Chapter 20: Hrithik

# Chapter 20: Hrithik

## The Mango Tree

December. The first week. The week when Satara's winter arrived — not with announcement, not with the dramatic snowfall of the north, but with the specific Maharashtrian subtlety of a cold that crept into the mornings and retreated by noon, the cold that required a sweater at 6:00 AM and shirt sleeves by 1:00 PM, the cold that was not cold by Delhi's standards or Shimla's standards but that was cold by Satara's standards, and Satara's standards were the only standards that mattered because Satara was where we lived.

The mango tree had lost its leaves. The mango tree lost its leaves in December — the annual undressing, the branches going bare, the canopy that had been full and green in the monsoon and that was now skeletal, the bones of the tree visible against the winter sky. The bare branches were the branches that reached over the compound wall — the diplomatic branches, the branches that had been crossing the border between the Kulkarni house and the Patil house for thirty years, the branches that knew no jurisdiction, that respected no wall, that grew where the light was and the light was on both sides.

I stood under the mango tree at 7:00 AM. The morning was cold — the specific cold of 14 degrees Celsius, which was Satara's December morning temperature and which was the temperature at which chai consumption moved from the standard three cups to the winter four, the fourth cup being the cup that the body demanded at 4:00 PM when the afternoon's warmth faded and the evening's cold began its approach.

I was waiting for Tanvi.

The waiting was different now. The waiting had been, for eleven years, the waiting of a man who did not know if the person he was waiting for would come — the waiting of uncertainty, the waiting that the compound wall had produced, the waiting that was not patience but anxiety, not calm but the specific tension of a man whose relationship existed in the space between hope and resignation.

This waiting was different. This waiting was the waiting of a man who knew that the person would come because the person had said she would come and the person was Tanvi and Tanvi, when she said 7:00 AM, meant 7:00 AM, not 7:05, not 7:03, but 7:00, the precision of a hotel-management graduate for whom time was not approximate but specific, the specificity being professional and the profession being the thing that had trained her to be precise about the thing she was also precise about for personal reasons, the personal reason being me.

She came through the gate at 7:00. The gate opened. The gate closed. The fifteen steps — but not all fifteen, because the mango tree was at the midpoint, at step seven or eight, the midpoint of the distance between the Kulkarni door and the Patil door, the midpoint that was also the midpoint of the compound wall, the geographical centre of the boundary between two houses.

She was wearing a sweater — the maroon sweater that she wore in December, the sweater that her grandmother in Kolhapur had knitted and that had the specific qualities of grandmother-knitted sweaters, which were warmth and imperfect stitching and the faint smell of the grandmother's house (camphor and sandalwood and the old almari where the wool was stored). The sweater was too big — grandmother sweaters were always too big, knitted for the grandchild's future size rather than the grandchild's current size, the excess fabric being the grandmother's investment in the grandchild's growth.

"You're early," she said.

"I'm always early."

"I know. Seventeen minutes early for cricket. Three minutes late for cafés."

"The café was deliberate."

"I know. Three minutes of committee deliberation at the door."

"You saw me."

"I saw you through the window. Standing outside Kitaab for three minutes, looking at the door like it was asking you a question."

"It was asking me a question."

"What question?"

"The question was: are you going in?"

"And the answer was three minutes."

"The answer was yes. The three minutes were the translation."

She smiled. The smile in the December morning was the smile that I had catalogued — the full smile, the smile that used her entire face, the smile that I had not seen for years and that I now saw regularly, the regularity being the product of the café and the garage and the cricket field and the specific accumulation of moments that had converted the almost-smile into the full smile, the conversion that was the conversion of the relationship itself, from almost to full.

"Come," she said. "I want to show you something."

She walked to the mango tree. The mango tree's trunk was thick — the thickness of a thirty-year-old tree, the trunk that Tanvi and I had climbed as children, the trunk whose bark was rough and whose roughness had been memorised by our hands, the specific texture of every handhold and foothold mapped by the specific cartography of children who climbed the same tree every day for the years when climbing was the activity and the tree was the destination.

"Remember the mark?" she asked.

"The mark?"

"The mark we made. When we were eight. You scratched it with the nail. The nail from your Baba's shop."

