An Extraordinary Destiny

by Shekhar Paleja

  Gavin smiled innocently while the lady eyed him for a moment. She frowned and let them in.

  The massive circular library was nearly empty. As Gavin followed Jyoti, she noticed him take in the surroundings as she had her first time there, gawking in wonder at the pale blue, 160-foot-high dome with white and golden columns that spread down from the centre oculus like long octopus tentacles. She wondered if he felt as cozy as she did surrounded by all the books that lined the circumference of the room.

  She led him to her favourite place there—a cubicle against the north wall, a quiet, almost private nook. It was empty now and they sat in two chairs, closely snug. The rain on the domed roof was no more than a distant murmur.

  “Wow,” Gavin whispered, looking up at the huge dome.

  “Sometimes I come here just to read,” she said. “It’s much nicer than the library we have on campus.”

  “So what exactly is it that you’re studying?” Gavin asked. “I know you said you were some kind of maths genius—”

  “I said no such thing,” she said, swatting Gavin. “I’m studying derivatives pricing.”

  “What the bloody hell is that?”

  “It’s about how stocks, or options on stocks, are priced. It’s complicated. Not nearly as interesting as Caravaggio or Rembrandt.”

  She pictured herself travelling around the world with him. He inspired her to be more like him and less like herself, less introverted, less restrained, less afraid. She saw herself happy with him. Are you mad? You should be ashamed! What kind of boy will want to marry you, just think!? Before she was even aware of it, her eyes began to well up.

  Gavin sat up straight. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just having a go—”

  She shook her head. “It’s alright,” she said, wiping a tear. “I guess—” She searched for the right words and could only come up with, “School’s been really stressful.” It was partly true. The workload this semester had been challenging, but the real reason she was anxious was because all her life she’d been dutiful and perfect, and now she was veering off the script her parents had written. Perfect Jyoti baby wasn’t being so perfect anymore.

  Gavin said, “Sorry if I said something I shouldn’t have—”

  Jyoti shook her head while wiping away a tear. “No, no, you didn’t.” The whole arranged marriage thing had never bothered her before. She’d accepted it, even looked forward to it in a general kind of way. Her girlfriends Chaya and Kiran had both written to her that they were recently engaged. At first, Jyoti had been a little jealous of their wedding plans, honeymoons, and new lives. But lately she wasn’t so sure. She’d be returning to Bombay in five months, and then getting married to a boy she didn’t even know. This was a simple fact she’d accepted blindly, without question, about how her life would unfold. After all it was what happened to nearly everyone she knew in Bombay. But now her whole body was almost rigid at the thought of going back and getting married, her face glowing hot because as much as she tried to fight it, she knew that the reason for her anxiety was sitting inches away from her.

  But that didn’t make sense. She barely knew him. They’d only been out on one date. Had only shaken hands, for god’s sake.

  Gavin touched her arm. “You alright?”

  She considered telling him but she didn’t know where to begin. She could tell him about how she was expected to get an arranged marriage soon. He would try to understand, but he wouldn’t be able to really, and she couldn’t fault him for that. They were from different worlds. He would probably think it all ridiculous. She didn’t know what to do.

  “Sorry, you must think I’m a lunatic,” she said, wiping at another tear with her sleeve.

  “No, just the cutest economist I’ve ever seen,” he said and kissed her on the mouth.

  Her teeth knocked against his. She wasn’t sure what to do with her tongue and her heart hammered in her chest. Jyoti pulled away and was about to apologize for being so clumsy, but Gavin touched her arm gently. It assured her that he didn’t need an apology or explanation. And so she kissed him back.

  - 22 -

  1997

  JYOTI WAS TRYING TO DECIDE what to wear while Gavin waited for her in the drawing room. It was sunny, and on opening her bedroom window, Jyoti was surprised to find the temperature outside teetering on hot, at least by English standards. Perfect for her new pair of shorts, she thought, before realizing she’d have to shave her legs.

