By then, Baba had crumpled into tears.
* * *
Jagath comes and sits at the table.
‘Thank you,’ I tell Jagath and he waves it off.
Jagath and Zeenath start serving themselves the bhindi and daalthat I’ve made this evening.Jagath and Zeenath, entry-level techies at Wipro, had been living in one-room-kitchens at Dhumketu Apartments long before I moved in with three cardboard boxes, four-year-old Rabbani and my depressed, partly sedated Baba hobbling on a crutch.
Jagath had noted our lack of luggage as we moved into the one-room-kitchen next to his and had said, ‘Minimalist? Nice, bro.’
My minimalism was forced upon me.
The customs officer at the cargo terminal in Mumbai stared at the contents of the twenty huge cartons in which we had packed our life in Dubai. Clothes, toys, books, shoes, electronics, TV, utensils, blankets.
‘45,000 rupees’, he told us.
‘But this is just . . . stuff,’ I said, my voice barely audible.
Rabbani got down from my lap. She picked up a unicorn pillow from the pile of toys. She hugged it and came back to me. ‘I want only this,’ she said.
‘This is just . . . stuff,’ I found myself repeating.
But it wasn’t long before Jagath and Zeenath figured out the real reason behind our minimalism. They say they first talked to me because they saw a potential friend in me.
They lie, of course.
They saw me struggle with Rabbani, with Baba’s disability and with my grief. They knew I would crumble.
They saw the truth behind the smiles I gave them every morning. They noticed me on the roof of our building, where I went on the worst of the nights and closed my eyes so hard hoping that when I opened them, things would be different. On weekends, they saw me sleeping on the benches while Rabbani played with the other kids.
Then one day, to help me—and help themselves, which they claim is true but was another lie—they suggested that we should split the tasks of our respective houses to make life easier.
‘Why?’ I had asked them.
‘Who wants to spend the entire day doing chores?’ Zeenath had answered.
‘We should work together as a team, make our lives easier,’ Jagath had added.
I resisted but Jagath and Zeenath can be persuasive if they want to. I didn’t ask why they hadn’t gone to the other young people in the building with the same offer. Because I probably knew the answer.
I needed help.
Zeenath chose to do all our laundry barring Jagath’s and my boxers. Jagath, who stays up nights hunting for deals, chose grocery shopping. They knew I could cook.
They persisted with the arrangement for a few days. But after that, they said they should come over and eat at my place. They could help me wash the dishes too, after. My resistance was broken down swiftly. I, too, realized I needed help or it would break me. I could only mumble a soft ‘hmmm’. And from that night, they started coming over every night. We would eat at the small fold-out table at my place, one of us would wash the dishes, the other would entertain Rabbani.
I have never told them, but those first few quiet dinners saved my life.
I don’t where I would have been without them.
‘Stop looking at your phone, Daksh. You’re not calling Aanchal. She’s here today, she will be gone tomorrow. Why do you want to get into this? I forbid you!’ Zeenath warns me.
‘Bhai, we should do a toss. Let fate and the universe decide,’ advises Jagath.
‘Fate’s not been particularly kind to him. Don’t say such nonsensical things. Fate and the universe, my foot,’ retorts Zeenath.
‘Change your perspective,’ offers Jagath. ‘He’s sitting with us. Uncle is slowly recovering. Rabbani is turning out to be an oversmart teacher’s pet. I would say fate’s turning.’ He tears a big piece of a chapatti, dips it in the daal and eats it. ‘This is so tasty.’
