I am coming”, she exclaimed trying to escape from his grasp.
She took out a can of apple juice, her favorite and Carter’s most disliked drink. Everything about them were opposite, their likes, their natures, their cultures but yet they had the most wonderful relationship. She walked back sinking in the couch with him. They sat in silence for a few minutes as he took her in his arms and kissed her neck softly.
“Oh look Carter.. it started snowing.” , screamed Sana in excitement looking out of their large rectangular windows. Snowflakes danced and landed on the soil of their front yard, settling down gradually. Sana’s excitement was the same as it had been the first time she had seen snow when they moved from Florida to Washington D.C. a few years back.
“And I get to enjoy the first snow of the season with you, baby. It’s been a while”, said Carter.
“Yeah! Let’s make some hot chocolate with marshmellows and watch a Hitchcock classic. It’s been so long. Remember the time at UFL when you got obsessed with Hitchcock and we sat and watched one classic after another, back to back for three days. Birds, Psycho, The Lady who Vanished.. ”, Sana sounded excited. They had known each other since their undergraduate days. They had lived with each other and got married in Florida on the Daytona Beach at sunset, pictures of which in sepia tones, adorned the walls of their living room. “I’ll grab a blanket, turn the fireplace on in the mean time”
“No, let’s not watch a movie, baby. Let’s talk. It’s been a while since we have had a meaningful conversation with each other. I want to hold on to these moments. I wanna spend every single second talking to you, looking at you, loving you. So that when you are gone for the week, I can savor these moments for my pensive thoughts”
“Aww… its not that bad. It’s just three week nights.”
“You have no idea what those three week nights do to me. I go crazy. I asked Paul for a medicine to put me to sleep.”, said Carter referring to his best friend who was a psychiatrist.
“What?”, Sana looked back. “You are taking medication?”
“Sometimes”, he nodded softly. “Paul said I need it. You can ask him”
“I don’t care what Paul says, OK? You are NOT taking any sleeping pills when I am not here. Else I will also start taking them”, Sana was angry. “Let me just call Paul….”
“No no please don’t. Just forget about it”, said Carter stopping her from getting to the phone. “I promise I won’t take any medicines. You are my medicine, come here”, he dragged her into the couch.
They kissed.

The fireplace had started warming up the living room. The snowflakes continued their dance outside. A layer of white powder had started to accumulate. The classical music station was playing softly in the background. Their contemporary living room in shades of orange and taupe shone in the afternoon light. It was a perfect Sunday.

“It’s been so long since we spend such time together. Maybe we should fight more often. It makes it better, right?” asked Sana opening her eyes and moving Carter’s hair to the side with her hand. She always messed with his hair.
“Hmmm… very long, very very long” , he murmured softly playing with her hair, kissing her cheeks, looking at her as if he had not seen her in days.
“Ok Cart, I have decided”, said Sana suddenly sitting up. “I want to take a break from this hectic corporate life. I want to give up my job. But on one condition”
“Oh no no no…”, nodded Carter., “I know what your condition will be”. Carter was sure Sana was going to suggest having a baby.
“Let’s have a baby”, she confirmed his thoughts.
“No no no …. . That’s not happening soon. I’d rather you work”
“Why Carter? Why do I have to convince you so hard? We have known each other for nine years, we have been married for four. I love you , you love me. We have decent jobs, a good house. What are we waiting for?”
“We have lots of other things to do Sana. What happened to our MBAs? Imagine going back to school together and now compare that with starting a family”
“Let’s be practical, sweetheart. As much as I do want to get an MBA, I am not getting younger by the day. And we can’t wait for those milestones to happen without taking concrete action towards them. I think I have mastered the art of multi-tasking enough to be able to start a family and do an MBA together”
“Come on, baby. We haven’t done much together at all. We have to see places., do adventurous stuff. What happened to our goals of seeing the seven wonders of the world. We have just seen Taj Mahal and Coliseum so far. What about Machu Picchu, Great Wall, Giza… what about our backpacking trip through Europe? I want to escape with you. I want to go climbing mountains in Kilimanjaro, hiking the Inca Trail, swimming in Red Sea, skiing the Alps. I want to walk the Plaka in Greece with you, smoke a sheesha in Istanbul. I want to parasail, air glide, ride a hot air balloon. I want to do sooo many things with you before I let a third person come between us”
“Third person?? It’s going to be our own flesh and blood Cart. How can you call it a third person? And noone has stopped us from traveling in the past four years, but how much have we had the time to realistically make those trips? There is always a schedule or a financial restriction. We ended up making guided tours to touristy places. Your goals are great, but they haven’t materialized”
“There won’t be any more restrictions, baby. There won’t be. Your mom had called today. She said that your life insurance, for which she had been paying a premium since you were a child, has matured and we get this lump some amount of cash. She said we should take it as a gift and utilize it. I am working on planning out two years of travel and adventure. I have started reading up TripAdvisor and talking to travel agents. We can take six months off and just see the world. Not through your business trips… just you and I. I promise. Just don’t leave me and go”, he sounded sad.
“Leave you and go?”, Sana sounded surprised. “When did I say I will leave you and go. I was talking about having a baby. Those medicines are messing up your brain, I think”
“No baby. Not now”, he said.
“Same old argument. It’s never the right time.”, Sana mumbled looking down fiddling with her nails. “You lied to me. Before marriage you said you wanted a daughter just like me. With my eyes and skin. Who would talk like me and whose nose would go red when she tried to cry. And now this whole topic of having a kid is a taboo”
“I have never lied to you. I will never lie to you. I will never object anything you say, you know that. Please don’t get angry, baby. Give me some time. I will think over it”
“Never mind.” She said trying to stop the conversation wondering how come he was trying to control his anger.
“Ok. Look at me. Look into my eyes”, Carter held her by her sleek collarbone jutting shoulders. “I love you, OK. You hear me. I love you and I will make all your dreams come true. Just give me some time, a chance. Don’t fight with me”
“Ok ok. I believe you.”, she could hardly believe this sudden over expression of love. Carter was romantic, but this was a bit over the top. She got up from the couch to go to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate.

As she walked towards the kitchen she noticed a clay jar on their mantelpiece. The jar was handpainted by Sana and was usually placed on their nightstand in their bedroom. “How did that jar get here from upstairs?” She extended her hand to get the jar. She didn’t like displacing things around the house. She was finicky about home décor.
“Oh, don’t touch that Sana.”, she held her hand. “Leave it. It has something inside it. I forget what. But I had kept something precious”
“Ok”, she said and walked off softly to the kitchen.
“I love you , OK. And I will think about it”, he screamed out. “Maybe it is time for a little Sana”, he spoke to himself.
Sana did not respond.

Carter picked up the remote control from the coffee table and turned on the television. CNN was on by default. There was some news flash about a plane crash. Carter increased the volume. The plane that Sana was supposed to take from Washington D.C to San Francisco had crashed. There were no survivors. The rescue team was still digging up bodies.

“Sanaaaaaaaaa”, screamed Carter. “Baby look. You said your flight was delayed. It took off. And there was a crash. It’s the exact same flight. United 7401, departed D.C at 1 PM on Sunday”
He was flustered. He looked nervous and scared.
“Are you listening to me? Baby”, he called out again.
Sana did not respond.
He got up and walked into the kitchen. Sana was not there.
“Sana”, he called out again.
He checked the patio which had a door through the kitchen. The snow had stopped. There were six inches outside and no footsteps. He checked the laundry room.
He ran into the formal dining area calling out her name. He ran upstairs to check the bedroom, the closet, the restrooms.
Sana was nowhere.
He checked outside. The driveway had been shoveled and the tracks of a car’s tires were etched on the snow. Sana’s stilletos were not there at the entrance nor was her luggage.

“Sana, where did you go baby”. He picked up the phone and dialed Sana’s cellphone. It went straight to her voicemail. He dialed her work number. It, too, went into her voicemail. Instead of hearing Sana’s familiar chirpy voice message , it said “This extension has been temporarily disconnected. Please dial 0 for operator”

His head had started hurting. His mind was blanking out.
He dialed the emergency number that the airline was flashing on the television screen.
“Hi this is Carter Jones. My wife, Sana Jones was supposed to take the flight to San Francisco … ”. Before he could complete the sentence the voice on the other line said “Hi Mr. Jones, is there someone with you? We have been trying to explain to you since the past five days. There were no survivors, I repeat NO survivors. Mrs.Jones was on the flight and you came and identified her body.”
“What the fuck are you saying? I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am talking about my Sana. Mrs. Sana Jones, spelt S as in Sam, A as in apple, N as in Nancy, A as in apple. The middle name is Patel. Sana Patel Jones. She is Indian. She is 28 years old and very beautiful. She just returned home after cancelling her trip. She walked into the kitchen to make some hot chocolate”
“Mr. Jones, please calm down. We understand your loss. Is there anyone with you? Could you please pass the line to someone else?”, the voice handling the emergency line was trying to be patient.

The door to their house unlocked. Paul walked in with some brown grocery bags.
“Carter, dude.. are you calling the airline company again?!”, he spoke aloud, hurriedly keeping the keys and bags on the side table and rushing to take the phone from his hand.
“I am sorry Ma’m. We are trying our best to control him. Mr. Jones is still in shock and is currently hallucinating.”
“No problem. Take care”. The line disconnected.

Carter was sitting on the floor staring at the television. The plane had crashed in the middle of the Amazon. The rescue squad was still discovering corpses. He did not blink his eyes. His t-shirt was dirty, his beard five days old, hair disheveled, eyes swollen and red, his lips parched.
Paul sat down next to him and put his arms around his shoulder.
“You have to let go my friend. Sana is no more. She is in wonderful and happy place.”
“Sana is here, Paul. Don’t fucking lie to me. We just kissed a few minutes back. I told her sorry. I told her I loved her. I held her with my own hands” He continued to look blankly at the television.
The phone rang. Paul answered.
“Paul, this is Mrs. Patel. I will be home in an hour.”, Mrs.Patel, Sana’s mom, had flown up from Florida to cremate her daughter’s body. The funeral was completed the previous day. That morning she had driven to the lawyer to finish up the paper work for Sana’s life insurance. Her voice sounded weak. “Is Carter doing alright?”
“Not too good, Mrs. Patel. We have to close the loop somehow. The unsaid goodbye is killing him. I don’t think in his last hallucination he was able to close the loop either. I am about to give him some more medication and put him to sleep”
“She told me not to listen to you Paul. Not to take the medication”, said Carter getting up. He walked towards the mantelpiece and lifted the clay jar and held it to his heart. The jar hand painted by Sana, that now contained her ashes.

