Daksh: As you said, I will take advantage that Rabbani’s older and can take care of herself. I will probably travel a bit, spend some money. But one last question before you go... when was the moment you knew that it was over between us?
Amruta: We started when I saw you at the hospital in Dubai. Because I saw you and I was like... this could happen to us, right? So, we should be together, to take care of each other, of our children. But it also ended in a hospital. When you had that accident a little while ago?
Daksh: You saw me in a hospital and you went like, yeah, I need to dump this guy?
Amruta: I mean, okay, yes, that’s what happened. So, listeners, he stayed for fifteen days in the hospital, recovering. And when the doctor told me that he would be fine, all he needed to do was stay a bit longer in hospital to recover, I found myself... shouldn’t say this but... free? I was like, yes, I can go back home and just be by myself...
Daksh: Wow.
Amruta: Oh, please. Don’t act so holy.
Daksh: Fine, fine.
Amruta: Guys, he himself told me that he too liked that he could be alone in the hospital. And we all know why he goes on these riding trips alone. Why does he do that? To be alone. To be away from us.
Daksh: I agree. I feel free. So . . .
Amruta: This is it.
Daksh: Again, we have to say it... thank you, guys, for listening to us all this while.
Amruta: We owe a lot to you.
Daksh: Keep following us on our socials for updates on what we choose to do next.
Amruta: So that’s it from us, guys. It was wonderful to have you listening to us, supporting us through the years. We apologize if we have disappointed you in any way. Hope to see you guys around. Bye-bye!
Daksh: Bye. Until . . . I was about to say the next time . . . bye!
2.
Aanchal Madan
The ground staff of Emirates at John F. Kennedy International Airport confirms that I want to upgrade my seat to business class. She’s an Indian, too, and I think that’s why the double-checks—why would I spend a major chunk of my credit card points on a single upgrade? If I chart my responses to this question over the years, I have gone from ‘I would never have enough points’ to ‘an absolutely ridiculous idea’ to ‘maybe someday’ to now when I’m thinking ‘I will have enough points again’.
‘Do you want to book your return too?’
‘Not yet,’ I tell the woman and collect my boarding pass.
Namit and Ridhima accompany me to the gate carrying my backpack. I can feel the heaviness in their hearts. They are well aware, perhaps even more so than I, that I will not return. They know that a few days after I land in Delhi, I will turn in my resignation letter and inform them that I have changed my mind. I don’t want to leave the friends and the life I have builthere, but I would have to. You don’t take all of life’s decisions; some, life takes for you.
‘Come back, okay?’ Namit says.
‘You belong here,’ warns Ridhima. ‘If you don’t come back, I will come there and drag you back here.’
I leave them with empty promises.
The first leg of the flight is to Dubai. I sink into my luxurious, upgraded seat and it brings me no comfort. The city that had been home for the last four years falls behind, and my heart starts to race. I have eighteen hours to brace myself for what I’m going to see when I land in Delhi.
I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. I had mocked the first breathing class I went to, called it a sham, a business, but now I am a convert, proselytizing it to anyone who would listen. Breathing, and doing it mindfully, is the only way we can control our wild mind, which would destroy us if we let it roam free. I let out a deep breath.
Thoughts of Gaurav’s troubled, emaciated face come swiftly. My heart weeps for him. On my phone, I open the folder with Gaurav’s reports.
Every week, the rehabilitation clinic inundates me with countless reports, twenty pages long, detailing Gaurav’s blood reports, weight measurements and other mundane but, I’m sure, important details. Bold numbers swim before my eyes, my heart sinks thinking of what he destroyed in his body. But what I truly want to know remains unaddressed in those reports: Is Gaurav okay? Will Gaurav be okay? Will things ever go back to the way they were before? It’s been six long months of waiting for them to give Gaurav back to us.
And then, last week, they sent me the mail I was waiting for.
Gaurav would be discharged. The doctors added that he had made tremendous progress. They were all very proud of him. I wish I could say the same about him. I love him, but he getsno compassion from me. I will keep loving him, but I will never forgive him for what he did to himself. To our parents. To Tejal. To Daksh. And to me.
