Episode 37

‘You are going to sleep just like that’, Karthik softly talks into my ear.

We were at a disco. It was the party we threw ourselves for the fifth meet of the BLANK group and we actually have thirty members who have consistently attended all meets since the second one and our last meet had an attendance of a little over eighty people. We had our third meeting in my apartment grounds again, the fourth one was in a coffee shop and the fifth one was in the gym Aditya used to work for as a swimming instructor. The owner’s daughter was impressed with what we were doing and she came to the fourth meet and ended up getting a few students to her weekend dance classes which she conducted in the same aerobic studio we gathered in.

So I posted an open invite to members to meet at a disco to celebrate the minor success. Lot of people are interested in discos than in doing useful stuff, what a shock. I had gotten more than hundred RSVP’s, I ended up making a group booking of seventy five and had whopping discounts. People had to come in groups and had to just say the invite name and get discounts. I am pretty sure lot of people were going to misuse this, but who cares? It is a party.

Anitha and I had gotten dressed up and the whole gang had made an appearance, again it’s a party. Karthik had been busy so he had come in later and he looked tired, but still made an appearance which I secretly liked even though I made a fuss about him needing more rest. The truth is, he made time for me however busy he was and I loved him for it. I didn’t need to be constantly reminded of the fact but I appreciate feeling appreciated. That is always a good sign in a boyfriend.

So, I was slightly beyond happy high and I had begun dancing with Karthik sometime back. Okay, dancing is a stretch, I have been moving around clinging to him. Okay, that is a stretch too. I am clinging to him and he is lugging me around as he doesn’t have any other option.

‘I am not going to sleep’, I tell him turning my head and blinking my eyes open to prove the point.

‘You are, you aren’t supporting yourself at all, I can support you, but you are.. how do I say this politically… you are very healthily formed and I am not healthy enough to support you for a prolonged duration of time.’

Oops.

‘Sorry’, I say and I try to put my legs to use. I am not that far gone away, as I said, only slightly beyond happy high. Wait, did he just call me over-weight? It’s a party. Who cares?

Karthik chuckles.

‘Sometime I look at you and don’t see the stubbornness and the strong sense of self that you have.’

Well, not my fault is it? I bat my eye lashes at him for emphasis, sarcasm without words.

Karthik laughs, bends down and brushes his lips against my temple. That’s it? Well.

‘You wanna leave?’, he asks me.

‘Umm.. let me check…’, I say and try locating Anitha.

I find her by her flashy beige gown with lot of sequins having a serious conversation with Naren, who is holding her by her upper arm and looks like he doesn’t believe what she is saying. Oops, that doesn’t look good.

Karthik looks the same way I do and steers me towards them.

Naren sees us approaching and drops his hand from around Anitha’s upper arm.

‘Is everything alright?’, I ask him as Anitha refuses to make eye contact with me.

‘I don’t think so’, Naren says, rubbing the tips of his fingers against his temple.

‘Can you take her home when you leave? I need time alone.’

Vivek approaches us at that time., takes a look at all of us and shakes his head as if he understands everything.

‘Naren, let’s go man’, he says to him and looks at Karthik and asks, ‘You got them?’, presumably meaning Anitha and myself.

Aditya reaches us the same time. ‘What’s up? You guys planning to leave?’, he asks. He has Ishwarya and Ishitha, both flanking him.

Vivek looks at him and there seems to be some communicating going on between them. ‘I will drop them and meet you guys?’, Aditya asks Vivek and he nods. He pats Naren on his back, gives me and Karthik a small smile and a stiff nod for Anitha.

Okay. What is happening? I look at her and she still won’t meet my eyes.

‘Let’s go’, Karthik says.

I pull on Anitha’s arm. She moves but not steady.

‘Is she alright?’, Karthik asks me, I look at Anitha, she stares right ahead.

I shrug. I can only guess what has been happening. She must have told something to Naren along the lines she has been thinking. It isn’t a difficult guess.

We silently reach Karthik’s car.

I open the door for her on the backside and she wobbles in. I close the door for her and move towards the passenger side and get in.

‘Are you alright?’, I ask her. Karthik begins to drive.

I hear a sigh from Anitha.

‘I don’t know Priya.’

‘It’s okay Anitha, it will be fine’, I tell her. ‘I am sure you did the right thing.’

‘Did I? Nothing good ever comes by having a serious conversation when drunk. God, Naren’

Karthik looks at me his left eyebrow raised in question. I shrug and mouth ‘later’.

We reach home in silence. Anitha washes up quickly and falls onto her bed.

‘Do you know what is happening?’, Karthik asks.

‘I think so, although not sure what exactly is happening, but I don’t think you should be worrying. She will be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

Right. I only know Anitha has been telling me and she has only told me few words on how she feels things aren’t going anywhere with Naren.

I shrug. ‘Don’t worry about it Karthik, she will be fine. I will take care of her.’, I will try as much as I can.

‘You are meeting my parents again remember? Tomorrow..’

