DR. SHRAVAN (LONDON)
Can you take over at the clinic?
Ritu sat up. The taut tension in her hair snapped.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the hairstylist winced, his fingers reaching for her hair again, but gently.
“No,” Ritu glanced up. “I’m sorry I startled. Are we finished?”
“Just softening up the ends…”
“And then bangs!” Maya came to rest her butt on the island in front of her. Ritu stared at her.
“What? Don’t stare. You would rock curtain bangs, Maasi!”
“Don’t call me Maasi in public.”
“How does that matter? See this — excuse me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the hairstylist was already smirking at them.
“If I call her Maasi in public, would anybody believe me?”
“Not at all.”
“Exactly,” Maya came close to her face and placed her hands palm-down under her chin — “Looking 29 at the ripe old age of…”
“Dare you say it,” Ritu warned. Maya’s face came closer and she whisper-shouted — “39.” Followed by a kiss to her ear. Ritu tried holding back a laugh. She did. Very hard. It had never been possible with Maya around. A tiny one always escaped from between her teeth.
“Bangs it is then!”
“Maya.”
“Ok, let’s see this,” Maya held her phone up. “They frame the side of your face, they are easy to manage, you can sweep them back and pin them up if you don’t like them but FYI, you are going tolovethem. They will make the brown of those innocent eyes pop. And your cheekbones, Maasi…”
“I haven’t seen them in a while,” Ritu joked, turning her face from side to side in the mirror. She had her phases with weight gain and weight loss. Maya and her, both did. Genetic makeup. They were curvy at their thinnest and curvy max when the ‘En-joy’ phase hit — as Maya liked to call it. While Maya had the excuse of being a new mom and in the blissful ‘just married’ phase, Ritu didn’t have any excuse except that of the last six months being non-stop work, Green Card interviews, worrying about Maya’s gestational diabetes and impending delivery, along with a literal slump in motivation to hit the gym. Pilates had bored her, as had yoga. This had been a first. She had stuck to at least one out of the three at even her lowest.
This felt like a new low. 39. About to turn 40.
Ritu stared at herself in the mirror. Life wasn’t even close to where she had thought it would be. Scratch that — life was exactly as she had thought it to be but not even close to where she had dreamed it to be. With the kind of love she had once read about in Mills & Boons before she had given up and fallen to her knees in front of reality. That hadn’t meant a part of her had secretly not kept the hope alive. Behind cynical monologues on men and love and relationships, she had secretly hoped for one man, one love, one relationship to come and smash through every last despair. That hope had been forgotten through the years in America. But now Mumbai had happened, and reminded her of the girl she had once been.
Maybe it was the Maya DNA in her talking. Ritu smiled, glancing at Maya in the mirror, busy showing her inspo photos off Pinterest and advocating curtain bangs for a ‘heart-shaped face with round cheekbones and a V-shaped chin.’ Ritu finally gave it the consideration that it deserved, or at least, needed, in order to get Maya to shut up.
“Fine,” she relented. It wasn't as if she hadn’t had shorter face-framing layers before. But as she had grown in her career, vanity and cute looks had been traded for professional presentation. She sat back now as Maya whooped, celebrating like she had won the Calcutta Turf Club Trophy at the Racecourse. Not that she had ever played. The two of them had accompanied their family as kids, loitered around, then waited for a chance to sneak out with the driver and gorge on K Rustom’s ice cream sandwiches. Dark chocolate and butterscotch. Then a swap, because who ever stopped at just one ice cream sandwich?
With a four-year age difference, they were more sisters and best friends than Maasi and niece. And Ritu couldn't be more grateful. Her eldest sister, Maya’s mother, had done one and only one good thing in life — give birth to Maya. Two, actually — give birth to Maya, andnotraise her. Maya had turned out impeccably good thanks to how she had raised herself, alone, in that gas chamber of egos and toxicity.
Ritu had no such qualms about her own parents. But… that wasn't the only rot in families.
“Curtain bangs will look really good on you, ma’am,” the hairstylist enthused, working around her face, making her snap out of that thought. She found a smile to flash at him, closing her eyes and plotting ways to pin the bangs back. Or she could wear them while she was in India. She didn’t have work here. It was a vacation. A much-needed winter vacation with Maya and her little MM.Megha. Megha, Megha, Megha,she reminded herself, glancing at the firecracker making some reel on her phone.
You have to take my side and call her Megha. Always. Not MM. G will try, do not feed into his habit, Maasi.
To be fair, MM was cuter. MM herself was the cutest. Ritu’s heart melted at the thought of that girl. Maya, but condensed into such a tiny version with the best smell, the best smiles and even better sounds. She suddenly had separation anxiety when she had been here only a few days with her.
“Did you check if MM had her milk?”
Fuck.She bit her lip, squinting her eyes closed.
