“Listen I’m sorry if like before I was rude. I just …”
“I know.”
“I’ve had a very long night.”
“I can imagine. Just hang in there okay?”
She smiled and nodded
“I’m here for you, yeah. Anything you need just let me know.”
“I will, I promise.”
“Good. Don’t let this get you down.” He had his hands shoved deep into the jean pockets. “You’ve got to just, I don’t know, acknowledge how shitty the situation is, take a day or two but then get over it. Don’t let this take over you.”
She nodded.
“The way I see it, you’re not the one who got the shorter end of the stick.”
A first look of genuine hurt crossed her face. “How can you say that?”
“Because he’s the one who’s dying.”
“Oh right. Yeah. Of course.”
The tension released from her shoulders and he pulled her into a perfect hug. They fit together in a way that the air shied away from passing between them. And then he didn’t let go. So she didn’t let go. Her head shifted, he felt her nose brush the skin of his neck. His hand slid down her back gently and he pulled her closer, like they couldn’t get close enough, wouldn’t till their bodies became one. It was weird. It wasn’t the right time. But it felt good.
Like waking up from a dream too soon, he backed up and their arms dropped to their sides. The awkwardness returned. In that moment she realized they shouldn’t be alone together, even though she didn’t mind sharing oxygen with him that way. All he could think of was how everything had been screwed over the night his older brother had groped her like she was just another girl.
Laksh left without saying goodbye, the photos lining the staircase stared hauntingly back at him as if they were meant to seem happy but everything looked too manipulated.
He passed Tina on the way out, light aura of whiskey around her. Like mother like daughter, he humoured. But when she kissed his cheek goodnight she licked his skin and her lips lingered far too long. It made his stomach churn but this wasn’t the first time, so he ran out as fast as he could.
Chapter TWO
THE THEORY OF
COMFORT FOOD
The next morning dawned without a sound as though still winded from the night before. It crept up through the cracks between the heavy curtains and the floor.
Stranger things had happened before and although she didn’t know it yet, there were many more to come. When Sana woke up it wasn’t to the usual buzz of notifications but to the dirge of her dying popularity. Her phone lay cold and dead on its back, the cracks so deep she could almost see through them. Her head had the feeling of suspension, like she’d left it soaking in ethanol and now it had died out on her, preserved in everlasting glory. The rest of her body registered a hangover much faster.
The knock on her door pierced through her soul, dully knocking her further into nausea but when Tina entered, in an uncharacteristically hushed way, she felt better at once. On her tiptoes even though the room was dominated by a plush slate grey carpet, her mother gently eased herself beside Sana and hugged her. There was none of the awkwardness she had anticipated, hugging her mother felt more natural than anything else she had experienced in the last 24 hours, or the last 24 years for that matter. The smell of lavender filled the room as she nuzzled into the soft fabric of her caftan, that smell made her teeth grind. Lavender macarons, candles, even towels in the guest bathroom – like little ultraviolet stamps of Sana littering her life. Tina combed through her messy hair with gentle fingers. The light of the sun filtered in, rendering the room in a soft warm glow as though she was a fetus back in the womb again, flowing down a river of milk and honey toward the center of an Eden garden.
She was talking before her lips parted. The story of Daksh and his neighbor who was married to a beautiful girl from Hyderabad who owned a stunning collection of hijabs and worked with a shelter for old people who’d been abandoned by their families. Her husband had just lost his job and had locked eyes with her boyfriend who at the time had been smoking in the backyard and while they shared a silent smirked exchange, the lives of Sana and the other girl had somehow been bound irrevocably together.
Sana cried her eyes out. Tina cooed at her, lulling her into a drowsy stance even as she hiccupped the tears away. Her mother caressed the full dome of her skull gathering her damp hair into a thick rope, which she began expertly braiding. It was then that Sana realized there are fewer than none things in life more comforting than the weight of a mother’s hand across your head. She reached out and wrapped her arms around her like armor.
The theory of comfort food is perhaps more personal than the clothes one uses to cover themselves from nakedness. It can be anything from a warm bowl of rajma-chawal to beluga topped sushi, maybe not a food item at all but a cocktail of cinnamon and whiskey stirred through hot chocolate. The concept at its basest level is a concoction that can not only bring peace to a stressed soul but also evoke the feeling of home, one that’s usually lost in memories as time passes and you lose yourself in the routines of a.m. to p.m. Comfort food is what reminds you of running so fast you might trip over your own feet as your mother called out to you from the porch. It is what takes you back to summers spent vacationing in the hills, of lazing under the sun, of bedtime stories even though it was the middle of the afternoon. For Sana, it was the very specific bhel puri her mother made with warm boiled potatoes mixed in to the chaos of peanuts, crisp mix, and freshly chopped onion and tomato, all bound together by the lightest tangy chutney. They sat in the balcony with a giant bowl of bhel puri between them talking of things that didn’t really matter. Sana knew it was too good to be true before the sun had fully set.
