Nikhil and Riya

by Ira Trivedi

  I entered the room now. We did not speak but looked at each other in the halogen lights cast from the machines. For a moment, I thought of what I looked like to him – my pants torn at the knees, my glasses cracked, my sweater streaked with dirt, snot and blood, but then I looked at Riya and all thoughts vanished from my head. For a second, she opened her eyes and they were clouded as if covered by a thin membrane. She looked at something somewhere, maybe even me, but then she closed her eyes, sliding back into another world. I didn’t have to ask him what was going on. Even without saying a word, we both knew that she was dying and that this was the end.

  82

  I PROVED TO be a tender nurse, sitting with her through the worst of it, holding her hand that went cold and then warm. Her wrists were so thin and fragile that even when I held them gently I was afraid that they would snap. B.P. was there too, speaking to the nurses, the doctors, whoever came and went, but I sat there, on a small plastic chair, not moving an inch, not paying any heed to them, not hearing a thing except for what she occasionally said.

  She whispered to me like the red munia, my favourite musical bird that sang as if it was always short of breath. There was something so gentle and sad in her feeble song, there was no sound to me more lovely in the world.

  ‘Specs…’ she whispered.

  And then her voice broke in a raspy cough.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said in a hushed tone. ‘Don’t worry, it will be all right.’

  Then a little while later, who knew how long – maybe minutes, maybe hours because I had lost all track of time what seemed like a long while ago – ‘Specs,’ she said. ‘Your specs.’

  I touched the crack in my glasses. I could swear that even now she was teasing me, that there was a glimmer of a grin on her thin pale face.

  While I sat there with her, day stretched into dusk, the blue broke into black, the rain turned into hail and the sound of it, like bullets against my chest, kept me awake even as my bones ached with exhaustion, and my body craved for sleep.

  At some point I fell asleep – a light gauzy sleep – and when I awoke with a start, I found that I had fallen over, and somehow my head had landed right next to her chest. I opened my eyes, her face so close to mine, and from where I was she seemed not to have aged, but to have become young, like she was eight or nine. Her arms and legs had been reduced to weeds, her hair, as wild as it ever had been, was caught in her eyes and her mouth. I moved it away, a familiar gesture by now; then, for a second, she opened her eyes and looked into mine. And for a moment before she closed her eyes, I felt as if we were the only two souls in this world.

  Then B.P. came and shook me out of my reverie. He gruffly told me to go downstairs and get something to drink. I walked out of the hallway, wandering and weaving like a drunk, descending the two flights of steps down to the main lobby of the hospital. There I spotted him, exactly where I had left him sitting on a flimsy chair. Seeing the sleeping bodies lying around, I realized that it was the middle of the night. He was there, I couldn’t understand why.

  Principal Sir’s car, I thought vaguely, somewhere in some part of my brain.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  I didn’t say a word, just shook my head. There was no point in lying now.

  He didn’t say anything either but stared at me with terrified eyes. He nodded vaguely, and ran his hand through his hair several times. Then he cleared his throat and mumbled to me, ‘I called the house. Told them that you won’t be coming. To arrange a night pass.’

  I wanted to say something to him, maybe thank you, but I just looked at him numbly, not saying a word.

  He handed me a bottle of water. I took it and left.

  83

  HOW QUICKLY SHE died. How fast it was over.

  At some point in the night, it began to snow. Till now there had been lightning and thunder but no snow, but the sky had now given in finally to the weight of the ice. I remember watching the flakes coming down from the thick panes of glass, piling on the windowsill.

  The master had told me what to do. He had told me to speak to her, to pray, not to leave her side at the end. I whispered things in her ear, ‘Your suffering has a purpose, a far greater purpose than you will ever know. Dedicate this suffering with all your heart to all those who are in pain. Breathe in their suffering, breathe out well-being and healing for other souls.’

