AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You want me to have this?’ I asked, shocked and touched and teary and perplexed. This was the man I walked away from? Really, Kasturi Shukla? Really?
He smiled and pulled out my hand. Tying the watch on my wrist he looked critically at it.
‘It’s a man’s watch, so you may not want to wear it … but I want you to keep it.’
‘Why? It is your most prized possession, Purva!’
‘You never met Dad,’ he said quietly. ‘He would have loved you like the daughter he never had. I want a bit of him to be with you.’
No, I am not going to cry.
‘And you?’
‘I have the memories,’ he said, bending low to plant a kiss on my cheeks and lingering there. ‘You take the watch.’
Mum, in a fit of wisdom, once said that simple words, because they are simple, find it easiest to reach the soul. I think that explained why I pulled a surprised Purva into a fierce hug and cried bitterly into his shoulders. I cried for the helpless thirteen-year-old boy, I cried for the selfless twenty-nine-year-old man and I cried because my heart ached.
Maybe this is love?
Maybe I am finally, truly in love?
37
6 December 2013.
Three masis and two chachis stood around me in a circle and continued to exchange quizzical glances. Clad in a yellow salwar-kurta, as instructed by Panditji, I was sitting in front of a kalash that had been stuffed with neem leaves.
‘Do you know what to do?’ I asked a bewildered-looking masi.
‘Not really … I think the plan is to simply make up the rasams as we go along,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders.
‘What? What? What?’ said the balding panditji, who had overheard our conversation.
‘The rasam, Panditji,’ Mum said with folded hands.
‘Kanya koh prastut kiya jaye,’ he said in a monotone, staring at me. Insolently, I stared right back.
‘No, not Kanya! It’s Kasturi!’ said Padma, quite scandalized at the faux pas. The masis and chachis burst out laughing. Panditji, disapproving of all laughing that was happening, cleared his throat.
‘Haldi, haldi,’ he shouted and proceeded to bark out instructions to all and sundry. Today was the day of the haldi rasam and, before the hour had passed, five aunts with their heads covered and with many fond words of endearment, had delicately put haldi on my forehead, shoulders and knees.
Mum cooed in the background and Dad, clad in a posh kurta-pyjama, behaved like a man possessed by his SLR camera.
Pitajee, for whom Mum has a very soft corner, was the only man invited to put haldi on me. Both Mum and I were very aware that similar ceremonies were taking place in Anu’s house as well. The burden that the smiling Pitajee carried was not lost on us and we had pledged to do whatever it took to keep him distracted. Pitajee p
roceeded to daintily touch my forehead, shoulders and knees with haldi, then, grinning his most evil grin, he smeared the yellow paste on my face with one grand sweep of his hands.
The aunties howled with delight and I screamed my lungs out. Panditji shook his head.
‘Children these days,’ he said ruefully as, leaving aside all the coyness of a bride-to-be, I charged towards Pitajee.
Anything to keep him distracted, I thought to myself. Even if it means wrecking my haldi ceremony.
Anything to keep him distracted.
4.00 p.m.
I was looking at the pictures that Dad had taken during the ceremony. The ones that really made me smile were the ones where Pitajee and I were at it again. Beating each other up, I realized with a start, has pretty much been the backbone of our friendship. Purva told me once that he did not know who was a worse influence on whom between the two of us. And I guess it’s true.