Living In

The apartment was in the same condition as they had left it in on the morning of the 7th of December. The lights were on. The ceramic dinner plates with dried and crusted layers of left over food lay unwashed in the steel sink. The door to the balcony was open. Aneesh would have scolded her for leaving the door open, for not washing the dishes on time. He would have complained about how high the electricity bill was because Kaavya was not in the habit of turning the lights and music system off. It was almost second nature to think of what Aneesh was going to say at any step. Without him she was unsure of what to do next.

Their office cum living area was in an untouched mess. The blue and gray cushions were scattered all over the place. The coffee table was placed aside to make space for the paraphernalia of their work equipment and tools. There were paper cut outs, yarns of different types of materials, sewing machines, crayons and sketch pens, magazines, power cords, scissors, gadgets, CDs, print outs and what not. Kaavya would often use the phrase “Looking for the TV remote in our office” instead of the proverb “Looking for a needle in a haystack”. She loved to construct parallel proverbs with incidents or things from their real life. For example she would say “Where there is a bill, there is Aneesh’s foolishness” to make fun of all the silly things Aneesh invested in and never used like the playstation which had become a piece of decoration in their entertainment center. Her favorite proverb was however “When at home, do as Kaavya does” parallel to “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Aneesh had even gotten that printed on an apron for her, except the ‘does’ had been replaced by ‘demands’.

It had been thirteen months since they had moved into this apartment together. The apartment hunting had not taken as much time as chalking out a master plan about how to hide the fact from their respective families that they were going to live in. They both belonged to orthodox families to whom the concept of two unmarried youngsters of the opposite sex living in, was alien.

Aneesh’s parents were in Jodhpur and had not traveled anywhere beyond the borders of Rajasthan. His two older sisters had been married off when they were nineteen and they lived happily with their husbands and kids in Ajmer and Udaipur respectively. They were far away from Mumbai, so a sudden surprise visit was definitely not on the cards. Moreover, Aneesh was not very close to his family. They had never understood why he opted to become a fashion designer instead of inheriting the family’s established business of selling metal pipes. He had joined NIFT much against the wishes of his father to whom the idea of a boy designing clothes for girls sounded preposterous. His father did not understand the difference between a designer and a tailor and thought fashion shows were vulgar adult shows that took place in western countries and were screened on Indian cable channels post midnight. Aneesh didn’t try to explain anything or convince anyone. He left home to pursue what made sense to him. Four years after graduating he was content with what he was doing. He had worked as an apprentice for Tarun Tahilani, had a chance to display a few of his designs at Indian Bridal Show and started his own designer label of contemporary fusion bridal wear targeted at a younger audience. He designed the kind of clothes that the high fashion girls of Mumbai would wear for auxiliary wedding functions like Mehendi and Sangeet. His most popular designs were the swarovski crystal studded kurtis, fish-cut lehengas and tank tops in zardozi work. He had designed a few sarees as well, some of which he sent to his sisters and mom. Those were the few times when they had called him to thank him and catch up with him. His mom, of course, called him every Sunday at a fixed time to enquire about his health and what he ate.

Kaavya’s family was in Coimbatore. Her father was a manager at a garment export factory. Her mother was a housewife who had never left her father alone for a day due to his dietary restrictions for diabetes. She was the only child. Her parents had never stopped her from doing anything and she had never misused her independence. Till now. She completed a bachelors in computer application from Anna university in Chennai, worked in a software firm in Chennai for a few months and then moved to Mumbai to pursue a course in animation and graphic design. They never interfered in her life or opposed her decisions but regularly kept track of what she was up to. As long as she answered her cell phone when her parents called and let them know that she was fine, they were happy. However, their calls were very frequent and at random times. Once in a while her father would ask a colleague, a friend or a distant relative in Mumbai to visit her at her hostel in Andheri and take her out for a meal.

The priority in their plan to keep their living in a secret was to keep there phones always charged and make sure they returned all missed calls. They would give their parents the correct mailing address and explain that they were living with room mates of the same sex. For her few relatives in Mumbai, Kaavya would make sure she visited them often or stayed in touch with them so that they did not land up at their front door without a notice. If either of their parents planned to visit them, they decided that the other person would live with a friend or in a hotel for a few days. There would be a lot of packing and unpacking to do but that seemed petty compared to the excitement of living together.

Sleeping over at Aneesh’s apartment had become an ordeal for Kaavya. One, she would have to frequently sign the hostel register about her absence at night stating the reason as staying over at a local guardian’s place. Second, Aneesh’s roommate, Rajat, who worked at a call center would return at wee hours in the morning. Kaavya could barely sleep peacefully worrying about Rajat walking in before she got dressed completely. She had started spending most of her time at Aneesh’s place instead of the hostel. She was freelancing as a web designer. Aneesh’s place had broadband internet, so it made more sense for her to work from home than go to a cyber café. She would experiment with cooking and tidy up the bachelor pad in her spare time. She often spent her afternoons creating sketches or handicrafts from whatever she could find at home and decorate their living area. For example she made a set of tea coasters from the lids of tin jars and gold and silver foils extracted from cigarette packets, created framed art work from wedding invitation cards and the borders of old silk sarees that her mom had given her to wear for special occasions and a lamp from a beer bottle and a jute hat. She would take photos of the objects she created and use them in her websites. Her designs were unique and attracted attention. When Rajat and his girlfriend decided to get married, they requested Kaavya to create a wedding website for them that they would use as an invite for their friends. That was her first independent project as a wedding website designer which grew to be her profession over time.

She created theme based sites for couples tying the knot. She would meet the couples personally, get an idea of their likes and dislikes and the kind of message they wanted to send out before she started on a design. It surprised her to discover that so many of these engaged couples had so less in common and argued about such small things. She wondered how they had agreed to take the vows of a lifetime when they couldn’t agree on a color. She was good at understanding the psyche of her clients, though, and had never disappointed anyone so far. Her websites struck a cord with everyone. Some had a humorous theme which she would create with Calvin and Hobbes comic strips and stick figure animations of the couple. Some were romantic with sepia toned pictures of the couple, their love story and quotations. Some had an ethnic theme complete with palanquins, madhubani paintings of brides and classical raagas playing on the shehnai in the background. She loved her work since it was a perfect blend of technology, art and interaction with people. Within a few months it turned out to be a profitable business and she hired a college student to help her out.

Their professions had been symbiotic. One helped the other. Cross references often occurred and it helped both the businesses grow. They shared their clients, their workspace, their living space, their bills, their meals, their lives. In the confusion of sharing everything there were days when their cell phones would get swapped by mistake. And those were the days when Kaavya’s parents would call, invariably. After disconnecting the call several times Aneesh would send a message on behalf of Kaavya, saying “I am busy with clients now. Will call you in the evening” or “My cell phone is out of charge. I will go home and call you. Hope all is well”.
The other confusion that happened more than once was Aneesh answering Kaavya’s parent’s call by mistake at late hours in the night.
“Hello”, he said subconsciously picking up Kaavya’s phone while measuring a piece of cloth.
“Hello. Is this 98922 96958?”, said her father’s voice on the other end
“Oooops!”, Aneesh realized and signaled Kaavya to come quickly and take the call.
“Uh.. yes. I’ll hand the phone to Kaavya”, he said hurriedly changing the tone of his voice, handing the phone to her.
Kaavya would take the call and explain that it was the college student she had hired. Her father did not seem very pleased with the idea of his daughter working with a guy at eleven in the night.
Another time they were at a club when another unexpected call came from Coimbatore. It was past midnight and Kaavya could not, by any chance, answer the call in the midst of all the noise. Clubs and nightlife were strictly a taboo. It was probably worse than saying she was out with a guy. If she did not answer they would worry about where she was. So she would have to step out of the club and call them back.
“Sorry Ma, I was changing my contact lenses”, was one of her standard excuses for missing a call at night.
“Where is your roommate?”, asked her mother. This was the fifth time her mother was asking about her non-existent roommate. She had made up enough stories about the fictional Gunjan being in the bathroom or talking on the phone or out on a night shift. She promised her mother than she would make her speak to Gunjan the next time she called.
The next time she called it was afternoon. Both Aneesh and Kaavya were at home dealing with a common client. The bride-to-be had come for her outfit trial. Kaavya explained the situation to her and requested her to pretend to be Gunjan.
“Don’t state too many facts. Just be brief. “, instructed Kaavya, panicking. “Remember you are from Gujarat and you are doing a medical internship at Jaslok Hospital. And yeah you do a lot of night shifts”. It worked out smooth and they succeeded in convincing her mom about her fictional roommate.
The worst time for these random calls was, of course, when they were in the midst of some of their most intimate moments.
“God, will they ever stop calling”, exclaimed Aneesh. ”Please, not now, Kavi. Just say you slept early or something”
“Don’t be mean. I have to take it. I already ignored their calls in the evening”, said Kaavya as she reached out to grab the vibrating cell phone, buttoning her shirt and getting out of the couch.

There were many instances when they almost got caught. Once her father’s colleague’s wife wanted to drop by to give her some home made sweets since she was in the area and passing by their apartment. Kaavya excused herself by saying she was out and would drop by at her place on the weekend. The closest she came was when her aunt met Aneesh at one of his client’s wedding and took his business card to order clothes for her daughter. She noticed that the address on the card was the same as her niece’s. There was a call the next day. “Do you know Aneesh Thakur, Kavi?”, she asked after five minutes of sweet talk.
“Ummm… yeah. Why?”, Kaavya had the feeling that she had discovered something. She started running in her mind, propositions to prevent her from spilling the beans and tarnishing her image in front of the rest of their family. “A designer saree to bribe her?”, “A candid conversation making her feel that she was the first privileged person to know and a request to keep the secret till she told her parents herself?”, “Spill the beans about another aunt’s daughter’s affair with a Muslim boy to create that shock factor that would make her affair seem petty and forgettable”, she thought.
“I happened to meet him. The address on his business card was same as yours. That’s why I was wondering”, said her aunt.
“Ouch!:, thought Kaavya. She would have to make up another lie to cover the other hundred preceding lies. But by now she was adept at this.
“Pedamma, Aneesh is Gunjan’s cousin. He uses our address for all business correspondence since the place where he lives is a new colony and the postman can never find it. Also we have the same clientele so it works out well for both of us”, said Kaavya, relieved that she came up with something viable.
Pedamma digested the answer very easily and even if she didn’t, she didn’t seem to mind. She asked Kaavya to come over to her place with Gunjan some day and wound up the call.

