ISSUE 34

By the way, I have a girlfriend.

I stare at the sentence on my phone’s screen, at the cursor taunting from the edge. Once I press send, I’m either free from my secret, or cut off from my family. I delete the sentence and lean back into the vinyl bus seat.

Isha throws me a disapproving look but I turn to the window as if she’s not next to me.

Outside the bus’s window, the houses speed away, dragging my hometown into view. Brick houses, tiled roofs, dense canopies of mango grooves, coconut trees bending into the background behind electric posts and the orange early morning sky diluting to a light blue. A hundred posters crowd every visible wall, fighting for dominance, featuring heroes either posing with a gun or a love interest as if there’s no difference between the two. If it isn’t movie posters, it is colourful paintings of politicians embellished with their names and their party symbols. It seems like nothing has changed, it seems it’s still my old hometown.

But, today, it is more accepting of love. Of my love.

As Isha shifts in her seat, I reach into my purse and take out the phone. She leans in, hoping I’ll type the message again and press send this time. But I open Twitter and scroll through the tweets – the array of rainbow flags, the headlines, the crowds of people distributing laddus, the tearful men and women hugging each other. Section 377 of the Indian penal code is gone, hopefully forever. Though I’ve seen these at least a hundred times, every single time is special. Every single time warms my cheeks, lightens my body and drives me to want to jump and scream.

I open one picture – a mother and father holding a board saying, ‘My son’s love is no longer a criminal act’. I wonder what my parents would think of this. Perhaps, they’d agree. Or, perhaps, they’d ask me if I’d want to marry him.

‘You should’ve sent that message. They have to know,’ Isha says, peeping into my phone.

‘I don’t want them to know this over the phone.’

Isha is quiet for a few moments. She then leans onto my shoulder and squeezes my hand warmly. ‘Look, I’m with you through this. I will be there no matter what. I didn’t come all the way to Tamil Nadu just to abandon you.’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t be afraid. You’re not confessing to a crime. Well, not anymore, anyway.’

I chuckle. ‘Still, I don’t think I should let them know over the phone.’

‘Last time, you said you couldn’t look into their eyes.’

I press my lips and think of my parents’ faces. I simply cannot fathom what their reaction would be when I tell them. Whenever I try to picture it, my imagination shuts down.

My fingers hover over the phone as I search for words to type. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I just can’t. I quietly slide my phone back into my purse. Isha sighs and holds my hand tighter.

‘You know, plan B is still there. We can just move to a different city, get a job there and live together. No one has to know.’

‘And how long will you keep living that lie?’ Isha asks. I cast my eyes down at the dusty patterns of the bus floor. She grabs my wrist, her warmth giving me hope, giving me strength. ‘I’m sick and tired of dodging criticism, of being afraid to live.’

‘Look, it’s not about the pain I’ll feel. It’s about the pain I’ll cause. My parents gave their livelihood up for me. My father sold his farm so I could live in luxury, eat whatever I want and study as much as I like. He gave up his dream for mine. My mother lost nights of sleep staying awake next to me, making me tea till four in the morning though she had to run back to work at nine. Half the days she doesn’t eat breakfast. But she makes sure I do. I cannot imagine a life where they’re in more pain because of me.’

‘I understand, but…’

‘No, you don’t, Isha,’ I say before I can stop myself. Isha is quiet for a second, her eyes searching mine for anger.

She turns and stares straight ahead at the empty rows of seats in front of us. ‘I too love my family. My parents don’t want to lose me, and they certainly don’t want your parents to lose you. If your folks agree, Pa will fly here from Delhi and meet your family. But if they don’t…’ Isha looks away into the aisle. After a moment of silence, she reaches for my hand again. This time, we hold on tight and keep our lips zipped.

Late in the morning, the bus drops us in a dry, abandoned stop covered with dirty walls and roofed with asbestos. Isha refuses to sit on the dusty cement slabs that were once intended to be seats. I scout for air-conditioned taxis but, when none come in sight and Isha begs for literally any kind of shade from the sun, I settle for an overpriced autorickshaw. The auto races through a curtain of hot air and swerves into a maze of streets, throwing me onto Isha at every turn. After twenty minutes, it comes to a halt in front of the red gates of my father’s ancestral home.