The mark. The mark that I had scratched into the bark of the mango tree when I was eight — the mark that was not a word but a symbol, the symbol being a line, a vertical line with two horizontal lines crossing it, the symbol that I had told Tanvi was the symbol for best friends and that I had invented on the spot because eight-year-old boys did not have symbols for the thing they felt and so they invented them, the invention being the first creative act, the first mark on the world, the first I was here scratched into a surface that would outlast the scratching.

"I remember the mark."

"It's still here."

She pointed. The mark was at eye level — the eye level of a twenty-three-year-old, which meant it had been above-head level for an eight-year-old, which meant I had climbed the tree to make it, which I had, the climbing being part of the ritual, the height being the effort, the mark being the reward.

The mark was there. Fifteen years of bark growth had not erased it — the bark had grown around the mark, the mark now sunken slightly, the vertical line and the two horizontal lines still visible but softened by time, the edges rounded by fifteen monsoons and fifteen winters and fifteen years of the tree's slow, patient growth.

I touched the mark. The bark was cold — December morning cold, the specific cold of a mango tree's trunk in winter, the cold that was different from the metal cold of the gate and different from the plaster cold of the compound wall, the cold that was alive, the cold of a living thing that was sleeping, the tree's winter dormancy being the sleep that trees took when the leaves were gone and the energy was conserved for the spring that would come in February, the spring that would produce the new leaves and the new flowers and the new mangoes.

"Best friends," Tanvi said. "That's what you said. This means best friends."

"I was eight."

"You were eight. And you climbed the tree and you scratched the mark and you said this means best friends forever and I believed you because I was eight and eight-year-olds believe the symbols that other eight-year-olds invent."

"Do you still believe it?"

"I believe it means something different now."

"What does it mean now?"

"It means what it always meant. Except now I'm old enough to know the real word."

The real word. The word that eight-year-olds did not have and that twenty-three-year-olds did. The word that the symbol had been substituting for, the way the compound wall had been substituting for a decision — the thing standing in for the thing, the proxy occupying the space until the real thing arrived.

"The real word," I said.

"The real word."

We stood under the mango tree. The mango tree's bare branches were above us — the branches that had reached over the compound wall for thirty years, the branches that had been the tree's argument against the wall, the biological imperative that said I grow where the light is and the light does not respect your boundaries. The branches were bare now, the December nakedness, the branches visible against the sky in a way that the monsoon canopy did not allow — the structure of the tree visible, the architecture, the way the branches divided and subdivided, each branch a decision, each fork a choice, the tree's entire history written in its structure.

"Tanvi."

"Yes?"

"I love you."

The sentence was not the café sentence — the café sentence had been I've been in love with you since I was twelve, which was a sentence about the past, a sentence that described a condition that had existed and that was being reported. This sentence was different. This sentence was the present tense. This sentence was not a report but a declaration, not a history but a position, the sentence that said this is what I am now, this is the current state, this is the thing that the past produced and the present holds and the future will continue.

"I know," she said. "I've known since the salt shaker."

"The salt shaker was when you were six."

"The salt shaker was when you shared. You were six and you shared. Six-year-olds don't share. Six-year-olds hoard. Six-year-olds guard their food with the ferocity of animals protecting their young. But you shared. You held out the salt shaker and you said the mango needs salt and the sharing was the thing, Hrithik. The sharing was the thing that started everything."

The sharing. The mango and the salt shaker. The beginning — the moment that had started the seventeen years that had produced the compound wall and the garba and the silence and the Saturdays and the counter and the garage and the café and the cricket and the doorknobs and the kit and the newspapers and the two Nilkamal chairs and the mark on the tree and this December morning under the bare branches.

"I love you too," she said. "In case the timing of my chai and the seventeen-second window and the cutting-chai for the boys and the showroom confrontation and the ₹41,270 in a brown envelope and the second Nilkamal chair and the café on Jawli Road and the hand on the cricket field were not clear enough. I love you. Present tense. Ongoing. No expiration."

"No expiration."

"Like copper winding. Like Peshwa-era teak frames. Like the mark on the mango tree. The things that don't expire."