“Who asked you to distribute your business card to everyone?”, Kaavya said after hanging up the phone, calling out to Aneesh who was busy munching on a bar of Dairy Milk from the refrigerator.
“I am talking to you, Nish.”, she said coming up to him with the phone in her hand. “And will you stop eating? “, she said taking the bar away from him and putting it away. “One day you will become so obese that the only job you could get is sumo fighting”
“Ok, ok last bite”, said Aneesh popping a huge chunk of chocolate in his mouth. “What can I do if you are related to every third person in Mumbai? Are you sure you have only one set of parents? Did you verify if Ganga Bai was your mother’s spy or not”, teased Aneesh referring to their part-time maid who came to wash dishes, take the trash out and clean the bathroom.

Later of course from a conversation with her mom, Kaavya found out that a head-to-toe description of Aneesh had reached Coimbatore. “A fair, healthy boy with sharp features and gelled hair, about five feet nine inches tall, wearing a checked shirt and khaki pants”, described her mom. Kaavya breathed a sigh thinking how her aunt’s high speed message delivery to a huge network could replace emails or SMS’es some day!
“I know your job requires you to mingle with boys but just be careful Kavi. You know how close our family is. Rumors spread like wild fire.”
“Close?”. Kaavya thought.”Whatever that means!”
“And remember we will never accept a non-Brahmin boy outside our caste”, reminded her mother before hanging up. Her mother, like all other mothers, had a knack of doing this: saying something that would make her feel guilty without committing a sin.

The thought of her parents finding out that she was seeing a non-vegetarian, North Indian, fashion designer was bad enough. The thought of them finding out that they were living under the same roof gave her palpitations and a sweat outbreak. She imagined how her mother would break down crying, reminding her of the sacrifices they had made to bring her up, accusing her of misusing the independence they gave her, in words straight out of the soaps she watched on television religiously. She imagined her dad refusing to take his medication or talk to anyone, putting his head down in shame and locking himself up in a room. Somehow, she thought, the silence of her dad would hurt her way more than her mother’s melodrama.

During many nights while she lay on their bed, hugging Aneesh, she would think of what the remotest possibilities were of her parents discovering her in that state. What if there was an earthquake right there and then, in the middle of the night and both of them were discovered in the same position under the debris. She wondered what their reaction would be? Glad that they survived at least?
What if they called Jaslok Hospital and found out there was no Gunjan Shah. They would probably take the next train to Mumbai.
What if Ganga Bai was actually a spy set up by her Pedamma?
What if they decided to show up one morning and Aneesh opened the door in his boxers?
What if they called and interrogated their landlady? They had spoken to their landlady ,Mrs.Batliwala and explained their entire story and problems. She had been open to it and offered to help them out. “It’s better than answering questions about a single mom to her boyfriends”, she had said referring to the previous tenant.
All sorts of what if’s would often disturb Kaavya at night. She would wake Aneesh up in panic.
To pacify her and divert her mind Aneesh would either take her on a long bike ride till she slept, resting on his back, on the way back home; or drag her to the living room, put on some Chris de Burgh classics and have a close dance with her singing along till she smiled and expressed that she didn’t care about the rest of the world; or kiss her till she forgot what she was thinking about.


There were many instances when they made up their mind to initiate a conversation with their respective families about their relationship. They knew it was going to take a long time to convince them, so the sooner they divulged, the closer they would be to living in permanently and peacefully without the constant fear of getting caught. Aneesh was, however, not scared of facing his family.
“I have never done anything according to their wish, Vee. So they don’t expect me to take a 180 degree turn all of a sudden and marry a Rajput girl of their choice”, he said during one of their conversations over dinner centered around devising strategies to approach their parents.
“But I want the wedding to be with everyone’s blessing”, said Kaavya fearing that it wasn’t going to be that way. In her mind she already imagined them going to the court in regular clothes with Mrs.Batliwala as a witness and missing the whole fun of having a proper south Indian wedding, draped in a nine yard kanjeevaram silk saree, adorned with gold jewelery from head to toe, sitting on her father’s lap as Aneesh tied the “thaali” around her neck.
“I’ll get you my parent’s blessings. That’s my job.”, said Aneesh with the affirmative look in his eyes. “First think of how you are going to handle your parents. I can imagine a tamil movie scene already. I don’t know why, whenever I think of your dad I imagine him in a white lungi with a gun in his hand”
“Why? You don’t imagine him offering you a blank check for leaving me?”, asked Kaavya mockingly, as she cleared her plate.
“I wish! That wouldn’t be a bad option.”, said Aneesh smiling.
“I get rich and I don’t have to eat curry leaves in everything for the rest of my life!”, he joked separating the curry leaves, an essentially South Indian cooking ingredient, from the North Indian paneer masala on his plate.

There was never a conclusion to such discussions. Kaavya was just not mentally prepared to break the news. She made a little bit of progress by bringing up Aneesh off and on during her conversations with her mom. She spoke about how charming Gunjan’s cousin was. About how he made sure he dropped them home anytime they were getting late, how he took her to the doctor when she was sick and Gunjan was out on duty and how he brought the plumber home and stayed till he fixed their clogged kitchen sink. She also brought up other things that seemed likely to impress her parents like his volunteering activity at an orphanage on Sunday mornings, his excellent culinary skills and the article in Bombay Times where he was cited as an upcoming designer. She hoped the familiarity with his good deeds would tone down the magnitude of their response when she finally told them.

It was the month of November, the season of weddings. Both of them were busy catering to the changing requirements of their customers.
“I need your feedback on a site design, Nish”, said Kaavya shifting next to Aneesh in the midst of all their work with her laptop. She showed him her best design so far. Teal and gray themed, Chris De Burgh playing in the background, a humorous set of vows and placeholders for back and white photographs.
“Mmm, it’s too us. I disapprove”, said Aneesh getting back to explaining one of his designs the Nth time to the confused tailor.
“You think so?”, asked Kaavya sounding slightly excited.
The phone rang. It was Kaavya’s parents. “Yes Amma”, she said walking towards the bedroom starting another conversation.
Aneesh didn’t want her to get started again on an hour long conversation on the phone. “Why are you going to the other room? I don’t understand anything you say anyway”, whispered Aneesh referring to the language Kaavya used to converse with her parents. Kaavya would tease him saying she liked it that way since she could bitch about him openly.

He missed Kaavya even when she went from one room to another. When she went to Coimbatore for a fortnight, Aneesh went crazy. He slept on the divan in their living room, looping “Aint no sunshine when she’s gone” on his ipod. He ate out, frequently visiting the South Indian restaurant close to their place. He spent more on messaging and calling her than he did on paying their rent. When Kaavya spoke about extending her vacation, he fought with her. “Just stay back. No need to return. I’ll pack your belongings and courier them to you”, he snapped at her. She knew she had to return soon, before he got anymore cranky. To make him feel happier she wore his favorite kurti on her journey back to Mumbai. A glimpse of her in the crowded station, in an outfit he had stitched himself with left over materials, made him smile instantly. She looked beautiful as always. Her healthy flawless skin glowing as a consequence of the home food and pampering, her dark brown hair in a new layered cut, her eyebrows shaped like an arch with a sharp angle, her long silver earrings dangling as she moved her head from side to side, her large black eyes, outlined neatly with an eyeliner, wandering here and there scanning the crowd for him.

“I have news, Nish”, she exclaimed once settled in the cab.
“I know you haven’t told your parents, at least. Else you wouldn’t have been here or I wouldn’t have been here”, said Aneesh putting his arms around her.
“No I haven’t. But I am planning to. I build a whole lot of good reputation. Amma-Appa are planning to visit in few weeks. That’s when Gunjan is supposedly going to Baroda to get married and will be moving out. So her stuff will already be gone from the apartment. I will introduce you. I am sure they will like you once they meet you. Then I’ll tell them I want to get married and hence there is no point looking for another roommate. Things will just fall into place and we can move in forever”, said Kaavya in an excited voice.
“What? They are coming here?”, Aneesh exclaimed. “Come on Vee. We just had such a long separation. Why again so soon?”, he said resting his head on her shoulder cursing her parents in his mind. “I missed you”, he said and they kissed. The cab driver adjusted his mirror, either in a direction so he didn’t have to see what was going on in the back seat or in a direction focusing on the action.

Kaavya’s parents were to arrive on December 14th. Aneesh was going to stay over at Rajat’s palce while they were around. They started moving Aneesh’s things into boxes a couple of weeks before. It was going to be tough to eradicate every trace of him.
“I think you should leave some girly stuff in Gunjan’s closet. Just keep some of your own clothes. They wouldn’t have seen everything”, instructed Aneesh.
“Yeah, I am putting all my party clothes in there”, she said hanging a red off-shoulder top. “They wouldn’t believe I could wear those, anyway”

While packing carton’s with Aneesh’s belongings, they would pounce upon stuff they had forgotten about and recall stories related to those. Like they discovered the small rectangular stickers with “Aneesh and Kaavya” printed on them for sticking on gifts that they had got themselves for one of their anniversaries and the dumbbells he had bought, motivated to lose weight in the beginning of the year. Aneesh had used the latter a couple of times before hiding them under the bed to avoid getting reminded of his resolution. It was hard for Kaavya to believe that he had started jogging every morning. Of course, this was ever since she told him about meeting her parents. Suddenly fitness was on the top of his priority list. Regular milk packets were replaced by fat free skimmed milk, junk food by boiled vegetables and soup, alcohol by diet coke. “Extreme!”, Kaavya would say reacting to his change in lifestyle. “Men are extreme. Don’t understand why they can’t do things in moderation”.