  B.P. came, the nurses and doctors too. Some asked me to leave, if I argued, I didn’t quite remember, I didn’t get up and go. I sat there, imploring those dark eyes, drowsy with death, the small mouth still fighting pain, for breath to stay. I wanted to say to her, to shake her shoulders and to scream. ‘Make an effort to live, Riya, make an effort to live.’

  But I knew that I had to let her go easily, without tears, without sorrow without a fight, and so I continued whispering to her the things the master had said.

  Right before she passed away, it was a peculiar feeling. She sighed once and stretched, as if finally comfortable. Nothing changed but something did and I knew by holding her hand that now, now it was finally time. That is what I had always imagined, and this is what it finally was.

  Her face seemed to give off a glow, reminding me of the silvery moon at its glorious best, on the clearest and coldest of winter nights. She was luminous, as if her soul had risen very close to the surface and was lighting her skin. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but even after I rubbed my eyes, it was still there, a blaze of a rainbow that seemed to be radiating from the crown of her hair.

  Ever so slowly, she opened her heavy, heavy eyes. ‘Specs,’ she whispered in a faint, flat voice.

  Damn it, even now. At least at the end, she could call me by my name. But this, I knew, was no time to argue or to make this point.

  ‘If I could wish for one thing.’

  ‘You can … you can,’ I said, my voice desperate and hushed as I smoothed her hair with my palm.

  ‘I wish,’ she said in a tiny whisper, each word filled with pain.

  Silence fell and in her face there were signs of struggle as she gathered strength to speak again.

  ‘I wish to spend my next life with you.’

  With those words, her voice faltered into stillness, the words evaporated into the air, and the girl I loved more than love itself died with me sitting by her side.

  84

  B.P. CAME, THE doctors came, and people rushed into the tiny room. There was a long beep that stung my ears, it was the sound that I heard above all other sounds. I heard it for days afterward, ringing so loudly that I would wake up with a start in the middle of the night. As people crowded around me into the room, there was no place for me, so I left and roamed the halls of the hospital aimlessly. I didn’t know where I was going but at some point I found myself downstairs and Vikram was still waiting in that chair.

  He saw me and rushed up to me.

  ‘How is she?’ he demanded. ‘What’s happening?’

  I stared at him blankly. He looked at me, very tired and suddenly he was a little boy, just like he had been when we were six. I hadn’t said a word but he knew exactly what had passed. And then each part of his face seemed to collapse, slowly one by one. First his eyes, then his nose, then his cheeks and then his mouth, and he just stood there, his mouth open wide in shock. For once, his eyes were unmasked and in them I saw the helplessness and bewilderment that reflected my very own.

  Then, just like that, it all faded and everything got crushed and I stared at him numbly and he broke into tears. He bent forward and pressing his palms and knees on the floor, he began to cry on all fours. I had never in my life seen anyone cry with such intensity and I reached out and placed a hand on his trembling back. Then I crouched beside him and held his head gently as he cried.

  85

  HE IS EXACTLY as I have imagined he would be – smouldering eyes beneath jutting brows, hooked nose with flaring nostrils, a petulant, mean mouth. Pompous, loud, arrogant and bald, walking with that careless gait – still an athlete, after all
these years. Over the years, he has gained weight, but even now I can see through his well-tailored clothes that his body is muscular and taut, and that he has the same bold insolence in his eyes.

  We exchange platitudes: he congratulates me on my success, I on his, he asks me about my family and I ask about his. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if we were simply old friends meeting after a long time, he says that he is starving and if the food here is anything like it used to be, we should get away from here.

  Johnny Hot Dog, Residency School’s favourite joint, still existed, still operated by the obese Chugan Lal standing at the corner of Chapan dukan. A modern facade, a big sign, new chairs, an extension, but the menu remained the same. They still sold banjos, a sort of hot dog with egg that every boy in Residency School used to love. We sit down on a table, order and then we are exchanging pleasantries about our careers and life trajectories.

