‘I’m sorry to hear that—’
‘My cousin was driving, his wife was in the passenger seat. My cousin swerved the car to save himself. The truck crashed into the passenger’s side.’
‘Okay, hmm.’
‘The investigation said that it was because of driver’s instinct. It happens with drivers all the time. They steer to save themselves. The passengers sitting directly behind the driver are usually safe.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘With your accident, the opposite happened. You said only the driver’s side of the car was damaged, your mother’s side, right? The passenger side, and where you were sitting, right behind your father, were undamaged. Would that mean Aunty would have steered the opposite way? Put herself in the accident? She put herself in the crash,’ I hypothesize.
He goes silent. I can see his eyes, he’s no longer here. He’s visualizing the accident.
‘She . . . she might have saved you guys. I don’t know . . . just feels like that.’
16.
Daksh Dey
They told us Mumma had to be extracted from the car using metal cutters. The nurses told me they used a craniotome to cut a part of her skull. The doctors informed me that there was pressure building up from her brain bleed. The staff told us that though her body was broken in multiple places, it was her mind they cared about. Statistics were thrown about, CAT scans were shown, alternatives were discussed, second and third opinions were taken, lawyers were engaged, the police were informed. We were told if we didn’t pay and Mumma regained consciousness, she would be put in jail. Grief counsellors were appointed, end-of-life plans explained to us, but none of them said there was a chance that it wasn’t pure luck that the rest of us survived.
They didn’t tell us she could have swerved tosaveus.
They didn’t tell us we were alive because of Mumma.
‘Another one,’ Aanchal says and shows me another accident where the driver swerved to save themselves. The driver survived, the passengers died.
Aanchal’s doing this to help. Her eyes are bright, her face flushed, and I can’t find the heart to tell her she’s making me relive the accident.
‘You can send me the links later.’
She gets the point.
‘But thank you,’ I say.
‘Don’t embarrass me by saying thank you. It’s nothing.’
‘It’s everything. Because someday I will have to explain the accident to Rabbani, and who Mumma was. And I have always feared that all she will remember about her is that she caused the death of four people. Now, I have something. She saved us. That’s going to be Mumma’s story,’ I say. ‘By the way, how’s the tea?’
‘Too much sugar,’ she remarks. ‘I like it. This is how it should be.’
The sugary tea at the signal was at one time unpalatable. Now it’s part of my routine. We are all capable of doing things we once thought impossible.
‘How are your parents?’ I ask her, remembering how cute the two of them were.
‘They are good,’ she answers like she’s hiding something. She continues, ‘They keep finding some reason or the other to stress about.’
‘That’s what parents do, right?’ I say. ‘And how’s Gaurav,choro ka raja, Daniel Ocean, heist expert?’
I watch her face fall.
‘Hey? Hey? I’m joking. I’m glad he stole it. It was high time I stopped playing anyway. I was pretty shit at it.’
‘You’re not the only person he stole from,’ she says glumly. ‘He . . . he stole from us, dropped out of college. Then he ran away and came here, to Mumbai, but . . . it’s tricky, he’s . . .’
‘Drugs?’
‘Games,’ she answers. ‘DotA,Counter-Strike. He wants to be a gamer.’
