6 April 1999
Brahmi’s eyes were murderous, fists clenched and she was waiting for me. Without any prelude, she shot out the question that must have been bubbling inside her since last night. ‘Did you call on my phone yesterday?’
‘Me? No! Why would I? I don’t call anyone.’
‘Someone called four times at my house yesterday.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘There was no voice on the other side!’
‘I don’t even have your number. Also I have to ask Maa before calling anyone. So it can’t be me.’
‘Taiji went mad and shouted at me, saying that I must be giving out numbers to boys in my school.’
‘That’s not right. Why would she say that?’
‘Can you do me a favour, Raghu? Can you call home?’ she asked.
‘Me? Why?’
‘Talk to Taiji and tell her you didn’t call me? You’re the only classmate of mine she knows by name and she thinks you’re a rascal.’
‘But I’m a not a rascal.’
‘Please call and tell her so?’
‘But—’
‘Please.’
I am the rascal.
Last night it had taken me an hour of staring at the phone to dial her number. I had practised what I would say. Hi Aunty, may I talk to Brahmi Sharma? It’s regarding the notes she took in the physics class today. The words died in my throat the minute I heard Brahmi’s voice. She sounded different on the phone, much older but without her trademark authority. I called her three more times and every subsequent time her voice became mellower but still as lovely. I imagined her in a T-shirt and a skirt, the phone stuck to her ears, saying, Hello, hello, who’s this? I thought of her not in her uniform but otherwise. It’s probably what everyone does. If you’re used to not seeing someone in uniform you fantasize about them being in one and vice versa.
‘Fine, I will call her. But who do you think called at your place?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe someone who likes me and is too scared to tell me. A secret admirer? Or someone who just wants me to be in trouble,’ she said.
‘Probably,’ I said.
Excusing ourselves from the class, Brahmi and I went off to call her Taiji from the school phone. I put in the coin and waited for the call to connect.
‘Hello . . . ch . . . Taiji. Raghu will talk to you. He is saying he didn’t call you. I told you he wouldn’t. I’m giving the phone to him.’
‘Hello, Aunty,’ I said.
‘Sun ladke. I don’t know if you called at my number or not. But if you call in the future I will know. I will come to your house and slap you up in front of your parents. Do you understand, saali? Rakh ab phone. Saala Bangali.’
‘Okay, Aunty—’
Click.
Brahmi’s face flushed pink. ‘My Taiji has a bit of a temper,’ she said, embarrassed, overhearing some of the abuses.
‘This is the first time I have been abused by a grown woman. It sounds strange.’
‘She didn’t mean to abuse you. She’s really nice otherwise. Do you want to sit together at lunch?’
Unlike my lunch which consisted of chapattis (Baba), daal (Maa), paneer (Baba) and raita (Maa), hers was a lone, dry sandwich.
‘Mumma keeps really busy. She usually doesn’t have time to cook . . .’
‘You can have mine. It’s too much for one anyway. Half of it goes waste.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘I don’t eat so much anyway. Maa gets really angry when I waste food. You will be doing me a favour.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and dug in. ‘I haven’t had food like this—’
And just then her voice tuned out and something came into focus. Something I had missed all this while because I could only see her wrists and imagine the stories in the ridges. What I had not noticed were the little welts on her upper arms, behind her ears, on her back. They were purple and blue and red and sad. She had been hit at home yesterday. Was it because of the calls I made? If it was, I deserved the abuses from her Taiji and more.
As if she had heard the question in my head, she said, ‘I fell down the stairs.’
‘Strange stairs.’
‘I know. They are stairs I climb every day and yet they . . .’
She hadn’t expected me to believe her. She wanted me to stop looking. We shared our lunches and still couldn’t finish all the food.
‘Pack your lunch and come with me,’ she said.
‘Where?’
‘Shahrazad.’
‘That’s a slippery slope, Brahmi. Are you sure? Are you really going? I guess you are.’
She didn’t share my pessimism which was strange. We went to the abandoned classroom again. Shahrazad had grown even fatter in a week but looked healthier. As if Brahmi’s love had healed her, exactly what I was scared about. She came hobbling to see Brahmi, her enormous belly swaying from side to side. Soon she was eating out of Brahmi’s hands, wagging her tail gustily.
‘Don’t be scared. She won’t bite,’ she said.
‘I’m not scared of her biting me.’
‘Oh please. Don’t overestimate yourself.’ Then she talked to Shahrazad in a baby voice. ‘Raghu here thinks you will fall in love with him, my little doggy. Who’s the cutest doggy in the world! You are!’
‘No, I don’t think that.’
‘Of course he does, Shahrazad. He thinks he’s so lovable that people or dogs will miss him so much god forbid he does something to himself.’
‘Now you’re just mocking me. Also, stop with that baby voice.’
‘My fat little doggy, will you tell Raghu bhaiya that it’s not so?’ she said.
‘Brahmi. We are late for class.’
Shahrazad hobbled on to Brahmi’s lap, nuzzling her nose into her armpit. Brahmi said, ‘Aw, you missed me! Tell Raghu bhaiya that maybe no one, including you, will miss Raghu bhaiya as much as his floating-soul-thing would miss us. Ah! Maybe that’s what he’s REALLY scared of.’
‘Fine, whatever,’ I said and patted Shahrazad, whose eyes reduced to little slits.
Brahmi laughed. ‘And now pat her with your other hand. See! She likes you. Look at her wagging her tail.’
I did as asked, first to get Brahmi to stop and then because I liked how Shahrazad’s warm tongue felt on my hand.
‘I know you called, Raghu,’ said Brahmi just as we were leaving Shahrazad. ‘STAY, STAY,’ Brahmi had to tell Shahrazad to keep it from following us.
‘I didn’t—’
‘I know you did. Next time, you can speak. My Taiji thinks something’s going on if no one says anything.’
‘Did you know this all the time?’
‘I knew it the second time the phone rang. I don’t have secret admirers or anyone here who would want to trouble me. There’s only you.’
Brahmi could have screamed at me, slapped me around like she would have been by her Taiji for my recklessness. She could have paraded her welts and accused me for it. It was incredibly stupid of her to exonerate me in front of her Taiji when she could have blamed me for everything. She didn’t have to be nice to me when I didn’t deserve it. Why strengthen bonds and make it harder to snap them?
Couldn’t Shahrazad not have been cute and cuddly? Couldn’t Maa–Baba just be bad people, making it easier for me to leave them and Dada to themselves?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said as the guilt coursed through me. Maybe Brahmi is right about me. My floating-soul-thing would miss them.
‘You don’t have to be sorry. You are my friend.’
‘Are we friends?’ I asked.
‘Are we not?’
‘Does it mean we have another person to worry about?’ I asked.
‘That’s for you to decide.’
‘And you?’
‘You ask too many questions,’ she said. ‘Do you want to go somewhere?’
She hadn’t waited for my answer and didn’t tell me where we were going.
‘Since when have you been doing this?’
‘Eighth standard, I was late to school and I wandered around the entire day. One of the happiest days of my life,’ she said.
An hour later we were at Nehru Planetarium, our seat reclining, under the stars. I didn’t ask why we were here and she didn’t tell. What she did tell me was about the compost project she’s working on which was our pretext for going missing today. For an hour we travelled around the sun and cruised around constellations and sometimes looked at each other. She pointed and explained to me things she thought I wouldn’t get. ‘Do you want to be an astronaut?’ I asked her on our way back.
‘No, I just like to think things beyond this world we see exist,’ she said.
In the evening, Maa was happy to see the lunch box licked clean. Right now I am now thinking how alone Shahrazad is.