That’s the thing about sweet dreams, they’re all the more bitter when they end. Sana woke up to the same view of her broken phone that had plagued her in her dream and even as it lit up to signal her snapchat notifications she had it in a vice grip, halfway hoping the glass of the screen would slice through her palm. She pulled herself from the warm bed and out into the clear air. The phone went over the edge of her balcony spinning like a frisbee. She traced the thick ledge where just hours ago she had leant next to Laksh.
The balcony door closed with a bang. In the time it had taken her to rid herself of the vibrating cellphone she had broken into a furious sweat. The back of her t-shirt clung to her skin. The sweat on her forehead was already drying, leaving behind clogged pores and a layer of grime. She could feel her hair matting and drying around her face. Without another thought she stripped off her clothes and pulled back her hair into a bun. Every nerve ending in her body fired up at the possibility of being seen. She could feel goose bumps raise from under her skin, trickling down her back and along the curve of her buttock. Her heart hammed so fast she was surprised her chest didn’t show it’s beating rhythm. Naked and alone with the hum and chill of her air conditioner, Sana could sense the rest of her day would be without repose. She drew the curtains and felt her way back to bed. Her body trilled as her body slithered into the sheets, she couldn’t hold herself back from sliding her hands over the planes of her own body drawn taut from pilates and aggressive cardio. She felt the spot in her chest where her heart played the black hole blues in an endless loop, the corners of her body that were chilly and those that were warm. She ground herself so hard against the bed it should’ve been illegal. Her hair fell around her in an inky waterfall, shielding her from the rest of the world and drew herself deeper into the pinnacle of an orgasm that rippled from the outer tips of her toes to the crown of her head from where burst a golden light she was sure would blind the whole world.
“Oh … my god,” she exhaled into the dark room. Bowl of bhel puri this was not but she was sure nothing could come close to the caress of her bed against naked skin.
Stars from above had fallen around her, serving as a reminder that even though the sun was out they were always around. And then Chanda ent
ered the room with a brazen half knock, carrying Sana’s sickly green pre-breakfast smoothie. The broom from her other hand was tossed lazily into a corner away from the carpet, the sound snapping off the last wave of the spell. Sana scrambled to tuck herself down under the covers till only her chin was visible.
“Courier for you. Should I bring them up?” She smelled of sandalwood and sweat.
Sana nodded vaguely, eyes still glassy. “Where’s Mumma?”
“She left just now, she said she’ll be late.” The broom lay in its corner as the maid went to retrieve the packages.
Sana waited till the door clicked shut and slid past the sheets to the bathroom. Something had changed, maybe in the air itself. Even the way the satin robe draped across her skin felt different.
Chanda returned with two boxes: one for a store launch – Kabir Baruacha’s invite along with a personalized gift – the other an invite to another pop-up exhibition hosted by Gemaima Khandwala. Sana set them on the bed and fished out her backup phone. It took her an hour to prep the Instagram posts. Kabir’s would go up the following morning – prime hour was from 9 to 11– and the other was for Saturday. Chanda muttered something about the low temperature, cringing under Sana and the AC’s icy glare. She offered the smoothie glass and waited while Sana chugged it down.
“What do you want for breakfast didi?”
“I don’t mind an omelet.”
“Eggs are there but no kale for the omelet.”
Sana looked at her as though she were the scum of the earth, suggesting a kale-less breakfast omelet. “Is Vikram here? Ask him to make some cereal mix like last time, but nothing too heavy ya please.”
Chanda grimaced. Oats, in her opinion, were not a meal and Sana was not a horse. “Why can’t you have a nice cheese omelet?”
Sana was over it. Chanda’s idea of a cheese omelet was nothing more than a slice of cheese singles thrown over half cooked eggs, like they were too poor to afford a block of Gouda. The nerve of some people.
“Toast and avocado, sliced not mashed. And take this stupid broom away, I just want to be alone today. Clean up later.”
That was the last time she spoke for the rest of the day.
She sipped the vile smoothie and pulled the peach robe off her shoulders, even though the AC was freezing her room up. The bay windows were fogging up in the corners where she could see behind the drapes. She sat and combed her hair acutely aware of the dream where her mother had been the one doing it for her. Just the memory of it hollowed her out from the inside. As much as it hurt her, Sana continued to comb her hair, staring into space. She took the sharp toothed comb and dragged it across her wrist watching the skin of her arm crack and wither under pressure. Conversations from the night before drifted in and out of her mind as she relived the night.
Once their tinder games were over and they couldn’t trash talk about Daksh any longer, her friends had run out of things to talk about. Gayatri told them about an experiment where she gave up shampooing for a few months and only used hot water and baking soda instead. She knew her best friend would’ve expected a better response but Sana had just been a little asshole to her instead. It was truly disgusting, she’d told Gayatri, to let her scalp oils stew and rot not just her own head but also the chi of Sana’s room. The way they looked at her made her question whether her friends had a sense of humour at all.
Sana looked at her own wide-eyed face and wondered if irrelevance was one of those inevitable things in life and she was on the fast train, fueled by her ego, to the bottomless pits of social insignificance. Is the demise of a beautiful girl a gentle progression where people slowly tire of you, or do they just wake up one day and realize they’re simply over it. Over you.
