ISSUE 39

On an unceremonious day, the unimpressed nurse thrusts an innocuous white pill into my hand.

‘Any side effects?’

The nurse nods imperceptibly and sashays into her corner, attending to pregnant women and crying babies milling around me as a small tv taped to the wall plays videos on ovulation. I watch the Gulmohar tree outside the clinic’s window that sways gently in the wind, a familiar respite from my anxiety that is building up steadily in my throat as I chew on the bitter pill that tastes like cement. I look around meekly – quite unable to meet anybody’s eyes. I vaguely think of how my tits will go back to their regular size after the perk they’ve taken on with the six-week long pregnancy. I think of whether it’s a boy or a girl. I have this feeling in my bones as sure as the change of seasons that it’s a boy. It’s been an easy twenty minutes since the acidic pill dissolved on my tongue and yet I feel nothing. With a wry smile, I remember the time Azhar and I sat cross from each other, naked in a hotel room, a tab of acid on our tongues each, me insisting that it wasn’t kicking in. He’d smirked while he leaned against the bedrest and rolled a joint. Later, I heard that his wife had picked up the tab for the room.

I try to catch the nurse’s eye but she avoids me sleekly. I go up to her, ‘I’m not feeling anything.’ She places a warm hand across my back and guides me back to my seat. A snot-nosed kid sits across from me now, his head blocking out the meagre view of the Gulmohar tree. He stares at me, the edges of his nose crusty and hardened and I can’t decide whether I want to roll my eyes or weep.

The afternoon sun makes me drowsy and I close my eyes. I think of Medha reaching out to Azhar’s wife through a Facebook message and informing her about the affair; all good intentions and self-righteousness wound up in her spindly limbs, bright smile and shrewd eyes. A week later, I received a call from the wife. It was a sluggish Gurgaon afternoon and she’d caught me off-guard. I deepened my voice and spoke in a hard monotone – a trick I’d picked up from Azhar. Did it successfully manage to intimidate her? It’s hard to say. I feel euphoric, triumphant – she knows who I am. I wasn’t just a speck on his horizon, a girl he’d picked up at a bar and called weekly for a mind-bending fuck and my practiced ability to punctuate his impassioned sermons with timely laughs. She tried to appeal to my sense of humanity, to admit to my transgressions but I didn’t budge. Mama would have been proud. I wondered why the woman couldn’t just talk to her husband? I suppose, since we were little girls, we’ve been instructed not to question the men in our life too much. My Mama didn’t and so, she had to leave the city. Now, she lives in a place where everyone goes to bed at eight and bats hang in the mangroves lining the edges of the town, and tall coconut trees sway outside her window. It rains a lot and the water tastes sweet. I ask her if it gets lonely, she tells me she’s going swimming in the nearest ocean. I imagine she gets tired often, but not as tired as she did when she was with my father.

I’m not sure at what moment the cramps kick in – all I know is, I want to vomit, take a shit and faint, all at the same time – my entire body is rising up in revolt. When I feel like I’m about to lose consciousness, Medha bursts in through the clinic entrance – flowery perfume and a whiff of strong mint. She grips my wrist and soon, I slip into the backseat of a cab. At her home, I survey the scene – bottles of cold water and orange juice, piles of sanitary napkins – the plastic ones, not the ones made with hemp, I think to myself with bitterness. The punching bag hangs from the ceiling at the other end of the room. I think of how often Medha and I would strip down, play some grimy drum and bass and throw tight, sharp punches at the bag while we both cried out in synchronised intervals. Cries of frustration, cries of catharsis. Later, heaving but satiated, we’d collapse on top of each other and breathe deeply, in unison; anger at all the structures that didn’t fit us temporarily abated.

The rest of my friends had grown tired of the cycle of obsession and disdain I’d receded into. They’d initially responded, but soon got tired of my 4 am calls, when, my entire body reverberating with energy and unease, I would rattle off a series of questions, the answers to which would never matter. ‘He hasn’t texted back,’ ‘should I call him?’ ‘should I tell his wife? I feel like his wife deserves to know,’ ‘never mind, he texted back.’ They’d go along with my predictable episodes of mania, anger, depression with a concern that soon turned into acceptance. Like a bad apple you toss out.