Once I pay the driver, I turn my attention to Isha. She smiles at the wide building in front of us – the layers of trees, the pots of ferns hanging off the roof, the carved teak pillars lining the red oxide porch, the bluish-white paint peeling off the walls, the grills of the windows curled into intricate patterns. ‘So, this is what a traditional Tamil house looks like,’ she says, her hands on her hips. ‘Now I’m excited to see a Tamil wedding. Again, who’s getting married?’

I think for a second. ‘My father’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s daughter.’

‘Oh, man, she sounds super close to you.’

I laugh but quieten when I look around the ominously silent street. The only hint of life is the fading groan of the autorickshaw vanishing around the corner. Besides us, there is no human anywhere on the street lined with decaying tile-roofed houses. If not for the faint mooing coming from the dairy farm nearby, this might as well be a post-apocalyptic town.

Before I can remark that something seems wrong, Isha pushes through the scalding hot gates. We are startled by a loud ringing noise. Isha laughs. ‘Oh my god! Your gates have bells!’ My eyes narrow on the golden fixtures dangling off the gate’s top. A new addition. As I stand frozen to the tar road, the wooden doors on the porch click, swing and smack against the walls.

A second later, all the children of my five aunts file out into the front yard, stampede the elaborate rice flour kolam drawn near the entrance and, in a hazy clamour, enquire about the weather in Delhi and my university life. Some of them yank at my luggage. First, I assume that they want to help me carry it but then, I notice Shri, who is twelve or thirteen, open my bags and scavenge for electronic gadgets. This has never happened before, so I manage nothing but a stupefied smile. Isha grins at me from the sidelines, an amused observer. I stand at the porch for a bit, chatting about the temperature and safety issues of the capital while nervously eying Shri swiping through my tablet.

Isha glances around, squirming under the sun as more time passes. Eventually, my cousins lose interest and trickle back into the house. Shri places my tablet back in my bag and disappears.

Once inside, I understand why my cousins were eager to tumble out. The adults in the family – aunts, uncles, grandparents – sit around in sullen stillness. The fans’ whirs, the newspaper’s rustles and the tapping noise clay pots make when they’re tilted for water are the only sounds I hear. I quietly march through the living room and across the open courtyard whose cement floor burns my feet. I peer into the ground floor bedrooms and find nothing but precariously open bags strewn across the furniture. The kitchen that’s usually teeming with my aunts and cousins is empty with no aroma of chicken or fish curry.

I find my mother crouching by the stairs deep inside the house with one of my aunts. She smiles at Isha, gestures upstairs and whispers, ‘Go, freshen up and take rest. If you’re hungry, there are idlis in the kitchen.’

‘Why, what’s wrong?’ I whisper back.

Her lips curl into a smile but her eyes don’t wrinkle. ‘Nothing, we’re just talking. We need to go to the bride’s feast in the evening so get ready by three.’

I move towards the stairs but Isha grabs my shoulder as if to remind me of our purpose. I stop hesitantly. ‘Where’s Appa? I … uh … I want to talk to you both.’

There it is, the flash of fear and worry in Amma’s eyes. ‘He’s … gone out to buy meat. Isha must be tired. Why don’t you talk to him when he comes back? Just go to Nandini’s room. She’s waiting to see you.’

We walk up the stairs as I distractedly jabber about which aunt’s daughter Nandini is and about our tradition of attending a feast in the bride or groom’s house the night before the marriage depending on who you’re related to. From the corner of my eyes, I can see Isha’s hands trailing up the wooden railings of the twisted staircase. The tiny ring we’d exchanged glimmers on her long finger. Looking at the way she moves and feeling her presence in my childhood house fills me with joy. This was the only place I hadn’t shared with her. Now that she’s been here, I feel like she’s been in my life all along.

As I refocus on the wooden steps near the hallway upstairs, Isha grabs my hand and climbs up to my step. For a moment, she stands against my back in a half-embrace and giggles onto my neck, her breath tickling me. Then she brushes past me to the hallway above, leaving me struggling with the urge to roll across the wooden floor in her arms.

Once upstairs, I glance down with the same smile across my face and catch a glimpse of Amma’s head. My aunt seems to be gone. Amma, instead, leans on the wall and wipes her face with the pallu of her sari, as though she has been crying. But before I can climb down, my aunt swoops in again. Amma jumps upright and responds to her with a cheerful voice. There’s no point in talking to her now.

