EPISODE 27
Farhad was a surprisingly fine conversationalist Pallavi discovered on the drive from Yashoda Hospital to Nampally Road. He even made a joke when she alighted from the car and thanked him for the lift.
He said, “No need to thank me. We are cousins after all.”
Krishna was just accepting payment from a customer, and was at the front of the shop as Pallavi entered.
“I just sold one of the uglies,” Krishna gave a chuckle once the customer left with the package.
Krishna and Pallavi had a shelf they had dubbed ‘the ugly shelf’—these were sarees they both found hideous—and consequently, they never showed them to customers. But once in a while, a curious customer would point to the offensive pile, demand a peek, and fall in love with one of the uglies.
The rule was that when one of the uglies left the shop, the girls celebrated its departure by treating themselves to falooda from a nearby ice cream parlour.
It was while consuming the falooda that Pallavi announced, “Raghav Rao kissed me.”
Krishna’s eyes widened. “For donating blood?”
“I think it was more than that,” Pallavi admitted.
“Did you enjoy it?”
Pallavi tilted her head to consider the kiss which had not been out of her mind for a moment since it happened. “It was brief.”
“Tongues were involved?” Krishna asked, audaciously.
Pallavi blushed, and exclaimed, “No!”
Krishna laughed, “I’m just trying to establish the full picture in my mind, Didi.”
Pallavi sipped in silence, imagining how the moment might have appeared to someone observing them. Had there been someone outside the door? Is that why the kiss ended abruptly?
“The important question is,” Krishna was saying, “what happens next?”
Pallavi reflected on the question. It was a very good question. What happens next?
She turned to Krishna and replied, “Nothing. If we should meet again—we’ll both pretend it never happened, I suppose.”
“Is that possible?”
“Why not? I can’t see why he should bring it up. And I certainly shan’t.”
Krishna stirred her falooda with energy. She said, “Whether it is ever mentioned between you two, neither of you can ignore what it has established.”
“Established?”
“That there is mutual attraction. That is now a fact,” Krishna said. “After this point, the hero and heroine must either move forward and make a declaration of interest—or back off, call it a mistake and agree to never speak of it again.”
“Hero? Heroine?” Pallavi frowned at the terminology.
“Of course,” said Krishna. “For that is what you are now. If this was a novel, you would eventually marry—but what happens after the first kiss will determine how many twists and turns there will be until you get to the shaadi.”
Marriage!
“Krishna!” Pallavi protested. “You’ve taken an idea and run wild with it. It was just a kiss.”
Krishna disagreed. “There is no such thing as just-a-kiss between an eligible man and woman.”
“I don’t want to marry him!” Pallavi insisted. “I never want to marry again. You know that. And even if—that is a big ‘if’!—I wanted to marry him—what would Aayi and Baba say? He’s a notorious gangster!” She paused and added, “Also, he’s a decade older than me. If he had wanted to marry he would have done so years ago.”
“What others think does not matter,” Krishna pointed out. “Even before you mentioned this kiss, I’ve sensed you were attracted to him—” and putting her palm up to prevent Pallavi from denying it, she added, “—attraction is normal. You are allowed to be physically drawn to him. He is strikingly handsome. And being a gangster, that only adds to his powerful bad-boy appeal.”
Pallavi savoured this description. Perhaps that was it. What was the point of denying that she had the healthy libido of a young woman? That would be as ridiculous as denying evolution.
It was not surprising that Krishna was on the same track as herself. She was saying, “When he said you dressed like an old maid—you didn’t like it because you know you are not that. You are young. You are alive. You have desires. And if you suppress them, then you will come to regret it.”
Though Aayi had not put it in the same language, Pallavi realized that that is what she had been saying for months. And perhaps that is why Baba had been offended by the idea of her remarrying. He did not want to see Pallavi as a sexual being. He wanted to see her as Mandhar’s eternally faithful widow and their selfless asexual daughter-in-law.
“Perhaps you are right,” Pallavi sighed.
Krishna asked, “About what?”
Finding it difficult to remain seated, Pallavi lifted from the dais, placed her glass on the desk, and stepped towards the front entrance. After a thoughtful moment, she whirled to face Krishna and said, “My decision to never marry again is connected to the disappointment and betrayal I experienced with Mandhar. And my attraction to Raghav Rao is my body telling me that to deny myself a full life as a woman because of one bad experience would be a colossal mistake.”
Krishna jumped up at her words. “I agree! Didi, I hoped you would come to this realization. What happens next?”
“I’ll speak to Aayi. I’ll tell her I’m ready for marriage.”
“Before you speak to Mr Rao?” Krishna asked.
“Raghav Rao?” Pallavi questioned. “I can’t marry him. He’s entirely unsuitable. His only role here is that he has been instrumental in helping me realize that I don’t want to be alone. That I want to share my life with a man. But he is not that man.”
Aami Daakini
Book Talk
Cricket