Her shoulders slumped from the exhaustion of thinking so much. She let her head fall downward onto the dresser, hoping she could cry it out. There was something of a different nature hurting inside like, well unlike anything she’d experienced before. It felt like hunger. A hunger to feel something. Something beyond the clothes she wore and the jägerbombs she knocked back. She envisioned running face first into the large fogged up bay windows. Whether she’d bounce backward or break through. She yearned for the hurt it would bring either way. She sat down in the tub, thick lavender scented steam rising around her. She thought of the weight of water on her bare chest. She pressed a finger in the space between her breasts and pushed in so that she may be able to plug the hole in there. All it left was an angry bruise.
A fresh out-of-bed selfie later, the silence settled down around her in a way that left the room without any air at all. The white noise was all-consuming, it brought back the ratchet rash from the night before and Sana had to soak her hands in water to cool her skin. Every trace of her no-makeup-makeup was scrubbed off and she slathered her face slick with moisturizer.
“He’s just a boy,” she told her quivering lip, “a stupid boy. Get your shit together.”
The tired reflection wasn’t convinced though, so she decided to lie down for sometime.
It’s just exhaustion, she thought, I haven’t had enough sleep.
It’s either exhaustion or a hangover.
Chanda dusted her room and left, only mildly protesting the untouched breakfast.
Even though it was over forty six degrees outside and the city was probably on the verge of catching fire, she couldn’t find a warm spot on her bed. No matter how she cocooned herself in the down comforter that gooey warmth she wanted was just out of reach. So she just lay there, hair splayed out like an animal, thinking of how the tar in the patched up roads bubbled up in the afternoons, melting away under the hot Delhi sun. She could’ve gone out for lunch but no one was free. Or perhaps they didn’t want to meet her – they can all just fucking die, she decided. Sana switched off the phone and drifted away.
It was a summer of firsts.
It was the first time Sana and her friends went shopping to Janpath. Blistering heat nothwithstanding, it was the seventh circle of hell where bad fashion and pushy locals thronged. It was the last time they went to Janpath.
It was their first unchaperoned holiday, destination: Laksh’s father’s new beachside villa in Colombo, because it was the first time they felt like Goa was better suited to dirty West Delhi tourists and honeymooning couples.
It was the first time she smoked pot, got so high that she never touched a joint again. They drank until the sun came up and she strolled through the wooden deck fumbling on occasion and he was there to catch her every time.
It was the first time she’d colored her hair, an ombre that would stay with her for the next few years.
It was the first time she suspected she might love him.
It was the summer of their first kiss.
-There’s only going to be seven planets in the sky tonight… cuz I’m gonna destroy Uranus.
-HAHA OMG that’s hilar
-
-whatchu u up to?
-Getting some coffee w the sis.. u?
“Surya?”
He was looking at her with the strangest expression on her face.
There were things Surya had learnt from observing her family, her mother in the kitchen, the relationships her older brother Vir would find himself often in and out of, the subtle ways in which the family elders fought and shot each other down. They were the secrets she kept closely guarded. The secret to making the best chicken curry: a handful of ground cashews. The secret to curing a hangover: a spiced gin with raw egg white. The secret to getting rid of a man: abject humiliation.
“Are you … are you seriously on Tinder again?”
“No” she dipped her head “I was just checking my phone dude, chill out.”
“Why can’t you keep your phone aside for five minutes when I’m talking to you?”
She huffed and threw it on her lap.
There were times when plans worked out to such perfection you could wonder if the universe had arranged them that way. Placed the right accouterments at the right place at th
e right time without any hints so you’d miss them if you weren’t aware. When Surya had met him at their usual hotel that day, she had done so without knowing how easy it would be for them to break up. It wasn’t a real relationship and that she had realized only when she’d made a habit of staring at walls for spiders when they fucked. The room was exactly the same as the one they walked into every time. A simple runner by the foot of the bed, two towels arranged into disfigured swans, and two sets of pillows with hard and soft tags. She saw him slow down when the tag slid around his wrist and an overdue confusion blossomed. He stared at it and made a joke because he loved talking about how hard she made him, sadly he was completely oblivious to her fit of giggles. She thumped his belly, the soft flesh bounced thrice before he jerked himself off the bed. Surya was only vaguely aware of the cruel words that came out of her mouth, the lissome curve of her body, her cold eyes. She saw him shrink faster than a dying butterfly and with a last chuckle severed all ties between them.
“How you’re that obsessed with your phone is beyond me. Listen can you please explain what happened up there? I’ve never seen you behave that way.”
They were sitting in the cheap chain café downstairs. Surya hated the coffee there, she hated the slow service and the stale food, he knew it but he was buying and he was a cheap man. She was his cheap mistress.
“Okay whatever man geez can you get over it already? I’m so over this sissy attitude of yours.”
“What kind of a person talks like that baby?”
“Okay firstly, I’m not your baby. You have a baby, with your wife”, she didn’t bother lowering her voice. “I don’t understand what your deal is. If you’re gonna be such a pussyboy over a stupid joke then you can really fuck off from here because I’m done. I can’t deal.”
She ended the conversation by putting her sunglasses on.
-Where at?
“Did you meet someone else?”