She took my hand. The hand was warm — warmer than the December morning, warmer than the bark, warmer than the plaster of the compound wall. The hand was Tanvi's hand and the hand was the hand that I had held in the café and on the cricket field and that I was now holding under the mango tree, the tree where everything had started, the tree that was the origin point, the coordinates from which all other coordinates were measured.

The compound wall was beside us. The compound wall was six inches. The compound wall was blue on one side and white on the other and the mango tree's branches reached over it and the mango tree's branches had always reached over it and the reaching had been the instruction that neither of us had understood until now — the instruction that said: the wall is a fact. The reaching is a choice. Choose the reaching.

We chose the reaching.

---

The morning continued. The December sun climbed. The cold retreated. The sweaters would come off by noon and the afternoon would be warm and the evening would be cold again and the cycle would continue because cycles were the thing that Satara understood, the cycles of seasons and festivals and cricket seasons and chai consumption and the specific, rotating calendar of a town whose life was measured not in linear time but in circular time, the time that returned, the time that came back, the time that the mango tree embodied — the annual cycle of leaves and bare branches, the annual promise that the leaves would return.

The leaves would return. February. The mango tree would flower in February — the small, pale flowers that smelled of nothing and that produced the mangoes that smelled of everything, the mangoes that fell on both sides of the compound wall and that both families ate and that both families had been eating for thirty years.

February was two months away. Two months was the distance between December's bare branches and February's flowers. Two months was not a long time. Two months was shorter than six years. Two months was shorter than eleven years.

Tanvi went to Saudagar's. I went to the field. The boys were practising — the boys with the new kit, the boys with the helmets and the leather balls and the bowling shoes, the boys whose cricket was different now, the difference being the equipment and the equipment being the garage's legacy.

Raju was batting. Raju was batting with the helmet on. Raju had not, as far as I could determine, removed the helmet since the kit had arrived. The helmet was Raju's talisman, Raju's evidence, the thing that said your head is worth protecting and that Raju had received as the message it was.

"Sir," Raju said during the water break. "Is it true that tai and you..."

"Tai?"

"Tanvi tai. Is it true that you and Tanvi tai are..."

The question. The question that the boys had been asking each other and that Raju, as captain, had been designated to ask me, the delegation of the personal question to the authority figure being the specific protocol of Indian groups, where the personal question was always asked by the person whose relationship with the authority figure was strongest.

"Yes," I said. "Tanvi and I are together."

"Since when?"

"Since always. We just didn't know it."

The answer satisfied Raju. The answer satisfied Raju because the answer was the cricket answer — the answer that said the thing had always been there and that the thing had only needed the right conditions to be expressed, the way Raju's talent had always been there and had only needed the right equipment and the right ground and the right coaching to be expressed.

"Sir, will you get married?"

"Raju, you're fifteen. Your job is to bat. My job is to coach. Marriage is not on the cricket agenda."

"But sir —"

"Bat."

Raju batted. The boys practised. The goats grazed. The morning was the morning — the ordinary December morning in Satara, the morning that contained cricket and goats and the Sahyadris and the specific, composite, unremarkable ordinariness of a small town in Maharashtra where a boy coached cricket and a girl managed a restaurant and a father sat in a Nilkamal chair listening to AIR and a brother drove an Innova and a compound wall stood between two houses that the wall could not separate because the people inside the houses had decided that the wall was not the story.

The wall was not the story. The wall had never been the story. The wall was the scenery. The wall was the backdrop. The wall was the six inches of brick that stood between two houses and that the mango tree's branches had been reaching over for thirty years and that two children had been reaching over for seventeen years and that two adults had finally reached over on a Saturday in October when a boy said I can help and a girl said yes and the help was not about the garage but about the distance and the distance was six inches and the six inches were a decision.

The decision was made. The distance was closed. The compound wall was six inches and the six inches were not a barrier but a measurement, the measurement of the space between two houses that were, in every way that mattered, one house — one wall, one tree, one neighbourhood, one love story that had started with a mango and a salt shaker and that had continued through garba and silence and misal and Saturday garages and brass doorknobs and cricket tournaments and a café on Jawli Road and a brown envelope with ₹41,270 and a father's five words and a mother's chapatis and a brother's grudging concession and a notebook with an inventory that was also a love letter and a mark on a tree that was also a promise.

