You Are All I Need

by Ravinder Singh

  I felt tremendous joy inside me. We bid goodbye to each other and she boarded her cab.

  I saved her number and was going to call her when Meera called.

  ‘Hey! I told you to call me once you land. You forgot?’ she asked.

  I remembered she had told me so many times to call her as soon as I landed. I had totally forgotten. ‘I am at the Uber pickup zone. I was going to call you after boarding the cab.’

  ‘You idiot! I am at the airport. I came to pick you up. Thought it would be a surprise for you. And you were going to give me a shock.’ She was laughing on the phone.

  ‘Where are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Behind you, Mr Idiot.’ I turned around and saw her walking towards me. My heart started pounding again. Had she seen Anushka? I was so screwed.

  She ran the last few steps and hugged me tightly. ‘Missed you so much.’

  ‘I missed you too,’ I replied.

  ‘Come, let’s go.’ She grabbed my trolley bag and started walking.

  I started walking with her. My head was messed up. I did not know what to say.

  ‘We are going to my place now. There is another surprise waiting for you.’ Meera was smiling. My head was still trying to process everything going on inside me.

  ‘Don’t tell me you have prepared my favourite mutton curry and jeera rice,’ I asked.

  ‘That was an easy guess.’ She laughed. ‘By the way, why didn’t you call me when you landed?’

  ‘I actually met an old friend of mine on the flight. I was talking to her and thought would call you once I board the cab.’

  ‘That is one super-hot friend you got.’ She winked at me with a smile.

  ‘How did you know?’ My heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds.

  ‘I was waiting for you at the exit to surprise you. But then I saw the two of you coming out. You were laughing and talking to each other. So I decided to wait and surprise you after she leaves.’ She unlocked the car and put the trolley on the back seat.

  I was at a loss for words, my heart was pounding heavily and this was happening for the second time in three hours. ‘You know what? Had it been someone else in your place, she would have been suspicious,’ I said nervously while getting into the car.

  ‘That is because that “someone else” does not know you as much as I do. I love you and completely trust you.’ She smiled at me and turned on the ignition.

  All this while when I was with Anushka, not for once did I think of Meera. There is no denying the fact that Anushka is really beautiful and we have many things in common. Whereas when it comes to Meera, we have very few things in common. Our taste in movies or music doesn’t match. She likes beaches whereas I like mountains. Yet she cares for me, she trusts me blindly and loves me deeply.

  Meera was driving and telling me about how she’d spent the last weekend with her friends, since I was not here. I was half listening and giving occasional nods and smiles. Maybe I was assuming things, and Anushka just wanted to be friends. Or maybe she wanted us to be more than that. But I didn’t trust myself like Meera did. I was sure that I would fall for her with every passing day and would eventually ruin my relationship with Meera. The two hours that I spent in the flight with Anushka would be in my memories forever. But with Meera, I made memories every day. She was the one who forced me to go to the gym every day to stay fit. She was the one who took care of me when I met with an accident last year. She cared for me, she shouted at me and, most importantly, she inspired me to be a better person.

  In the real world, superheroes don’t wear capes or possess any superpowers. In the real world, superheroes are those people who become the pillars of your life without your knowledge. They make you a better person and are there for you even when you don’t expect them to be. They don’t give up on you even when you want to give up.

  Sometimes imperfect relationships can make you happier than a perfect one can. I am thankful to Anushka, because I gained a confidence I thought I would never have. Maybe Anushka could have been my superwoman. But there was no confusion in my mind any more. I took out my phone and went to contacts. I searched for Anushka’s name and deleted it without a second thought.

  24

  Arjun

  Maria K. Jimmy

  Devotees flocked to the temple in the ungodly hours of the night. Lanterns were lit and a faint hint of jasmine and incense sticks lightened the tense atmosphere.

