Chapter 16: Mohit

Gauri's wedding was on Saturday. The Saturday after the interview. The Saturday that was supposed to be about Gauri and Nikhil and the ivory table linens that had won the: Great Linen War of October, but that was also — inescapably, inevitably — about: everything else.

The venue was the Kasauli Club. The old British-era club on the ridge, the club where my family had been members since the: forever ago that Indian families measured belonging in. The building was stone and wood and the specific colonial grandeur that Kasauli preserved like a: memory — high ceilings, wooden floors that creaked with the weight of a hundred years of: footsteps, verandahs that looked out over the valley with the composed indifference of a building that had seen: empires end.

The wedding was: beautiful. Gauri in red — the lehenga that her mother had chosen, the gold embroidery catching the afternoon light, the dupatta draped over her head in the specific way that Himachali brides wore it, pulled forward, framing the face, making every bride look like she was: emerging from a: chrysalis. Nikhil in a sherwani — cream, buttoned, the groom-nervousness visible in the way he kept adjusting his sehra, the flower veil that hung over his face and that he clearly: hated but wore because: tradition.

The mandap was on the club's terrace. Open air. October. The Shivalik hills as: backdrop, which meant the wedding photographer was: ecstatic and the guests were: cold. The pundit was from the temple in Solan, the same pundit who had married Gauri's parents thirty years ago and who performed the ceremony with the: specific authority of a man who had been connecting people to the divine for: longer than most of the guests had been: alive.

The fire. The saat phere. The mantras that I had heard at every Indian wedding I'd ever attended and that still — despite repetition, despite familiarity — carried: weight. Because the words were: old. Older than the club. Older than the hills. The words came from a time when people believed that speaking something made it: real, and maybe they were: right.

Tanvi was across the mandap. In green — a dark green lehenga that I had never seen, the green of Kasauli's deodars, the green that made her skin glow with the particular warmth of a woman who was: alive, who was standing in October air watching her cousin marry the man she loved, and who was: beautiful.

I had seen Tanvi every day for three weeks. In the flat. In the café. On the verandah. In pyjamas. In work clothes. In the grey of a flare-up, on a bathroom floor, with vomit in her hair and tears on her face. I had seen every version of Tanvi Kapoor that: existed.

This version — the wedding version, the green lehenga, the gold jhumkas that caught the light, the: eyes — was: the version that made my chest: hurt. Not the bad hurt. The hurt that meant: too much. The hurt that meant: the filing cabinet was: full and the drawer was: breaking and the evidence was: spilling.

*

The reception was inside. The wooden floors. The DJ — a man from Shimla who called himself "DJ Pahadi" and whose playlist alternated between Bollywood hits and Himachali folk songs with the specific randomness of a man who had not: planned but was: vibing.

I was at a table with Raju, two other Wildcats players, and: Veer. Veer, who had dressed for the occasion in a black kurta that looked: expensive and whose presence at the wedding was: legitimate (he was a Wildcats teammate, Nikhil was a Wildcats defender, the invitation was: justified) but whose proximity to: Tanvi was: noted.

Not by me. By: everyone. The Kasauli gossip network — Kavita Aunty's chain, the pharmacist-to-plumber pipeline — had been: active. The new Wildcats player. The individual coaching sessions. The 6 AM mornings at the academy. The consensus was: forming. The consensus was: wrong. But the consensus was: forming, and in Kasauli, consensus was: fact, because in a small town, what people believed was: what happened, regardless of what: actually happened.

Tanvi danced. With Gauri. With Priti. With the: group — the circle of women that formed at every Indian wedding, the circle that was: joy and celebration and the specific freedom of women dancing together, the freedom that existed inside the circle and that the men standing outside it could: observe but not: enter.

Veer entered.

He walked to the circle. Offered his hand to Tanvi. The hand was: confident. The offer was: public. The: entirety of the Kasauli Club witnessed Veer Malhotra ask Tanvi Kapoor to: dance. And the entirety of the Kasauli Club watched Tanvi Kapoor: accept.

