Chapter 4

Imlie walked up the stairs to her room and answered Amma’s call.

“Amma, aap kaise hain? Sab theek hain wahan? Dadda teek se Pagdandia paunch gaye?”

Meethi smiled, “Haan haas, sab theek hain, satyakaam be theek se yahaan hain. Tujhe bahut bahut shukriya, usse humare paas lautane ke liye.”

Imlie laughed, holding back tears, every day Dadda was away from Amma was painful. It was an injustice that she couldn’t forget even if she wanted to. “Amma, maine kuch nahi kiya, yeh sach Sita Ma ke vaja se bahar aaya, sach toh bahar aana hi tha. Aur—“ Imlie stopped herself, she didn’t know how to thank Aryan. She was thankful, of course, but how could she express everything he did today, everything he’d done for her over the past month.

“Aur? Aur kya Imliya?” Meethi asked.

Imlie sighed, “Agar main uski tara baat kya toh main ab, ‘doosri baat udhaar rayi kahungi.” She laughed.

Meethi chuckled, “Mujhe bataa tha, Aryan Babu tumhara madhat zaroor karega.”

Imlie smiled, “Haan, usne bahut madat kiya.”

Meethi decided to broach the subject, if she didn’t, she knew her daughter would make the same mistake she’d grown up making. “Kya, Aditya tumse baat kiya? Maafi manga?”

Imlie’s smile fell off her face. She didn’t say anything.

“Imlie,” Meethi started, “Mujhe bataa hai, woh tumse mari zaroor manga hoga, lekin tujhe apne baare mein sochna chahiye. Kisi aur ke baare mein nahin. Har din, har pal, tum sirf tumhari apne ke baare mein sochti hai, aur nahin. Agar tumne phir se—“

Imlie finally spoke up, “Amma, shaant shaant. Aditya mujhse baat karne ke koshish ki, par main uski baat ko sunni ke himmat nahin hai. Naa aaj, shayad kabhi nahin.”

Meethi smiled, “Usne tumhara barosa thoda hai. Aur mujhe nahin lagta woh phir se kisi ke barosa ke layak hai.”

Imlie sighed again, “Mujhe woh sab nahin bataa, mujhe sirf yeh bataa hai ki mujhse pyaar pe upar viswaas, shaadi pe upar vishwaas, woh sab maine kho gayaa.”

“Imliya, aisa mat bolo. Pyaar woh cheez hai, toh sab ko doond leta hai. Aditya tera pyaar ke layak nahin ta, par kisi aur tujhe zaroor samjega, tujhe maan dega, tera barosa jeet payega.”

Imlie wanted to interrupt Amma, but when thinking about her words, ‘maan’ and ‘barosa’ her thoughts turned to Aryan. Without realizing what she was doing she was thinking about Aryan not thinking twice before letting her stay in his house. She thought about Aryan letting her write about what she wanted. She thought about Aryan understanding her need to go to Pagdandia to save everyone from Aatank. She thought about his laugh at Anu ji’s ridiculous pictures.

“Imlie, tum kahaan tho gayi?” Meethi asked.

“Amma, hum yahaan hi hai. Aur ab se mujhe pyaar ke baat mat karo. Mere maksat ab sirf humari kaam aur padaai hai. Theek?”

Meethi wanted to say something else, she wanted to try to convince her daughter that love wasn’t something that could be avoided. She wanted to convince Imlie that running away from love wouldn’t keep her safe. But she knew, her daughter wasn’t in a place to think about anything to do with love. And that was good, her daughter was talented and hard-working, nothing else was necessary for her right now. But she couldn’t close herself off to everyone new in her life, especially if that meant her only family in Delhi were the Tripathis. Meethi didn’t just mistrust Aditya, she had lost complete faith in her daughter’s ex-in-laws to do anything but cry at a bad situation. They hadn’t protected her daughter when she needed, and now they wanted to benefit from her hard work.

“Imlie, tum sirf apne baare mein socho. Woh kya kehte hain Angrezi mein? Please. Please tumhare maksat se door mat jao. Aur rishton ko utana hee sammaan dena, jitana tumko milti hai. Samji?”

Imlie laughed, “Haan Amma, main rakti hun. Ab mujhse bahut badaboo aa rahee hai. mujhe nahaana hai.”

Imlie hung up the phone, said a silent prayer to Sita Maa for Amma and Dadda, and went to the restroom to take a shower.

There was one major benefit of renting a room in Aryan Singh Rathore’s house, an amazing bathtub. After just a few days of very quick showers, she had learned from Arpita the benefits of taking a bubble bath like those westerners in movies did, except instead of music and wine with her bath, she put her phone on the counter (far away from the water) and listened to her professors’ lectures again. She liked to slowly enjoy the information from her classes that she didn’t pay attention to during class because she was so focused on taking perfect notes. It was a perfect way to study and relax. The past couple weeks she had been focusing too much on her writing at Bhaskar Times, as well as the family stress of course, and she had fallen behind in her coursework. She turned on the lecture for her Indian Literature During the Colonial Era class and dropped hung the bathrobe on the back of the door. She dipped a toe in the water, it was the perfect temperature, and there weren’t too many bubbles either.

She sunk into the bath with a deep sigh and almost instantly the knots in her feet, shoulders, and legs started to melt away. She could stay here all night if she wanted, and no one could stop her.

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