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I shook my head.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ I lied, unwilling to share the real reason with him.
‘Have you lost it, Kas?’
Yes, I probably have.
17
Café Coffee Day, Green Park, Delhi, 3 May 2013.
Purva stared at me, his eyes wide behind the spectacles I had gifted him for his last birthday. His face registered confusion.
‘I’m sorry, Kas, what do you mean by that?’ he asked me, the smile vanishing now. The two of us were sitting in the café near AIIMS, one of our usual hang-outs. I had spent the last two days tossing and turning, a gazillion thoughts in my head. Finally, I had come to a decision; a decision that was about to wreak havoc in everybody’s life.
‘Purva,’ I said, staring at my fingers, ‘I cannot do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Get married…’
Purva continued to look confused. My comment had blind-sighted him, I knew. It broke my heart to do this, but I knew I could not live this lie any more.
‘You don’t want to marry me?’ he asked, slowly, fiddling with the sides of his spectacles, which he always di
d when he felt nervous.
‘I don’t want to marry anyone,’ I said, emphasizing ‘anyone’. As if that helped.
Purva remained silent for a few seconds, as thoughts and consequences of this conversation filled me with a weird concoction of dread and nervousness.
When he looked up, which he did a little later, his eyes were red. Red and oh-so-terribly sad. So sad that I felt I could not breathe. I hated myself with all my heart for doing this to Purva.
‘Why, Kasturi?’ he asked softly, without the aggression that I had prepared myself for.
‘I … I don’t know…’ I said, tears gathering in my eyes, as I stared unblinkingly at Purva. I wanted to lunge forward, hug him and tell him I was joking and this would all be over. But I could not … I couldn’t live like this … this fake life where I pretended that my heart beat only for Purva.
Desperation closed in from all sides and a fat tear rolled down my cheeks and splattered on the paper napkin on the table. ‘I don’t know…’ I repeated.
‘Is it something I said? Something I did?’ he prodded gently.
I shook my head.
‘Then?’ he asked.
‘Purva … I don’t feel ready … at all…’ I said.
‘Kas,’ he said, grabbing my hands, ‘these are just nerves! Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything … nothing will change. You … you stop those stupid parantha classes … everything remains the way it was, the way you like it.’
Purva spoke breathlessly and I sobbed throughout, looking down, not daring to meet his eyes.
‘It’s not easy for me, Purva … but … I … I can’t … just can’t…’
‘Why? What has changed? I … I…’ he trailed off.
I closed my eyes. I hated seeing Purva like this. I hated being the person who was doing this to him. With trembling fingers, I removed my engagement ring and placed it on the table between us.
