A Handful of Sunshine

by Vikram Bhatt

  ‘I woke up to find this beautiful patch of sunlight on your face,’ he said tenderly, ‘and then I thought to myself, “This is all I need in my life, this beautiful face with sunlight, this face that I can hold in my hands and call my own.” You, Mira, are my handful of sunshine, and you are all I need.’

  I had no idea what made tears come to my eyes when he said those words, and soon I was racked by sobs. He held me tight in his arms and then with laughter in his voice said, ‘Hey! You are wrecking my sunshine!’

  We spent the next three days getting out of the room only to feel less guilty about being in Switzerland. The timetable seemed pretty well set, breakfast, lunch and dinner, interspersed with passionate lovemaking and sparingly sprinkled with sightseeing. The prospect of going back to India loomed large as the days sped past. I decided that there was only one way to make the trip back bearable. This was all happening too fast but then this was the digital age and there were only two speeds—fast and stop.

  ‘Veer, when we get back to India, would you come and meet my parents?’

  We were sitting side by side on a ferry from Thun to Interlaken. The birds above and the water displaced by the ferry were the only sounds.

  ‘You mean meet the parents?’ Veer asked with a straight face. I hated it when he did that because then I did not know what he was thinking.

  ‘Yes,’ I shot back.

  He grinned, ‘Sometimes you forget that my need to have you in my life is way more than your need to have me in your life.’

  I giggled and quickly kissed him. ‘You are going by a very old assessment, Mr Rai,’ I said.

  He beamed and helped straighten a strand of my hair that covered my eyes.

  ‘I would be happy to meet your parents, Mira,’ he said softly.

  The phone rang on cue. It was my father calling and Veer caught sight of his name and laughed out loud. ‘News really travels fast, doesn’t it?’

  I chuckled as I answered the phone.

  At first I couldn’t hear my father, but oddly I could hear some noise behind him. It was like some kind of a wailing sound. Someone seemed to be crying.

  ‘Hello!’ I exclaimed, a strange feeling of dread beginning to gnaw at me.

  Then I heard my father. He was crying. What the hell was going on?

  ‘Mira . . . Mira . . . it’s Akshay! He’s dead!’

  VEER

  Thursday evening

  She shut down like some complicated piece of machinery that seemingly looked intact from the outside but had suffered irreparable damage from the inside. The last words Mira said to me were on the ferry when she hung up on her father.

  ‘Akshay is dead, Veer. I’ve got to get back,’ she whispered.

  It was the loudest whisper that I had heard in my entire life. It tore through the silence and hit me like a scream.

  By the time we got back to the hotel, I had managed to get the travel agent on the phone and booked us out of Geneva to Paris and then from there to Mumbai. It was the fastest possible route back.

  Mira would not talk. She just stared into nothingness, and then as we got to the hotel room she threw up all over the bathroom floor. I held her as she went down on all fours, retching and gasping. I had no idea how to deal with the situation emotionally. There was nothing I could do or say that could make this better for her; all I could do was be there for her and get her to India as soon as possible.

  She stared at the vomit-stained marble floor of the hotel room like she had no idea of what she had just done, still breathing hard.

  ‘Get up, Mira, let me clean this up. Don’t worry about it, I’ve got this.’ She followed my instructions robotically. I walked her out into the room and sat her down on the couch, wiped her mouth with a wet napkin and then stood there not knowing what to do with myself. I’ve got this? That was nonsense. I had got nothing. I was as lost as she was.

  Thoughts began to rampage through my mind: ‘Wash the floor, pack our things, perhaps get Mira a doctor. She could use a sedative. She needed to be saved from the scorching reality but then how was I going to get her to the airport? I was like a deer caught in the harsh headlights of a car, paralysed.’

  I caught an image of Mira and me in the mirror that hung behind the room door. We were together, yet torn apart. And then, a moment later, it was like an out-of-body experience where I stared at the lovers in the mirror and felt really sad for them. A fiendish ghoul called Death had sneaked into their dream and turned it into a nightmare.