Out of the blue Aneesh would get nervous about the impending meeting and its consequences.
“What if your parents don’t like me, Vee”, he asked interrupting his push ups and walking into the kitchen to grab some water from the fridge. Kaavya was making dosas for dinner while skimming through the latest issue of Vogue.
“If they don’t I’ll tell them how hard you worked to get a six pack for just asking for my hand. Tell them ‘imagine to what extent he could go to keep me happy’. And ask them which one of the NRI guys whose profiles they keep checking on shaadi.com would do that for me?”, said Kaavya smiling, nudging Aneesh in his far-from-six-pack stomach with her elbow.
“By the way, don’t expect me to go on a diet when its time to meet your parents. I am what I am”, said Kaavya putting both her hands on her waist, one hand holding the magazine, the other holding the spatula. She wasn’t fat or thin. She was a medium size and had the right curves in the right place.
“And I love you the way you are, my baby”, said Aneesh hugging her. “Skinny size zeroes look good only in fashion shows.” He kissed her and walked back to their living plus working space to finish his workout.
“Don’t make dosa for me. I will eat salad today”, he screamed to prevent his voice from getting drowned in the whistles of the pressure cooker and the noise of the exhaust fan.
“Uff Nish, thousandth time. Its ‘dhosa’ and not ‘dosa’”, she screamed back correcting Aneesh’s North Indian pronunciation of a South Indian word.

There were other preparations to do before her parents arrived. She had to remove all evidence of non-vegetarian food from the refrigerator, including the eggs. In the process she got rid of several expired stuff like apple flavored jam that they both disliked. She discarded all the empty Bacardi breezer and beer bottles. She supervised Ganga bai as she cleaned every nook and corner of the house meticulously including the floor under the fridge, the blades of the ceiling fan and the bathroom windows. Her mother was a cleanliness freak. She bought a new bed sheet and pillow cover set, scented candles and incense sticks. The thought of her parents sleeping on her and Aneesh’s bed made her feel uneasy. She stuffed Aneesh’s bag with some of her belongings as well, stuff like thongs and birth control pills that, if discovered, would bring the roof down.

She made a few phone calls to people that her parents could meet to prep them up with what they could reveal and what they couldn’t. Gunjan Shah’s character sketch was introduced to everyone. The last call on the list was Mrs.Batliwala.
“Thanks for co-operating with us, Mrs.Batliwala. We will always be indebted to you.”, she said in a sincere voice..
“And yes if you can please send the mason to fix the leaking ceiling above our bedroom before the 14th, that would be very helpful”, she reminded her one last time before hanging up.

There was a week to go. Kaavya felt stomach cramps every time she imagined her parents and Aneesh together in their living room. She imagined Aneesh acting coy and sobre, unfamiliar with the apartment and her parents treating him nice since he had helped their daughter; offering him tea. She was apprehensive of all the pretending they would have to do. Before sleeping she re-ran the fears in her mind hoping the last few days just passed by without a glitch. She was tired of being paranoid every day of her life.

She woke up in the middle of the night disturbed by a nightmare. She looked at Aneesh sleeping on her left. She always had bad dreams when they exchanged sides on their bed. But the previous night the water dripping from the leaking ceiling was more than usual. Hence Aneesh had forced her to move to his side. She got out of bed to go to the rest room. She could hear the water drops in the silence. Suddenly she heard a loud noise, a thump. The floor under her feet shook. She thought it was an earthquake; the earthquake she had always dreaded. She ran out. What she saw next made her go dizzy. She screamed her lungs out. There was a lot of dust, water and debris. She didn’t know what to do next. She stood in horror and shock. She couldn’t move another inch. There was another loud thump. Another part of the ceiling above their bed collapsed in front of her eyes burying the left side of their bed. Burying Aneesh completely.

The next forty eight hours were critical. Aneesh’s entire body had been smashed, shattered, broken. His face was unrecognizable. He had already undergone 18 hours of surgery and was expected to undergo more in the coming days. Even if he survived, he would be paralyzed for life. His parents and sisters had arrived. They didn’t know who Kaavya was except that she was the one who had discovered him in that state and brought him to the hospital. They didn’t care about any further details or how she reached there in the middle of the night. Rajat had called to inform them. Aneesh’s relatives had flocked the hospital. His uncle who was an orthopedist had flown down from Delhi to provide medical guidance. Kaavya was not family anymore. She sat on the bench in the hallway next to Rajat and his wife, far away from Aneesh’s family, crying, hoping, praying, fearing. She caught glimpses of Aneesh as they moved him from one place to another in the stretcher. She could not bear to see Aneesh in that state anymore. She could not dare to return home. She rejected her parents’ calls. She did not have the courage to spell out the incident to them. She sent them a message saying “I am busy. Will call in a couple of days”. She stayed over at Rajat’s place frequenting the hospital every few hours. After three days and a few hours the struggle ended. Aneesh passed away in a state of unconsciousness.


His body was to be cremated in Jodhpur. Rajat went over to their apartment to get all of Aneesh’s belongings that had already been packed in cartons and handed them over to his parents. Kaavya had been taking sleeping pills to keep herself tuned out. She could not tolerate consciousness. Every time she opened her eyes she felt unbearable pangs. She swallowed another couple of pills and lay on the couch in Rajat’s apartment staring at the ceiling, waiting for her system to shut off.

Kaavya returned to their apartment the night before her parents were to arrive. It was the first time since the incident she had come back home. Kaavya was numb. She had probably exhausted all her life’s quota of tears. Her face was swollen, her head heavy from the sleeping pills. She walked past the living room and kitchen and opened the door to her bedroom. She turned the lights on. The mess in their bedroom had been cleaned up completely. A blue plastic sheet had been hung to cover the hole in the ceiling. The cracked window pane had been replaced. The remnants of their bed had been removed and replaced by a mattress on the floor by Mrs.Batliwala. Everything else was in place. If you didn’t look up you wouldn’t know that a portion of the ceiling had collapsed in that room a few days back.

Every trace of Aneesh was erased from their apartment. His clothes and shoes, his toiletries, his work items and equipment, his dumbbells, everything. Including him. The only thing that remained was his toothbrush. It stuck its head out of the toothbrush holder in their bathroom, right next to hers. This was his only belonging that she possessed now. She picked it up and used it to brush her teeth. She stared into the mirror half hoping this was just a nightmare and she had woken up from her sleep and very soon Aneesh was going to walk into the restroom in his boxers, rubbing his eyes and kissing her “Good Morning”. She wanted to believe this was temporary, this was not true.

She lay on the new mattress in their bedroom on the sheets she had bought for her parents, staring up at the blue tarp above her head. She wished she hadn’t invited her parents to visit her. She wished she hadn’t packed all of Aneesh’s belongings. She blamed herself for initiating his departure. She wished she hadn’t exchanged sides with him that night or woken up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom leaving him behind in his death bed. As she closed her eyes she imagined her parents this time in their living room, in their apartment where there was no trace of Aneesh or Gunjan. She imagined her pretending as if there had been no Aneesh in her life. “He has gone for Gunjan’s wedding, Amma”, she imagined telling her mom. “He’s gone, Amma”, she spoke to herself, “gone…”

(c) Payal Chakravarty,2008 - All contents of this blog are intellectual property of Payal Chakravarty.

On the way to Grad School

It was 2 AM in the morning. Ravi was almost dozing off but the dozen excited relatives who had come to see him off at the New Delhi airport were still highly energized. He was tired of bidding goodbye, convincing the aunties that he would not marry a white girl and checking his passport and documents umpteen number of times.
“You are fulfilling my dreams, beta.”, said his dad patting him on the back. Since childhood I have only dreamt of getting a master’s degree abroad and settling in the land of opportunity. But … .”
“Dad, this is the twentieth time you have said that in the past one hour”, said Ravi, cutting him off, dreading hearing his excuses for not making it to America.
As he proceeded to security check he was relieved to escape the farewell party which had been going on for weeks now and ended at the gates of the airport since the farewell bidders were not allowed beyond that; relieved to escape the helpers in the security area pestering him to let them carry his baggage in the hopes of getting paid in dollars; relieved to escape a lot of things he was glad to leave behind in Delhi.

The flight was delayed by two hours. He seated himself in the lobby wondering how to keep himself occupied other than trying to beat his own scores in Tetris on his cell phone. He did not feel like calling Sheetal either. She would be asleep at this hour. Not that the late nights had ever prevented him from making calls. But two years into the relationship he had lost his enthusiasm for staying awake late talking to her.

As he continued to fiddle with his cell phone, he noticed the girl in the yellow outfit walk into the lobby. He had noticed her while standing in the queue for security check. She wore a yellow knee length top, black leggings and brown suede boots. She carried a North Face backpack and had perfectly curled hair.

He had noticed her from the back. She was the only person who looked interesting among the rest of the crowd. The crowd consisted primarily of NRI families with kids who either listened to their iPod shuffles or rambled in their crisp American accent, their ramblings punctuated with “totally” and “like”; businessmen hooked to their blackberries; parents of software engineers who were going to visit their children to take over the role of a nanny of their newborn grandkids; a few foreigners in harem pants, tank tops and henna tattoos, and one or two more prospective graduate students like him.

As Ravi saw her move towards where he was seated, he moved his backpack emptying the seat next to his. The girl with the curly hair and yellow top came and sat next to him. She took out a Stephen King paperback and started reading. Ravi couldn’t help but notice that she had a Wolfpack key chain attached to the zipper of her backpack. Wolfpack was the mascot of the university he was going to attend. It was a perfect opportunity to start a conversation.

