‘Happy Birthday, Maa,’ I said.
‘Stop this acting. I know you don’t love us, shona,’ said Maa and got up. Her voice was ice, her eyes angry.
‘But—’
‘They say when children grow up, they love their friends more than their own parents. But you—’
‘What about me?’
‘That’s why you don’t have friends, shona. Because you couldn’t stand by them when they needed you, just like you did with us. You only think about yourself. Don’t I know you well, shona? How you’re constantly hiding behind the diary you write.’
‘Maa. I have friends—’
‘And are you a good friend? Were you? To Sami?’
‘I was!’
‘I should have known. If you can lie to Sami’s parents about him then you can lie to anyone. He was your best friend after all.’
She walked to her room and closed the door behind her. Happy Birthday, Maa. Thank you for the wonderful return gift.
To celebrate Maa’s birthday and her impression of me, I wandered out of the house when no one was looking.
An hour later I was at Sami’s house. I hadn’t been there in months, which corroborates Maa’s statements about me being selfish and what not. The door was locked, spiderwebs on the windows, yellowed newspapers outside their door. Sami’s parents had moved. It’s hard not to feel guilty about that. For the few months after Sami had died I used to go to their house, watch them cope, partake in their grief from a distance. Then I stopped.
I loitered around, Maa’s jagged words still reverberating inside me like shurikens, shredding my heart till I found myself inexplicably outside Brahmi’s house. I sat on the pavement facing her window. I saw a silhouette in the window which I’m not sure was her. It was stupid what I did and I knew it sitting there but I couldn’t make myself get up and leave. I felt myself heal, the auricles and ventricles found their place again, the tendons snapped back, the blood flowed in my veins once more. Then I got up and came back home.
Maa–Baba hadn’t missed my absence.
19 July 1999
A piece of advice to you, future Raghu, if you’re reading this: First, don’t bother with secrets, you’re horrible at it.
You get to keep only one big secret in life. Second, never underestimate the scorn of a woman you have seen naked. Richa Mittal hadn’t yet had her revenge. Her cunning was baffling.
Today morning Sahil called me and told me what had transpired over the last couple of days.
‘Sorry, Raghu. I couldn’t lie. Brahmi made me swear on my mother and I could not lie about anything after that,’ said Sahil.
‘What happened?’
‘Brahmi knows about the fake picture, the letter, and why you did it.’
From here on, my memory of the conversation that followed is hazy. I couldn’t hear or process it properly over the sound of my shattering heart.
‘Some girl in your colony followed her.’
‘Richa?’
‘I don’t know her name. She told her that Arundhati and you were new friends, and not pen pals, not lovers, not anything.’
‘But how could she—’
‘Maybe Arundhati told her?’
Could that be? How could she have wheedled it out of Arundhati?
‘I need to talk to Brahmi.’
