I sat in the confines of a vast space surrounded by airy windows. I stared around at the enormous swarm of people muttering loudly. It was my younger brother’s wedding. My aunts and uncles and my cousins were excited. I sat still at the center table staring at ten photographs that swirled like a cinematograph around my head. The clamour wouldn’t stop.
Little Lalitha fell on my lap singing “my desi girl,” a song from one of the recent Hindi films. She stopped the swirl of pictures in my head as I lifted her six year-old light body to enable her to stand. She was giggling as it was fun for her to fall on people’s laps. It was probably one of her games to grab attention. I guess my thoughts had been ignoring her for too long, this thought of choosing a life-long mate from amongst these pictures. This Ravana had more than ten heads with different faces that popped in and out of my face as my hands ran through the pictures laid out in front of me. Lalitha was up to another prank with my hair and I pushed her away. Startled, a tear was about to roll down her eye, when I felt bad and smiled and gave her a peck on her cheek. “Sorry, Lalu.” She ran away, satisfied to join other kids playing in the living room. I escaped into the balcony from the constant mutter of silk sarees and ornaments.
Amma soon followed me with a plate of idlis. “Why are you standing here alone? Kanna mama and everyone is waiting to talk to you.” As I turned to look at her, she caught the despair in my eyes. “Sushila kondhai, there is no hurry, take your time. You don’t like any of those boys in the photos? Don’t worry, we can ask for another set.” I nodded. Amma fondly touched my cheek and went away. I swallowed a morsel of idli, wondering why I need to eat.
The door bell rang. “Hari anna” cried Lalitha. Hari! I was about to run out of the balcony and I stopped. I shouldn’t make it obvious. Will he ask about me? Will he come here to meet me? I waited. I felt him smile and his finger fondly touching little Lalitha’s cheek. “Pradeep, congrats yaar, time is nearing!” he teased my younger brother in his usual jovial tone. His voice rang in my ears. He sat on the sofa right behind the glass door of the balcony. His red-striped shirt suited his fair complexion. He had light stubble, just the way I liked his face. He smiled revealing his beautifully set teeth. He took a piece of mysorepak offered to him and gently bit into it…
…he wouldn’t stop, his lips all around my neck, his teeth piercing into my lips. He held me in his arms, my legs on his and smothered me with kisses. As the driver drove around Churchgate, we snuggled at the back of his car. “Don’t leave me”, he whispered softly into my ears. I pulled away from the closeness of his face to clearly look at his eyes. I peered into them through his glasses. He meant those words. The car went on and so did we. Soon we were beneath my house but he refused to let me go like there would be no other meeting again. He instructed the driver to continue driving. It was two a.m. “Hari”, I covered his mouth with my palm, “I have to go now. Can we meet again tomorrow?” He agreed. I got off from the car. “Call me after you reach home? I asked after I entered the gate. “Come online” He said. “But call me, won’t you?” He nodded.
I couldn’t recognize the door to my house anymore. I tip-toed into my house, carefully so as to not wake up my mother. Stars shimmered on my blanket as I lay beneath it thinking carefully about every detail that had passed between us in the last few hours. I knew the way he held his cigarette; I knew how he stood with slight slouch of his back. I knew how he held his glass filled with alcohol, just three fingers, the ring, middle and thumb. He would take a puff after two sips of his drink. Under those flickering lights and loud music I remembered Cummings. I pulled him close and whispered, “Have you read ‘Somewhere I have never traveled?” He shook his head. I want to recite that to you. “Sure”, he said as he put his arm around me. I stared. I didn’t expect that so soon. But I didn’t want to take his arm off. I swayed in the darkness as I watched every move of his, trying not to miss a footstep. Hari, what was it like when you went to school for the first time? Hari, what do you fear? Hari, what pains you, what makes you happy? What do you want Hari? What is it? I wanted to know all this and more. I want to ease your pain, cure your hurt, see you laugh, conquer your fears, and give you all you want. I do not know why I felt that. Now I lay under my blanket thinking how I never asked him anything, I never recited Cummings.
“Oh my God, was I not supposed to go online?” I turned on my lap top. He was online. “You didn’t call me” I typed. “I didn’t say I would, I asked you to come online.” “Yes”, I said. “Hari, I have been close to only other guy before you.” “Really?” he asked. I wanted to see his eyes, his eyebrows as he said this. “What about you?” I asked. “I shall tell you tomorrow” He said and we went off to sleep.I was in his arms as we went around the moon and flowers showered on us.
The beeps of my cell phone woke me up. It was ten am. I checked to read Hari’s name. I was wondering when we would meet today and opened the message. “Things are moving too fast for me. I don’t want to start anything that will hurt either of us” It read. I was startled. I called. No reply. I called him again. No reply. I was leaving for the US in a week to complete my degree that I had begun almost a year ago. I thought I had found someone for a lifetime but here he was running away from me. No Hari, don’t do this. You said yesterday that I shouldn’t leave you and now you are?
That was five months back and here I was still thinking of that one night. I had barely met him thrice and the third time I was swept away. Till then he was one of many guys I met as a friend. After the first meeting I felt I had known him forever. The second just made the feeling stronger and the third seemed to affirm it. “I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens, only something in me understands that the color of your eyes is deeper than all roses” I shut the book of verses.
…I now stand here watching him, from behind the glass door, this guy who never replied to any of my emails. “What am I doing God?” I wondered. Do I have to choose between some guys, when I all I can see is Hari? “Sushila, what are you doing there? Come here”, called Pradeep. He broke into my thoughts. Did Pradeep catch me watching Hari? Hari did not turn his head to look at me even then. I sheepishly dragged myself into the room. “Hi Hari”, I greeted. “Hi”, he responded. He asked about my studies and my research work. No sign of any past in his eyes, no acknowledgement. It was probably the crowd I thought. He checked his blackberry and smiled at something. Who is it? I wanted to ask. Who, Hari who?
…I spotted him on Pradeep’s Facebook account. Hari’s profile message said, “Mind and eyes are blank!” I had felt that many times. Who is this guy who feels the same I wondered. I figured from my mother that Hari was a distant relative whom I had never seen in all these years. Apparently he and Pradeep played tennis together. How come I never saw him? I messaged him on his page, “Hello, my distant relative!” That started it all. His love for books, just like mine. We read the same kind of books. We exchanged books. I introduced him to Marquez. I gave him “Of love and other demons”, my favorite book.
“Sushila”, called Shyam mama, “So which one of these guys do you like?” I looked at Hari who was still messaging someone from his blackberry. He had not even heard the question. Shyam mama picked up a picture and thrust it into my hands. “What do you think of this guy?” He asked. He invited Hari’s response. Hari looked around confused. “Oh we are looking for a groom for Sushila”, added Kanna mama. He said, “nice,” without looking at the picture. He got up suddenly and announced, “mami”, he called my mom, “I got to leave now, bye, Pradeep.” He looked at me and waved. I caught his eyes for a second. So many questions I have Hari, so many. Do you remember that night hari, do you? I got attached then. Do you think I am stupid? He broke our glance. He left. I sat there in the midst of that crowd with a picture in my hands. Everyone seemed to like the guy. My uncles were asking my mother to proceed with this match.
I left them and ran into the balcony, yet again. “Lalitha, laitha”, I could hear my cousin call her daughter. “Come dance” she said, “you have to dance at the wedding tomorrow, don’t you?” She turned on the CD player. MLV’s “Krishna nee begane baro”, rang through the house, “Begane baro, mukhavanne koro..” . I watched Hari get into his car and leave.
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