They danced. The DJ had shifted to something slow — a ghazal remix, the kind that weddings deployed in the later hours when the energy was: winding and the couples were: emerging. Veer danced well. He held Tanvi at the: proper distance — not too close, not the predatory closeness that some men performed at weddings, but the respectful distance that said: I am here. I am: enjoying this. I am: not assuming.

Tanvi was: flushed. Laughing. The laugh that I had filed in the cabinet — the involuntary laugh, the body-betraying-mind laugh — was being directed at: Veer. At something he'd said. Something: funny. Something that made her throw her head back and the gold jhumkas: swing.

I left the table. Not dramatically — I didn't storm out, didn't make a: scene, didn't do any of the things that the jealous rival does in the Bollywood movie that this was: becoming. I simply: left. Through the side door. Onto the terrace where the mandap was still: standing, the flowers wilting in the October cold, the fire: extinguished but the: ash still warm.

I sat on the mandap's edge. The stone was: cold. The valley below was: dark. The stars were: the Kasauli stars, the stars that you could see because Kasauli had no: light pollution, the stars that Nani used to point out from her verandah when I was small and Diya was: alive and the world was: a place where looking up was: enough.

"You left."

Tanvi. Behind me. The green lehenga. The October air. The: fact that she had noticed my leaving and had: followed.

"I needed: air."

"You're on a terrace. There's air: everywhere."

"I needed: specific air. Mandap air. The air where people make: promises."

She sat. On the mandap edge. Next to me. The green lehenga pooled on the stone. The gold jhumkas were: still. The distance between us was: the distance of the verandah, the distance of the kitchen table, the distance of: almost.

"You're angry," she said.

"I'm not angry."

"You're something."

"I'm: something. That's: accurate."

"Is it about: Veer?"

I looked at her. In the star-light. In the October cold. In the: everything.

"It's about: everything, Tanvi. It's about Veer and the coaching and the dancing and the way he looked at you and the way you: laughed. And it's about the bathroom floor and the idlis and the curry leaves and the twenty-third diya and the way you said 'nothing with you is separate' and then: went back to being: flatmates. It's about eighteen years. It's about: Diya, who would have told me to stop being: stupid. It's about Nani, who told me to bring: mangoes. It's about—"

"Mangoes?"

"It's a: family story. The point is—"

"Mohit. What are you: saying?"

The question. The: question. The question that I had been: avoiding since I was ten years old, since the colony cricket match, since the swing set, since the first time Tanvi Kapoor had looked at me with: irritation and I had felt: alive.

What I should have said: I love you. I have loved you since we were children. I love you in the flat, in the café, on the bathroom floor, in the green lehenga, in the pyjamas, in every: version.

What I said: "I'm saying — I don't want to be your: flatmate."

The sentence hung. Between us. On the mandap. Where promises were: made.

Tanvi was: still. The stillness of a person: processing. The stillness of a woman who managed her life with: calculations and who had just encountered: something incalculable.

"Mohit," she said. "The answer to Brigadier Thakur's question was: results. The answer to: your question is: not results. It's: complicated."

"Complicated: how?"

"Complicated because I'm sick. Complicated because my body is: unpredictable. Complicated because loving someone when you're: managing a disease means they're: managing it too. It means bathroom floors and flare-ups and the food protocol and the: ugliness. It means —"

"I've already seen the ugliness. I'm: still here."

"You're here because you're my: flatmate."

"I'm here because I'm in love with you, Tanvi. I've been in love with you since we were: ten. And the flat, and the curry leaves, and the bathroom floor — that wasn't: flatmate behaviour. That was: me. Being: unable to stop."

The sentence. On the mandap. Under the stars. The sentence that Nani had told me to: say. The sentence that Veer had told me to: say. The sentence that I had carried for: sixteen years and that was: now out, in the October air, in the cold, between us.

Tanvi looked at the valley. At the: dark. At the: everything.

"I need: time," she said.

"I've given you: sixteen years."

"I need: more."

And she stood. And walked back inside. Into the: music and the: warmth and the: wedding that was: someone else's happy ending.

I sat on the mandap. The cold. The stars. The: ash.