Tension (Part 3)

January 20th, 2010
Wednesday
Chennai, India

“120 rupees!”, exclaimed Aishwarya, as Meenakshi paid the auto-rickshaw driver and walked toward her. “Daylight robbery!”, she continued, “these guys must be earning enough to retire at 40.” Meenakshi laughed. She enjoyed Aishwarya’s tendency toward the hyperbole. She complemented her soft nature well.

“Have you started writing up your report?”, Aishwarya enquired, as they made their way up the stairs of Spencer Plaza, the shopping mall on Mount Road. “Yes, I’ve written about 20 pages”, Meenakshi prevaricated. “What about you ?”, asked Meenakshi. “I’ve almost finished!”, Aishwarya grinned. “I should be done by the end of this week”, she added, in an innocent show of one-upmanship. Meenakshi smiled faintly. Aishwarya and she had been friends since school and they had always had a healthy competition about studies. It looked like Aishwarya was going to win the final round, but Meenakshi wasn’t too bothered. It all seemed so unimportant now.

“Shall we go to the shoe-shop first ?”, asked Aishwarya. “There is a sale on for Republic Day”. “Wherever you want”, answered Meenakshi absent-mindedly. They took the elevator to the 4th floor and stepped out. The mall was buzzing with activity – young families from lower-class backgrounds revelling in their newfound financial health, middle-class middle-aged ladies keeping an eye out for that killer sale, young couples mostly from the Arts colleges holding hands and walking along dreamily, the odd mischievious school-boy bunking school.

Shops of all types were doing brisk business, some of them selling small plastic Republic Day flags for the approaching holiday on 26th January. Each shop occupied a relatively small space, with its painted name on top often merging into the painted name of the shop next door. Most shops had a small colour television, tuned onto the ongoing India vs Australia cricket match – watched by the shop’s proprietor and a few distracted customers. Each shop had a few workers who attended to the customers. Some shops had a worker standing outside, actively canvassing their respective shops to prospective customers, only stopping to stare open-mouthed at a beautiful girl walking by.

“Meenakshi, look at that pair of slippers”, pointed Aishwarya excitedly, at a pair of dark brown Kolawari slippers. “Yea, they’re beautiful!”, responded Meenakshi, “you should get them”. “But they’re 400 rupees! I was looking for something around 300”, complained Aishwarya. “I’ll give you the extra 100 rupees, just a gift from me”, offered Meenakshi. Aishwarya’s eyes brightened. “You’re the best”, she beamed. Meenakshi smiled, looking away. She had offered Aishwarya the money because she adored her, but also to make up for being so enigmatic lately. For the past two weeks, she had been distant, non-committal, absent-minded, even rude, but Aishwarya had just accepted her happily. She hadn’t even told Aishwarya what the matter was, but she knew Aishwarya knew something was wrong.

They bought the shoes and went to the Food-Court for lunch. “Meenakshi, you havn’t been yourself lately. What is the matter?”, asked Aishwarya. “You don’t even look yourself – your eyes have black circles around them, your cheeks are sunken…you have to tell me what the matter is.” “I’ll tell you when the time is right”, answered Meenakshi firmly. Aishwarya didn’t answer. She knew how stubborn Meenakshi could be sometimes, so she decided not to pursue the matter further.

They ate in silence for a while, Meenakshi eating quickly, like she was in a hurry. “Shall we check out the new clothes store after lunch?”, asked Aishwarya expectantly. Meenakshi’s eyes fell. “Aishwarya, I’m not feeling very well. I know we had planned to spend the whole day here, but I think I should go back home after lunch. I’m very sorry. I promise to make it up to you soon. Do understand”. “It isn’t a problem,” answered Aishwarya, her face unable to conceal her disappointment. “Let’s call for the bill…waiter!”, Aishwarya called.
They paid the bill and left. Down the elevator and out onto Mount Road, Meenakshi returning by auto-rickshaw and Aishwarya by bus.

