‘One day, beta, she’s going to look back and regret this decision. You mark my words. She will miss a family and then all this career growth will count for nothing.’
‘But she has a family, Uncle. You, Gaurav, Aunty... what else does she need?’
‘Her own family,’ cuts in Uncle.
‘... but things have changed, Uncle. You also know that. She has worked so hard in her life. Why shouldn’t she want success?Hai na? And I’ve known for very long that everything she does, she also does for you. She wants to give you rest. But if you start scolding her for this, not talking to her, then she will lose all her strength. Please don’t do that. We will see what the future holds. For now, don’t break her hope.’
Her father exhales deeply. ‘And you were okay with what she did?’
Some lies are better than truths. There’s no place for idealism in happiness. If there was, Aanchal would not have done what she had done for her happiness.
So I say, ‘It was her decision.’
My mind wanders off to what the future might have looked like had things been different. Aanchal and I in a one-storey rowhouse. On the ground floor, it would have been her and me, upstairs Rabbani and Baba. We would have had a little garden with our three-year-old kid plucking flowers, and Gaurav monkeying around with Baba’s blade-runner prosthetics. These warm visions of the future hurt even worse because they had been within my grasp. Gaurav’s a brother, I love him more than I should. And her parents love me more than I have given them reason to. If only Aanchal...
The gnawing ache in my bowels intensifies.
‘Are you okay, Daksh?’ asks Uncle. ‘You’re sweating.’
‘I’m fine...’ My voice is punctured by a groan. A shooting pain rises from my lower abdominal area. ‘I must have eaten... something bad.’
‘Aunty has homeopathic—’
Before Uncle can complete what he’s saying, my knees buckle under me. The pain’s unbearable.
My words slip out in a painful whisper.
‘I . . . I . . . think I need to see a doctor.’
13.
Aanchal Madan
‘You should have gone with him,’ Maa scolds Papa, who is sitting next to the driver, commanding him to drive faster and cut between lanes.
‘How could I know he would require an operation?’ Baba shoots back.
‘You know nothing only. He was in so much pain, and you didn’t think you should go?’
Papa shakes his head. ‘I thought it was food poisoning.’
‘... and only he got it? No one else. You say anything. Poor Daksh,’ Maa says. ‘He has no one here.’
That’s a bit rich because not only us, but every other person in the sangeet who was dancing and drinking with him has gone to the hospital after him. It’s as if he’s been spreading pheromones in the air.
Maa locks her gaze on me. Anger lingers in her eyes. She’s disappointed in me. Not getting married was acceptable; not getting married to Daksh is not.
‘What did Gaurav say about Daksh? Is he okay?’ she asks me.
‘He said they will operate on him in an hour.’
Maa nods.
No one says another word in the car. Which is a relief. Gaurav’s damning revelation should have triggered a torrent of judgement and vitriol from my parents, yet they have been remarkably restrained. Maa refused to speak to me and Papa, instead of speaking to me, wanted to talk to Daksh. But then, Daksh distracted everyone by doubling over on the beach. His engorged, bursting appendix saved me. The wedding party, which had been too drunk to even remember their own names, descended to the lobby, called an ambulance and then took a fleet of taxis to the hospital. While I am indebted to him for this timely distraction, I am surprised at the degree of affection these strangers have for a guy they met only hours ago. It’s not the first time that this has happened. Time and again, I have seen people at Gaurav’s events—the shrewd marketers, the ambitious brand executives—turn mellow and treat Daksh like he’s one of them. Last year, I told Gaurav he was stupid to be splitting the revenue of Phoenix Rising Gaming evenly between Daksh and him when it was he who was the undisputed star gamer. Gaurav looked at me as if I was an old, evil hag trying to poison his ears.
‘You don’t know where I would have been had he not been there,’ Gaurav had said coldly to me.
‘You would have found another way.’