I walk into the hallway where Isha waits with our luggage. Following the fan’s noise, I lead Isha into what I think is Nandini’s room. Once I push through the door, to my relief, a cold, air-conditioned breeze washes past me. I rush in and toss my luggage onto the charpoy cot while Isha laughs at my reaction from behind.

‘It’s going to break,’ Nandini says bluntly from across the room. She sits on a suitcase by the cupboard exactly under the air conditioner and holds her mehendi covered hand out to it. Five half-emptied cones are scattered around her along with a couple of thin-paged design books. In their midst, a bowl of ground mehendi sits, spreading a strong scent that I haven’t smelled for at least four years.

‘Where are the others?’ Nandini asks me as I walk up to her and drop onto the floor next to her. Isha awkwardly sits on the cot behind me as Nandini refuses to acknowledge her presence.

‘Downstairs,’ I reply, ‘By the way, this is Isha, my classmate…’

‘What are they doing downstairs?’

Isha reaches for her phone.

‘What’s going on? The house looks like someone died.’

Nandini’s eyes widen. ‘Don’t you know? They found out about Rahul.’

Rahul, the cousin from Chennai. ‘What about Rahul?’

‘He likes a girl?’ She notices my confusion. ‘Apparently he wants to marry this girl from college. But she’s from a different caste so Chithi and Chithappa don’t want him to marry her. They told your father to try and change his mind. I guess Rahul said something disrespectful to him. Your father was shocked and was yelling at him for a while. Then he left the house saying that he would never come here again if Rahul marries that girl.’

Isha has stopped scrolling through her phone. She looks down at me and gulps. If they’re not even accepting of inter-caste marriages, forget about same-sex ones.

I turn back to Nandini, speechless. But she doesn’t seem to care much. She resumes staring at her mehendi without offering words of consolation.

I lean on the cot, against Isha’s legs. I expect her to reach down and touch my hair as she always does. But she doesn’t, and I’d only be lying if I act like I don’t know why. I grab her cold hands, trying to cling to her as though she’d fly away any minute. I turn to face her, but her eyes are unfocused, her mind deep in a cloud of thought.

The door swings open and my father steps through. His lips are pressed into a stern line. ‘Come, Gauri. We’re leaving.’

I hesitantly get to my feet. He lets himself into the room, bundles a few bags together and shoves the handles of the rest into my hands.

‘Come, let’s go.’

Nandini and Isha get to their feet but they don’t open their mouths.

I look to mother. But she stands with a bag in hand, ready to leave. So, I inch towards the door and walk into all my five aunts lining the hallway. Appa’s sisters insist that he should to stay, telling him that Rahul is young and doesn’t know better. But my father walks through the corridors in grim silence.

Isha wades through the crowd in confusion. I grab her hand as we walk together but Nandini walks between us, forcing us to split apart. I try to look at Isha, to tell her that everything is okay. But all I can see is the side of Nandini’s stern face.

Once we’re outside the house, my father takes our bags to be loaded into the taxi parked in the front yard. As he passes by Isha, he refuses to take her luggage and mumbles to her with downcast eyes, ‘Take the other taxi to the bus stop.’

I expect Isha to turn to me, but she looks ahead to the road. An ancient Ambassador car is waiting outside. She stuffs her phone into her bag, zips the bag and tosses it onto her shoulder. I keep staring at her, hoping she’ll turn. But she doesn’t.

Just as I’m about to shake her shoulders and ask what’s up, Shri walks over.

‘So, is it true? Is she really your girlfriend?’

It takes me a minute to understand that sentence. I hear the heart beat heavy in my chest.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Rahul Anna told me and Nandini last night,’ she replies. Nandini, hearing Shri’s words, grabs her hand and tugs her away from me.

I gulp and look up at Isha. She stands still, a few steps ahead of me. She would’ve heard what Shri just said. Clutching the belt of her bag, she turns just her head to face me.

‘Are you going to tell your parents about us now?’

I turn to my father, his head lowered as he heaves our luggage into the back of the car. My mother stands close by, her head hung low, gasping gently from sobbing.

‘I … I don’t think I can. I’m sorry.’

Isha waits for a minute to make sure she has heard me right, to make sure I’ve said my final words. Then she marches out the house and climbs into the taxi.

The Ambassador car takes its time to start, I watch it disappear with Isha down the streets of my old hometown.