  Kandanar Kelan, the fiery god, was running frantically around the court. Clad in a flowing straw skirt and awe-inspiring headgear, Kelan leapt into a bonfire and rolled in the flames. Frenzied drummers began beating in perfect synchronicity. Young priests lit palm-frond torches, swishing the embers into the air, and devotees recited hymns as Kelan screamed and performed his incredible kalaasams* of the night. I held my breath. The flames were not singeing him, not even a little bit. The deity who had possessed him was Kandanar Kelan, a king of the yesteryears and a fearsome warrior god who had rendered him invulnerable and invincible.

  He must have danced for minutes or hours—I still have no idea. Time seemed non-existent in the midst of such a captivating and soul-wrenching performance. The transformation from incorrigible wrath to raving ferocity, the dance was a sight to witness—a true explosion of music, dance and fervent devotion.

  Towards the end, young boys fanned his sweaty body and priests brought him offerings of rice as the crowd broke up as fast as they had emerged, mumbling prayers and asking for blessings from the deity. The overall effect was distinctly supernatural and I figured that that was precisely the point.

  Trying to figure out whether he was Kandanar Kelan at that moment or the fine young man of twenty-six that I knew was perplexing. Unsure, I walked towards him, scrutinizing his dazed expression and warm brown eyes.

  ‘Arjun . . .’ I called. It came out as a whisper, and even then I regretted saying it out loud. He looked at me, his tired, droopy eyes telling me that he had had enough for the night. I retreated.

  Bali Theyyam is a popular dance form performed in small temples of northern Kerala, and Arjun was a Theyyam performer. Artistes like him are trained from an early age to carry out this divine profession. Years are spent learning the skills required for each part of the tradition. I knew him well, and I knew that he put his heart and soul into what he did. Arjun was tall, dark and handsome, with rough, masculine sandpaper hands. Outside of Theyyam, he was a different person altogether. His voice never lost its enthusiasm, his eyes were constantly observing in and out and his right cheek gave out dimples when he smiled.

  It had been seven long months since I had met Arjun; it felt like forever, really, and one thing was certain—I was irrevocably and unconditionally in love with him.

  I first ran into Arjun at a public library. I was surprised he liked to read. I was smitten by everything about him—his deep voice and warm brown skin, the way his nose twitched and the way he gestured with his palms as he talked. When he talked, his eyes bore right into you, as if deciphering every thought passing through your mind. It was mesmerizing, to say the least. He invited me to his temple shows and, soon, it turned out to be a routine affair for me. I grew to appreciate the brilliance of both the performance and the performer behind it.

  The riverbank beyond the paddy field turned out to be our favourite place to loaf around. Early mornings were often swathed in silence, except for the mooing of the grazing cows with the egrets incessantly picking on their backs. Some days there would be sudden downpours and we would saunter in the softness of the monsoon rains as the wet mud gave away a fresh earthy scent.

  We met behind moss-streaked walls and stole kisses in the corners of the overgrown gardens of the countryside. We watched sunsets together as he traced his fingers along the nook of my elbow. He would narrate mythical stories from the past as I leaned against his shoulder, letting the legend of the god of the Aasharis sink in.

  Arjun was a wonder. He made me laugh and he made me think. He told me how this divine professio
n had been handed down to him through his family line and that even though he didn’t exactly choose it, it was an integral part of him—something he could never let go of. He told me how turning into Kandanar Kelan was a state of trance, a state of frenzy, and that nothing gave him more ecstasy than being taken over by an ancient spirit that people worshipped to this day.

  Some days Arjun liked to dive head first into his notions and I secretly loved the way his eyebrows knit together when he was in deep thought.

  ‘Theyyam is a cultural war cry,’ he would say, sipping on his hot kattan kaapi* in the early hours of the morning, ‘against firmly rooted notions of caste hierarchies.’

  ‘Basically, Theyyam continues to raise pertinent questions between the equations of the higher and the lower castes in Kerala,’ I would chime in, trying to sound intelligent and oh-so desperate to impress him. Arjun would nod.

  ‘It is no more a dying art,’ he would add slowly. ‘It changes with time.’

  Once, I noticed a dab of orange paint from the previous night’s performance still smeared on his face. I reached down to wipe it and we both laughed light-heartedly.

