The Art of 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 leftover 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 Aneesh had even gotten that printed on an apron for her, except the ‘does’ had been replaced by ‘demands’.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. As they lay on the couch immersed in passion and Aneesh was barely unbuttoning her top, the phone would ring. 

“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 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…”