Chapter V

The “Sad Boi Chronicles” went into over-drive. We had a lot of days off, due to the rain alert level being red for two consecutive days, followed immediately by Second Saturday, and Sunday. Plenty of time to write a bunch of emo text stories. Here’s a highlight reel of the shit I wrote:

• “My heart is like a desert. Where is the oasis?”

• “She’s perfect. I don’t deserve her.”

• “I would do anything for her. Even kill…”

• “My darling, see my pain. Love me back…”

And so on, and so forth. The long impromptu holiday coincided with a major event: the day my father left home. So, yes, all I had during the holiday was time.

I watched as Appa wordlessly got on his motorcycle, and, without saying goodbye, just revved the engine, and took off. Leaving me and my mother alone. Just like back in the day, when he was still working abroad in South Africa. Except now, there wouldn’t be a monthly check to support us. Aside from a small monthly alimony, my mother was now the sole breadwinner of the house.

The roar of the 150cc engine died off as soon as my father’s bike was far enough. My mother sighed deeply. She looked at me, and attempted to smile. She failed, and I could see the stress melt out of her face.

“Well, kanna, now it seems it’s just us again, just like a while back…”

“Yeah,” I agreed non-committally, “I guess…”

We turned around and re-entered the house. It was… emptier now. The walls weren’t reverberating with the arguments of my parents. There weren’t any angry footsteps. It was eerily silent.

“So,” said Amma with a sigh, placing her hand over my shoulder, “Back to the good old days, right?”

“Good old days?”

“Before he came to wreck it up.”

It was true. My mother had been at my father’s beck and call for a long time during his stay in South Africa. He told her to put money in mutual funds, to manage his bank accounts, his ancestral property… And my mother scampered around, trying to do everything as quick as possible, in the middle of working her small accountancy job.

It stressed her out, the hurried lifestyle. She couldn’t take a break to go somewhere with friends without guilt gnawing at her stomach. She expected him to take her somewhere, do something for her when he came back to India. But no. Instead, he kept on jabbering about making a business. First, a pharmacy. Then, an ice-cream shop. And thus, to finance this dream of his, he stingily kept aside his money—“I’ll do something for you guys later, once the business takes off!”

But the business never even went beyond planning stages. Before that, it was a thousand daily arguments, many a raised palm, and too many harsh glares to count.

And then one day, it was ink on the paper. And just like that, 20 years of marriage was over. Even though it stung, it sorta made sense. It had been more than fifteen years since my father had lived in India. The change that happened within that time scared him, and he believed that now, the only way to make a decent living, was business. He knew he couldn’t keep up with the new accountants, so he didn’t even try to work a full-time accountancy job. He just slacked around, and still ordered my mother about.

Then, it all just ended abruptly with the divorce. And we—Amma and I—were left to rebuild a life from the pieces of the old. The day he left, the roomy two-floor house, which we had just paid off the loan for, became much larger, and much more strange. It felt like we were now living inside of a haunted house. Nothing felt… right. And it never would feel right ever again.

**********

It happened at the most hectic of times. I was at a family function. Fittingly enough, it was a wedding. Lunch was about to be served, and yet, I kept staring at the message on my phone. It was from her—Anamika!

It had worked. I had built up the whole “Sad Boi” persona as a way to lure the naturally curious side of her over to me. And now, here she was, as planned, in my DMs. It was enough to make my heart skip a beat or two!

“Da, who’s this mystery girl?” she typed.

I smirked. Now it was time for me to be teasing. Playful. “Want a clue?”

“Sure.”

“Clue number 1. Her name starts with the first letter of mine…”

She then listed the five girls in class with “A” in their names.

“Who do you think it is?”

“That’s five names. Five guesses!”

“Want a 50:50?”

“Um, sure.”

I narrowed it down to three names, and included hers. I could tell she was getting frustrated. I didn’t care, I just loved being the games-master. It was pretty fun being a cheeky little brat. And then—

“—Da, Athul?” asked my cousin.

“Y-yeah?” I managed to mumble as I sharply glanced away from the phone.

“You haven’t touched your food. Hurry up, all of us are halfway done with ours!”

“Um… Okay…” I said. I put my phone away, and dug into the rice. The game could wait. Either way, it would be over quite soon.

The whole mood of the wedding hall put me in a very dream-like flow of thought. She’s got that “put-a-ring-on-it” glow to her… I thought idly. And it was true. She was very pretty. Who knew how good she would look in the full wedding regalia? The most beautiful sari, the most fabulous gold ornaments, the finest make-up, and to top it off, her dazzling smile… My heart ached longingly for such a day to come into my life.

