There's Something About You

by Yashodhara Lal

  ‘And your mom?’

  ‘Mummy dearest!’ Sahil laughed bitterly. ‘I think she’s suffering the most in all this. She’s still mortally afraid that I’ll go and do something stupid again if Dad continues to pressurize me. She doesn’t know it was the other thing bothering me. No one at home knows it’s back, really. I can’t bring myself to tell anyone about it.’ He gave Trish a meaningful look. ‘So anyway, Mom’s after Dad to “forgive me”, and he’s annoyed with her for “taking my side” and so on. But hey, you know what?’ He grinned. ‘The other day, Dad and I bumped into each other on the way to the bathroom and he actually said, “Oh. It’s you,” before quickly walking away. So actually, he’s sort of talking to me now!’

  Trish couldn’t help looking incredulous.

  Sahil asked innocently, ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘You’re just being rather cheerful for a suicidal jobless psycho who’s out of favour with his parents.’

  ‘Hey, will you stop with that psycho thing?’ he scolded, but he was being playful. She smiled. She always felt lighter and happier when she was out with him. ‘You tell me.’ He took a big bite of his sandwich. Swallowing manfully, he went on, ‘How’re things at home. Is Uncle ready to be beaten by me at chess? Is Aunty already heating up the oil for the next batch of pakoras? How come you didn’t invite me into the house today?’

  ‘Just.’ Trish pursed her lips. She didn’t feel like admitting that she wanted to get time with him alone. Ma and Ba would have tried to hog him like last time, and he didn’t seem to mind as much as she would have liked. ‘Well, yeah, Ba has been asking about you, actually. Very strange. He usually hates talking to strangers. Makes up all sorts of excuses to avoid interacting with people. But he seems to like you a lot. And Ma … well …’ She just waved her hand dismissively.

  Sahil wisely refrained from saying anything about Ma. He instead remarked, ‘So how’s that friend of yours, the one I met the other day?’

  Trish’s guard was up immediately. His tone struck her as being a little too deliberately casual. ‘Akanksha. Why are you so interested?’

  ‘Arrey!’ Sahil looked surprised. ‘I’m not interested. I was just asking because …’ He stopped short and shrugged. ‘I was just asking.’

  ‘Because what?’ Trish prodded, sensing something was up.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Trish felt she could tell when this guy was keeping something from her, and she definitely got that feeling now. Did he know about their fight somehow? It was her turn to shrug. She stabbed her bagel with unnecessary force as she said, ‘Well, I don’t know how she is. And I don’t care.’

  His eyes were wide open in surprise. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She knew it sounded childish but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to talk about it.

  He looked so bewildered that she couldn’t keep it up. She sighed. ‘Well, if you must know, we had a huge fight after you left that day, and now we’re not talking. I think that’s pretty much the end of that relationship. No biggie.’ She shrugged and stuffed her mouth with her bagel, looking over his shoulder instead of into those clear brown all-seeing eyes. She couldn’t avoid his eye for long, though, and when she next glanced at him, she saw his face looked disturbed. ‘What?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Nothing.’ Again too quick, too casual.

  ‘Sahil.’ She put her fork down. ‘Can you please stop with that?’ She lowered her voice and asked, ‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’

  He looked really uncomfortable now. Trish frowned as she thought back to that day. She recalled now, even though it had been brief, Akanksha clinging on to his hand and then Sahil dropping hers as quickly as possible. It was a subtle thing, but Trish had picked up on it, and something now clicked. She hissed, cocking her head to one side, ‘You saw something, didn’t you?’

  He looked around the café, first to the left and then the right, as if making sure that no one else was listening. He bit his lower lip once. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘But I can’t tell you what it is.’

  Trish’s nostrils flared for a second, but she showed no emotion. ‘Look. That’s fine. I’m not interested anyway. That friendship is down the drain. So whatever you saw is none of my business.’ Sahil appeared to be struggling with something, but Trish didn’t want him to think that she was curious about Akanksha. She went on lightly, ‘So is this why you don’t have a girlfriend? Because you’re scared that every time you touch her, you’ll see something ominous?’

