Like a Love Song

by Nikita Singh

  She needed to stop stalking Kishan. It put her in a very bad mood. She had been like that ever since she returned home three months ago, right after her breakup. She couldn’t bear to live in that city without him; he was the reason she had moved to Bangalore in the first place. She had called her mom and told her she wanted to come back immediately. Her dad had booked her on the next train, and she had boarded it with all her stuff.

  When she arrived at Vaishali, her family was surprised to see that she had not come back to visit, she had come back.

  They, especially her mom, had asked why on several occasions, but she couldn’t tell them about her break- up. They didn’t know she had a boyfriend to begin with, and now that he wasn’t in her life anymore, what was the point in digging up the skeletons? Maahi did sometimes feel the need to share with her mom. In her darkest moments, she wondered how easy it would be to open up to her and ask for advice. But knowing her family the way she did, she suspected that more than anything else, she would get lectured about having had a boyfriend at all, because how dare she let her natural instincts as a young woman take charge of her and fall in love? Care about someone, feel emotional connection and physical attraction towards a man? That was simply unacceptable.

  Maahi faced the lowest of lows of her life after her break-up with Kishan, and it changed her. The experience completely transformed the way she looked at love and life. The rose-tinted glasses were finally off. She could see her relationship with him for what it had been: her desperate attempt to keep holding together something that had no business existing in the first place. Maybe Kishan never wanted it. Maybe she never gave him a chance for an out, and when she did…

  She looked at herself differently too. Kishan was right, she had been just a child. Maahi had taken to observing herself in the mirror every now and then. Nineteen, with nothing valuable to offer another person to make them want to stay with her. She looked through the recent pictures on his Facebook, with his female friends and colleagues, and tried to teach herself how to dress, how to do her makeup and hair. No one was interested in her boring jeans and sneakers. And there was much more to makeup than lip balm and kohl. Much more to hair than brushing it every morning and tying it back in a tiny ponytail. She learned all of this from the women on Kishan’s Facebook, including Payal. She had no concrete evidence that there was anything going on between them, but she knew.

  When she looked in the mirror, she was disgusted by what she saw. No wonder he didn’t want her.

  Maahi shook herself out of it before she sank deeper. It was too early in the morning for that. She had been good recently—reaching that level of depression only deep into the night. On most days, she could pretend nothing was wrong and survive without crying even once. She saw that as definite progress, compared to the first few weeks, when she faced existential crises every time she had a free moment. She was fine when she was watching a movie, but between the minutes of it ending and her deciding what to do with her time next, she had panic attacks. Her daily projects were to keep herself occupied every minute of every hour. She watched a lot of TV shows on her laptop. She tried reading too, but that didn’t work out. She found that it was easier to watch movies than read books when your eyes had a tendency to well up every few minutes.

  The house was absolutely quiet, which led Maahi to assume that Sarthak was at school, her parents at work, and the maid had already finished her work and left. She put her phone aside and got up. She didn’t have a headache, which was a welcome change.

  Maahi got into the shower, taking her time shampooing her hair. The warm water felt good against her scalp. After she was done, she wrapped her hair in a big fuzzy towel and mounted it on her head like a small hill. She put on a sweater over her T-shirt before going to look for food in the kitchen.

  ‘Good morning,’ her mom said, looking pointedly at the clock on the wall. Maahi followed her gaze; it was almost noon.

  ‘Oh. I didn’t know you were here.’ Both her parents were sitting at the dining table. Her dad was reading the newspaper, an empty plate in front of him. Even Sarthak was home; she could see him through the cracked open door, in his room with his giant headphones on, playing a video game on his computer.

  ‘Yes, it’s a Sunday. Where else would we be?’ Ma said.

  ‘Are you done with this?’ Maahi asked, pointing to her father’s plate. She picked it up and placed it in the sink.

  Maahi sensed the tension in the air. She wondered if they had been talking about her again. She had heard them do that a few times before, expressing concern over what she was doing with her life, what the neighbours were asking and how she had lost all focus and was overall useless. She wasn’t ready for another one of those conversations with them, but there was nothing she could do about it. She sat down at the table opposite her mom, with her father on her right, in the head chair.

  She served herself an aloo parantha and was filling up her bowl with raita when her mother spoke.

  ‘What’s going on, Maahi?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Maahi asked evenly.

  ‘Papa and I are worried about you. You’re not showing interest in studies or anything. What do you want to do? Have you thought about going back? You are still enrolled.’

  ‘No, I can’t go back!’

  ‘But why? It is such a good college. You have a great career ahead of you, a future. How can you give that up?’ Ma asked.

  ‘We have talked about this, Ma. I can’t go back now—they’re starting finals in two days. I won’t pass any of the exams.’ Maahi looked from her mom to her dad, who was still reading the newspaper. ‘Papa, I told you I don’t want to do engineering.’

  ‘Then what do you want to do? You’re just wasting time right now—dropping out of college, staying at home, doing nothing.’ Her mother was easily agitated and tended to be extremely outright in the way she spoke, and Maahi had never been bothered by that before she came back from Bangalore. It could’ve been because she never really gave her mom a chance to complain about her the way she complained about Sarthak all the time. She had been a good kid, scoring good grades, getting into a good engineering college, on her way to secure a bright future for herself, until she gave all that up and came back home.