“Hi. I just happened to notice the wolfpack keychain on your backpack. Are you studying at NC State University?”, he asked looking sideways at her. She looked up from her book, “Oh. Yeah I am”, she replied still holding her book in the same position, hoping to get back to it as soon as she finished answering Ravi’s question.
“I asked ‘cause I am headed there for a Masters in Electrical Engineering”, said Ravi.
“Ohh. Are you?”, said the girl putting her book down on her lap, sounding interested. Ravi noticed the heavy American accent. “Joining this fall?”
“Yes. What do you study?”
“I .. umm… nothing as smart as Electrical Engineering. I am doing a degree in Animal Science”
“Animal science? Ok.. interesting”, replied Ravi wondering what animal science meant. It wasn’t veterinary, it wasn’t zoology. It was a subject he had not heard of. It was definitely not a major a regular Indian would opt for.
“Interesting is a word people use when they either don’t know what is being talked about or they are not interested in talking about it further. Which one is your case?”, replied the girl in the yellow top.
Ravi was taken aback at her prompt curt reply. “Well it’s the former”, admitted Ravi smiling.
“Don’t worry I won’t bore you with animal science talks. So tell me why did you choose NC State?”
“Well firstly their Electrical Engineering program is well ranked. Secondly, it was more affordable than University of Southern California, the other university I had an admit to. My cousins and friends live in California and complain all the time about how expensive it is. Also I am talking to a professor there who most likely will fund me. And yeah I also have an uncle in Virginia which is close to North Carolina”
“Aah.. those are good enough reasons. Which prof are you talking to? Not that I know many in your department. But I have lots of friends who are in EE, so I keep hearing some names”
“Dr. Maria Xin.. as in X. I . N. Not sure how to pronounce that”
“Aah”, remarked the girl. “I have heard of Maria. She is quite a tough nut to crack.”
“Really? We’ll see. I hope it works out for me. I have taken a loan here you know. Don’t want to pay for the whole degree. Are you funded?”
“Yeah I am a TA, as in Teaching Assistant. You think I would pursue animal sciences without funding?”
Ravi imagined how distracting it would be to have a cute TA like her.
“By the way how come you called a professor by name? Like you just said Maria.. not Dr. Maria”
“You’ll get used to that. No one uses Sir or Madam to address professors in US. You call everyone by first name no matter how senior they are to you. Initially that will hurt your ears but you will get used to it”
Ravi noticed how she pronounced “ears” with an emphasis on “e” unlike the Indian pronunciation where ears are pronounced the same way as years with a stress on “y”.
“Have you been in the States for a long time?”, asked Ravi
“Yeah. I guess you are wondering how my accent is so thick.”, she smiled. “I have been there for a long time now. My parents moved when I was in middle school. But you are doing a good job of understanding it”
“Thanks to all the American movies I watch.”, replied Ravi. ”Were you visiting relatives in Delhi?”
“No I was here to meet some prospective grooms”, she replied. She paused to catch Ravi’s expression. And yes, he had it written all over his face, question marks about whether it was a successful mission, whether she was engaged, expression of disappointment at a lost opportunity.
“You look devastated!”, she laughed teasingly. “No I haven’t found my desi knight in shining armor.”
Ravi was embarrassed to be caught flirting. He laughed along to somehow make it seem like it was a joke.
“So Ravi, have you found roommates yet?”
“Not yet. I have spoken to some guys from the Indian committee there. They will pick me up from the airport and provide me temporary accommodation for a week during which I will look for roommates and an apartment. Do you live in apartments or the dorm?”
“Apartments, of course. Have you heard of desi grad students living in dorms? That is a lot of extra money, Dude! There are these apartments called Avery Close, five minutes away from campus. I live there. It’s a desi colony. On Sunday afternoons you will see boys playing cricket there. Almost every apartment smells of sambhar masala. There is a joke that once an American guy came to Avery Close looking for some John Doe. A desi guy pointed him to another apartment complex and said “Sorry all foreigners live there”. He he”
They both started laughing.
“By the way the word desi is funny. How can you call your own people desis? Isn’t it derogatory? “
“You’ll get used to it, Ravi”

The conversation continued to reveal more stuff that Ravi was going to get used to in the next two years. Like walking in snow showers to get to classes on winter mornings, saying Hi, how are you doing? to strangers walking on the road, measuring in pounds, miles and gallons, not having ketchup with pizza, calling coriander leaves cilantro, lady fingers okra and SMS’ing texting, having cooking turns, missing cricket matches and weddings in India, acknowledging everything with a uh-huh, selecting a type of cereal from hundreds of possible choices in an aisle dedicated to just cereals, getting a full refund on returned goods without a receipt, saving coupons for a haircut, drinking water directly from the tap, tapping neighbors’ wi-fi, watching bollywood movies in parts on the internet, and many more.

It was like attending a course New to America:101. Ravi could not believe his luck. The journey had barely begun and here he was chatting with a cute girl who in all probabilities could turn out to be a neighbor. The two other grad students seated in the vicinity seemed to look at him with envy.

“Do you wanna grab some coffee?”, he asked. Though he was completely wide awake without caffeine, he thought grabbing a coffee would take things a step further. Girls always liked the idea of being asked out for coffee. Not tea. Not cold drinks. But coffee. He never understood why. By now Ravi was totally flirting with her and to his surprise she was flirting back. As they walked to the coffee shop, his phone rang. It was Sheetal.
“I gotta take this”, he said to the girl. “Two coffees”, he told the vendor and walked a few feet away to answer the call.
“Hi Sweetie. Why didn’t you call? I fell asleep waiting for your call”, said the voice on the other line.
“By the time I cleared security it was too late. I thought you would be asleep. Anyway my flight is delayed so thought I would call you just before taking off”
“Wish your flight was not in the middle of the night. I could have at least come to see you off. I am already missing you”, said Sheetal pausing.
“Miss you too, baby”, said Ravi. The words spurted out before even he could think of what he wanted to say in response. It was like Newton’s third law: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. “I think we are about to board, baby and my cellphone is dying. I’ll talk to you once I reach Frankfurt”, said Ravi hurriedly trying to end the conversation. He hung up after performing the rituals of hanging up, the “love you” exchanges. Ravi had moved far enough to prevent the girl in the yellow top from overhearing his conversation.

“Girlfriend?”, she asked sipping coffee from the tiny Nescafe paper cup when Ravi returned.
“Well … she is a girl and she is a good friend”, said Ravi smiling. “How much?”, he asked the store keeper.
“100 rupees sir”
“What??”, asked Ravi. “Just because it is the international terminal these guys charge 100 rupees for 4 sips of coffee!”, muttered Ravi handing out the 100 rupees note.
“100 rupees is 2 dollars, Ravi. Anywhere in USA that is the least you will pay for coffee. And yeah, initially you will do a lot of conversions. You will be shocked at prices. You will not eat out and eat only home cooked meals prepared from the spices and grains and Maggi packets that your mom has packed for you. But gradually you will get used to it. Then you will spend more on beer than you would on your books”
“Is that what you do? Spend more on beer than on books?”, asked Ravi smirking.
“Nah! I only drink wine, sweetie!”
“S..w…eetie! Wow!”, thought Ravi. “Those definitely were signs”
“So….”, said Ravi and paused realizing that he didn’t know her name yet.
“The name is Lakshmi. Lakshmi Subramaniam”, she said.
“Lakshmi! Aah.. you are south Indian?”, asked Ravi, a bit surprised.
“Is that a problem?”
“Naah, naah. Just that you don’t look like one”
“What do you mean by look like one? Do all South Indians look the same?”, she sounded agitated. “You northies have your own pre-conceived notions. South Indian equals to dark skinned, long plaited hair. Right? I mean, how typical can you guys get? Well as hard as it maybe for you to believe, I am a tam bram from Chennai who lives on curd rice and doesn’t speak Hindi!”, she looked at him straight into his eyes. Her dark black eyes piercing through his heart. “Man she is hot” is all that Ravi could think, unaware of the fact that tam bram stood for Tamil Brahmin, a sect of people belonging to the higher strata of the society in the state of Tamil Nadu down south. In his head everyone who lived down south was Madrasi.
“Sorry... I didn’t mean it that way.”, Ravi tried to appease her.

The boarding for the flight started. All that Ravi wanted now was to sit next to her. The flight didn’t look too full. With Lakshmi’s due permission they both walked towards the cabin crew to ask for them to be seated together. He walked up to an air hostess who was busy seating other passengers.
“Excuse me, M’am”, said Ravi.
The girl who turned around threw Ravi off his mind. It was Sheetal’s friend Samira who Ravi had met several times. “Hey Ravi! Good to see you. Sheetal had mentioned you were flying to US. Didn’t know you were on this flight”
Ravi felt like banging his head. “Why, oh why?”. Sheetal was going to be in India for two years and Lakshmi would probably be his neighbor during that time. It made more sense to think about the future.
“Uhh, Hi Samira. This is my friend Lakshmi. We were wondering if we could get a seat together.”
Samira looked a bit puzzled. She however had to be professional. “Ummm, let me see what I can do for you. May I have your boarding passes, please?”
Samira managed to find a seat for the two towards the end of the aircraft. She seated them and gave Ravi a dirty look, a “Wait till I tell your girlfriend” kind of a look.
Ravi was too mesmerized with Lakshmi to care about Samira or her friend Sheetal.

New to America: 101 continued for quite a while. Ravi felt overwhelmed with all the information. He was probably ready to teach that course himself without even stepping into America. He didn’t care about the course content. As long as he could keep the conversation alive, as long as he could see Lakshmi’s animated expressions he was happy.

“So Ravi.. What had you written in your Statement of Purpose”, asked Lakshmi. “Did you write it yourself or copied something from the internet?”
“No no.. I wrote everything myself. I gave the true story. How I come from a family of achievers, how my parents always motivated me to excel, how I was the topper in high school and was in the top 5% of my class in engineering. How I am an ace batsman and won cricket matches for my school and college and how I am passionate about nano technology and won a paper presentation contest in final year and that I worked on cutting edge technology and was the star of my team during my one year at Infosys as a software engineer”, he paused and looked at her.
They both started laughing. “That’s even worse than a rip off from the SOPs available online”, said Lakshmi.
“Well that got me through!”, said Ravi shrugging his shoulders. “Most of it is exaggerated. I was never a topper in high school nor was I in top 5% in engineering. I just got one of my professors in engineering college to write a recommendation letter with top 5% mentioned in it. And yeah I was an extra batsman for our college cricket team. And during my one year at Infy all I ever did was copy and paste code to maintain a website. The menial and meaningless bullshit that is offshored for cheap labor. As for the paper presentation, it was an internal competition. I stood third among five contestants. Well at least I am not lying. There is some truth in all the statements”
“And your passion for nano technology?”
“Well I read on the university website that Dr.Xin was recently awarded a grant. So I assumed she will need research assistants. And her research is focused on nano tech. So I read a bit about it online. I can pick up things fast and work hard. So if I get funded by her, nano tech it is. Else I’ll look for the next prospective professor and explore whatever field interests them”
“So why are you doing your masters if you are not passionate about it?”, asked Lakshmi.
“Oh come on! Are you passionate about animal sciences? You know how it is in India. Do your medicine or engineering. Or go to IIM for an MBA or go abroad for higher studies. That’s the only symbol of success!”
“That’s not true.”
“Of course it is. My dad didn’t talk to me for three months when I didn’t make it through an IIT. I didn’t want to try for IIM because I didn’t want to repeat the same story. Cost of an MBA abroad was too high. So I opted for a masters in EE. Anyway America is the land of opportunities.. in my dad’s words. And that’s true it’s the land of average Indians to shine well because we are smarter than an average American”
“Another preconceived notion but I’ll refrain from getting into another argument. Tell me something about your girlfriend”, said Lakshmi diverting the topic.
“Sheetal?”, asked Ravi holding his hand up against his ears to signal the phone call. He didn’t feel making up stories anymore. “Hmmm… she is a nice girl. The kind I would want to marry. You know, simple and stable. Doesn’t throw tantrums like a child and is not demanding”
“There you go. I like the truth. So what is the problem?”, asked Lakshmi.
“Nothing… I don’t feel the zing with her. You know the spark”
“That happens in any relationship after a few years. The spark doesn’t stay forever”
“But sparks can happen again, right?”
“Like the one between you and me?”
Ravi was taken aback at Lakshmi’s candidness.
“Yeah like the one happening right now”, he replied bending towards her.
“You know what, if there was any other girl here in my place you would have felt attracted to her the same way”, said Lakshmi pulling away.
Ravi realized maybe he was pushing himself a bit too much.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I wouldn’t be looking for grooms if I had one”
“Who knows?”
“Don’t judge people by your standards, Ravi”, said Lakshmi in an annoyed tone. “I am going to sleep for a bit” She turned away, adjusted her neck pillow and closed her eyes.
Ravi took out his cellphone and resumed his game of Tetris.

