The silence between them feels like an eternity, as if time itself has frozen in place. I try to command my body to move, to run to him and stop what’s about to happen. But my limbs refuse to obey me, and I am trapped. My heart beats so fast that I can barely hear myself think. With each pulse, it seems to shatter and then mend again in a never-ending cycle. I want to scream out my feelings to Daksh, but my voice is stuck in my throat, and all I can manage is a shallow breath. My feet feel like they’re bolted to the ground, and I can’t move, no matter how hard I try.
‘. . . we are . . . made for each other,’ says Daksh.
The woman leans over and kisses my Daksh on his lips.
PART 2
TWO YEARS LATER
1.
Daksh Dey
‘You’re just showing off,’ I tell her.
‘What?’
‘You’re showing off,’ I repeat, louder this time.
She lifts one side of her headphones and looks at me. ‘You have to be louder.’
‘You have to be slower, Amruta. You’re going to blow out your knees and need a double knee replacement at fifty.’
She looks at me with a hint of exasperation.
‘I’m serious. You will be taking a pony up to Vaishnodevi watching all the fit women jog past you.’
‘Says the guy who’s walking at 6 km per hour like this is agarden.’
‘What’s wrong with walking in a garden?’
She beeps down her speed to a humanly 8 km/hr from the previous 12 km/hr. Except for Amruta, I have a deep dislike for every person who runs, or sprints, or jogs, or marathons. They are new cross-fitters, the new vegans, the new Crypto enthusiasts. They have joined a cult and they want others to follow. As I inch towards thirty, more of my peers start to gravitate towards this sport of walking briskly every day. All they talk about now is how they got a new pair of shoes, how negative splits are the gold standard, and about bonks and carb loading and pacing, and how they will have to cancel because they have to wake up for a 4-a.m. run. And then every few months, they run for countless miles for a cheap medal and bib. Some don’t even finish and yet take that bib home. Why would you take a symbol of your humiliation home?
‘Just think of it as cardio, okay?’ says Amruta.
She has tried and now stopped selling me the runner’s high, supposedly a wave of euphoria that washes away all pain and fatigue. She chases this high every morning when she leaves at 5 a.m. to run around the cracked roads of Delhi with pepper spray and four years of Muay Thai training behind her. I try to convince her that Delhi goons won’t fight with a referee, they will come with an iron rod, and no amount of punches is going to stop them, but who’s listening?
‘If you’re chasing a cricket ball, fine, I get it, you run. But for cardio?’ I ask Amruta. ‘Anyway, all I want are big muscles, that’s it. Cardio is counter-productive.’
‘Taking care of your heart is counter-productive? Being healthier is counter-productive?’
‘Absolutely. Time’s running out for me. After thirty, it’s game over for any muscle gain. I will have to get testosterone injected right through my eyeballs for any noticeable muscle gain.’
‘You have enough muscles already.’
‘Say that to my body dysmorphia,’ I say. ‘And say that to the guy in blue. To your right, yes, there, the one doing approximately 10,000 ab crunches. He’s, of course, on steroids.’
‘Because of the acne?’
‘No, because he’s bigger and fitter.’
She waves me off. ‘The best part of dating you is that you’re always checking out competition.’
‘That’s a commentary of how secure you make me feel in this relationship.’
She throws a murderous look at me. ‘I make you feel insecure?’
‘In a way, yes. You’re too fit. I think you should let go. I can’t keep up. We should just get healthy paunches.’