  And now she had to decide what she wanted to do with her life. And it terrified her. What terrified her even more than knowing she didn’t want to be an engineer, was not knowing what she wanted to be instead. She had to first figure that out and then convince her parents. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ma started.

  Papa interjected, ‘Let her be. She still has time to decide. She doesn’t want to go back to Christ, so this academic year is lost anyway. That gives her plenty of time to make up her mind about what she wants to study.’

  ‘What does she know? Who doesn’t want to do engineering? Why would she let such a great career go? I don’t understand—’

  ‘To be fair though, Christ isn’t all that great,’ Sarthak said, coming out of his room, his neon-green headphones resting on his shoulders, the wire coiled around his neck. ‘And literally every second person on the street is an engineer, so it’s not that great a career anymore, Ma.’

  ‘Don’t interrupt when elders are talking,’ Ma snapped.

  Sarthak snickered. ‘You’re on your own, Sis.’

  If only Maahi could tell him how right he was.

  Ma didn’t pursue the subject any longer. Maahi kept stealing glances at her and Papa and felt something tighten in her throat when she saw how disappointed and worried they looked. Papa was better at hiding it, but she could tell. She had disappointed Kishan, failing to match his expectations over and over again until he was so disappointed he couldn’t be with her anymore. And she had disappointed her parents by coming back from Bangalore with nothing to show for her time there.

  She thought about the months she had spent there, trying so hard to feel at home, and failing. She hadn’t even made any friends. Such a waste of time.
She always sensed that she wasn’t supposed to be there. But maybe it had nothing to do with the city, maybe she didn’t feel at home there because she wasn’t at home with Kishan. She wasn’t supposed to be with him. The thought made her feel better and worse at the same time.

  Since it was a Sunday, which she hadn’t realized until her mom told her, Maahi decided to call Rohit to see if he wanted to hang out. Rohit said he was free to come over and he didn’t have to ask her where she wanted to meet. They always met at her home now, because she never went out.

  ‘I can’t stay long. I have a date later,’ Rohit said when Maahi opened the door for him. Maahi thought of Rohit as her hottest friend. He was 6’4” tall and lean. That, along with his hooded hazel-coloured eyes and thick, unruly hair, fetched him quite a lot of modelling offers. He didn’t take them seriously in the beginning, but once he started walking ramps and getting attention from women, it got hard for him to turn back. He was studying architecture in college and was very focused on his studies, but he modelled on the side; it was easy money.

  Maahi remembered having a small crush on him back in school when he’d just joined in tenth grade. But he was the cool sporty boy and she was the quiet, chubby nerd—she knew that would’ve gone nowhere. Prospective relationship angle out of the way, she had been much more comfortable talking to him, helping him out with notes when he missed classes to play cricket tournaments. She was surprised to find them becoming good friends.

  ‘Oh, that girl you were seeing? What’s her name, Ruchita?’ Maahi asked as they walked to her room. She sat down on the bed and Rohit rotated her study chair around and sat down facing her. He had the whole man-bun thing going—all of his hair pulled back low on his neck, tied in an untidy mess. He was also wearing horn-rimmed glasses to complete his sexy nerd look, when he was the exact opposite of a nerd.

  ‘Close. Ruchika. I really like her, but I kind of get the feeling that she’s not that into me.’ Rohit shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t blame her; she’s the smartest girl in my college. Why would she go out with me?’

  ‘Come on! Don’t underestimate yourself. Like, have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently?’

  ‘No, seriously. You don’t get it. She is amazing.’

  ‘Why do you feel like she’s not into you?’ Maahi asked. She had never questioned Kishan’s love for her after the first time he professed it. From then onwards, she had simply assumed that it was forever—never considering a scenario where their feelings might change. But his feelings did change. Maybe her feelings changed too, but she refused to see it and continued lying to herself.

  ‘She said she’s really caught up in her studies right now and doesn’t have time to hang out that much and maybe she’s being honest, but I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.’ Rohit shrugged again.

  ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ Maahi suggested.

  ‘What am I supposed to ask her? No, man, I can’t. What if she says she doesn’t want to see me anymore? That is a possibility. No. I prefer being with her for however long she agrees to. I’m not doing anything to prompt a sudden death scenario.’

  ‘If that makes sense to you, great. What do I know about relationships anyway?’

  ‘You know enough. Don’t you dare let that asshole make you doubt yourself. You know what, I don’t even want to talk about him. No. We’re not doing this,’ Rohit declared. ‘New topic.’

  ‘I don’t have anything new. Just, been here, doing nothing.’ Maahi gestured around her room. ‘Ma’s getting really agitated now. I need to figure out what I want to do soon.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘Not really. I think I’d enjoy studying art. English literature, maybe? But I’m not sure yet. Plus, Ma’s going to freak out. Anything non-technical is a hard sell for her.’

  Rohit laughed. ‘Your mom’s hilarious. Last time I was here, she asked me to convince you to go back to Christ. But she’ll come around. If you find something you really want to do, I’m sure she’ll back you up.’