The landing in Frankfurt woke them up. They got off at the Frankfurt airport for the four hours long wait. They waited for each other as they took turns to go to the restroom. He offered to help her drag her hand baggage but she wouldn’t let him. Under ordinary circumstances Ravi would have become impatient and irritable due to the length of the journey. But in this case he wished for further delays. Lakshmi continued to educate him on the ways of the world outside India. This time she spoke about Germany and Europe. They munched on burgers from Mac Donald’s and sipped on coffee from Starbucks while Lakshmi discussed the difference in the marketing strategies of Starbucks and Mac Donalds and explained the significance of brand management. Ravi was impressed with how knowledgeable and well-informed Lakshmi was. She was brainy as well. She solved sudoku puzzles before Ravi could even complete one box. She conversed fluently in French with a shopkeeper and read German signs. She almost quizzed him on world wars and the Holocaust and Germany’s recent political scenario. By the time it was time to board the flight Ravi had been completely bowled over by her; bowled over enough not to remember to call Sheetal.
As they settled into their seats in the aircraft, Lakshmi snuggled up in her blanket with her book, flattening out the dog-ears she had made.
“Are you going back to reading?”, asked Ravi.
“Yeah, the story has picked up momentum. You don’t like reading much, do you?”
“Not much fiction. Some non-fiction, sometimes. But I hardly ever complete a book”
“What was the last fiction you read?”, asked Lakshmi flipping a few pages to refresh where she had paused in the story.
“Ummm”, Ravi was thinking hard. “Treasure Island”
“Wha..?”, Lakshmi asked raising her eyebrows in surprise.
“Yeah. Treasure Island by Rober Louis Stevenson, the abridged version. It was my favorite book in sixth standard”
“Sixth grade.. you never read since then?”
“I read stuff strictly according to the school syllabus. That’s it. Most stories I tried to read revolved around wars or FBI agents...people and environments that I can’t relate to. I think the only exception was Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat. But I didn’t finish that either”
“And non-fiction?”
“I religiously read Times of India. Does that count?”
“Never mind!”, said Lakshmi whiffing her hand and moving her attention to the book.
Ravi really did not want her to return to the book.
“Lakshmi, why don’t you read later. I am getting bored”, said Ravi after a few minutes.
“Why? Isn’t that game on your phone that you have been hooked on to like a demented kid good enough to keep you occupied?”
“No. It’s not. Not when an attractive girl is sitting next to me”. Ravi did not feel any apprehension in expressing his feelings.
Lakshmi put down the book on her lap and looked at him.
“Does Sheetal know how big a flirt you are?”
“You can go tell her.”, said Ravi without a reaction to the name Sheetal anymore. The out-of-sight-out-of-mind feeling was already in action.
Ravi convinced Lakshmi to put away her book and watch a movie instead. Hours passed as they watched movies on the small screens attached to the seat in front of them, challenged each other with puzzles and games, discussed their favorite comics and continued New to America: 101.

It was almost time to land. Lakshmi took out some hand cream from her purse to relieve her dry hands. She squeezed some of the nice smelling stuff on Ravi’s palms. The fragrance was different. It didn’t smell like any of the Indian creams that his mom or Sheetal used, the ones that smelt like talcum powder. It smelt of apples and cinnamon. As she raised her hands to pull back her hair with a thick black elastic hair band Ravi noticed her well toned upper arms peeking through the big sleeves that had rolled down. He noticed the multiple rings and studs on her ears that shone and sparkled against her butterscotch skin, skin that his mother would describe as buttery. As Lakshmi applied a fruity chapstick to her lips she asked, “Do you want some?”
“Depends”, said Ravi wondering why she was offering him chapstick of all the things.
“Depends? On what?”, asked Lakshmi putting the lid on the chapstick.
“Nah nothing”, said Ravi nodding and bending his head down to conceal his urge of kissing her.
He looked at her once again. Her dark black eyes outlined with long curved eyelashes, her glowing butterscotch skin, her lips shining with the recently applied chapstick were irresistible. Without thinking twice Ravi blurted out “You are so beautiful, Lakshmi…I think I am falling for you”, immediately regretting what he said.
Lakshmi started laughing, “Relax Dude. It has not even been 24 hours since you met me.”
Ravi was embarrassed. “Sorry. I am probably overreacting.”
They looked at each other and paused. Lakshmi raised her eyebrows in a “why are you looking at me like that” manner. Ravi bent towards her hoping she would not move away. She recoiled slightly. Ravi realized he was pushing the limits and stopped.

“I am trying to figure out that smell. Is that chapstick you applied watermelon flavor?”, he asked trying to change the topic.
“Yeah”, said Lakshmi picking up her book.
“That’s my favorite fruit”, said Ravi nodding his head.
“Since when? Starting five minutes back?”, smirked Lakshmi.
“Do you realize what you did was not the most appropriate thing to do?”, said Lakshmi adjusting the neck of her top back as she leaned back into her seat. “I am your senior. I could get you into trouble for making this move.”
“I wouldn’t care even if you were a professor!”, said Ravi confident of the fact that Lakshmi was just pulling his leg.
Ravi didn’t care about her being senior. He didn’t care about Samira’s shocked glances. He didn’t care about any circumstances. He was just enjoying the best journey of his life and hoped that it never ended. But like all good things, the journey ended sooner than he wanted to.

At the airport they stood in different queues for immigration based on their immigration status. Once done they proceeded to baggage claim together. While Lakshmi waited at the carousel for her luggage Ravi made a trip to the restroom to freshen up. When he returned to the baggage claim section, he didn’t see Lakshmi. He spotted his luggage, pulled them down, loaded his cart complaining about the dollar he had to pay to rent one and waited at the carousel. He thought she may have gone to the restroom herself. After a fifteen minute wait he realized that the graduate students would be waiting to pick him up. He proceeded towards the exit keeping an eye out for Lakshmi. There was no sign of her. He had not taken her number or email id since it would be easy to figure that out from the university directory. As he proceeded to the exit there were some Indian guys ,his age, waiting with sign boards. One of them had his name. He introduced himself. He asked if they had seen Lakshmi. None of the guys who had come to receive him knew her or even recognized her based on the description he provided.
“Girlfriend?”, asked Ashwin, one of the student committee members who had organized the pick up and temporary accommodation for Ravi.
“No. I met her on the flight”, said Ravi. He did not want to reveal more information to unknown people yet. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go”
“There is no such girl dude”, said Ashwin. “Trust me, if she is cute there is no way we would have missed her. And there is no one new arriving by that name or description either”
Ravi was surprised to learn that the student committee did an entire background search of the new girls arriving every fall semester through search engines and social networks like Facebook and Orkut and ranked them according to their looks and relationship status. This helped them prioritize the pick up schedule. The seniors, of course, had the first preference to choose who they would pick up. On the drive back Ashwin discussed other things that someone new to America ought to know. Ravi said a “I know” inattentively for almost everything since he had successfully completed New to America:101 on his way to America. He noticed things that Lakshmi had spoken about like the unmanned gas stations where one had to fill gas himself, the logic behind the numbering of the exit signs on highways and the few American accented words like “class”, “status” and “schedule” popping up in the middle of a clear Indian accented English dialog by desi graduate students. He let his imagination wander in many directions as he observed the new place through the moving car window. Fall in North Carolina was very beautiful. The leaves had begun to change color. Blotches of yellow, orange and green dissected by the straight lines of wooden sloping roofs against a vast clear blue sky was something that he had only seen in pictures.

A week had passed since Ravi’s arrival. There was no trace of the curly haired, butterscotch skin Lakshmi Subramaniam from Animal Sciences. He had checked the university directory several times with different spellings of Lakshmi Subramaniam. He had checked every possible social network. He had checked with the Animal Sciences department. He had checked with undergraduate offices. He had even checked all the possible apartment complex offices near campus. No one he met had known a Lakshmi Subramaniam or anyone by that description. “Why did she fake her identity?” “Who was she?” “Where is she?” The question continued to haunt him. He avoided speaking to Sheetal making up excuses of jet lag and time difference. Thankfully till now his airplane stories hadn’t made the breaking news in his friends’ circle in India. Else he would have to deal with Sheetal’s questions. He wondered why Samira had been quiet though.

Ravi was completely out of focus. He did not decide anything or have an opinion. He just followed the herd and enrolled in classes that his roommates registered in, opened a bank account where others did, went with them to get his ID, pay his fees, submit his immunization documents and sign up for the apartment lease. He noted down his cooking turns, his course schedule along with the university transit schedule, important phone numbers and calling card numbers, store and road names and campus job locations in his notebook. In the midst of conversations with fellow students about which courses were going to be tough, where to do Indian grocery shopping, and how to do laundry, all that his mind could visualize was Lakshmi Subramaniam and her watermelon chapstick. Everything else seemed fuzzy.

