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This story was written by Nisha Subramaniam in response to the following prompt:
Random Sentence: Pick up the nearest book of fiction. Go to page 124. Read the fourth complete sentence on that page. Make that the first line of your story.
The book closest to Nisha was Enduring Love by Ian McEwan.
He was trying to say something, which I couldn’t hear at first. The noisy train hurried between us. Through every door, window I saw him disappear and appear. The window sills cut him up and he stood there, like a superhero. The local train sped away, leaving us both to ourselves. He signaled to me that he would climb the stairs and meet me midway.
I got there before he did. I watched him make his way up, helping a lady carry a massive sack of popcorn packets, waiting for a child in front of him to walk up. It was 7.04 pm. In 6 minutes he would be gone, to catch the 7.12 local. Amid the rush and the hustle, I heard the words, “I have a pay raise. Let’s move in together!”
I walked back, carrying his words like it were what I bought on a hurried shopping trip. The trips where you come home and lay everything out, to check if you brought home the right things. He said the words - move - in - together. He told me about the pay raise at work, affording a better flat, something about starting out together. The words arranged and rearranged themselves in different ways. It made sense, any which way it was arranged. So it was a yes! I left him a message, “Yes! Let’s do this!” I put the phone away. He wasn’t a man of many words. He almost never messaged anything.
I spoke to Radhika about this, over tears of joy and sadness. We held hands over the dirty parapet wall of the hostel, committing to being in touch. “I will visit you every week for the watery chai in the hostel,” I promised. After living together for 5 years, what does visiting Radhika mean, I wonder. What would my mother, back in Kumbakonam, say about this whole arrangement? “What she doesn’t know will not hurt her,” I told myself. “Half my salary is spent on this hostel and living by myself. I would need to spend 60% now for the house rent and expenses, he said. I can still send amma some money every month.”
My entire existence was wrapped up into three cartons and one handbag. Radhika painted a name board for us, a gift I carried into our new home. It made the flat look like ‘home.’ We moved in together, three weeks after we decided to. “The financials made sense,” he said. “We make sense together,” I said.
The tiny flat near Kurla had a window that opened itself out to the skies. The 15th floor brought in the chilly October winds. You could sit on the chair and watch the mad rush of Kurla station, like a video on mute. I loved watching the quiet skies and the noisy station every morning. After almost a decade, I didn’t have to eat according to a timetable or at the mercy of a canteen chef. For the first time ever, I was in a kitchen that was mine. Ours. The ecstasy whistled through the cookers and swished with the curries we cooked everyday.
The days felt like a rinse-and-repeat - each of us rushing out to catch the local on time. Getting through work for the day. Tiffin boxes filled with food we cooked together. Coming home to someone else. The rinse-and-repeat was fun to start with. It was fresh, like the lather of a new detergent.
Sometimes, there was sex. Unhurried. I loved that there was no anxiety about a warden walking by. No stress about producing a non-existent ‘marriage certificate’ to the Oyo room manager. No more sex on bedsheets that smelled of someone else. No sex worrying if there are secret cameras in this shady lodge. Sex, knowing we are waking up in each other’s arms, naked and unafraid, because the place is ours. “This feels different. This feels good,” I said to him, 4 weeks after we moved in. “This will feel even better when we soon are in our own house, with 4 bedrooms and a carpark. We can try something new in every bedroom,” he said, squeezing me closer. How will it feel any different,I wondered as I drifted into sleep that night.
“Work is crazy,” he said, as an explanation for his irrationally long work hours. He was working double shifts. “I want to buy a bike soon and move into a better apartment.” It was the one hour I get with him before he sleeps. The one precious hour before I run for the 9.10 am local. I never understood why and never asked him why. Our salaries put together was sufficient to run this home. I was working out the math of our adequate salaries.
I missed the hostel. The buzz of 20 women staying together was something else. There was always someone who needed to borrow detergent, someone who needed help to drape her sari, someone who was trying on other people's clothes for their date. The smell of powder, nail polish, washed clothes and hair stayed in those rooms. “This house is too quiet for me,” I complained — for the first time in 8 weeks. I didn’t know that this would soon make the house noisy, with a lot of yelling and throwing things around.
Over the next two weeks, I heard a lot about building a hobby, moving around the city, making new friends. I had heard all of this, as a 5-year old, and as an 8-year old. Everytime, my IAS officer father got transferred, we started this whole drill as a family. Of moving, packing stuff into cartons, shifting to a new place. Amma’s sari ends are drenched in tears and snot, of leaving behind a normalcy she created for herself, of the temples she was to leave behind. The sounds of Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati and Konkan threatened her. “I want some familiarity in my life,” she would cry. “I miss the temples, the cows, the vadams we make in summer.”
“Oh no! Not again!” he groaned. “Is it okay if we didn’t start this today? We just watched a movie, had dinner. I haven’t even unlocked the house. Do I have to hear this already?”