  He made a face. ‘I guess so. Imagine getting intimate with someone and then suddenly getting a flash of something horrible, right in the middle of it. That would really kill the mood, huh?’

  Her cheeks pinked up at the visions this conjured up in her mind. She cleared her throat and changed the subject again. ‘Er, so. What are you planning to do next? I mean, in terms of work and stuff?’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘So I was thinking of going back to my corporate job, you know? I was doing pretty well there before I caved in to Dad’s pressure to answer my calling as the namkeen baron of Mumbai.’ He rolled his eyes heavenward and Trish couldn’t help smiling. ‘And you know what else? I was thinking I’ll just go back to some volunteer work. I used to teach at this school for underprivileged kids a few years back. Weekends. I don’t know why I dropped that. It made me really happy.’

  ‘Really? What did you teach?’

  ‘Music.’

  Trish raised her eyebrows at this. ‘You taught music?’

  ‘Yeah, a little bit of guitar, the keyboard, some drums, dash of the flute. I learnt a bunch of instruments as a kid. I was part of a band in college, actually. I’m probably really rusty

  now, though.’

  ‘You’re being modest,’ Trish guessed. ‘You’re probably this major musical genius who’s just being self-deprecating.’

  ‘Self-deprecating. Well, you’d know about that, right?’ he shot back. ‘Only a writer would use a word like that in real life.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She took another sip of her coffee and smiled at him. It was unusual for her, but it felt nice and natural, this good-natured banter. She enjoyed volleying with him. Her voice became sincere. ‘I’d like to hear you play some time.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, grinning. He had begun to look more and more handsome to her, albeit still in a nerdy way. The way his eyes lit up when he grinned at her always caused her to feel a little flutter somewhere inside.

  ‘So today when I was talking to Raj,’ Trish said, trying to distract herself from the effect of that easy grin. ‘He said he’d found his calling – he called it his sweet spot – by chancing upon the intersection of what he loves doing and what helps others and what pays him enough to make a living.’

  ‘Wow. Lucky dog.’ Sahil whistled and then asked, with mock-seriousness, eyes twinkling. ‘So … You saying I should become a Zumba instructor?’

  ‘Why not?’ Trish smiled at the thought of bespectacled gangly Sahil in orange fluorescent shorts leading a dance-fitness class. ‘Anyway, I kind of thought he had something there. He found something where it all came together for him and he’s kind of in flow. At least that’s what he said.’ Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip.

  Sahil waited patiently and then, when it looked like nothing else was forthcoming from Trish, he ventured, ‘Trish? Are you not liking writing the column?’

  ‘Not liking?’ she scoffed, fingering her coffee cup and staring into the warm brown liquid. ‘Hah! Actively despising is more like it.’

  ‘Why? Come on, you like writing, right?’ She nodded slowly at this, and he went on. ‘You’re helping a lot of people. I read your column every single day and I think what you say makes so much sense.’ He grinned. ‘Hey! How come you’re so good at sorting out other people’s lives?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ she demanded. ‘Other people’s lives. Are you saying my life is messed up?’

  ‘No, no. I didn’t mean that.’ Sahil hes
itated and then said, ‘But it’s not …’

  ‘What?’ she snapped.

  ‘Flowing.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his hands and then added craftily, ‘To use your own words. Or rather, the words of the great Zumba-muscleman, Raj.’

  She ignored his jibe. ‘Well, I think my life is flowing just fine.’ She didn’t know why she was getting so defensive. She looked at her watch and said a little curtly, ‘I guess we should be getting back now.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘All okay?’

  ‘All fine. Just fine.’ She turned and signalled to the waiter and then fumbled in her purse to pull out her wallet. She swept aside Sahil’s protests about letting him pay the bill. He gave up and just sat back and watched her. She studiously ignored him as she counted out the money.

  So what if she had a slightly weird relationship with her parents and hated her job and had just lost her best friend? That didn’t mean that her life was messed up. Did it? Well, she didn’t want him to judge her for it. He still probably thought there was something to that stupid thing he’d said to her before about feeling some sense of loss or something. Well, he was wrong about that. It was nonsense. Stuff and nonsense. She’d always been fine by herself and didn’t need to be thrown off track by anybody, not even him.