  ‘But I don’t. And in any case, I do have to spend the next seven to eight months here at home, with nothing to do. I can’t believe I wasted a whole year.’

  ‘Consider it a long vacation. Watch movies, read books. You’ll miss all this free time when you’re neck-deep in your course and workload next year.’

  Maahi let out an elaborate, frustrated sigh. ‘This is the furthest thing from a vacation. I have all this time and with nothing to occupy me, I’m literally driving myself crazy.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it’s that bad. I mean, if you need something to do, why don’t you look for like, a part-time job or an internship? It’s only going to help your résumé.’

  ‘A job right after school? Who’s going to hire a twelfth pass girl? I have no experience in anything and I’m pretty sure I’m talentless too.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Now who’s underestimating themselves?’ Rohit pulled out his phone and scanned it. ‘In fact, I think one of my friends could have something for you. Let me see…’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Maahi asked. ‘And how many friends do you have?’ She was always surprised when Rohit casually mentioned new people in conversation. They could be talking about anything under the sun, and out of the blue, he would bring in a friend she had never heard of before. In the past year that he had started modelling, his social life had blown up multiple times.

  ‘I walked with this guy, Prasoon, in a show once. He is starting his own company with a friend—they’re developing apps that predict certain things … I’m not exactly sure. I think Prasoon sent me the details,’ Rohit said. He looked into his phone for another second before giving up and putting it away. ‘I’ll find it later and forward it to you. Anyway, so they’re either launching soon, or have already launched. I’m sure they could use some help. They asked me, but I’m already struggling with finding time to do the modelling thing on top of college, so I couldn’t do it. Maybe they have something for you if you’re interested?’

  6

  ‘Hello! Fourth Eye Apps, this is Maahi,’ she sang into the phone. Her voice was cheerful, her face deadpan. She was glad they couldn’t see her. Her pretension had its limits. ‘How may I help you today?’

  ‘I had a question about one of your apps,’ a man’s voice said. ‘The one that predicts shit?’

  ‘You must be talking about The Poop App.’

  ‘Yeah, that one.’

  ‘What’s the question, sir?’ Maahi asked, dreading the response.

  ‘I wanted to ask if it actually does predict shit. Because it told me I was going to shit this morning, but I didn’t. Yesterday neither. Not for the past three days, actually. And now it says I’m not going to shit in the next seven days, which is a concern. But I’m not sure if it’s actually a concern because this shit app is shit and doesn’t know shit, and if I go by the shit track record of the past three days I didn’t actually shit, does that mean I shouldn’t believe this shit when it says I’m not going to shit this whole week?’ The voice grew louder towards the end of the monologue.

  ‘Sir, the app works on a unique algorithm that takes your information—’

  ‘That’s bullshit! Your shit app doesn’t work at all.’

  ‘What I’m trying to explain to you, sir, is that the algorithm predicts the next bowel movement on the basis of the information you enter. The results may vary—’ Maahi spoke in a calm, robotic tone that she had no trouble maintaining, but was cut off again before she could finish.

  ‘I am sick and tired of this bullshit shit app. For three days it has been misleading me. I ate a whole plate of chicken chowmein last night, with a plate of chilli. If that doesn’t make me shit, what will!’

  ‘Sir, I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question. I would recommend seeing a doctor at this point, instead of worrying about the app—’

  ‘You don’t tell me what to do! Don’t you dare tell me what to do! Let me talk to your manager!’ The man was screaming at this
point, but Maahi was hardly bothered. She actually preferred the call going to Prasoon; she wouldn’t have to deal with it.

  ‘Sure, sir. Let me forward your call to the manager. If you could please hold while I connect you—’

  ‘NO!’ the man yelled. ‘Don’t put me on fucking hold. I know what you’re trying to do. You will put me on hold and then make me wait for a long fucking time and then hang up on me. When I call back, someone else will pick up the phone and then I will have to start over and explain the situation all over again.’

  There was literally one customer service number you could call Fourth Eye Apps on, and literally one person who answered all the calls made to that number. Maahi sighed at her life. ‘What would you prefer then, sir?’

  ‘I want someone to fucking tell me when I’m going to shit next. Have you ever been constipated for four days in a row? And then have an app tell you you’re not going to shit for seven more? Fucking bullshit this shit—’

  ‘Sir, I would request you to not use that language with me,’ Maahi said mildly, but with authority.

  ‘Didn’t I fucking tell you already to not tell me what to fucking do?’

  ‘I am going to hang up now, sir. Have a good day.’

  ‘Don’t you—’

  Maahi had already disconnected the call. She leaned back in her chair and stretched her neck. The plush leather chair was her favourite thing at Fourth Eye Apps. That and the fact that she could stay away from home where her family was driving her nuts about making a decision about her future. The pressure had risen. The past six months had gone by really slowly, and Maahi had struggled through each day.

  She heard stories about how people took up jobs they thought they would be interested in, and soon find out they weren’t really. Eventually, the dislike turned into hatred and took over their lives and made it a living nightmare. That didn’t happen to her. She hated this job from the first day, and the feeling didn’t intensify over time—she hated it the same amount.