Ravi was tired of walking around the campus looking for a part time job. This year the number of graduate students was very high. Every possible on-campus job in the libraries, food courts, dorms, offices, tutoring centers had received more applications than required. “The menial website maintenance was better than this crap, man.”, Ravi expressed his frustration to his roommate with whom he was job hunting, as they boarded a bus. “Feels strange to look for a job to arrange book shelves or clean up a cafeteria when in India I could sit in a top notch air conditioned office and take home a big pay packet!”
“What happened to your funding? You said you were talking to some prof”, asked his roommate.
“Yeah, I have mailed her. Have been reading the abstracts of these publications over and over again to retain some keywords and basic definitions’’, said Ravi holding out the roll of print outs he had been carrying around to read while traveling. “But at the rate at which desi students are flocking the campus, I doubt I’ll have a chance”. It was late in the afternoon. All Ravi had eaten since morning was a slice of wheat bread and a banana. It was too expensive to eat anything after the currency conversions he did in his head. His head was heavy from the sleepless nights haunted by Lakshmi Subramaniam. His body was tired and weary after the long campus walks in the hot scorching sun.

As Ravi filled out the application seated in a room filled with many candidates like him for a desk job in his department, his cellphone beeped. It was an SMS from Sheetal. “Samira had called. Can you call me now?”
“Why now? Why, Murphy?”, thought Ravi. He did not need another source of tension added to his frustration and weariness. He muted the cell phone and put it away.
Ravi and his roommate decided to check out the classrooms to make sure they knew where to come on the first day of classes. As they roamed around comparing Indian college campuses to the clean and technologically advanced classrooms here, Ravi smelt something that shook him up. It was apples and cinnamon. The scent of the hand cream Lakshmi used. He could not be mistaken since that smell had been haunting him for seven long days and nights now. He walked past the classroom they were inspecting, to the row of rooms just past it. A couple of rooms down the hallway one of the doors was slightly open. As Ravi approached it, a strong whiff of the apple and cinnamon fragrance reached him. “Was Lakshmi inside?”, he thought, his head had started throbbing, his palms were sweaty.
He could hear a faint tune from inside which sounded like the phone had been put on hold. An AT&T commercial looped continuously interleaved with “All our customer service lines are busy. Please wait for the next available associate”. Ravi caught a glimpse of the professor’s name tag outside the office room. It read Dr. Maria L. Xin. His roommate came by looking for him.
“What are you doing here, Ravi?”, he whispered. “Are you going to meet Dr. Xin today?”
Ravi signaled him to be silent as he continued to eavesdrop.
The AT&T commercial was abruptly disrupted by a ringing tone followed by “All calls are monitored for quality purposes” statement. The customer associate finally came on the line. “Welcome to AT&T. This is Lucy. What can I do for you today?”, spoke an American accented Indian voice.
“Hi. I want to add an additional line to my plan”, spoke a familiar voice. A voice that had been replaying itself over and over again in Ravi’s mind.
“Sure. May I have your number please, Ma’m?”
“Sure. It’s 919-334-5869”
“Can you confirm your full name please?”
“It’s Dr. Maria Lakshmi Xin”
“Your mother’s maiden name for security purposes?”
“Subramaniam”
“Thank you Dr.Xin. We can proceed …..”
The voice faded. Ravi did not want to see, hear or smell anything anymore. He wished his senses just froze. He tried hard to recollect the information on Dr. Xin’s website. “PhD in electrical engineering from Purdue awarded in 2006. Awarded an NSF grant for research in nano tubes. Youngest associate professor in the department of electrical engineering at NCSU”. He also re-ran bits and pieces of his conversation with Lakshmi Subramaniam, conversation about his SOP, his interest in nano tech. His stomach had begun to hurt like it used to before an exam. He suddenly felt awake and alert, like the way he would feel when his dad would knock him on his head when he dozed off while trying to study. All the fuzziness had disappeared. He could see things clearly. He could see objects like the doors in the hallway, the bulletin boards, the L among other alphabets in Dr. Xin’s name tag.
The university mascot on the walls stared at him like it had seven days back from the keychain on Lakshmi Subramaniam’s backpack. He reached for his cellphone and his notebook which contained the calling card number. It was going to be a long night with Sheetal on the phone….


(c) Payal Chakravarty,2008 - All contents of this blog are intellectual property of Payal Chakravarty.

Worlds Apart

The sudden movement of the train jerked Shilpa out of her sleep. She glanced at her watch with sleepy eyes. There were seven more hours to go before the train reached Hyderabad. She dragged herself up to a vertical position on the train berth, pulled up her short hair with a hair band and picked up the mug to pour herself a cup of Complan from her white and green Milton flask. The co-passenger seated opposite her was a young girl probably in her early twenties, right about her age, occupied with some white headphones and a music playing device that she had never seen before. She was tall and dusky dressed in a jeans and white Nike jacket. She had shoulder length straight brown hair with bangs covering half her face, her kohl smeared eyes looking out, observing the sceneries of rural India framed by the rectangular glass windows. Shilpa offered her some Complan.
The girl paused her music, took off her headphones and said, "I don't mind. Thanks".

"I am Shilpa. What is your name?", said Shilpa in her Telugu accented broken English.
"Good to meet you Shilpa. I am Joyita.", replied Shilpa's co-passenger.
"Oh, very nice name. Never heard it before. Where are you from?"
"I am from Cal.. I mean Kolkata. Had gone home for vacations"
"You study in Hyderabad?"
"No am working there. I am a software engineer"
"'I'ngineer?!", said Shilpa with amazement in her eyes. "You look very young to be working. You must be very intelligent"
"Ha ha, not really. You barely need to be intelligent to be software engineers these days. You just need to have an engineering degree", said Joyita sipping from the thermocol glass that Shilpa had handed to her.
"Really? I think you are very humble. The school in which I studied, only the first ranker got an engineering seat."
"That's strange. I thought in Hyderabad everyone studies engineering and then heads off to the US", said Joyita whiffing her hand in the air across her head to indicate an airplane flying across.
"I am not from Hyderabad. I live in a small town close to Hyderabad. The place where we live the schools are very poor. If we clear our 12th standard exams it is almost as good as graduating"
"Ohh, that’s so not cool" , said Joyita frowning, beginning to lose interest in the conversation. She reached out to her backpack to take her laptop out.
"By the way what is that thing you were using to listen to music?", asked Shilpa pointing to the device she had not seen before.
"Ohh this?”, asked Joyita showing her nano. "It’s an iPod. You haven't seen this before?"
"No. I have seen disc man and I have a walk man in which I play cassettes. What do you put in the iPod? It’s so small. CDs or cassettes won't fit into it"
"He he", smiled Joyita, "You don't put anything into it physically. It has a hard drive to store music on it. You can store thousands of songs. Walkmans still exist? I thought they were extinct"
"Th..o..u..sands of songs? You must be joking", said Shilpa nodding her head in disbelief.
"No really. It’s almost like a mini computer. You can put your songs, videos, photos. You can watch movies as well."
Shilpa was completely amazed. Her mouth was wide open. "Can you show me?"
"Yeah of course. Come here, let me show you", said Joyita offering her one of her headphones.
Shilpa moved to Joyita's berth and sat next to her sharing the headphones.
"What songs do you like?", asked Joyita browsing through her playlists of Enigma, U2, ColdPlay and Nickelback hunting for something that Shilpa might like.
"Mmmmm.. do you have songs from Dhoom 2?", asked Shilpa in an excited voice.
"Oh Yeah ..I have the title song. Here you go", said Joyita selecting the song from her playlist titled “Bollywood Party Music”.
As Joyita played the music she took off her earplug , put it into Shilpa's other ear and increased the volume. Shilpa was loving it. She instantly started shaking her head like a child.
"The sound is sooooo clear", said an excited Shilpa in a loud voice, unaware of her volume.
Joyita smiled and made signs indicating that she could keep listening to it for sometime. She taught her how to browse through the songs, to control the volume and pause and forward or rewind. When Shilpa was satisfied listening to a dozen songs, she wanted to see the videos.
Joyita showed her a few music videos of hip hop numbers on the small screen of the device. Shilpa giggled while watching them asking several questions about who the singer was, who those girls in the background were, why were they all dark in complexion, what the lyrics meant, why they were talking about candies and lollipops etc etc.
"Hey! I don't know all the details, babe. I just like dancing to these tunes", said Joyita after she had tried to answer several questions.
"Oh , you dance also? Wow! Do you have photos of that?", asked Shilpa. "And what is babe?"
"I don't dance dance.. you know what I mean?", said Joyi looking at Shilpa with a question mark on her face, crinching her eyebrows slightly. "I mean, I just dance at parties with my friends. Not dance like dance in a performance or show"
"Ohh you mean in discos?", asked Shilpa.
"Yeah, clubs, discs , parties..that kinda stuff"
"Ok .. I only know about disco. Show me the photos na. And what was that you called me? Babe. What does that mean?"
Joyita was beginning to get a little irritated with Shilpa's questions and intrusion into her privacy. But Shilpa's excitement was entertaining.
"Ok, I’ll show you some photos and videos on my laptop.. And babe is just another way of addressing a girl friend. Like you say yaar in Hindi, we say babe in English. It’s actually a shortened form of the word baby"
"Ohh from baby? I find that so silly. Why call big grown up girls babies?"
"Dude! I don't have answers to that, man", exclaimed Joyita thinking to herself how her regular vocabulary was completely unknown to another girl of her age.
"Doodh (milk)?"
"Oh never mind! It’s not doodh with the Indian "d" it’s Dude with the English "d". It is also a way of saying yaar"
"So funny!", giggled Shilpa, "Babe, dude, baby hee heee heee"
"Yeah now that I explained it to you, it does sound funny!"
"Ok show show, please show your dancing photos. We can see all that on your computer?" Shilpa was amazed at what all the thin white book like computer could do. She imagined computers to be office equipment. Watching videos and listening to music on it was beyond her imagination. It was a whole new experience for her.
"Yeah you can see everything on the laptop", said Joyita. She continued to explain the concept of multimedia, internet and search engines in lay man’s terms. “These videos, however, can be scandalizing”, she said as she hit play on one of her videos at a party.
The video showed a loud, noisy gathering with many youngsters. It was quite dark but she could see Joyita and a few other girls and boys dancing in a straight row, very close to each other, with glasses in their hands , screaming out some song that ended with "It’s your birthday".
"Ohhh my God. You wear clothes just like film stars.", said Shilpa looking at Joyita's short sexy backless dress. "You look like Bipasha Basu in this video. But why are you dancing with all the boys? Shouldn't you dance only with your boyfriend?"
"Ha ha! They are all my friends, so I dance with all of them"
"So closely?"
"Dude, It’s just dancing. I am not... never mind!"
"Which one is your boyfriend?", asked Shilpa.
"I was single during this party. That guy you see in this photo with the tattoo on his arm, he is my ex-boyfriend"
"Ohh that tattoo is nice. I know tattoos.. Saif Ali Khan also got a tattoo of Kareena's name on his hand. But your ex boyfriend doesn't look as good as you. You should be with that guy in the other photo. He looks like Hrithik Roshan.", said Shilpa in an assertive tone.
"Yeah you are right. That’s why I ditched him.", winked Joyita with a wicked smile. "But yeah, Mr.Hrithik Roshan is cute and he is an awesome dancer. Dancing with a super tall guy like him is so sexy", said Joyita pointing to a photo where she was dancing with the cute guy they were talking about. He was indeed tall. She barely reached his shoulders. “But the sad part is Mr. Hrithik Roshan doesn’t like me. What to do?", said Joyita curling her lips downward to make a sad face.
"Why? You are prettier than all the other girls", asked Shilpa totally confident that Joyita was the only one who deserved Mr. Hrithik Roshan.
Joyita smiled at Shilpa's simplicity. None of her girl friends would ever openly admit that. "It’s not about just being pretty. The personalities should match also, right? He is too simple for me."
The train halted at a station and disrupted their conversation.
"Lets go get some food from the station. .. Babe", said Shilpa, happy that she had used the new trendy word.
"Nah! I don't eat all that junk. It’s not good for health. Plus I don't wanna leave my laptop and gadgets here and get off"
"Nothing will happen. Don't be spoilt. We live on all this food. As for your stuff - Aunty will take care of them", said Shilpa pointing to the lady seated in the adjacent berth. "Aunty, can you look after these things while we are gone?", asked Shilpa in Telugu. The old lady occupied in peeling and eating oranges nodded her head and said "Ok, Ok , Ma"
Joyita got up, took her jacket off and tied it around her waist revealing her flat chiseled lower waist bound by her ultra low dark blue jeans.
"Don't take the jacket off. People will look at you. You look sexy that way. Or what do you say... hot"
"Ok meri maaa! (my mother). I won't look hot, I’ll look cool. Now lets go", said Joyi putting her jacket back on as they walked out of the train towards the dosa vendor on the platform.
"Tell me something Joyita.. how are you so good in studies and an engineer when you have boyfriends and you go to parties and even drink?", asked Shilpa.
"What does that have to do with studies? You can do all that and still do well in your career you know. And all those people you saw in the photos and videos, they are all engineers, doctors, MBAs", replied Joyita.
"Really? Even the boys with the tattoos?"
"Yeah .. " , Joyi couldn't help but laugh at her questions.
"We all study and work really hard when we need to. We even stay at work till 11 in the night when we have to. Then when we get a chance to enjoy we party, we hang out"
"Hang what?", asked Shilpa, eager to expand her trendy dictionary.
"Hang out.. I mean go to places, sit , eat , drink, chat etc. Like go to coffee shops, malls and all"
"Ohh so lucky. Malls are sooo expensive for me. Once I went to the mall with my father because I wanted to buy a pair of shoes. Sneakers for my training. They said 5000 rupees. 5000 rupees is my father's one month's salary. We run our household with 5000 rupees. I felt very bad and told him I will never want to shop at the mall again. I will earn my own money and then buy shoes"
"Hmmm yeah, I agree. Malls are usually more expensive than ordinary stores. I am sure you can find a good pair of sneakers elsewhere.", consoled Joyi patting Shilpa on her back. "But what training were you talking about?"
"Ohh I didn't tell you. I am training for my first possible international race this year. I am an athlete. I run"
"No way! An athlete! Wow!”, said Joyita almost not believing the fact that Shilpa could be an athlete. “This is the first time I am meeting a professional Indian athlete. That's totally cool, Dude. I thought you had an athletic body, ", said Joyita, pausing to look at Shilpa from top to bottomm. "But never imagined that you could be doing that for a living"
"It’s not so cool you know. Lots of hard work and very little pay. No one cares for us. They think I am talented so I am in it. I am doing it because I will get scholarship from sports quota to study. Then I can get a job at a call center and then I can be like you all. Hang out and go to discs and buy iPods"
"What? Why would you want to be like us? There are so many software engineers but athletes are so few in this country"
"Because ultimately you are the ones making our country prosperous. You are the ones earning lots of money and living good lives. Not us. We still listen to cassettes on broken tape recorders and have roadside filter coffee and get enough money to barely make ends meet. We are only a few but those many big malls are still unreachable for us. You don't run but you wear Reebok shoes and Nike jackets and have iPods to listen to music from. Look at my shoes" , said Shilpa pointing to her old pair of old white sneaker like keds.
"But Shilpa that’s not the right attitude. You should do what you are talented at and work hard. Anyone can be a call center employee but only one or two can go to Olympics and win medals for the country"
"Olympics is a long way to go. I am not even aiming for that. Do you aim to be Narayan Murthy just because you are in software? No. You do your regular job and you can still do all the things you want at my age. Your one year's salary is probably equal to my life time saving. I don't want to be this way forever. I don't even have the basic necessities, I can't keep dreaming of being PT Usha. Chak De India doesn't happen in real life, you know. Anyway lets hurry, the train will leave in 10 minutes"

