As I was leaving the room, I heard Baba say, ‘One boy stuck to a bad job because of a girl, the other won’t even get to college because of one.’
‘That girl from his school is a petni,’ said Maa.
I stopped.
I couldn’t take it any more. I turned around and charged at Maa, all sense of love melting away. I raised my hand and only stopped a few inches from her face. Baba swung his hand at me and I blocked his blow. He cowered away when I threatened to swing. They muttered and stammered and couldn’t utter a straight word. I shouted at them to shut up once and for all. I told them that this was the last time they would say anything about Brahmi or Boudi or anyone, and that I, for one, will not tolerate any of their bullshit, and if they chose to continue this behaviour I will walk out of this house and never come back again . . .
NO.
I didn’t do any of the above.
But standing there with my back towards them I thought it. It happened in my head. Then I walked to my room and now I am writing this.
11 January 2000
Everything that I wouldn’t have imagined would ever happen has already happened so what happened today shouldn’t have surprised me but it did. Maa had recruited Boudi to knock some sense into me.
‘You need to study, Raghu,’ she said in the taxi to the hospital for her doctor’s visit.
‘I have heard it all before, Boudi. I don’t need a pep talk.’
‘I believe you do,’ she said.
‘Not again. Two days—’
‘You need to talk about this, not with me but someone else,’ said Boudi.
I believed it was going to be Dada who was probably waiting for us at the hospital.
‘We just crossed—’
‘We are not going to the hospital. I don’t have a doctor’s visit today.’
‘So where are we going?’
‘To see Brahmi,’ she said.
‘What? Why? Did you talk to her?’
‘No but we will. It will be nice if you tell me where she works so you can talk to her and figure this out,’ she said.
At this point, I threw the biggest fit I can recall. The only thing I didn’t do was jump out of the moving vehicle. An hour later, tired from the ranting and the complaining and the arguing about how it was futile, we were outside Brahmi’s office in Gurgaon.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Boudi told me. ‘Just talk to her. It’s better to be certain about a few things. If she still loves you, let her tell you that. If she doesn’t then you should start to move on. Either way, you have to talk to her about this.’
Boudi asked the receptionist to call Brahmi. The receptionist made the call and it went unanswered.
‘Can you try again?’ she asked.
The call was unanswered again.
‘Did she come in today?’ asked Boudi.
When the receptionist checked the register she found that Brahmi hadn’t checked into office today. Boudi put on her brightest smile and asked her if she could tell her if Brahmi came the day before.
‘She missed office a couple of days last week as well,’ said the receptionist.
Boudi thanked the receptionist, and asked her if she could ask Brahmi to call on a number—she gave the number to Dada’s office—and we left.