“But you will leave now for your night shift and I am unable to sleep in this house. This is too quiet for me.”
I stood at the door, refusing to get in.
“Which idiot complains of the quiet in Mumbai?” he yelled, kicking the door open and throwing the bags in. He left me at the door, the keys clinking at the lock. His bike on EMI whirred past the gate, carrying him to his universe of work. I contemplated calling Radhika. I contemplated leaving home and never coming back. I was too exhausted for any of this. I scrambled onto the new queen-size bed and pulled the comforter over me.
Every meal time was a reconciliation. The most delicious drumstick sambar and a ghee dripping Kesari was a love language of sorry. After all the crying and arguing, mornings were a gastronomical victory. “I am sorry,” Amma would say. “I was being silly. I have spoken to Mrs. Shankar. We are all going to play bridge today.” She would grin sheepishly, resplendent in her beautiful Chinnalampattu silk. She used to make payasam often. As it cooked, she would take the payasam in a ladle, from the golden brass pot, blow it cold and let it drip to her tongue. Her face would first cringe, soaking in the shock of scalding heat. She would then break into a smile, relishing how delicious the payasam was. Later in life, I would wonder, is this how her marriage was? Scalding and delicious? Appa loved the payasam she made.
Today, it was Kanda Poha — his favorite. He walked in at 7 am, profusely apologizing. He said he was worried that I hadn’t replied to his messages. I smiled and said “Sorry. I may have overreacted. I enjoyed the dinner last night and missed some action after.” I passed the plate of Poha, to strengthen the sorry. We ate our way into the arguments - sometimes Poha, sometimes Poori, sometimes Idli Sambar. Arguments never changed. He made the most delicious sandwiches with cheese — my favorite. “This is a cheesy sorry,” he would say, taking me straight to bed. Sometimes, the sex made sense.
On my birthday this year, I came home to an Amazon parcel. I opened the parcel. I burst into tears. “I’d rather you work reasonable hours and come home to us, than buy me this ‘Alexa’ to talk to or book a bike to ride the city in. I am very happy to travel by the local, come home to be together,” I yelled at him that night. He did not say a word. In the next 2 days, someone came to take Alexa back. I didn’t know how to take my words back.
As a librarian, I sit amidst words all day. My life is simple. I had no yearning for anything more. I didn’t understand what I would say to Alexa. I spend my days with words. Reading to children, to adults who loved story hours; reading to children who are blind and love the sound of my voice. I read to myself, in silence. It wasn’t words I craved for, it was company. I had no words to share this. Not even my library helped me with words I was searching for.
“I am leaving. I really love you and respect you. I have tried to make this work for us. I am not happy. I want to be happy. I am going back to what gives me happiness.” I knew this letter by heart. This is what Amma wrote to Appa. As Appa was busy transforming education in Guwahati, Amma was busy taking English lessons. It culminated in her writing this letter. She even booked our tickets back home, with the little money she saved by herself. I remember that day very well. We took a train back to Kumbakonam. Amma cried all the way in the train. I wondered what others around us were thinking. We found out that Amma and I had no place in my grandparents’ home. She had to rebuild her life, from scratch. She did that, with the resolve of a woman who sought to be happy. Vadams and music classes put food on our plate and life in her soul.
She gave me her letter when I left home for Bombay. Appa had sent it back to her, the very same month she left him. He was angry that she had done this to him. She gave it to me, as an explanation for years of silence around the story of my parents. I never knew what happened between them, whether my father tried to get in touch with me etc. I learnt not to ask these questions. I am happy to not know the answers. When I was leaving for Bombay, Amma gave me this letter. She said she hoped I can always put myself in places that keep me happy.
He read these words, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He sat beneath the window, turned away from the trains that rushed by and the open skies. ‘I am leaving. I really love you and respect you. I have tried to make this work for us. I am not happy and I want to be happy. I am going back to what gives me happiness.’ He listened to my Amma’s story. I heard myself break down as I shared this with him.We sat in silence for a long time.
Sixteen weeks later, we stood amidst three cartons and a handbag. He carried these back to my hostel. I needed this, I told myself the first night I moved back. There was music blaring from 2 different phones. Someone was crying and fighting with her boyfriend. I detested the canteen’s rava upma that was Tuesday’s breakfast. There was one fan far away from the cot & it was already sultry. But I knew I needed this. I cried myself to sleep that night.
We let our hands explore each other, hungrily. I had missed this touch, the stubble, the cologne. His hands moved under my kurti with ease. We had sex, after what felt like years. 22 weeks since that evening that we decided to move in, here we are — in a “couple friendly” Oyo room that smelled of hotels and detergents; in a room that wasn’t ours, bringing us closer together, in ways our home never did. I had 7 hours before we had to check out of this happy place to my own happy place.
“I love you,” I mumbled sleepily. I meant it.
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Nisha Subramaniam is a social entrepreneur, a mother to a dog and a toddler, a tentative writer seeking her own voice.
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Art by Simahina.
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