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Meenakshi’s mind was in turmoil. She got home at 2:30 pm, went straight to her room, got onto her bed and slept till 5:30 pm. She just wanted to hide away from the world, if only for 3 hours. She woke up, went to the living room and switched on the TV. Restlessly, she switched channels – every single programme on every single channel seemed abominable. Every word spoken by the characters seemed so irrelevant, so insubstantial. She sat absent-mindedly watching the BBC News, her mind racing, the words of the newsreader merely bouncing off her ears. She switched off the television and went back to her room.

She turned on her computer and attempted to begin writing her report. With a massive effort of will, she marshalled her thoughts and composed a paragraph before she gave up exhausted. She went and sat on her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Memories of Philip came flooding into her mind. That first day during the college festival when he had come up and spoken to her. He had been so awkward and yet so confident. The period after that when they used to meet outside of college, in particularly crowded places so that they would seem less conspicuous. The late night phone calls, potent with the thrill of speaking to him, but also the fear of being caught by her father. Why had she fallen in love with him ? It wasn’t just that he was a decent, good-natured boy –she knew many boys like that. She even knew boys more disciplined than him, more hard-working than him, even more confident than him. She had fallen for his dynamism – his passion to make a difference, to change the world around him.

He completed her. She felt that he provided something that had been lacking in her conservative upbringing. All her life, she had known men of thought – her father and his friends. Deeply philosophical men, who thought clearly about life and organised themselves according to life’s patterns. They organised their societies to ensure longevity, they organised their own families to ensure stability. They organised their personal lives to ensure an optimal use of resources. They knew there were 24 hours in a day and ensured that they used it as best they could. They knew money was not infinite and develop ways of using it wisely. They reflected on life and developed general rules for good living – they reduced life to a formula.

But in all this, they did not take account of individuality. In trying to frame general rules, they had lost sight of the uniqueness of every individual. In trying to organise society to ensure longevity, they had completely ignored each individual’s agency. Because of this, Meenakshi had sometimes felt a certain passiveness, a certain static-ness, a certain suppression of individual enterprise, in her culture.

Her father was a product of this culture, as were her relatives. All the other boys she knew were also more-or-less like this. Philip was completely different. He was the consummate individual. He had a happy confidence that he was completely justified in pursuing his own happiness. He was bursting with energy, enthusiasm, enterprise; he breathed the air of freedom. She found it irrestible...she loved him.

She loved him! She felt completed by him, protected by him, loved by him and loved him in return. He was a part of her – how could she be estranged from him? She felt connected to him in spirit. She needed him, just as he needed her. He knew her more intimately than anyone else. She loved him. Her father would not understand, it was totally different from his way of thinking, but she knew she loved him – really, definitely, undeniably.

Meenakshi’s eyes drooped; she was emotionally drained. She had got into her bed and had covered herself with a bed-sheet. “But Appa (Father) will never understand”, she thought as her shoulders sunk lower onto the bed. “It would hurt him more than anything to see me marry a non-Brahmin. It would be his worst nightmare”, she thought, her heart wrenching from the pain. She winced. “He would feel defeated, betrayed, humiliated. His very own Meenakshi, turning her back on him. It would be a personal failure, his biggest failure…he thinks marriage is all about parenthood, and this would be a monumental failure of parenting. I can’t do that to him. I can’t go against his wishes. Anything is better than devastating him”, she thought, lifting herself with her hands, to sit upright. “I just couldn’t”.

“But, how can I forsake Philip! How can I ever be happy with anyone else? Impossible!”, she thought angrily, as her eyes filled with tears. She got out of her bed and went to her mirror. Besides her sunken cheeks and black rings around her eyes, she noticed her face had become a lifeless pale. There were clear lines where tears had streamed down her face.

She went back to her bed and went to sleep.

That night, she had a nightmare. A thick, long rope and one team holding each end, in a tug-of-war. One team was dressed in saffron, the other was dressed in white. Gritted teeth. Both teams pulled and pulled, not giving an inch. The rope tore. She saw the orange team celebrating and noticed that they had gotten a longer portion of the rope. She woke up, turned over and went back to sleep.

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