After thirteen hours of bleeding through two mattresses stacked on top of each other, I drink orange juice and crack disdainful jokes about what, to an outsider, would seem like an abject state, but to the two of us is like a blood pact, a nocturnal secret we carried in our chests and go to bed with every night. That night, when Medha and I lie next to each other, hands clasped, eyes wide open, watching the Gulmohar trees sway outside her window, I tell her that I want kids when I’m thirty. She holds my hand tighter.

I think of how it all started with the migraines. Right in the middle of a Monday, working a dead-end job, scrounging for funds for a media company shadow-owned by the country’s far-right – a paralysing nine-month stint. I’d go to work in stiff, formal clothes – more a wallflower at meetings, than a participant, with men in their forties and bosses ready to throw me under the bus at the slightest hint of a negotiation not going in their favour. I believed if I just went on with life – a combination of drug-addled evenings, greasy hungover breakfasts and sleeping around with zero restraint – I would move on from the fact that the person I was in love with was now married to some other woman. I was hurtling through life at a reckless pace, thinking if I never stopped to consider, I’d never have to meet myself. Azhar’s memories pounced at me when I’d do something ordinary like brush my teeth or read a book or fake laugh at some bland joke or kiss some boy with breath hastily mouth-washed or stay silent on phone calls with my father. It had been four weeks since we’d last met and I missed his brightly lit apartment. I missed cruising down the highway in his beat up Maruti, our knees inches away from one another, silences piling up as the radio blared and Azhar shifted into fourth gear. Our time together was usually characterised by profuse but insincere apologies, relentless professions of love, wild fucking and very quiet, very contemptuous goodbyes. I think of the last time I met him; it was my birthday. I was determined to see him, and he obliged like he was humouring an errant child. We sat across from each other at a posh café downtown. I downed too much wine in the middle of a hot day, gracelessly finding his lips and clinging onto them, the unforgiving Delhi sun slipping through the cracks in the trees and through the expansive windows, waiters politely averting their eyes. Unabated kissing and crying and the aghast looks of judgment and worry from the gaggle of south Delhi aunties congregating for their weekly kitty parties, him shaking me off like a mild irritant before leaving without paying the bill. Happy Birthday to me.

I think of Ashok, the sweet driver from Bihar my father had hired for me, who was amazed and terrified at the insane abandon with which I was choosing to spend my time since Azhar had stopped calling. I think Ashok had my back better than anybody else I knew in the city. Ashok was different. Ashok cared, waiting beyond his duty hours to make sure I got home safe while I cut lines of low-grade cocaine in some random bathroom with ceiling mirrors, waking me up as I arrived at work after having passed out in the backseat, my head reeling from a terrible downer and with spittle dribbling down my formal shirt – he was reticent, quiet but loyal and his loyalty was exactly what disgusted me because I needed it so much. He had his own way of retribution where, after a particularly heavy night of drinking, he’d drive me back swerving on the widespread roads of the Delhi-Gurgaon highway, making sharp turns until I’d wildly beckon to him to stop so I could vomit by the side of the road. He’d lean against the car and watch with me grim satisfaction as he held a bottle of water that he wouldn’t extend to me.  I don’t blame him. I know if it wasn’t for Ashok, I’d be dead.