  I used to attend all of Arjun’s performances at the kshetram†, and several days I even stayed back after the show, despite him pushing me away every time. He liked to be alone right after the show but I liked to push it. It just didn’t feel right to leave him alone then.

  ‘Please go home, Lilly,’ he would whimper softly in between breaths. ‘This metamorphosis isn’t going to get any easier if you stick around.’

  It was painful to see the struggle, the staggering combat between his true self and the raging Kelan, who was killed hundreds of years ago.

  That day was different, though. I had told him that we had to talk, that I had overstayed my visit, that it was almost time for me to head back home and that we needed to sort things out. I knew it was sudden, but at some point I had to tell him. We were two people from really different backgrounds and we both knew that right from the beginning.

  Arjun was unusually quiet. He didn’t ask me to not leave. He didn’t offer to talk to my parents about us. He didn’t even react to the quiet agitation in my voice. He did none of the things I had expected him to do. He lifted the corner of his crisp white mundu*, crossed his leg and merely nodded at what I had said, as if I had lightly mentioned something that didn’t concern him at all.

  Something broke inside me. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I felt a sense of betrayal. And, for the first time since I had been with Arjun, a pang of remorse pricked me inside.

  Later that night, we met by the ebony river. Words did not escape either of us. The air was thick and the silence was unusually deafening.

  We sat by the riverbank like we always did. The river pulsed behind us, glistening in the moonlit night. His arm was cold, unfamiliar, and his eyes were down—unsmiling, lost and pondering. He was in pain—I could feel it.

  The calm of the night reawakened our senses to new melodies and we wrapped our arms against each other delicately, as though sheltering each other from the pain that was seeping in. Two brown bodies—a man and a woman enchanted by love yet divided by the brutal differences that societal normalcy teaches us.

  Yet what do they know about love? They teach us that love is financial stability, that love is the union of two families, that love is a flimsy match between two matrimonial profiles.

  They don’t know that real love is blind, that it sees no caste, no gender, no race, no colour, no age, no materialism.

  And yet how far was it worth to get hurt, to get jeered at, to get lectured—for love?

  Was love worth all the pain, all the torment, all the misery?

  Something inside me whispered ‘yes’ and yet I didn’t trust myself with it.

  ‘Lilly,’ Arjun whispered, his soft marble lips on my ear, breaking me free from my tangential thoughts. Perhaps he knew what I was thinking. Perhaps he, too, was thinking the same things. Perhaps he could read my mind. I liked to believe that we had that charismatic connection between us. I liked to think that it was what had brought us together in the first place.

  ‘Lilly . . . Lilly . . . Lilly . . .’ he kept mumbling my name like it was the last time he would ever say it. Like he was discovering unique ways to utter my little two-syllable name. Every time he drawled my name with his tongue, I felt warm inside. I felt like my name made more sense. It felt precious; I felt precious. It felt so surreal, like we were both in a dream—two goldfishes, swimming surreptitiously in calm blue waters, swishing our long, flowy mermaid tails, serene and carefree and blissful.

  ‘Hey,’ he said softly, snapping me out of my thoughts again. His softness made me wonder if his exceptional avatar was all a big lie. How could a human being so gentle transform himself into a screeching god plunging into flames at the drop of dusk? It was all a big mystery to me—a mystery that was better knotted up and dropped into the bed of the ocean and never thought of again. After all, all questions don’t have answers.

  Crickets chirped and moths flew, and I gave in to the unending gush of my contemplations. Bamboo sticks swayed in the summer breeze and I snuggled in his arms till sleep carried us both to nirvana.

  The next evening, Arjun was at the temple singing and chanting mantras, and I immediately knew that I had lost him. His eyes were shut in deep prayer and I couldn’t help wondering if he was doing that on purpose, trying to shield himself from anything that stopped him from his animistic fire dance. Would he shut his eyes to me too? The thought terrified me.