  Gavin leafed through a magazine in the drawing room while the tub filled. As Jyoti settled into the warm water, she hoped he’d picked up an Economist rather than one of the trashy Bollywood gossip rags she treated herself to every month at the international newsstand in Covent Garden.

  “Isn’t it annoying how the entire country is enraptured with this election?” Gavin asked from the drawing room. It was all Londoners spoke of these days.

  “I know,” Jyoti said from the bathroom with the door slightly ajar. The fact that she was naked and a boy was in the next room would have made her mother go into convulsions, but Jyoti did her best to play it cool.

  “So have you decided when you’re going to travel?” Jyoti asked, hoping he wouldn’t go anywhere until after she returned home in the autumn.

  “Well, it’s up to my mates. One of them has an uncle with a boat we can work on in Turkey. Not sure if David and Tim want to carry on with me to Egypt or Morocco,” Gavin said. “I think they prefer Ibiza.”

  She’d met David and Tim once. Carmen, a Spanish classmate she’d befriended, and a couple of friends of hers from the LSE had gone to a movie with them. Like Gavin, his mates were from working-class families in Dublin. They wore their blue collars proudly and seemed friendly but she could tell that they privately snickered at her and her academic friends and she wondered how disappointed they were in Gavin for fraternizing with white-collar nerds. Gavin was different from David and Tim. They’d grown up together and over the years as Gavin went to art college they’d lost touch but reconnected in London the way many foreigners in a foreign land coagulate (just as she had mildly befriended an acne-ridden, overweight boy from Delhi in her program, with whom she had next to nothing in common).

  “Maybe I should just go by myself,” Gavin said.

  She didn’t like the idea of him travelling to countries in the Middle East or Africa alone. He was sure to get fleeced, or worse. They’d mostly avoided talking about when he was going and what was implied by this evasion was that they were only together for a short time. After a few months they’d never see each other again, the significance of which was too nebulous, and yet Jyoti had an inkling it was something she wouldn’t be able to handle so effortlessly as she let on.

  While she began shaving her legs, Gavin said, “I really want to check out Algiers, Beirut, maybe Timbuktu.”

  Jyoti said, “I’d like to see Paris.”

  “Beirut was once the Paris of the Middle East.”

  But now it’s completely ravaged from civil war, she wanted to say but was too polite to do so. He liked Radiohead. She liked Whitney Houston. They were just too far apart. It would never work. So why was she allowing daydreams of remaining in London with Gavin to play out in her head? What sort of life would that be for her? Away from her family? Her mother would have a heart attack at the first mention of it.

  But wasn’t the point of having children to give them something better? Wouldn’t her parents be happier for her, in the long run, if she were to thrive in London? Her father might be able to adjust, but her mother would forever suffer paroxysms. Nevertheless, how would she be able to remain after her student visa expired? She would have to marry—she nearly slapped herself for getting so carried away and took a deep breath.

  Gavin found the Bollywood magazines and asked who was who in the Bollywood scene. Jyoti answered all his questions from the bathtub, caught him up on all the recent gossip while shaving her legs. Who was going to marry who, who had made the longest string of flops, who was making the hits, whose father was part of the
mafia, or the government, who had been caught poaching big game wildlife but evaded jail time, etc.

  Gavin said, “Let’s go see one of these films one day.”

  Jyoti couldn’t help but laugh out loud and said, “You wouldn’t understand a word.”

  She heard him tinker with the CD player and the soundtrack to a hit Bollywood movie, Pardes, began to play. Perhaps a Bollywood film with Gavin would be fun. She imagined the two of them sitting next to each other in the dark theatre, her leaning close to him to translate everything. But her daydreaming came to a sudden halt when Gavin flung open the bathroom door.

  She yelped and covered herself with her hands even though she was mostly submerged in soapy water. With his back to her the whole time, Gavin did his best impression of a Bollywood dance so outrageous that it was offensive at first as he gyrated his hips and moved his hands and head spastically to the music. But it was more merry than facetious, which is why she laughed and then cried, “Get out!”

  After one last quick hip thrust he leapt out and closed the door.