Of course I do. I may or may not have had this party today on account of brazing myself for this meeting given how well it went the last time.

‘Yup, can’t wait’.

Karthik gives me a quick peck.

‘I will pick you up at say 9?’, he asks.

I nod.

‘Take care’, he says pointing in the direction of the room where Anitha is now sleeping and leaves. 

I quickly wash up and collapse into my bed having set up an alarm for eight in the morning.

  

*********************************************************************************

I snoozed the alarm at least a couple of times. The third time my alarm chimes, I panic as I realize I need to meet Karthik’s parents today. I wake up and it is twenty minutes past eight. Shit.

I see Anitha still in deep sleep, so I send her a message as to where I will be and when I might possibly be back.

I hurry in the shower, pick my most comfortable cotton kurta which was in a shade belonging to the saffron family, pair it with off-white bottoms and dupatta. I need all the help I can get. I quickly make myself presentable with the time tested hair style of leaving my hair mostly free, but pulling a few strands from the top-centre and pinning it away from my face. My only make up is a thin line of kajal. I add tiny dangling ear rings in black metal and have an internal debate as to whether I should wear a bindi or not. I go with not. I don’t normally wear bindi and I don’t want to do it now.

I hunt my off-white sandals and look for a small bag and find a white one. Around five past nine, I hear my door bell. My stomach kind of makes its presence known at the same time too.

I open the door to find Karthik dressed in khakis and a linen shirt. My heart skips a couple of beats looking at him, but I ignore it.

‘I didn’t eat, I am hungry’, I announce, an edge of panic in my voice.

‘Hi Priya’, he says, sounding unreasonably cheerful.

‘Ummm…’, is all I manage to say.

Karthik walks into my house, opens the fridge and finds an apple.

‘I haven’t had breakfast either, mom has made breakfast for all of us. Let’s go.’, he says, stuffing the apple in my hand.

Okay.

‘You look good’, he says, once we reach his car and are on our way. Sure I do or at least that is what I want to hear.

I nod.

‘Pri, relax. You are too tensed’.

I nod.

‘You need to relax, my parents are probably going to be difficult, but if you aren’t relaxed, you are going to screw this up.’

I know. I roll my shoulders trying to loosen up my knotted muscles and try to stretch my legs.

Karthik reaches for my hand and holds it his thumb drawing circles while his other hand is on the steering. I really make an effort to calm down.

‘Pri, no matter what happens, we aren’t going to not happen. You know that right?’

Okay. So this happened because of my parents. My father couldn’t not do his part and he called up Karthik’s father to try and begin the mending process and let it slip that he met Karthik and is fine with things. This resulted in Karthik’s parents confronting him and that whole situation ended in Karthik promising them that if they looked past what happened, they would like me.

So, I am meeting them again and although at this point I am not sure whether it is good or bad, my parents are going to be there as well. Karthik had somehow convinced my parents that he would pick me up and not them. The man has my parents believing he is the best thing that can happen to their daughter. How am I to convince his parents that I am the best thing for their son?

So we reach Karthik’s place and I see my father’s car parked outside the gate. I all but run inside when Karthik stops his car. I find my father and mother seated in their huge sofa and talking to Karthik’s father. The situation doesn’t look very tense.

‘Hello uncle’, I say to Karthik’s father. He nods and even gives me a smile.

‘Pramilla, they are all here’, he calls out to Karthik’s mother. Okay, so he is shouting for her all the way from the living room. They are normal people. Good to know. I sit beside my mother and ask them when they arrived. They had arrived only around ten minutes back. ‘You didn’t find a new kurta? This one is old and is beginning to fade..’, my mom would never understand the comfort this kurta has.

Karthik comes in and chats with my parents, asking after them and all that. He sits beside me but in one of the huge plushy chairs and not on the sofa. His father was seated opposite to him. The chairs and the sofa were arranged in a rectangular fashion. We were on the sofa, Karthik sitting on my end and his father on the other end, near my father on another sofa but not as big as the one we were seated in.

In a few minutes Karthik’s mother comes out from the kitchen.

‘Sorry, was making the Pongal and couldn’t get away’, she says.

‘That’s okay, not an issue, not an issue’, my father says.

‘Ya ya’, my mother agrees. ‘No formalities’. Oh no. No formalities, I know what it means. That’s what my mother says when she is trying hard to get along.

‘You must all be starving, let’s go have breakfast?’, Karthik’s mother asks.

‘Sure, sure’, my parents mutter very agreeably and we all get up. I feel Karthik’s hand squeezing mine reassuringly. I squeeze back quickly.

‘This way aunty’, he says, leading my parents to the dining hall. I haven’t been to their house. My parents of course have been, but I am not sure if they went to the dining room. We all follow him and the dining room is adjacent to the kitchen.

‘How are you doing Priya?’, Karthik’s father asks me.

‘I.. I am good uncle. How have you been?’, I ask very cordially.

‘Not bad. Come, Pramilla makes very good Pongal’, he says and shows me to a chair.