  After school, Vikram had gone to a top college in Delhi under the sports quota, where he had a glorious career in hockey, being big man on campus, playing nationals, partying like a prince and cosying up with women, till he met his future wife. He implies – in fact, does explicitly state – that he still has a wandering eye. He then did an MBA in the US where he had travelled, hung out at bars, worked at an investment bank and had his son about the same time as I had mine. He returned to India five years ago to join his father’s burgeoning business where he had recently led the IPO.

  The banjos arrive and I stare at my plate, and it all looks slightly gross – the too red-hot sauce, the chutney so green that it almost shines. Flies swarm around us, settling on anything moist, and we wave our hands and flick our napkins. Neither of us touch our rolls. Vikram talks almost nonstop, grinning arrogantly, aware that he is dominating me – and aware that I am aware of this. As we sit there, the voice I hear is not of the man sitting in front of me but of a taunting, jeering fifteen-year-old. Though so many years have passed, I realize that the dynamics between us have not changed at all.

  He must have read my thoughts because we suddenly lapse into an uncomfortable silence and sit there playing with our plastic spoons, nudging our rolls, wincing at the bright light of the blue skies and the mountains that rise all around us like sharp teeth. I rack my brain for things to say and I open my mouth to speak some banality but then he begins to speak.

  He speaks slowly as if he has practised his words. ‘You know, I was always so jealous of you.’

  I look up, startled, his voice has no more expression than his face.

  Him, jealous of me?

  I am strangely amused. ‘Why?’ I say with a hard laugh.

  His lips curl and he turns his swarthy head away. ‘You seemed to have a good life, away from our mess.’

  I think to myself: What life? The life of an orphan? Of a scholarship student? I say nothing, sensing he wants to continue.

  He does. He cracks the knuckles of his right hand. ‘A life without your father’s pressure, without the burden of a legacy. A life in which you didn’t have to play a role, or pretend, or act.’

  This surprises me. ‘You were acting?’

  ‘Every hour of it,’ he says right away. ‘Every minute. Except sometimes.’

  Except sometimes. I know where this is going. I am determined not to talk about her with him.

  ‘I never knew,’ I say cautiously. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  What else could I possibly say?

  He nods absently.

  We look at our untouched rolls, drowning in red sauce, black flies like pepper flakes.

  I shoo them away with my hand.

  ‘Plus, you had her. And I didn’t,’ he says. His voice is low and he doesn’t look directly at me, but stares out at the trees on his left, the tip of his tongue curled over his softly trembling lip.

  I remember that expression. It is classic Vikram. In the middle of the exams in which I snuck him notes, when he scored his famous goals, when he ran a race. Oh, I remember that look – of Vikram focusing very hard.

  ‘Riya,’ I say, swallowing hard.

  He takes a deep breath, then exhales. There is a weird lump in my throat – awfully familiar, but also unknown, like some sort of ancient instinct that I recognize vaguely from many years ago.

  God. Not here, not now, not in front of him.

  ‘She loved you. And … that’s all I ever wanted. Riya. But she was the one thing I could never have.’

  I have no words for him, I just look him in the face, and suddenly so many things make sense to me. I have been such a blind fool – how couldn’t I have known when it was always there staring me in my face?

  And then as clear as if it was just yesterday, I remember, them on the race track, him following as she led, them standing in the hallway, she smiling, books to her chest. I remember the way he had looked when he had walked out of her house without the gift, how he had wept that night at the hospital. The memories come like a torrent and sweep me away. I can’t handle it, not all at once. I get up from my chair unsteadily, I fish through my pocket for some bills, throw them on the table and then without a word I walk away.

  He had driven us here, and now I walk the uphill path back – the shortcut that runs through Dhobi Ghat – as hard for me now as it was back then, especially since my leg now hurts as badly as if I was seventeen again, running down that road, desperate to get to Riya at the end.

