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‘Because it has hope.’

‘Eventually, it shatters your hopes too.’

‘It at least brings things to an “end”, otherwise all relationships would not even last one evening.’

Ten Years Later: Mumbai

Sometimes, to bring the ends of stories together, we have to travel back in time or way ahead.

Sudha was now one of the most renowned family lawyers in Mumbai. She had a 50 per cent partnership in a big law firm. She didn’t even attend to all cases now; her fee was way too high. She chose a few select cases, and was handling some of the biggest divorce cases in the Mumbai film industry.

When she had told Chandar that she would manage alone, she hadn’t been wrong. She had managed everything on her own: her baby, the courts, personal life, family, everything. This is the worst thing about life. When it looks perfect on paper, it isn’t. And when it is far from perfect on paper, it usually is.

Sudha named her baby Akshar. Chandar had decided on this name long ago. He had thought of a number of girls’ names, but had only one name in mind for a boy. He used to joke that if they had a baby boy, Sudha would have to take care of him entirely. He wouldn’t shoulder any responsibility. If asked why he wanted a girl child, he would say that he would be able to see Sudha’s childhood in her. Sudha didn’t take away his right and gave their baby the name Chandar wanted. Both of them shared something so deep and yet they couldn’t be together.

Sudha never married. Her partner at the law firm, Vineet, asked her about marriage regularly. Vineet and Sudha had a simple relationship; he would stay at Sudha’s home at least once a week. Once or twice a year they would go on vacations together. When Vineet stayed at Sudha’s place, they would sleep in the same room. Akshar couldn’t comprehend what that meant, yet.

Often, Akshar would take Chandar’s old books from the almirah and try to understand the underlines in them. His schoolmates thought Vineet was his father. Sudha attended all school functions with Vineet. A few times she had also visited his school as a chief guest.

Akshar wasn’t headstrong like some of the other children in his class. If Sudha coaxed or cajoled him with patience, he always gave in. He just wanted to spend his day off with Sudha. He wanted to know who this Chandar was, whose name was scribbled in the diaries kept between the books in their library. He wanted to understand why whenever Mummy won an award, she came home, hugged Akshar and cried for hours.

After a certain point, we can bear the biggest sorrows of life, but we can’t contain its little joys.

Why didn’t they have any wedding photos in their house? He had written down the word ‘Papa’ on his notebook’s last page multiple times, and struck it out. He wanted to know how it felt to say the word ‘Papa’. When the lips meet twice to utter the word, how do they feel? How does it feel to one’s own ears, uttering the word ‘Papa’ with one’s own mouth?

D for Dehradun

Sudha had decided that to give life a second chance she would stay with Vineet for a few days. Akshar’s questions were becoming harder to tackle now that he was growing up. He was often confused like Chandar. Considering all this, Sudha decided to put him in a boarding school. She asked him about this a couple of times, but he never responded.

Since she was a high-profile lawyer, the options of Dehradun’s Welham Boys’ School and Doon School were both open. With this in mind, Sudha, Vineet and Akshar reached Dehradun.

However, this decision was not as easy as it had seemed to Sudha when she was leaving Mumbai. Akshar had something in him that completed the home. Whenever he left for any school tour, Sudha had a lot of problems coping. She could deal with Chandar leaving her, because she had Akshar. She often thought about it—at least, she had Akshar. What had Chandar done? Had he got married? Did he have a family of his own? Ten years ago Chandar had told her that he had bought a café in Mussoorie with a girl called Pummy. Had they got married to each other? She loved Chandar so much that she didn’t want to disturb him at any cost, even if it meant losing him forever. That’s why she had never visited Mussoorie in all these years. She didn’t want to face him, maybe because he had already built a new world for himself and might have trouble facing Sudha.

A person can contain so much frustration and anger only when there is a great deal of love. When love is shallow, people take out their anger and frustration and move on with their lives. In the thousands of years of love’s history, moving on is the worst discovery ever. The people who cannot move on embark on the true journey of love. The ones whose tears neither flow nor dry up understand love closely. The ones who can’t sleep well will tell you that there’s nothing better in this world than the morning. We can understand something fully only when we get it and then lose it. The ones who don’t lose, often miss the mark.

Akshar cleared the admission process at Welham as well as Doon School. Sudha tried to be extremely strong while leaving him; she didn’t cry at all. Akshar wasn’t affected much by moving to the boarding school. He was as quiet there as he used to be in Mumbai.

Sudha couldn’t control herself once she reached her hotel room that night. She kept crying for a long time. Vineet tried to console her but failed miserably. In that moment, Sudha felt like it wasn’t Akshar who had left; it was Chandar who had left, that too, forever.

Sudha and Vineet had to catch their flight from Delhi the next evening. Sudha woke up in the morning and told Vineet that she was cancelling her return; she wanted to stay back for a week. If she felt like she couldn’t stay without Akshar, she’d come back with him.

Vineet did get a bit irritated because it had taken Sudha an entire year to finalize the decision of putting Akshar in the boarding school. Vineet tried to explain that if she went to meet Akshar, he would never be able to fit into the boarding school culture. But Sudha, after all, was Sudha. She did as she pleased. Vineet didn’t want to wait anymore, but he didn’t say anything or create a scene. Before leaving, he asked whether he should stay, suggesting that they could visit Mussoorie and Rishikesh for a couple of days. But Sudha wanted to be alone. Defeated and tired, Vineet left Dehradun to take his flight from Delhi.

After he left, Sudha spent the entire day in her room. It was after years that she was completely alone. One can’t even forget oneself when they’re alone. She didn’t want to take any calls and so she switched her phone off. She called the waiter and asked him to bring cigarettes. She had almost quit because of Akshar. While teaching good habits to kids, elders change their habits too. She felt like crying in between, for reasons she did not understand. Often, the crying starts because of one specific reason and ends with something else. She had asked for cigarettes but couldn’t smoke. That day took a while to get through.

The next day, she strolled on Mall Road for a long time. She shopped as well but was still left with an entire half-day to get through. In between all this, she felt like visiting Akshar. Maybe Akshar was weeping. He didn’t do it normally, but when he did, he wouldn’t calm down. Somehow the second day too passed.

She switched her phone on for some time and scoffed at the emails and texts from her office. There were many texts from Vineet as well, asking when she was planning to come back. Angered at this question, she switched her phone off once again.

It was now her third day alone. She dressed up and went to watch a film, something she hadn’t done for years. A film comes across as completely different if watched alone. In the darkness, one often gets to see the long-forgotten scenes of one’s life on the screen, along with the film.

After returning to her room, Sudha took out an old diary from her bag and dialled a number from the hotel’s landline. It was the same number Chandar had called from, ten years ago. A female voice answered, ‘Namaskar! Musafir Café.’

Sudha disconnected the call at the word café. She dialled once again after some time. The voice said again, ‘Namaskar! Musafir Café.’

Sudha asked: ‘Can you give me your address? Till when does the café stay open?’

The voice replied, ‘Ma’am, the café always stays open. The kitchen closes at 11 p.m. For stays, you can come anytime.’