‘And?’ I asked.
‘And before I realized you were special,’ he said coldly, ‘you left school, and everything was so confusing thereafter. I think I didn’t talk to anybody for days. I didn’t know if I’d lost someone I loved, but I knew I’d definitely lost a friend—my only friend—and that disturbed me. Angered me.’
‘But I tried calling you—’
DK cut me off. ‘I didn’t answer your calls,’ DK said, looking up at the moon. ‘I guess I was angry with you and after a few days you stopped calling, and I tried to forget you and I think I did.’
He sighed.
‘Dil, I didn’t know what was happening. My father got promoted. He decided to send me to a better school. I missed you. I did. No one at the new school looked at me the way you did. Or whose jokes were as lame as yours. How I hoped for you to take my calls. How badly I wanted to talk with you, Dil.’
DK stopped walking. He pulled me to him and teasingly said, ‘Did you just start calling me “Dil”?’
‘I did. And this is how I intend to call you from now,’ I said with an air of authority.
He laughed and obliged, ‘Okay, madam.’
‘And then fate gave me a second chance,’ DK continued, as he looked at me. ‘Gave us a second chance. When my mom, out of the blue, showed me your picture last year and asked if I was ready for marriage. I didn’t answer for days.’
DK softly continued, ‘All the confusion that I’d tried to forget returned and brought the forgotten anger with it. But I was happy because I saw your picture after years. My parents didn’t know you were once a very special friend to me. They didn’t even know I once took you to a Hanuman temple for a date. Was that a game chance was playing with us, Aditi? I don’t know. But, eventually, I told them that I wanted to marry you. Because that was what I wanted.’
‘When my dad showed me your picture,’ I said, ‘I . . . I was happy too.’
He paused, turned to me, held my hands and said, ‘Listen, Aditi . . . I know I messed up, okay? And I am sorry. I think it was the anger that you, my only friend, had left me alone when I didn’t have anyone else to talk with that made me sulk all this time. That stopped me from telling you how tasty the food you cook is and how beautiful you are and how deeply I love you. I think that I knew it all this while but I didn’t want to accept it. But now, Aditi, I think we don’t need Anita’s help any more. We will work things out—together. I mean, look, you are with me now and I loved you. I still love you. And I think you love me too.’
He looked at me, waiting for a response.
‘Of course I love you, Dil.’ I said. ‘I have been waiting for a year for you to tell me this.’ I stepped closer to embrace him.
We hugged for I don’t know how long. It felt as if time had stopped, like it happens in the movies. It was magical.
The crescent moon hung high above our heads. The clouds covered the stars. A street vendor was frying fresh fish on the other side of the road. Hadn’t I wanted to go on a dinner date with DK?
‘I want to eat that fish fry,’ I told him, pointing across the road.
He looked in the direction I’d pointed in and said, ‘It’s not healthy.’
How typical of him!
‘I want it. Please!’
He sighed. ‘You do realize that you are cute when you do this, don’t you?’
With this, he turned and crossed the road. Once he reached the fish-fry vendor, he turned to me and signalled that it would take five minutes. I nodded. I wanted to eat it with him. Our first dinner date. A romantic roadside fish-fry date.
After five minutes, he turned around with two plates, one in each hand. And started crossing the road. I could see his face glowing. I could feel that he was equally excited. He climbed the divider and jumped down. I was already making plans for when we got home—the playlist we would have on while we danced, the way we would contradict each other’s Harry Potter theories while gazing at the stars, with our backs against our balcony wall, and laugh and maybe kiss too, with the bracing night breeze whistling around us. DK raised his left arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead. A car honked.
I looked to the left. ‘D-I-L!’ I screamed, my eyes wide with fear. I was sweating and my heart was pounding. The car sped towards DK. The two plates he was carrying fell to the floor, its contents strewn. I screamed his name again.
DK looked at the car that was now speeding away and mumbled something under his breath. It had missed him by inches. He got up and came rushing to me, and hugged me tight. He kept telling me that he was all right, but my heart was beating too fast to respond. My mind was numb. He kissed my forehead. And at that moment I knew that I loved him. And he knew it too.
After what seemed like an eternity, we started walking again. In silence. He put his arm around my shoulder, glad that fate hadn’t let the car separate us. Again.
Inches. It had missed DK by inches. But what if . . . ? I didn’t want to know.
I took my mobile phone out and texted Anitha: ‘The doors of the closet are now open.’
4
A Cocoon of Love
Ruby Gupta
Mala stretched languorously on the dishevelled bed and grinned joyously. She had not felt this good in years. A long-forgotten feeling of exhilaration coursed through her veins. Impulsively, she jumped out of bed and did a jig, laughing out loud. Whirling around, Mala suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She moved closer and inspected herself.
The animated eyes, full pink lips, flushed cheeks, endearingly tangled tresses, glowing complexion, all seemed to belong to some attractive stranger. Her luminous eyes seemed to contain within them some mysterious, delightful secret. An impish smile of exultation further intensified the beauty of her countenance. She leaned forward and kissed the charming woman in the mirror.
Involuntarily, her mind went back to her wedding night almost a decade ago . . .
Mala was an exquisitely beautiful, coy bride, eagerly awaiting her new, yet-unfamiliar husband. The mandatory wedding night of the countless Hindi movies that she had watched flashed through her mind. She smiled to herself in anticipation.
Of course, her husband was a far cry from the fair, well-fed Hindi-film hero.
‘A man is judged by his position and not by his looks,’ her mother had admonished her when she had raised the subject after her marriage had been ‘arranged’.
‘A plain man will love you all the more for your beauty,’ her mother had consoled her, softening a little.
And so now she waited, expecting her husband to lovingly and tenderly initiate her into the joys of marital life.
Just then, her husband, Shankar, entered and immediately locked the door, shutting out his numerous relatives who thronged outside, joking among themselves.
Mala shrank within herself.
Shankar moved up to her and lifted her chin. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, smiling gloatingly. ‘I’m going to really enjoy being married to you.’
Mala gazed at him with a smile.
‘I’ve hated my colour for as long as I can remember, but I couldn’t do anything about it. So I did the next best thing. I got a milky-white bride for myself!’ Shankar grinned triumphantly.
Her mother was right, Mala thought to herself. He will really, truly love me for the rest of my life. What more can a woman ask for? So what if he was too tall, too thin and too dark? After all, he was a civil servant and, to top it, was madly in love with her.