‘Did you hear, you son of a whore?’ he pointed at me. ‘You didn’t, did you? We will kick those Pakistani troops out of our country. We won the war. We won’t allow them inside this country or this house. Go to Pakistan with them!’
He slumped back into the sofa, cradling the bottle like a child, smiling and crying. I waited for him to slip into a daze. I sneaked out to see Brahmi. By the time I got there, she had slept with her head resting on the window ledge. I waited. What if she woke up looking for me and finds me gone? What precedent would that set for our love story? She woke up after an hour. We tried what she had taught me over the past week—Morse code. Together we memorized the little dashes and dots for every alphabet. I learnt the words I LOVE YOU rather quickly.
. .
. - . . --- . . .- .
- . -- --- . . -
‘So for every dot you flick your torch once and for a dash, twice without pause,’ she had explained.
Little flashes of light for every letter in the alphabet. Every phrase we said to each other during the night took a painstakingly long time to execute and decipher which meant we were really careful in picking what to say. Which I think is the only way to have a conversation. The flickering of the light carried our messages between us through the night. But no matter how many different ways I tell her I love her it always seems inadequate. I could use up all the words in the dictionary but I still wouldn’t be able to aptly say how I felt about her. She felt like a part of me.
28 July 1999
Rishab, Sahil and I hung out at the terrace of Rishab’s rather aristocratic house, sitting, talking about the girls in the class. Rishab and Sahil were at ease talking about skirt lengths, the imagined boyfriends of our classmates, and their projections of the peak breast sizes, all of which made me uncomfortable because others might be discussing about Brahmi and me too. Rishab told us stories from his last school, about his legendary seniors who had dated each other and sometimes college-going women, and in some cases—teachers (though those seem more like myths). Sahil, at one point, got bored and said, ‘Are we going to do what we are here for?’
‘What are we here for?’ I asked.
Rishab scrambled to the terrace door and locked it. Sahil took out a cigarette pack from his back pocket and dangled it in front of me. He said, ‘And for the record I don’t smoke. But there’s always a first time, isn’t there? So who’s going first?’
I didn’t believe a word he said. The way he held the cigarette gave him away. Had it been his first time he would have held it like Rishab, who was holding his like a knife. Which is ironical because it is after all life-altering in a permanent sort of way.
Every few months, either Maa or Baba would launch into a rant about someone whom they found smoking. ‘Look at Bannerjee’s son,’ Maa would say. ‘Smoked and died at thirty-five of a flooded lung. Tragic.’
The names would change but every story ended with death. I believed Maa–Baba’s stories till Dada told me we were subjects of systematic story-based brainwashing. Stories of men dying of smoking, in motorcycle accidents, through bad marriages, were fictional.
So yes, I decided to smoke.
Sahil lit the cigarette in his second attempt.
Sahil said, ‘I think you two are my best friends. If I don’t take my first drag with you, then what’s the point of being friends?’
Sahil took the first drag and coughed. He took three more drags. It didn’t get better.
‘Damn,’ he said before thrusting it out towards us.
I took it.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Never been surer.’
For the next half an hour, we smoked and coughed and our lungs and cigarettes burned. We ran through a pack in no time. How much worse could the cigarette smoke be than agarbattis, the incense sticks which Maa–Baba lit a lot to drive away the evil influence from their lives? Three pundits had spent four hours at our place to ensure the well-being of the Ganguly family. They told Maa–Baba that the havan would remove theburi nazar, the evil eye that had befallen us. How much further were they from making a voodoo doll of Boudi and pricking its stomach?
Sahil and I had lunch with Rishab’s parents, his two elder sisters and a younger brother. They all talked and laughed loudly. Envy wrapped around me like a creeper and bled me of any joy I had left inside.
29 July 1999
Brahmi called me tonight which was new. We had strict rules about calling each other. Maa took the call and her revulsion was clear on her face when she heard a girl on the other side.
‘Five minutes,’ said Maa and handed over the receiver to me.
We pretended to talk about homework while Maa hovered around. When Maa finally disappeared into the kitchen, and I told Brahmi that, she said, ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow.’
The school register had another date; I had checked.
‘My real birthday is tomorrow, the official is on a later date. Will you call me at twelve? I have permission to stay up late,’ she said.