I waited till we got back home to try and type a response to her. I’d kept her on ice for long enough. And yet, I hesitated to type up a message. I kept typing, then deleting, what I wanted to send. Finally, I just gave up, and closed Instagram.

Early the next morning, I mustered up the courage to start the convo again. “Still want a clue?” I typed.

“Okay?”

And then I dropped four very obvious clues. And she got the hint. It was decision time now. My heart was racing. The text beneath her profile name stated that she was typing a message. And then, it hit:

“Is it me?”

My heart jumped out of my ribcage. My hands started to shake uncontrollably. The room seemed to shrink down and squeeze me from all sides. I took deep breaths in a desperate effort to control my galloping heart.

Finally, I felt composed enough to type the kicker, and send it: “Correct answer!”

There was radio silence for a full minute. Panic kicked in. What would she say? Did I want to read it? Hurriedly, I closed the app, and dived into bed. I hid under the covers, like a kid hiding from an imaginary monster. My heart was now restless. What, oh what, the hell would she reply with?

A ding. My hands shook as I dragged it closer to the phone. No, I thought, I don’t want to read her message. And yet, temptation kept knocking at my head. I had to. I needed the closure. My brain knew the logical answer, but my heart refused to believe it. And so, I opened Instagram again.

And was met with a sledgehammer blow to the heart.

Just one heart-crushing sentence.

“Sorry, Athul, but I’m not interested.”

It took all my willpower to keep a tear from sliding out of my eye. It was over. In seconds. The spark for me that I thought she had? It was never real to begin with.

Before I could dive deeper into self-pity, I heard the doorbell ring. I opened the front door up to see my neighbour’s son, Ravi.

Ravi was my friend. We played football together at the field nearby, and sometimes chatted about stuff. He was about two years older than me, and was in engineering college. He was a nice guy. Had a pleasant smile. No bad vibes to him at all…

There was now a sneaking suspicion in my mind now, however, because I was starting to see him around the house a lot more than before. And this never happened before the divorce, or even while my mother and I were alone, and my father was still in South Africa.

Now, my mother was calling him up to do “repairs”. Like, sure, he did have a small “business” of sorts where he used his talent in handiwork to fix the little stuff in the neighbourhood—a door that didn’t open properly, a washing machine that refused to spin… But my mother was calling him for little things, like a detached doorknob, or a shower-head that didn’t let water flow correctly.

And yes, I always did notice that she was a little too friendly with him when they met at neighbourhood functions. A little too polite. Spoke with a higher pitch.

But maybe that was just my mind playing tricks on me. Till then, all I had was a gut that refused to let things go.

“You had an electrical problem?” asked Ravi.

“Yes?”

“Could you help point it out?”

“Is that Ravi?” called out my mother from the second floor.

“Yes, it is. Where’s the electrical problem, Amma?” I said.

“My room. Come quick…”

I watched on as Ravi took apart the plastic covering of the switchboard, and re-routed the wires in a way that the socket was now connected to the mains again. I observed my mother, and saw that for some reason, she had a very slight smile on her face.

As Ravi left our house, my mother waved to him and wished him goodbye. He coolly reciprocated the gesture, and, closing the gate, he walked back home.

“The virtue of learning engineering…” sighed my mother. “If you had only done better during your drop year…”

Again with the “if only”… I thought. I lumbered back into my room, and collapsed into bed.

The feelings I had in my mind threatened to claw my organs from the inside. I was heart-broken, depressed and moody—topped with a serving of deep suspicion. What was it about those interactions between my mother and Ravi that sparked it?

And then, my mind returned to the fact that I was rejected for the first time in my life. I had to cancel out at least one of these negative emotions. Hastily, I opened up Instagram and typed out “It was a prank LOL. I don’t actually have feelings for you.”

“Ah, I see!”

“You’re not mad? I hope we still can be friends?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Friends.” As if nothing had happened. I was lying through my teeth, but damn, at the same time, my demons were being purged. I decided to run with it.

“That’s great to hear,” I typed. “See you Monday!”

“See you.”

I felt… deflated, afterwards. Blank. Lost. I suddenly had an urge to smoke, even though I’ve never bummed a cig in my life. And then, I collapsed back into my thoughts. The faces of Anamika, Ravi, and my mother kept whirling around my mind.

That day, I wasn’t sure what hurt my brain worse—the sting of the rejection from Anamika, or the bone-grinding suspicion I had for Ravi.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.