‘I would have lost my way. You don’t know anything.’
The taxi drops us to the parking outside the ER. It’s Dubai, so even the emergency section is calmly and weirdly inviting. There’s a smell of coffee and freshly baked goodies wafting in the air from the coffee shop nearby.
We take the lift to the third floor. Outside his room, Aditya and a bunch of his friends are waiting. Some of them are still in the suits they were wearing at the party. They all look worried, drunk and hungover at the same time.
‘Are you not even going to come inside?’ asks Maa as I stop at the door.
Papa holds my hand and drags me inside the room behind him. For all I know, in their minds, they have gotten me married off to Daksh because he impregnated me. They think they will convince me to be with him. But they don’t know. Vicky had once controlled me, owned me, because as a stupid seventeen-year-old, I had sent him some pictures that he held against me. Just because Daksh got me pregnant doesn’t mean I owe him something.
As we enter the room, Daksh greets us with a pained smile. People are crowded around the bed, sitting on the sofa, helping themselves to the free bottles of water meant for the patient. Daksh now wears a flimsy hospital gown, barely held together by strings. Just then, he doubles over a little in pain, and I notice his strained biceps, which is a strange thing to be noticing about him. I find myself weirdly wondering if the gown is the only thing he’s wearing right now.
‘So many people not allowed, sir,’ the nurse complains in her thick Malayali accent and schoolteacher demeanour. ‘The entire wedding party can’t be here.’
‘This is the last thing I want too,’ Daksh says and then doubles over in pain again. ‘Sorry, Vanita, for spoiling your wedding.’
Vanita waves him off dismissively and clicks a picture of him. ‘This is what happens when you come to a wedding without a gift.’
‘Nurse,’ Daksh says. ‘I want my appendix dipped in formaldehyde, gift-wrapped and given to this girl.’
Vanita crinkles her nose in disgust. Daksh leans back into the bed again, clutching his abdomen. He has made sure not to make any eye contact with me.
Gaurav’s phone rings and fills the room with its shrill sound. I lean over and see that it’s a video call from Rabbani. She’s mucholder now. Nine, I do my calculations. From the little snippets Daksh shares on his Instagram profile, I have noticed she’s whip-smart and is often taking down her brother with her brutal comments.
‘DADA!’ she squeals when he answers. ‘LOOK WHO DOESN’T DO POTTY ON TIME!’
She breaks out in cute laughter.
She’s not the only one. I hear two boys on the speaker too. Their laughter echoes in the room. Everyone, including the nurse, is giggling now.
‘It’s all the Diet Coke!’ one boy says.
‘And the bhujia!’ the other boy says.
‘Okay guys, enough!’ says a lady whose voice I recognize immediately.
Amruta Thakur fromKids Raising Kids.
She’s the kind of seemingly perfect woman who’s making us all look bad by managing two kids, a career in education, a tight little body and a podcast irritatingly well. She has the kind of gravelly, naughty voice that’s built for radio, the kind of voice that guys fall in love with over phone calls. She’s the kind of pretty, cute girls get when they hit the gym hard. She’s petite, but her eyes are strict and stern, and from what I have seen in pictures, her muscles are taut. She’s what I believe boys on the Internet call muscle mommy. Which fits in her case. The woman’s ripped. I liked her the first time I heard her, and then hated her with a passion. Her understanding and chemistry with Daksh were unmissable. Half of their podcast is just one of them saying ‘I feel the same!’ or ‘I thought it was only me who thinks like this!’ They are usually about things I don’t think or care about—kids, family, chores, education. Their banter is natural, free-flowing, and they look as if life has brought them together. As if it’s fate! I imagine if the three of us go out, I could just walk away without informing them and they wouldn’t evennotice and keep talking. On their social profiles, people ask them if they are a couple. They have never answered it.
‘Do you want us to come, Daksh?’ she asks. ‘The flights are expensive, but I’m thinking I will send the kids by cargo, and I will take a business class ticket.’
‘I’m not coming in a hundred lifetimes,’ jokes an older voice, which I guess is Daksh’s father. ‘I have had enough of Dubai for a lifetime.’
I have noticed Daksh’s father on his Instagram account. He shares quite a bit about his healing journey. To be honest, Uncle has been on a recovery that’s seen him heal more than anyone has the right to. The last time I saw him, he was depressed and missing a leg, but now he has gone from the clunky functional prosthetics to the cyborg-looking blade prosthetics and leads a running group that wakes up at 4 a.m. for their runs. A few weeks ago, he had posted a shirtless picture of himself and other men in his running group, looking too fit for his age. Interspersed with his running pictures on LinkedIn are the consultancy projects he does every now and then. Sometimes I feel as if I had only imagined it all: Mumbai, his skeletal frame and his desire to embrace death and depression.
‘I will be back in two days,’ says Daksh.
‘Does it pain, Dada?’ asks Rabbani.
‘You’re joking? Me and pain? I eat pain for lunch.’
‘Of course you do,’ chuckles Amruta. ‘Listen, I’m landing in the morning. Your Baba is taking them out for the day.’
Daksh shakes his head. ‘You’re absolutely not leaving them with my father. I don’t trust him with kids.’
‘Oye!’ his father says. ‘I raised you!’
My own father laughs. ‘Dey ji! This is what kids are like these days!’ He walks to the bed and then waves at Daksh’s father.