I think I am dying the first time the migraine kicks in. A burst of star-shaped white light in front of my eyes, numb fingertips and a shooting pain from the bottom of my neck to the top of my head. I think I hear the obscene crick of a neck. I distinctly remember asking Ashok to drive me to the nearest hospital before I pass out completely. I regain consciousness with an IV drip hastily taped to a greenish, exposed vein on my hand, blinding tungsten light bringing blurry shapes slowly into focus, my Mama’s worried face – she looks like she’s aged five years – as a genteel doctor called Amit or maybe Amar draws a pencil back and forth in front of my eyes. I feel a pang of relief that is immediately overtaken by irritation – I didn’t want to be fussed over, I wanted to get back to my insipid job and my 9 to 6 texting windows with my cruel lover, to cutting lines in random bathrooms of people whose names I won’t remember, but my Mama has brought me home and sits by the bed as I alternate between sleeping and eating. The times I come around from the painkiller-induced sleep, I look into her beautiful eyes, aged with wisdom and empathy, her usually cold demeanour cast aside for a warmth she reserves for when I manage to victimise myself enough to grab her attention, I understand what happens to feelings when repressed or unexplored, how they bubble up like muck rising to the surface, infecting my mind, body, lungs with their force: I’m here, reckon with me. The more I sleep, the more the migraine recedes, the more my time with Azhar began to feel like a distant memory, snippets from somebody else’s life. One night, I debate whether to tell Mama about the pregnancy, but I don’t. I question whether Mama is really happy or not. Later, my father gives my car to Ashok and I heard he started his own taxi business.

The day Mama leaves, Azhar calls me, breathless – his voice quivering with nervousness and excitement. ‘I’m going to be a father. I don’t deserve to have a daughter.’ I reassure him, ‘the least you can do is be a good father.’ I think of the time he’d cut my calls to finally pick up and snarl – ‘what do you want?’ I’d clammed up immediately and Medha had snatched the phone from my hand and disconnected it, her face contorted in disgust and determination. We’d turned up at the nearest gynaecologist – three days spent in the hitches of doctor visits, quacks trying to pinch money off for abortions that should ideally be free, in-between upcoming work presentations and a mild bout of food poisoning. She’d immediately wired thirty grand into my account, ‘don’t worry about paying it back.’ I googled a sweet lady doctor who was willing to carry it out for five instead. I’m not sure where I spent the rest of the money. Probably whiskey and stale pot at eleven am. Perhaps, some expensive brunches.

‘Come see me tonight.’ Azhar’s text arrived limply but it was enough for me. I promptly take a taxi to halfway across town at 2 am and turn up at a gated community with leafy driveways and round the clock security meant to alleviate the very practical fears of the rich. Delhi’s rich are full of fears. I find Azhar and a freckled French guy at the exclusive community club replete with a swimming pool and identical row houses. At night, once the car exhaust dissipates and the horns die down, it feels like a suburban fever dream. They are already down half a bottle of whiskey. The bar smells of expensive cologne, leather and male sweat. I’m nervous, so I sip neat vodka from a small ceramic cup with a single cube of ice. A lone bartender behind the bar, doused in amber lighting as an 84-inch tv blares images of the football match on that night. There is soft jazz emanating from one end of the bar. Everything seems hyper-realistic, like a video game, like I am an avatar Azhar has conjured to claim a new life.

‘Michael,’ the Frenchie introduces himself.

I don’t give a shit. I am drawn to Azhar’s Timurid eyes, absolutely impenetrable, his olive skin and aristocratic nose, his swagger that comes from the curious mix of money and good looks, arrogance playing around his decidedly cruel mouth. I am like a sponge with most people, mirroring their moves, their expressions, their words even, carving a space out where nothing exists except the person and I. On most occasions, this prompts people to open up to me, spilling their vulnerabilities, sometimes as badly disguised jokes, mostly as hushed secrets in quiet corners of clubs, cafes, beauty salons, libraries – congregations for the lonely. Azhar was the first person who’d left an impression on me so deep that I’d imbibed every single mood, every single slant of the eyes, nod of the head, change in intonation. Here, at the bar, he speaks to me about his conspiracy theories, his latest political artistic endeavours, his grandiose plans for the future. I listen more than I talk, I stare at him with impunity, I think of the last time he was inside me.

I grab a cigarette and Michael and I step out of the stifling bar with its purple velour seats studded with large gold buttons, wide-set wooden tables and rounds and rounds of whiskey.

‘Where’s his wife?’

‘She’s asleep.’

I take a drag and study the sweeping pool in front of me. ‘Do you think we’re in love?’ I ask the Frenchie. What would he know? He’s met Azhar only a few months earlier and immediately, been sucked into his orbit. I want to tell Frenchie that I would rip my heart right out of its cage and hand it to Azhar if he were to ask but instead, I ask him why Azhar isn’t with her and his newly born daughter. Frenchie shrugs.