  Mira did not shut her eyes for even a fleeting moment. She just stared, first out of the window of the taxi that took us to Geneva, then out of the window of the business class lounge, and finally out of the aeroplane window. It was like she was having a conversation with someone that I could not see.

  Right from the time Mira had heard the news of Akshay, she had stopped communicating with me. I also sensed that she had distanced herself from me. It was only on the flight back that I figured out why she needed to withdraw from me. She was more filled with guilt than with remorse.

  She would never forgive herself for being away when Akshay had died. No amount of explaining or arguing was going to make her see the light. This was going to be a dreadful albatross that she was going to carry for the rest of her life—survivor’s guilt. Why was she alive and why was Akshay dead? Would she have been able to avert this had she not been in Switzerland? Did her need to be with the person she loved kill her brother? The questions would torment her through her life. Hopefully, they would loosen their stranglehold on her with time, but they would never go away, and I, unfortunately, was going to be the person who reminded her of those questions. I was going to be the object of her guilt.

  As I reasoned it through, I felt an inexplicable fear grip my heart. Had I lost Mira? Would she never want to see me again? The thought was so frightening that it made me unbuckle myself from the seat and stand in the aisle, breathing hard, trying to steady myself.

  Mira did not even notice that I had stood up with such abruptness. She continued to look out of the window at the night sky. Grief is a dangerous thing—it always looks for someone to blame, and in this case I was hoping it wasn’t me. To be away from the one you love was bearable but to be so close and yet so far away was like falling into a vast abyss.

  We waited for our bags at the baggage carousel; it was early morning in Mumbai. We had made it back in less than sixteen hours, and yet those were the longest sixteen hours of our lives.

  I recognized Mira’s bag and heaved it off the belt and on to the trolley. She looked at me in the new-found expressionless way of hers, ‘I am going to walk out of here alone. I am sure someone from the family has come to receive me. I don’t want them to know that I was in Switzerland with some guy. I hope you understand. It is not the best time for me to make a romantic confession to Mom and Dad.’

  I nodded. I understood. She did not say goodbye, just turned around and pushed the baggage trolley towards the exit.

  As I watched her walk away, her words, I was in Switzerland with some guy, kept playing in my mind.

  Some guy? What did that mean?

  MIRA

  Friday morning

  Akshay would roll his eyes, look up at the heavens and ask an imaginary someone up there, ‘When is Mira going to grow up? Please God, make it quick!’

  Then I would giggle, ‘I am your curse and you are my blessing. You have to be the grown-up while I can wander through life in my big pink bubble! Your mission in life is to make sure that this bubble doesn’t burst, ever! Get it, bro?’

  Akshay had failed. He was gone. My pink bubble lay shattered all around me.

  Growing up is not a slow, laborious process; it happens suddenly. It’s like a hungry predator waiting to grab your innocence as you walk down the forest trail of life. It clutches you by your neck, throws you to the ground and trounces every bit of your happy past to dust. Never to be experienced again. Finished.

  When I walked out of the Mumbai Airport, that animal ca
lled growing up had just about finished with me. Veer had taken great care of me and had done everything he could to make my journey back home bearable. If he knew how to reach into the depths of my being and soothe my pain, I am certain he would have done that, but the pain was nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I had never felt pain like this; it was all-consuming. And I was also numb.

  Sanjay Uncle, my mom’s brother, had come to fetch me at the airport. I could see his eyes were bloodshot and tired. It was evident he had been awake all night. He had always been the last one to be seen at a celebration and the first one to be seen at a tragedy.

  We did not hold each other and cry; we did not even say a word to each other—barely a nod. He helped me with my bag while I belted myself in the passenger seat. The mundane was the only way to stay sane.

  We drove through the city of Mumbai that was waking up to a new day. It was to be the first of many times that I would see people going through their routine existence and feel enraged. I wanted to roll down the window and shout out loud, ‘Hey, you idiots, stop being so happy with nothing, this is not going to last forever, there is a bastard called death and he is waiting for you, all of you!’