  He was still quiet as she gathered up her things. He was staring at the table as she stood up, but then said, so quietly that she almost missed it in the buzz of the café, ‘Trish.’

  She turned towards him impatiently, hovering and, for some reason, itching to get to the door and get away.

  He didn’t move, saying, in a tone that was dead serious, ‘When Akanksha calls you, pick up the phone. It’s just a feeling I have. Okay?’

  Trish stared at him for a long moment.

  She didn’t even say goodbye as she turned on her heel and walked away.

  19

  The Call

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Trish groaned as she scanned the letters for the day. What was going on here?

  This was getting to be some serious shit.

  A letter where a woman talked about how she had been suffering marital rape for the last eight years. It made Trish’s stomach churn to read it. These letters were anonymous, so she couldn’t even call the cops. She quickly moved on to the next one. It was from a teenager who had got his girlfriend pregnant and felt guilty about asking her to get an abortion. Another one was from a kid from a broken home, fifteen years old, and being manipulated by her parents, both of whom were resorting to bribing her to trying to get her to live with them.

  This was getting increasingly difficult. Only one in about four letters was of the type that Trish used to savour writing her sarcastic responses to earlier. It put her in a major dilemma. She found herself having to wade past and deliberately ignore the more dire problems in search of the frivolous ones which were answerable. All in the name of maintaining the god-damned tone of the god-damned column. But each letter that she ignored went ahead and settled down somewhere in her consciousness. She felt heavy-hearted at the end of the couple of hours that she had been at her computer.

  ‘Trishna … Trishna …’ His voice rang out plaintively from the other room.

  She sighed and snapped her laptop shut and got up to hurry inside and see what Ba wanted. She thought he seemed to be getting weaker each week. She kept exhorting him to exercise his muscles, but he still refused to get up and walk except for when he needed to go to the bathroom. Maybe he needed help standing up, she thought, quickening her step near the door. It was her mortal fear that he would fall one of these days and break a bone.

  Ba wasn’t trying to get up, though. He was just lying in bed, dressed in his usual white kurta-pajama. He scowled when she came and sat down beside him. ‘You don’t listen. I called for you ten times!’

  ‘Ba,’ she said patiently. ‘Use the bell, no?’ She pointed to the untouched little button that she had installed on the side of his bed weeks ago. ‘Your voice is getting softer and it’s not always easy for me to hear you.’

  ‘Bell!’ he scoffed. ‘You people have turned me into a lifelong patient and this room into a hospital.’

  ‘Look here, Ba,’ Trish said with a sigh. ‘We’re the ones who are always telling you to get out of this room. Get some exercise. Start physiotherapy. Interact more with people.’

  ‘Interact with whom?’ Ba grumbled. ‘That one decent chess player you bought here, Sabharwal, he’s not come again. You two ladies are the only ones here, and your mother doesn’t even make sense half the time.’

  Ma’s voice rang out from the adjoining room immediately. ‘I can hear you. And look who’s talking. Most of the time, you’re just babbling incoherently.’

  Trish quickly called out, interrupting her mother, ‘It’s okay, Ma. Let it be.’ The grumbling from outside continued. She whispered to her father, ‘Shhh. Talk softly, Ba.’

  Ba immediately raised his voice. ‘First you say my voice is too soft for you to hear and then you say that I should talk softer! Make up your mind, girl! See? You’re becoming just like your mother, making no sense.’

  Trish narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Don’t say I’m like her, Ba.’

  Even though she had been very quiet, her mother’s voice snapped immediately. ‘That’s right. Now you also start to insult me.’ To Trish’s surprise, Ma appeared at the doorway, quivering with anger. ‘All you two have ever done is gang up on me exactly like this. My whole life I’ve been dealing with this. You two have each other, who do I have?’

  ‘Whose fault is that?’ Ba shouted back. ‘Not my fault. Not Trishna’s!’