They bought some masala dosa and munched on it together and talked some more about their lives. About mobile phones and shared landlines that went dead every other week due to rains, automatic cars and cycle rickshaws, abroad trips and life in a small town, boyfriends and girlfriends, Indian software and Indian sports, about call center employees and government employees, about life here and life there.

Back on the train Joyita checked her belongings to ensure everything was still there. She thanked the aunty for taking care of the stuff while they were gone. The two new friends chatted for some more time, saw some more videos and photos, played some games and laughed a lot. For both of them the conversation was a learning and teaching experience. Joyita was surprised to discover that all the things she took for granted were luxuries for a huge population of Indian girls like Shilpa. "You mean you get water for only a certain time during the day? Man, that can be so hard.”
“In your grandmother's village they still don't have electricity? Like not even light and fan?"
“I can’t believe that you have never seen a real pizza or eaten one”
"You guys still pay dowry, really? That's crazy. During your marriage if the boy's family asks for dowry just give me a call. I'll straighten them out with the help of my lawyer friends"

Shilpa on the other hand was amazed at the kind of lifestyle that girls her age or even younger led in cities. "You can come home with a boy when your parents are there and seat him in your room? Wow!"
"You pay 100 rupees for a coffee??!! Aiyoo! And 10,000 rupees for the iPod?!"
"You can talk to anyone across the world free of cost? Then why do they still have ISDs? Your hang out costs must be making up for all the free calls!", giggled Shilpa.

Hours passed in such discussions interleaved with music hearing sessions on the iPod. It was almost time for the train to reach it’s destination. Joyita gave Shilpa her mobile number and asked her to get in touch with her whenever she was in Hyderabad. "One thing I'll say again, Shilpa. Don't give up on your dreams. I know you want good things in life, but those are material things, they don't last forever. They are definitely not worth giving up your talents for. Don't join the herd, create your own path, babe!"
"Thanks for the advice but it’s easier for you to say all that since you are not in my shoes.", said Shilpa stretching her legs straight and raising it up so Joyita could see her shoes. "Literally", smiled Shilpa and they both laughed.

The station arrived. Joyita was going to get off at Hyderabad and Shilpa was to continue a few more stations down to her town. She helped Joyita get off the train with her luggage. "Bye babe. Thanks for teaching me so many things! And yes, think about Hrithik Roshan, he is nice", said Shilpa hugging Joyi. "Thanks to you too! Many things you said are an eye opener for me. And if Mr.Roshan ever works out, you'll be the first person to know. Anyway take care and call me. Bye!"

The train began to move. Shilpa returned to her seat and sat down looking out of the window watching Joyi walk off with her backpack and luggage. When the train had pulled out of Hyderabad station, Shilpa looked around and then reached into her pocket. Out came a shiny black iPod nano with white headphones. She had managed to keep Joyi's iPod for herself. She looked at it and smiled with admiring eyes, like it was her catch of the day. She put the headphones on and started listening to it on full volume. The sound was loud enough to reach the old aunty. She looked up from her stitching and stared at the new iPod owner for sometime. The new iPod owner was immersed in the sound with closed eyes, shaking her head to the rhythm.

Joyita had just stepped out of the station and gotten into a cab. Once settled she reached into her pocket to take her iPod out. She looked in the other pockets. It wasn't there. She frantically checked her purse. It wasn't there. She remembered distinctly that she had it in her jacket's pocket before stepping off the train. Her phone rang. It was her roommate. "Hey Nidhi.."
"Hi Babe, did you get a cab or should I come to pick you up?"
"No am fine. But I think I just lost my iPod"
"What? How? You spoke to me a few minutes back, did you have it then?"
"I don't know. I think I dropped it somewhere cause I am sure I had it in my pocket till I got off the train. Someone could have easily lifted it from my pocket at the station also. It was pretty crowded."
"Do you want to go back and check at the station?"
"Hmmm thinking...Actually chuck it. You know Nids, thinking of it I think it’s God's way of telling me that I can now buy the iPod touch that I have been eying for so long"
"Good heavens, babe. I think it’s God's way of telling you to be more careful!"

The train had reached Shilpa's town. She got off with her white headphones still plugged to her ears and kept the sleek new device in her hands to attract attention. She was excited about going for her practice with it. She had seen photos of Joyita working out with the iPod tied to her upper arm. As she walked imagining all the stuff she would do with this new loot, suddenly it stopped playing music. She took out the device, pressed all buttons but it would not turn on. "The batteries must have died. I'll go home and replace them.", thought Shilpa looking for a place to put the batteries in. She didn't find anything. "Maybe this needs small batteries like watches", she thought. She saw a wide outlet which did not make much sense to her. She couldn't figure out what went wrong. No one in her small town would know how to fix it either. She would have to wait to go to Hyderabad to get it repaired. She felt disappointed that after all her efforts to stealthily cheat a friend and steal from someone who trusted her, she wouldn't be able to use it. She continued to fiddle with it trying to do something to turn it on as she crossed the road. Suddenly a small boy riding a cycle bumped into her. The sudden contact shook her and threw the iPod off her hands on the road and before she could pick it up the boy rode the cycle on it shattering the small device into pieces. Shilpa screamed at the boy and knelt down on the road, tears rolling down her cheeks. Gathering the iPod shards in her hands she remembered Joyi's words "I know you want good things in life, but those are material things, they don't last forever"


(c) Payal Chakravarty,2008 - All contents of this blog are intellectual property of Payal Chakravarty.