  Sanjay Uncle did not want to talk about anything, but I wanted to know what had happened with Akshay. I asked him to tell me. He sighed deeply, like he had been expecting this all along.

  ‘He had a meeting that went on late into the night for the Singapore office. It was a dinner meeting but he ate only sparingly, he wanted to eat with your mother when he got home. He was at the traffic light on Linking Road; you know what a stickler he was for traffic rules. He stopped till he had the green light and then when he got the go-ahead he put his car into gear and must have driven about 5 metres when a group of young kids jumped the traffic light and rammed into the side of his car. They hit Akshay’s car with such force that it took a tumble and landed on the opposite side of the road. The door on his side of the car splintered and punctured his body. One of those kids died as well. Some passers-by took him to the hospital and called us from his phone. But I suspect Akshay was dead even before they got him to the hospital.’

  Sanjay Uncle tried hard to keep his voice from breaking and I tried even harder not to imagine how it would have played out. But the mind is a treacherous fiend—it created the whole scene for me in macabre detail.

  ‘Have they brought him back home from the hospital?’ I asked as plainly as I could.

  ‘Your father thought it was best to keep him at the morgue till you got back.’

  ‘I want to see him.’

  I could see Sanjay Uncle fight the urge to argue, but thankfully he decided against it. He nodded and turned the car towards the hospital.

  The antiseptic stench of the morgue room filled the air, but even more antiseptic than the air was the behaviour of the morgue attendants. Their indifference was close to hurtful. It did not strike me at the time, but for some even death was business as usual.

  Sanjay Uncle finished talking to an old man with a register and signalled to me with a nod of his head that I should follow him. I did. My stomach was in knots and I could hear my heartbeat over the clatter of the old revolving table fan. This happened to other people. Why was this happening to me?

  And then just like that, he was there in front of me. No fancy drawer with cold fumes spewing out like in the movies. My brother lay on a stone slab with some old blood and some new blood splattered over it. A barrage of questions assailed my mind. Was he feeling cold? Did his back hurt on that stone? Did he want to say something? Was he feeling sad about being left alone in this room?

  I placed a loving hand on his forehead and then bent down to kiss it.

  So many memories flashed through my mind in that one instant—school, summer holidays, breakfast together, quarrels, his first girlfriend, my endless tantrums, his toys were always blue, mine always pink . . . it was all just colourless now.

  I thought my heart would burst with the pain. It was a physical, agonizing pain, like someone had pierced my heart with a knife and wouldn’t let up.

  I could see Sanjay Uncle crying shamelessly. He stood behind me, like he was ready to hold me should I fall, and yet I was the one finding it so difficult to cry. Why the hell were the tears not rolling down? Was this not the time to get hysterical?

  ‘Sanjay Uncle, can I lie on this stone slab with Akshay and hold him?’ I have no idea if it was my question or the pain behind it that made Sanjay Uncle hold me firmly by my hand and march me out of the morgue.

  The rest of the day was an out-of-body experience. A girl called Mira returned home to a devastated family, and a house filled with grieving relatives, friends, mourners and an organized group of funeral rites service providers. The last one did make her marvel at the ability of the human mind to make money.

  Her father was teetering between being brave and breaking down. Her mother had been given a vicious sedative to knock her out. It didn’t put her to sleep, but made her look like a red-eyed zombie.

  Akshay was brought home from the morgue only to be taken away in the funeral service ambulance.

  Someone said ladies were not allowed at the Hindu crematorium. I did not know who that someone was, but I wanted to scream out loud that it gave me no joy to see my brother burn to ashes. Instead I looked at the telephone number of the funeral service company printed on the side of the ambulance. I remember asking myself if anyone really noted down numbers from the side of an ambulance. I remember getting no logical answer for that question, but I do remember the sight of someone in white pyjamas shutting the ambulance door on my view of Akshay lying covered in garlands inside.