I sit myself down dutifully, confused about his cordial behavior. I look at Karthik and he looks suspicious as well. What is going to happen?

Karthik’s mother really does make good Pongal. There was Pongal, idlis and a very good sambar and an even better coconut chutney. Karthik is used to having tasty food, how is he going to adjust to my cooking or lack of cooking?

Karthik’s father had retired so he asks my father a lot in detail about his work and stuff. My mother speaks to his mother and they compare each other’s Pongal preparation methods. Then my mother compliments Karthik’s father on his fit person and so on.

I slowly eat as much as I can and try to talk to Karthik who unfortunately is not seated next to me, but across. Since neither of us wanted to start anything accidentally, we don’t talk much, except for Karthik trying to make me eat more and me trying to serve him more sambar.

We all finish eating and I feel like a sheep being fattened deliberately. I pick up my plate to the kitchen and am surprised to see a traditional one, not drawers and modular. Lot of stainless steel vessels and shelves.

We all come back to the living room and end up occupying the same seats with the addition of Karthik’s mother next to his father.

‘Okay, so let’s get onto what we really came for?’, my dad prompts. Really? Already?

‘Yeah, so my son has told me that he is very serious about your daughter and that we cannot do anything to change his mind’, Karthik’s father pauses.

‘He is an only son, for us, his wishes are important and so is his happiness. We thought about it, the only problem we had was that you had stopped the engagement once.. anyways, he has asked us to leave those in the past, says he understands your daughter’s reasons. The last time we met, your daughter also asked us if Karthik would be with someone who would deliberately do things like stopping an engagement and all that. So maybe there is something there but we don’t understand. But as it stands…’, he pauses again and looks at his wife.

‘We met and liked your family, we want to try doing this again, that is why we invited all of you here’, she says. Okay. This seems to be going good. I look at Karthik and he looks surprised too, he looks at me and gives me a wink.

‘Yes of course. We have to leave what happened in the past. We have to look into the future, our daughter is the most important thing for us’, my father adds to the theme. What is happening here?

They speak along the same lines for a few more minutes and I begin to relax.

‘All things said, we have only one concern here.’, Karthik’s mom says.

I don’t think much of it. I find my mother reaching for my hand and patting it. Looks like her intuition isn’t giving her a good feeling.

‘Priya is involved in so many things. She works, she is running around with friends all the time and then she has this online group or something which she is doing, which is great’, she adds.

I look directly at her and she looks directly at me. ‘I am just wondering when she will have time to take care of a family you know. I am sure they won’t be living with us, we also want them to have whatever makes him happy.’, she pauses and starts  talking to me directly for the first time.

‘With all this, how are you planning to balance things? How will you take care of Karthik and if you have kids, how will you take care of them…’

‘Aunty I… This is important for me, I am not sure right now, but, I am sure I can manage..’

‘Our son works hard and he is very very good at it. He needs someone who can help him…’

‘Ma..’, Karthik begins.

‘No Karthik, you will feel alright now, few years down the line with both of you busy and running, it won’t be much of a family..’

She made that statement and all hell broke loose.

My parents leapt to my defense, Karthik’s parents defended him.

‘Mom, dad really, these are things that Priya and I need to discuss.. not…’

Karthik tries, ‘How many lives have you lived that you know how this is going to go? Or even seen?’, his father says. Wow. Okay.

‘But, this is something I am interested in.. I can work something out. It is not a very dire or serious situation…’, I try, and apparently, wrong choice of words.

‘Really? Now, you are almost five years younger than him, you would know because?’

Okay. I don’t know.

‘Really, I am sure we can talk and come to a conclusion’, my father tries peace again and this whole thing goes around in circles. I keep quiet. I don’t think this is for any of them to decide. Now, if Karthik had the same concern.. Well, then I should probably do something about it. I look at him and he seems to be having similar internal dialogs himself.

After my father repeatedly reminded everyone that we have to try and make this work Karthik’s parents and my mother kind of calm down, slowly.

‘We really want our son to be happy and have a peaceful life. He thinks she is the person for him, so be it, but she should be more family-oriented you know…’

‘We understand your concerns really’, my father says.

‘We will be leaving then, will call you’, my mother says.

‘Priya, think about it, you will really be thanking us later’, Karthik’s mother tells me.

My father insists on me going back with them, so I do. Karthik tells me he will come by in the evening.

‘I did not expect that at all’, I tell them when we were in our car.

‘Well, I expected something was going to happen… ‘, my mother says.

‘Priya, for what its worth, I think they might be right. You are too young to know this, but yes, you cannot do a lot of things and run a family…’

‘Dad, I am twenty five, I know I have to adjust and change things when it’s family and all, but I am not sure what they are asking is the right thing…’

‘Priya, come on, how long can you do all that stuff? Think about it will you?’, he says.

I look at my mother.

‘I know I asked you not to change. Pri ma, you have to choose now. There are lot of choices before you’, she says.

‘Think clearly, we cannot make this decision for you. Be very sure, you already had once chance, so think very carefully Priya’, my mother says.

Great.