  I sit down on a rock, catching my breath, and the cold air stings my chest. He had loved Riya, desired her, probably for the same reasons as I. She had meant something to him, as she had to me. He had experienced her in a way that I never had, running by her side. How could this be? I hold my face in my hands, feeling the wet streaks of sweat, my head going round and round and round. I am suddenly exhausted and then I remember how it had been at the end.

  86

  ABURNING BODY has a peculiar smell, it’s a smell that you can never forget and there is absolutely nothing to compare it with. The clothing catches first, then the hair begins crisping; the skin melts suddenly, and then go the bones. But not the soul. That is already gone.

  Here I am, all these years later, the same spot on campus surrounded by boys dressed in white. The funeral ground is vast and empty, located next to Dhobi Ghat, the clouds today are white and narrow as bones, the sky wide open, the horizon extending as far as the eye can see.

  B.P. was beloved. There were a lot of people back then, and a lot of people now. Today, as that day, her badge that hung around my neck, next to my heart, glows like burning coals. Today, as that day, I stand frozen, feeling nothing but the beads of sweat that trickle down my neck. Then, as now, I am surrounded by my batchmates but distinctly set apart; they crowd together in little herds and these thirty-something-year-old men are suddenly fourteen again.

  I am successful, and they know it too. But despite everything, I feel so small again, like a crippled boy who is just a ghost. Vikram stands there, dressed in white, his eyes burning like the fire, the flames dancing in fright. He had loved her too, maybe as much as me. I never knew what had happened, I never knew what was in that box.

  I stand there, staring at the burning fire, holding my breath till I get dizzy and the blood rushes to my face. Time splits and refracts, as though through broken glass. Sixteen years, six months, eight days. I want to forget, but I cannot. The maths, the numbers always come to me, floating in my brain, swirling in my head and suddenly I’m there again as if it’s yesterday.

  87

  IHADN’T SEEN her body, I was afraid to go up close. They say she wore one of her mother’s old saris, that she had been dressed by relatives she had never met. A games uniform would have been more appropriate, I hazily thought.

  The whole batch had gathered, even though she hadn’t been close to any of them. There was so many little hypocrisies: teachers who had belittled her now praised her aptitude; girls who had ignored her ostentatiously sobbed on each other’s shoulders. Her coaches talked about her work ethic and grit. No o
ne knew what she really was: a gust of wind, perfectly free.

  But I was in no state to protest – I was numb and I didn’t know what to do any more. After she died, I had flitted in and out. I didn’t know what was happening most of the time and the days passed by in a blur. At Riya’s funeral, I remember that someone had had to loan me a white kurta – maybe it was Vikram, who was strangely vigilant. He organized memorials, prayers, vigils, his leadership skills in full play. I too was there at them, although I don’t remember a single thing.

  Before they carried her body to the pyre, B.P. called me, motioning for me to come with a jerk of his head. Stiffly, in a trance, I obliged. Up close I saw that his face had aged a million years. He had the sunken face of an old man, haggard and carved. In the distance somewhere I heard a silent, agonizing wail.

  Carrying her body on my shoulder, I got a brief glimpse. Though there was a body there was no life. A dead body was, after all, dead. It wasn’t Riya, though she was still all there. This was not my girl, but someone else, shrivelled and very old.

  I had never seen a body burn before. What went first was the hair, her long hair, her messy hair. The fire was surprisingly noisy, it sounded like it was eating Riya’s body, greedily smacking its lips. I stood there entranced by the dancing flames, and I remembered what Monty Sir, the chemistry teacher had said – it’s the hair that causes a burning body to smell. As I saw her body burn, a column of white smoke rising up, I swear I saw something sparkle above the burning mass and float away with the clouds.

  And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun, and then there was nothing left of my glorious girl with her long legs and her wild hair and her sweet face, strong as I would never know strength again. People patted each other’s backs and murmured their condolences to B.P. I suddenly understood something that had been in my mind, just out of reach. Riya, she was never of this world. She was never meant to be caged. Holding on to her forever would have been impossible – she was born to run, to fly, to soar. Now she was finally free.