  My mind flashed back to the memory of a glorious morning. The lounge of my house bathed in the golden light of the sunset and Akshay turning to look at me, his smile reflecting the glow.

  I remember asking, ‘Why is there so much happiness going around?’

  Then Dad answered, ‘I am extending our food business globally, and our first office will be in Singapore.’

  Then Akshay proclaiming with glee, ‘And guess who is going to be the chief executive officer?’

  The ambulance made an unforgiving sound as it fought through the mourners, taking Akshay with it.

  I would never see him again.

  The howl began somewhere in the pit of my stomach and tore my world apart. I collapsed on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Then it all went dark.

  VEER

  Sunday morning

  I knew Mira had receded into a place where no one could reach her, a dark recess of her mind that would make her pain more bearable. I also sensed I was not allowed into that cave. It hurt me to think that I had been excluded from her world when perhaps I could’ve helped her the most.

  Over my fourth vodka and Prady’s fifth can of beer, Prady explained to me that people in grief tended to avoid the ones they loved because seeing a loved one made you lose control. It was as if the ones you loved could see through your feeble attempts at being strong and unaffected by the trauma. The act of bravado would not be able to hold itself together and would collapse like a house of cards. Prady rarely made sense, but this time it seemed he had hit the nail on the head.

  Mira could not be anyone but herself around me, and that in turn would make it impossible for her to be the Mira with nerves of steel. Yet, why did she need to have steel nerves around me? Something did not seem right.

  I did not message or call her for the next two days after we got back to Mumbai. On the third day I sent her a couple of messages but she did not respond to them. I could see the giveaway blue tick of a message received and read. It only made me more anxious.

  ‘Allow her some time, dude,’ Prady preached. I nodded.

  On the third day I saw a picture of Akshay in the newspaper, an advert announcing a prayer meeting in his memory. I had never seen him before. He looked wise with an unearthly charm. As if he knew that he was not going to be on the planet for long.

  I wond
ered if I should go for the prayer meeting. Prady dissuaded me. I listened to him again.

  That night I called Mira, but she did not answer her phone. I tried more than once. I heard Amy Winehouse sing ‘Back to Black’ on her caller tune. It is strange how a caller tune defines a person and then one fine day it just doesn’t any more.

  Two days later, six days since I had seen her or spoken to her, I received a message from her. It was a simple, Hi.

  Hi, how are you doing? I responded.

  I don’t know, came her response.

  I love you, I tried to comfort her.

  Hmmm. She didn’t seem comforted.

  I know you are in a lot of pain and perhaps I can’t do much about the pain, but I am here for you, just know. She felt so far away and I was desperately trying to say something that would pull her closer to me.

  We should meet, V. Coffee today?

  My heart skipped a beat. The feeling that something was not right was turning into angst now. ‘Should meet?’ Why would she say that? It sounded really ominous.

  Sure. 10 p.m.? Marriott? I shot back.

  See you there, came her prompt response. Then she went offline almost immediately. In my mind’s eye I saw her chuck the phone on the bed next to her.

  I was early by almost half an hour. I was worried. I couldn’t help but reflect on this thing called fear. I remembered reading that fear was the bedrock of all human evolution. Everything we are and wherever we are headed, we owe to fear. Greed, insecurity, hate, progress, learning and so many more emotions—if you looked at them closely, all of them stem from fear. Fear is what has made the survival instinct in us . . . survive.

  My love had an instinct of its own and it was telling me I was up shit creek without a paddle. I would have gone into the etymology of that disgusting phrase had I not caught a whiff of Chance, her perfume.

  It made my heart jump.

  She looked like she had aged a couple of years. She had dark circles around her beautiful eyes and her face looked ashen. She had bunched her hair into an untidy bun, obviously not bothered with how it fell. A white shirt and a faded pair of jeans seemed equally mundane for Mira, but to me she looked more beautiful than ever.