‘I don’t know, but I think he needs you as much as you need him.’

Before I can respond, taken aback by the Frenchie’s astute observation or maybe his well-timed diplomacy, Azhar staggers out of the bar, all six feet two inches of him, grabs me by the waist and we spiral into the swimming pool, feet first. All the vodka drains out of me in one swift go. Azhar has already swum away from me. The Gulmohar trees are tall and imposing, like furious strokes of black against the sky and the road is hushed outside – no animals, not even a firefly. Frenchie watches us impassively, with a distant look in his eyes. Maybe he misses home, maybe he doesn’t feel included.

Azhar swims up to me and takes me by the waist before his lips part mine. I let him kiss me. Later that night, I spit in his face as I come. He says he likes it.

Azhar and I don’t meet again. A few years later, I seek his younger brother out with shameless bravado. ‘Remember me?’ Like Asad had any other choice. He’d often been the one to be unceremoniously kicked out of the bedroom he shared with Azhar on the nights Azhar’d bring me home. He’d be the one to pick me up when I was wasted outside clubs, too high to hail a taxi, out of phone credit, trying to stay away from the random boy I’d made out with for a few hours. We’d drive back to his parents’ home in silence. We’d spend the remaining hours of the night playing pool at the empty community hall and he’d sleekly avoid my questions about Azhar’s whereabouts before buying me breakfast at the local McDonald’s. I’d down my hangover in buckets of orange juice as he’d watch me with pity and fascination. He was the person who I’d met for coffee on sober winter mornings in Delhi where he’d plead with me to stop being in touch with Azhar: ‘he has a daughter now’. I’d nod, thank him for his time, give him a wooden hug; at one point, I suspected he might have wanted me.

‘I’m in the city,’ Asad texts back. I go visit him in his penthouse at the Hilton. The room that he’s booked for a month is in disarray. Formal clothes strewn across the floor with little to no regard for their expensive labels, the soft mattress littered with weed stems and stray papers, a bottle of hash oil on the bedside table. The room reeks of expensive cologne, socks that haven’t been washed in a week, half-eaten plates of burgers and soggy fries, empty bottles of beer. The force of the uncanny similarity between the two brothers, most prominent in the shape of their hands, should be enough for me to turn around and walk out but instead, I stay and draw the curtains apart. I kick his dirty clothes into one corner of the bathroom, put on the bath, tip an entire tub of bath salts into it, light some insipid candles, clear the dishes and the bottles and sit down next to him to roll a joint. His eyes remain glued to the FIFA game he’d been playing for ‘a month, now,’ he confirms. ‘Aisha’s left me. She’s gone back to Karachi.’ I look at him and don’t say anything. He beats me at the FIFA game. Later, I force him to swim with me. In the pool, I close my eyes and think of how strong the chlorine is. Asad doesn’t seem to notice and instead, tells me how he’d angered his entire family by going to Karachi and marrying Aisha, how his Indian parents, although Muslim, would never agree to a marriage to a Pakistani girl. I briefly think of how problems remain the same across borders, what being Muslim in India means. I cling to one end of the pool as the sun descends; my eyes glaze watching the stubborn streak of pink break across the horizon. Asad tells me his pain feels like physical stabs through his body. I stay quiet.

I spend a listless week in his hotel room. One night, he gets drunk and tells me how I’d be in his bed if I wasn’t the girl his brother was in love with. That night, I buy him candles that smell better and leave. On my way out, the men in stiff suits with well-groomed moustaches avoid meeting my eyes as I walk through the hotel corridor. I smell expensive cologne and important business chatter between men sitting across coffee tables by the entrance. I know all eyes follow me as I walk out. I wonder if I look expensive enough for Hilton. Maybe they think I’m a prostitute. I wonder if the people in Mama’s town think similar things about her. The burly watchman with a handlebar moustache that hides half his face smiles at me warmly as he holds the door open for me. I can feel Delhi’s dry heat already settling in my bones. I smile back at him.