  ‘Oh, I see. It’s my fault?’ Ma’s eyes were wild. ‘Mine? Have I not suffered?’

  ‘We all suffer,’ barked Ba. ‘Only you make your suffering an object of worship!’ Ma gasped at this, her face turning visibly white.

  ‘What is wrong with you guys?’ Trish said, swivelling her head to glare in turn at her parents.

  Ba opened his mouth, but Ma raised her hand and pointed a trembling finger at him, saying in a quiet, deadly tone, ‘You’re going too far, Vikram.’ Trish was shocked. Ma was actually using Ba’s name to his face. She was clearly over the edge now. Ba seemed to somehow sense this too, because he just withdrew into stony silence.

  Ma glared through reddening eyes at the two of them and then swept away. Trish looked at Ba, who was now studying the scenery outside the window. His breathing was a little uneven. She thought about asking him what that had been about, but suppressed her curiosity for the sake of his health and peace of mind. She just reached out and took his skinny hand. It felt clammy, and she gave it a gentle, comforting squeeze.

  He didn’t respond for a while, but then he turned his head to look at her face and, with a wan smile, said, ‘So. When is that Sabharwal coming again?’

  ‘He’ll come, Ba. He’ll come soon, okay?’ She patted his hand reassuringly. ‘You just get stronger so that you can make sure he doesn’t actually beat you next time.’

  ‘Hah!’ said Ba and coughed weakly. ‘You said something about calling some physiotherapy chappie home? What happened to that? Forgot about it?’

  ‘Forgot?’ Trish said incredulously and then checked herself. Deliberately casual, she said, ‘No. I’ll check with him again. He can come tomorrow, perhaps. Three days a week in the evenings, he said his schedule is free.’ She tried to hide the thrill that she was feeling. She’d been after him for months and now Ba was bringing up the physiotherapy himself? He was actually ready to give it a try! This was great.

  Ba just grunted at her and she took it as a sign of dismissal. She didn’t want to push her luck right now in case he did another turnabout and changed his mind about the physiotherapy after all. She left him lying in bed, half turned on his side, with his eyes closed.

  She figured Ma needed some more time to cool down after the strange fight. They bickered often, but she had never seen her parents this angry with each other. It actually looked like they hated each other for
a moment there. In spite of their differences, they had always stood by each other. What could have caused them to react like that? She tried to shrug it off, it was between them, after all. It bothered her, but she would just have to deal with that herself.

  She heard her phone ringing as she reached the drawing room and hurried toward it. Maybe it was Sahil. Hopefully not Nivedita. She reached for her phone and saw the name flashing on the screen.

  Akanksha, of all people. Trish bit her lip. It had been three weeks since she had heard from her. Trish had to admit to herself that she missed Akanksha, and she missed Lisa too. In fact, she was worried about Lisa. Besides, Akanksha wasn’t really all that bad, she’d come through at times that Trish really needed her. It was just that she wasn’t sure she really felt up to a conversation with her right now.

  It was only on what must have been the seventh or eighth ring that she remembered what Sahil had told her. She pressed the answer button and said in a cordial manner, ‘Hello, Akanksha.’ Maybe things were going to get better.

  ‘Trish!’ Akanksha wailed, sounding so distraught that Trish’s blood ran cold. Akanksha let out a loud sob and then choked out, ‘It’s my dad, he’s fallen from the terrace!’ Another sob while Trish clutched at the side of her table to steady herself. Then Akanksha’s voice, shocked and anguished, finished with an incredulous note that suggested she didn’t quite believe what she was saying herself: ‘He’s … dead.’

  The next few hours passed by in a blur. Trish was only dimly aware of the crowd of curious and morbidly fascinated onlookers and the futile blaring of the ambulance siren as it got louder. She saw and then quickly averted her eyes from the cream-kurta-clad body, twisted up at an impossible angle, lifeless eyes staring upwards in a surprised manner, blood still spreading out from behind the white-haired head. The thought flashed through her mind that the papers would report the body being found in a pool of blood, as they always did. The camera flashes all around right now could only be courtesy the media bloodhounds. She felt a vague sense of shame for being associated with the industry.