Chapter 8

Breakfast was a rather boring affair, but what Imlie enjoyed most about it was Aryan’s dance that he did every so often from the coffee carafe to the actual food on the table. She’d been making breakfast for the Rathores and herself every couple days; she couldn’t cook every day because working full time and going to college was obviously tiring. And when she made breakfast, Aryan would show up to the table with the clear plan of just drinking coffee, however, after smelling her food for a few seconds, he’d surreptitiously fill up his plate. This made her laugh to herself every time, but it also made her feel good to know that Aryan liked her cooking. She didn’t know why but she’d worry about his nutrition every now and then. It seemed that he’d made a habit of not actually enjoying the food he ate, if he ate at all. Sitting down at the table for him was just a place to talk to his mother and sister uninterrupted, which itself was adorable, but Imlie thought it was important for him to enjoy his food. From what she could tell, Aryan had been through so much in his life, he’d consciously cut out all emotion from his life. Be it happiness or grief, he’d cut it out like a surgeon cut out a tumor. Wait, Imlie thought, that isn’t right, he’s still able to feel angry. But what good is anger if you can’t also feel joy? As she saw Aryan fill up his plate with parathas and achaar and her gobi curry, she smiled. At least today he wouldn’t be in a bad mood because he was hungry, but he still didn’t seem to enjoy his food, nor did it look like he’d get out of his bad mood.

Imlie chewed slowly and continued to stare at Aryan. Why was he in a bad mood today? she thought, It wasn’t like anything had gone horribly wrong in his life yesterday. He had helped me reveal Malini’s horrible character, but how did that affect him? Imlie’s mind wandered to what had happened last night in her room. Aryan seemed to be lost and was unable to speak without stuttering the whole time they were working on the photo layout or her article. Maybe he was just angry about her dancing and jumping on the bed? Imlie considered this, No, that couldn’t be it, Aryan could hand out his anger like a doctor handed out vaccine injections during flu season, but even that was too minuscule to bother him for that long. It had to be something to do with the Tripathis or Aditya… Imlie had noticed that Aryan hadn’t just been rude to Aditya as he usually was, he was also abnormally cold to the Tripathis yesterday. She had yet to figure out exactly why Aryan seemed to dislike Aditya so much, but she knew for certain that the Tripathis didn’t deserve Aryan’s ire. They were kind and considerate…but then her mind brought forward all the moments in the past year when they had refused to trust her or accept her. She started to think about how even though they believed her, finally, about Malini yesterday, they hadn’t said anything to Aditya except to tell him to leave Malini. She remembered what her Naani used to say in Pagdandia, “If Meethi had given birth to a boy, only half the town would have cruel to her, boys bring luck and prosperity, no matter what they do. Boys can provide,” she had told Imlie one day. Amma had never said such a thing, in fact, Imlie knew that Amma didn’t believe that. For Meethi, there was no world in which Imlie was anything but a gift to her. Imlie thanked Sita Maiya every day for giving her a mother like Meethi, because Amma was the kind of mother who wouldn’t hesitate to tell Imlie when she was wrong, nor did she hesitate to tell Imlie when she was proud of her. Imlie didn’t think the Tripathis knew how to really tell their son how they felt, or if they could ever full comprehend the completely broken aspects of their son. She didn’t like to think of people as inherently flawed, but yesterday’s events had brought her to think like this even more so than the day Aditya had questioned her about Malini’s shooting. It was clear that no matter how many times Aditya said that he was sorry or that he understood his mistake, he didn’t understand. Everything was about him, even in his apologies. But paradoxically, while his apology would be about him, as his countless ones before had been, they were also always about what others had forced him into doing and thinking. He would claim not to make an excuse, but then an excuse or a dozen would flow out of his mouth. Imlie didn’t think, in fact, she knew, Aryan Singh Rathore wasn’t like that.

Aryan could take ownership of everything he did in his life. Be it a mistake or a victory, he knew exactly what he did and didn’t do in a situation, and he was unafraid to speak his mind. Though, Imlie assumed that was because Aryan had long ago shut down the part of his brain that felt anything other than anger. Because if he knew how his anger and lack of any other emotion affected Kaki Maa and Arpita, he might find it harder to take ownership of his actions. If he could feel how his anger clouded the every day interactions Imlie saw between the three of them, she was sure Aryan wouldn’t be able to even begin an apology. She worried that one day that switch in his brain would flip and the sheer level of emotions in his head and heart would overwhelm him to the point of breaking. That’s why little doses of emotion, other than anger of course, was the way forward in her opinion. He’d have to approach other emotions like one approaches a pool, dipping their toe in to test the water temperature. And food was just such a vehicle for that test, at least she hoped it would be enough.