  Part of her was furious with him for barging in on her. But he’d kept his back to her the whole time, there was no attempt on his part to ogle her. After a few breaths, she settled herself and then laughed out loud again.

  She wanted to tell him to forget about his friends and travelling the world. She was only here for a few more months. Didn’t he want to spend that time with her? But that would be selfish, desperate. Instead, she watched beads of moisture trickle down the foggy bathroom mirror.

  Jyoti emerged from the bedroom with her hair down. She always wore it tied back, but since this was the first time she’d be wearing shorts in London, why not go all the way? Her bare legs made her self-conscious. She hadn’t worn shorts in public since she was ten or eleven years old.

  “You look great,” Gavin said.

  Unsure of how to respond to the compliment, she ignored it and made a show of searching for something in her purse.

  “It’s your lucky day, Jyoti Patik,” Gavin said, mispronouncing her last name like just about everyone else she knew in London (Patick rather than Patuk). Another reason they were incompatible—he couldn’t even say her name correctly. Jyoti decided not to correct him as it had taken him several tries to get her first name right.

  “I’m going to take you to one of my favourite spots in London,” he said while putting his shoes on.

  “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I hate surprises,” Jyoti said, doing her best to hide her excitement.

  By the time they left the flat it was nearly seven o’clock and as they began walking down King’s Road, the warm spring air felt glorious on her legs. You’ve made your choice now, you lascivious girl. Look at you, walking down the road in shorts like a common tramp with a gora for the public to gawk at!

  She couldn’t believe she’d wasted almost the entire day inside trying to study and hadn’t even finished a chapter. What was wrong with her? She could barely concentrate these days.

  Even though it was nearing the end of rush hour, traffic was calmer than usual and there were fewer people on the street as it was election day. Each pub they walked past was packed with people drinking, awaiting results. There was an excitement in the air across the city. The Tories were fearing a loss for the first time in two decades; it was all the British students at the LSE had talked about. Even in Chelsea and South Kensington—conservative bastions—young people were campaigning for the Labour Party.

  Gavin said, “I think the Labour Party might actually win tonight.”

  “I’ve never really followed politics. All Indian politicians are crooked.”

  “It isn’t that different in the UK.”

  Jyoti seriously doubted that corruption in the UK was as endemic and systemic as it was in India but she didn’t want to start an argument.

  As they entered St James’s Park she thought perhaps he’d gotten tickets to a West End show; she’d always wanted to see a big musical. But Gavin led her to a secluded spot by a few plane trees and shrubs near the duck pond. It was almost the exact same spot Jyoti came to feed the ducks on her way back from school when she walked home—a little quiet corner, a cove almost, that few people frequented. She smiled at the coincidence.

  “What’s so funny?” Gavin asked as he unpacked some food from his bag.

  But she didn’t want to ruin his surprise by telling him that she’d been there dozens of times. She was touched by his thoughtfulness.

  Gavin said, “Shit, I forgot the wineglasses.”

  “It’s alright, it’s perfect,” she said, touching his arm and sitting next to him on the blanket he’d unfurled. Gavin was trawling his bag for a Swiss Army knife that he finally found and used to uncork the wine.

  Plane trees had begun to bloom a few weeks ago across the city and now in the park along with the scarlet oak and black mulberry trees they were just as verdant. The air was intoxicating with the fragrance of tulips, daisies, and daffodils.

  With the Swiss Army knife, Jyoti spread cheese onto chunks of bread that Gavin tore from the baguette. The grapes were deliciously sweet, the olives delectable. She even had a few sips of the wine and drank it straight out of the bottle like Gavin.

  He was trying to be a vegetarian. At first when she informed him she’d never eaten meat, he thought she was pulling his leg. But after Jyoti explained that it wasn’t just her religion but how she objected to animals being mistreated in factory farms and slaughterhouses, Gavin couldn’t find a reason to argue so he thought he’d give it a try. Growing up in Ireland, he said he’d never even heard of half the vegetables she knew. She was proud of the fact she’d made him a falafel and palak paneer addict. He’d meet her every Wednesday at the LSE campus where Hare Krishnas handed out free rice and curry. The food was a bit bland but vegetarian.