  At night he once again got into the skin of Kandanar Kelan. It was the only thing he knew—the only thing that made him him. He painted his face in intricate designs of red and orange, and wore the elaborate costume he had made out of silk and coconut husks. His antique silver necklace shone in the darkness. He tightened his metal anklets that clinked as he strutted to the courtyard of the kshetram, mystifying the ambience further. He swayed to the cataclysmic drumbeats of the chenda* and lost himself to the legend of Kandanar Kelan, a universal energy vibrating from inside of him. Onlookers hummed in both prayer and awe.

  It was just another night of Kelan leaping over fires and instilling fear into the hearts of his people. Of Kelan showing his rage to the fire that burnt him to death years ago.

  Yet that night was different for me. For us. When the spirit of Kelan took over his body that night and Arjun entered his phase of trance, it was I who jumped into the burning pyre.

  It was my body that burnt instead of his.

  My insides scorched.

  My head throbbed.

  My tongue was parched.

  My skin was singed by the flames.

  It could be the very last I saw of Arjun.

  Or maybe life would surprise us in the most mysterious ways.

  Nevertheless, Kandanar Kelan screeched and danced his heart out that night. The forest fire that killed Kelan hundreds of years ago must have been ashamed of itself.

  25

  Love in the Times of Marriage

  Aparajita Shishoo

  When Adil saw her across the room, his heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t take his eyes off Meera’s radiant face. He decided to walk up to her.

  ‘Hi,’ Adil said.

  Meera was standing alone, enjoying the party her friend, Kanika, had thrown. Meera turned to look at Adil and smiled back at him with a soft ‘hi’.

  Adil continued, ‘You seem to be the arty-farty type. What are you doing at a filmy party?’

  Meera was a bit tipsy by that time, so she retorted, ‘I am definitely farty, but with some arty. What about you?’

  Adil laughed out loud at her candour and asked her again what she was doing at such a party.

  ‘I am fishing for some juicy stories for my publication. You?’

  ‘I am trying to make some juicy stories!’ Adil winked at Meera.

  Meera laughed and asked, ‘Are you flirting with me?’

  ‘Are you noticing?’ Adil said.

  M
eera shot back, ‘I am ignoring . . . I don’t flirt with boys who have just entered puberty.’

  ‘Oh! That hurt . . . really hurt!’ Adil said, imitating a heartbreak. ‘By the way, I am twenty-five, well beyond my puberty years.’

  Meera laughed again at Adil’s dramatics, and they continued their conversation.

  Adil was a cinematographer in the Hindi film industry and the camera was his first love, but right now his own lenses were fixed on Meera’s face. ‘So what brings you to Mumbai?’

  ‘Change,’ said Meera, after a pause.

  ‘Change from what—scenery, job, ex-boyfriend? Ahem, ahem . . .’

  Meera smiled. ‘Are you trying to find out whether I have a boyfriend?’

  Adil flushed a little. ‘No, I am just . . . you know . . . trying to keep the conversation going . . .’

  Meera just laughed at his bumbling behaviour and walked towards the balcony. Adil followed her.

  At the other end of the room, Kanika noticed the chemistry between the two and was happy that her friend was finally enjoying flirting and chatting up guys. Meera had been fed up of constantly being badgered to get married, and had decided to shift to Mumbai and take a break from meeting boys—one worse than the other.

  Conformity and Meera had never gone hand in hand. She had always gone against the tide, and so, when she chose the media and not the medical profession, it did not come as a surprise to her parents—father a banker and mother a college professor. They were always supportive of her choices and let the freedom-loving girl be.

  ‘So, I see Adil has taken a liking to you,’ Kanika said, giving Meera a cup of tea the next morning.

  Meera looked at her as she took the cup and ignored the suggestion with a wave of her hand.

  ‘What?’ said Kanika. ‘I am telling you, he is smitten. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. He has fallen for you—and I could also see a spark in your eyes.’

  Meera listened to her friend patiently and said, ‘First, I am thirty-two years old, and I have no interest in “boys” and second . . . I don’t know . . . he is from a different religion—not that it matters to me, but still . . . You know how society is . . .’