The promise was the promise that the mark had made — the promise that eight-year-olds made without knowing they were making it, the promise that was not best friends forever but the deeper promise, the promise that said: I see you. I will continue to see you. The wall is between us and I see you through the wall and the seeing is the thing that the wall cannot prevent.

The seeing was the thing.

The mango tree's branches reached over the wall. The leaves were gone but the branches remained. The branches would always remain. The branches were the structure — the permanent thing, the thing that survived the seasons and the years and the specific, patient, Maharashtrian pace of a love story that took seventeen years to arrive at the word that both of them had always known.

The word was love. The word had always been love.

The compound wall was six inches. The mango tree's branches reached over. The boy and the girl were on the same side now.

The same side. Finally. After all the Saturdays and all the silence and all the distance and all the almost.

Finally.

---

Epilogue — Six Months Later

The mango tree flowered in February. The flowers were small and pale and they smelled, for a few days, of the specific sweetness that mango flowers produced — the sweetness that was not the sweetness of the fruit but the sweetness of the promise, the flower being the promise that the fruit was coming.

The fruit came in May. The mangoes were Alphonso — the Ratnagiri Alphonso, the mango that Maharashtra claimed as its own the way Tamil Nadu claimed filter coffee and Bengal claimed rosogolla, the claiming being the assertion of regional identity through fruit, the fruit being the medium through which the claim was staked.

The mangoes fell on both sides of the compound wall. The mangoes had always fallen on both sides. The falling was the tree's democracy — the tree that did not distinguish between Kulkarni and Patil, that did not read the paint (blue, white), that did not recognise the wall, that grew where the light was and dropped its fruit where gravity demanded.

Raju scored a century in the district under-16 tournament. The century — 104 off 92 balls, twelve fours and three sixes — was scored on the BSNL ground in the SG helmet with his name on the inside, and the century was the thing that the district selector watched and that the district selector noted and that the district selector used, six months later, to select Raju for the district under-16 squad, the selection being the line on the CV, the credential, the thing that Raju would carry from this point forward.

Kulkarni-kaka's newspapers went to the school library. The librarian — a woman named Sushma Joshi who had been managing the library for twenty years with a budget that the state government forgot to increase — received the newspapers with the specific gratitude of a person who had been asking for resources and receiving nothing and who had now received six years of the world in cotton-string bundles. The 2020 newspapers stayed in the garage.

Sachin did not apologise. Sachin was not a man who apologised. Sachin was a man who recalibrated — who adjusted the model, who updated the variables, who accepted the new data without acknowledging that the old data had been wrong. The recalibration was visible in small things: the Innova stopping at the gate to drop off a box of pedha from Mahabaleshwar (the pedha being Sachin's currency of gesture, the sweet that substituted for the words he could not say). The Innova's driver's-side window down, the arm out, the Ray-Bans on, the voice saying tell the Patil boy the Creta needs servicing, his Baba's shop is nearest — the instruction being the transaction, the transaction being the acceptance, the Innova driving away with the engine running and the sandalwood lingering.

Saudagar-kaka added a new item to the menu: Couple's Misal — two plates, one extra tarri, served at the corner table. The corner table was the table that Tanvi and I occupied on Saturday afternoons, the table that Saudagar-kaka reserved without being asked, the reservation being the restaurant's acknowledgment that some customers were not customers but family, and that family got the corner table and the extra tarri.

The compound wall remained. The compound wall would always remain. The compound wall was six inches of brick and plaster, painted blue on one side and white on the other, and the mango tree's branches reached over it, and on summer evenings, when the mangoes were ripe and the evening light was golden and the pressure cookers on both sides whistled their seven-whistle rhythms, a boy and a girl — no, a man and a woman — sat on the wall.

Not on the Patil side. Not on the Kulkarni side. On the wall. On the six inches. On the boundary that was also the meeting place, the line that was also the link, the separation that was also the connection.

They sat on the compound wall and ate mangoes with salt.

The salt shaker was Hrithik's. The mangoes were the tree's. The wall was the wall's. And the story — the story was theirs.

Theirs. Finally. Always.

BACHPAN KE YAAR — END