The ride to the office was quiet, as it always was. Imlie had considered starting a conversation, about anything, at least three times during the ride, but upon looking at Aryan’s stern face, she fell silent. Something had changed between them yesterday, and she didn’t think they’d ever be able to go back to the day before. She didn’t know if it was Aditya or the Tripathis, or perhaps Malini, that had changed everything, but it was something. Maybe he doesn’t like the idea of me going live on the news to talk about the brothel raid? Imlie considered. But if that were the issue he would have just told me, ‘No Imlie, you’re not ready and I can’t risk my news channel’s ratings just because you want to go on TV. She kept stealing glances at him as he drove the familiar route to the Bhaskar Times’ offices, but with each glance it didn’t get easier to read his mind. I wonder how he manages to read my mind every time I’m feeling stressed or confused. How can someone who doesn’t feel anything but rage or annoyance at things manage to figure out other peoples’ emotions so easily?

Imlie had been uncharacteristically silent at breakfast and in the car. Aryan took the final turn into the parking lot of the Bhaskar Times offices, and wondered what the issue was. She was perfectly normal in the morning when she had skipped to the kitchen to make breakfast. She’d even been dancing the night before. Maybe she’s regretting cutting off Aditya Kumar Tripathi from giving his stupid apology. Maybe she’s finally feeling the weight of what happened yesterday. Aryan hoped what she felt after yesterday wasn’t regret. If she regretted leaving Aditya, if she regretted not giving Aditya another chance, it would, well, it would destroy Aryan. It would completely shake his faith in Imlie, and even though he hated the word faith, that’s what he had in her. He had faith that she always would make the right decision for her at the right moment, no matter how difficult or winding the path she took was, she always ended up at the right spot. And Aryan hoped with every fiber of his being that she knew the right decision was to never look back to Aditya Kumar Tripathi or to give him anything but hatred. Aryan knew that if Imlie gave Aditya another chance, it wouldn’t be just one step in a long path that ended up with leaving Aditya again, she would go back to him forever if she took even a step in that direction. That was the strength of Aditya’s cruel manipulation. He was capable of much worse manipulation than what he did to Imlie, though what he had done to this amazing nineteen year old girl was perhaps the most prolonged case of gaslighting Aryan had ever seen. Aditya had built his ten year long journalism career on the basis of lying to the city and sometimes the nation that he was willing and able to find out the “truth” for them. First of all, there is never an “objective” and “complete” truth to a story. Even in stories about horrific murders or state violence, where the villain is clear, any story about it will always leave out an important perspective here and there that it could have included. Aryan didn’t think that journalists needed to be “objective” as some people did, journalists were allowed to and should have an opinion on serious matters. But what bad journalists were guilty of were taking their opinions and assuming they were the only framing and only perspective that was correct on a subject. The worst journalists developed tunnel vision over time, and that was Aditya Kumar Tripathi. He began to assume that anyone and everyone in power was the enemy of workers and the Indian people, and while that was probably true for hundreds if not thousands of businessmen and government officials, believing it to be the case a hundred percent of the time is what led Aditya Kumar Tripathi to make the worst mistake of his journalistic career. Arvind Chauhan, Aryan’s late brother-in-law, was less like his Arpita Didi’s husband to Aryan and more like Aryan’s brother. From the moment Aryan met him, he knew he’d met one of the kindest and most responsible men in the world. Arvind never thought about anything in business except the lives of his workers. It was the damn corrupt leader of the worker’s union at one of the factories that had turned the workers against Arvind. So while Arvind, in fact every businessman or person in power, could have done more, Aditya Kumar Tripathi’s tunnel vision is what spurred a series of horribly biased reports against Arvind and Rathore Enterprises, and what led to that fateful day.

Imlie couldn’t go back to Aditya. She’d end up even more hurt than she was now. Aditya Kumar Tripathi had stolen a year of Imlie’s life, he had stolen her happiness, her child-like faith in a just and kind world, he had destroyed and forever tainted her understanding of love. At that moment Aryan thanked a God he didn’t believe in for the fact that Aditya Kumar Tripathi had been unable to steal Imlie’s faith in her Sita Maiya, because Aditya had managed to steal Imlie’s faith in herself. Her self-confidence was completely destroyed, and it was only just starting to be built up again since Imlie had left Aditya a few weeks ago. Aryan worried, however, that Imlie would indeed go back to Aditya. Not because of his pleading and apologies, but because of her love for the Tripathis. They were a completely oblivious family. One of the types of families that Aryan absolutely hated, because they spoke and lectured endlessly on their love of equality and justice, but when push came to shove, they couldn’t do anything to reprimand their own son except a few slightly harsh tear-filled speeches. As the saying went, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That was the Tripathi family for Imlie, a road of well intentioned “gyaan ki mothis” that would ultimately lead to Imlie living her life in a prison made of these pearls.

Imlie can’t go back to Aditya or the Tripathis, Aryan said the words over and over again in his head, and Imlie’s voice is what broke this new mantra he’d created for himself.

“Aren’t you going to get out of the car?” Imlie asked, a slight concern tinging her voice, she still couldn’t figure out what he was thinking about or why his face had turned even more sour over the past thirty seconds as he parked the car.

Aryan, without thinking, finally said what was on his mind, “Don’t go back to him, Imlie.”