‘The chapatti is too thick,’ complains Zeenath.
Jagath turns towards me and in his usual calm, soothing tone fit for a Kannada Hindu godman asks, ‘Why do you want to call her?’
Zeenath doesn’t let me think. ‘He asked you something . . .’ harangues Zeenath.
‘Let me fucking collect my thoughts,’ I protest.
‘Collect my thoughts?’ scoffs Zeenath. ‘Your phone doesn’t have a single number of a person who’s not important to you and it has hers?’ snarls Zeenath.
‘Why is Aanchal important?’ asks Jagath.
I sigh. ‘It’s weird,’ I confess. ‘Aanchal . . . she’s been a source of, like, strength. She’s like . . . the world wasn’t kind to her family and look at her now . . . she fought on, soldiered on . . . and, you know, gave her family all that they needed. If only I can—’
‘A lot of people do that. Just open Humans of Bombay, it’s filled with such stories,’ scoffs Zeenath. ‘Your case is different—’
‘Don’t compare two kinds of suffering, Zeenath,’ interrupts Jagath. He gives me the phone. ‘Call her.’
‘Whatever,’ shrugs Zeenath. ‘This is a mistake.’
I dial the number. It’s switched off.
‘See, this is good,’ says Zeenath.
7.
Aanchal Madan
It’s 11 p.m. My stomach hurts from a full portion of butter chicken that I just finished. I cradle a cup of chai and my phone.
The airplane mode is still on.
Vicky would have called incessantly for the last couple of hours. My phone would have been unreachable.
In these two hours, I have clicked a picture every few minutes. The chicken. A selfie in the mirror. The tea. The hotel room. The show I’m watching on my laptop. A selfie in the restaurant mirror.
I switch off the airplane mode.
The phone pings to life.
I wait.
I wait for Vicky’s anger to start to show up on my phone.
I revel in the anticipation. To know that Vicky would have tortured himself wondering where had I gone. Whose jokes was I laughing at? Did I smile at someone? Did someone brush themselves against me? How angry would he have got? Sometimes, I think about my shackled future and fantasize about how I would eventually kill Vicky slowly. Through trans-fats, through stress, through constant nagging, through liver failure brought on by his mounting consumption of alcohol.
I check my phone.
48 notifications.
32 unread messages.
All the messages are from Vicky. He walked right into the trap. I feel myself smiling reading the very first message. Like a writhing, dying fish.
Aanchal?
09:54 pm
R u thr?