  The warm evening air gave a hint of cooling as the sun began to set and Gavin rolled a cigarette. In addition to the tobacco, there was another scent to Gavin, something that gave him a pleasing fragrance. The other day, she’d stood next to a man at a bus stop who was rolling Drum tobacco and surreptitiously inched her way towards him to see if he smelled like Gavin. He hadn’t.

  Jyoti asked Gavin now, “What kind of cologne do you wear?”

  “None,” Gavin said, throwing a bit of crusty baguette into the water for the ducks.

  Jyoti didn’t believe him. While giving him a shove, she said in her best American accent, “Get outta here.”

  “It’s true,” Gavin said, shoving her back gently, “Never worn cologne. I wear Speed Stick, that’s all.”

  “Speed Stick?”

  “Yeah, Mountain Moss scent.”

  She stared at him and laughed. Partly at him but mostly at herself for being so pompous in thinking that only an expensive cologne could smell so alluring.

  “They should rename it,” Jyoti said. “Mountain Moss sounds like a fungus.” She nestled closer to him as they watched the ducks dawdle in the water while the sky above began to shift into shades of dusk. A brood of ducklings swam behind their mother, creating ripples in the still water. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so calm.

  Jyoti noticed that Gavin’s face and arms were flushed a faint pink. She asked, “You feeling alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m brill. Why?”

  “Your face—it’s red,” she pointed but couldn’t describe it.

  “Oh, my skin burns quickly. I must be a bit red from my time in the sun earlier in the day. I turn into a lobster on the beach in half an hour. Guess you don’t have that problem, eh?”

  She felt foolish for not realizing sooner and then answered, “Well, if I stay in the sun for too long my skin turns darker. Most girls in India don’t stay out in the midday sun.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one will want to marry them,” she said matter-of-factly. As soon as she said it, she regretted it.

  “Really?” Gavin said, puzzled. “Why wouldn
’t anyone want to marry them?”

  She shook her head, wanted to rewind and take it back, but it was too late. “Well, uh—I guess—some people in India regard people with dark skin as something—lower—I don’t know. It’s ridiculous, right? But there are people who think like that.” She could feel her forehead bead with sweat. Her mother was one of those people. Don’t play outside in the afternoon sun, it will suck the beauty from your skin and leave you black. Who will marry you then?

  The self-loathing of dark skin was largely a by-product from hundreds of years of colonialism but no one seemed to question it. And every girl Jyoti knew in Bombay followed these rules deeply ingrained in Indian culture. No self-respecting girl would want to go out in the midday sun too long, for fear of becoming dark, less desirable, akin to the working classes. She’d always been aware of the prejudice hidden in homespun wisdom like that but never felt she had the choice to ignore it, to break from it, because everyone she knew in Bombay, where political correctness about skin tone was almost non-existent, followed it. She’d overheard many arguments about skin tone, caste, and religion at dinner parties that her parents hosted when some of the adults, after a few whiskies, would argue that they themselves didn’t necessarily believe that a dark-skinned woman was lower class, or that Hindus and Muslims marrying was perfectly fine, but what would people say? What would the neighbours think? The blame was always put on others in society. No one at these dinner parties admitted that their reluctance, their lack of courage in standing up for what they truly believed to be right the next morning when they were sober, was part of the problem.

  But now in London, surrounded by young people from diverse backgrounds, half a world away from her parents, the hypocrisy and prejudice in Indian culture was difficult to ignore.

  Jyoti shook her head, trying to rationalize the dark skin thing to Gavin. She didn’t know how to explain any of it. It would all seem so foolish to him, if not horribly antiquated. Wanting to change the subject, she sipped the wine and said, “Mmm, delicious.” It was the first time she’d drunk alcohol but she didn’t want to tell Gavin for fear of being thought a prude. The first couple of sips were acrid but eventually she grew accustomed to the taste.