Chapter 11: Ishan

# Chapter 11: Ishan

## The Zoya Visit

Zoya came to the dukaan on Day Seventeen.

She came without warning, the without-warning being the Lucknawi social custom that predated WhatsApp and that WhatsApp had not killed: in Lucknow, you did not announce your visit. You arrived. The arrival was the announcement. The announcement was the visit. The circularity: the Lucknawi logic that outsiders found frustrating and insiders found natural: if I want to see you, I come to see you. The coming is the wanting made physical. Why would I text you before making my wanting physical? The text would diminish the wanting.

She arrived at 4:15 PM. A Wednesday. The shop was moderately busy; four customers browsing, Raju restocking the sampler trays, Waseem at the counter wrapping a purchase. Ishan was at the glass shelf near the window, arranging the winter collection, the winter collection (attars that sold between N)ovember and February: oud, amber, sandalwood, shamama (the complex attar that contained thirty-two ingredients and that took seventy-two hours to distil and that cost ₹12,000 per 10ml and that was Nakhlau Itr's most expensive product and that was purchased exclusively by the old Lucknawi families who still used attar the way their grandparents had used attar: daily, lavishly, as the olfactory signature of class).

Sultan was on his shelf, the glass shelf near the window that he had claimed as his territory, the territory: shelf that received the most afternoon sunlight and that was positioned directly above the oud bottles, the positioning giving Sultan the appearance of guarding the most expensive merchandise, the appearance: misleading because Sultan guarded nothing except his sleep.

"Ishan?"

He turned. He turned and. She was there. Zoya Siddiqui. Standing at the shop's entrance, at the threshold where the oud incense burned, the incense framing her the way incense framed everything that entered the shop: with scent. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

She was, she was as he remembered. Which was to say: she was beautiful. The beauty: the kind that the word beautiful was invented for: the face that you remembered after one meeting and that you thought about when you were alone and that you described to your cousin Faizan as "aisi thi ki" and then stopped because the description failed.

Her left arm was in a cast. The cast running from her fingers to above her elbow, the cast, which was reason for all of this: the notice in the Amar Ujala, the letter from Nandini, the bench in the shop, the marble in the baithak, the fifteen days that had changed his body and his vocabulary and the geography of his attention.

"Zoya. Aap, aap aayin?"

You, you came?

"Haan. Cast check-up ke liye KGMU gayi thi. Socha tumse bhi mil loon."

Yes. Went to KGMU for a cast check-up. Thought I'd visit you too.

The casual tone. The casual tone being: he sensed it now, heard it with the ears that fifteen days of paying attention to a different woman's voice had tuned, the casual tone of a woman for whom this visit was an errand. Not the destination. The errand. The errand that you added to a trip the way you added a stop at the chemist's on your way home from the doctor's: since I'm already out, I might as well.

"Aayiye. Baithiye."

Come in. Sit.

She sat on the bench. The bench, Haji Nooruddin's bench, the bench built for husband-wife pairs, the bench where Nandini had sat on the first day with her laptop and her red dupatta. Zoya sat on the bench without a laptop and without a red dupatta and with a cast on her left arm and with the precise ease of a beautiful woman sitting in a space that accommodated her automatically, the accommodation, the world's response to beauty: make room. Give the best seat. Offer the best view.

"Chai?" he asked.

"Coffee milegi? Mujhe chai pasand nahi."

Will you have coffee? I don't like chai.

The sentence. The sentence, which was: the sentence landing in the perfume shop the way a wrong note landed in a ghazal: discordantly. Not because the sentence was wrong. A person was entitled to not like chai, but because the sentence revealed something that seventeen days of WhatsApp messaging had not revealed: Zoya did not like chai. Zoya did not like the thing that Lucknow was built on, the thing that Aminabad ran on, the thing that Nakhlau Itr served to every customer as a gesture of hospitality.

"Coffee; Aminabad mein coffee mushkil hai," he said. Coffee, coffee is hard to find in Aminabad.

"Oh. Then paani chalega."

Water, then.

He sent Raju for water. Raju returned with a glass: a steel glass, the steel glass that the shop used for water, the glass that was not the kulhad that the kahwa came in because water did not require the ceremony that kahwa required, the ceremony, the clay vessel, the earthen taste, the ritual.

Zoya took the water. She sipped. She looked around the shop, the looking; curator's looking, the looking of a woman who assessed spaces for a living, the assessment, which was professional: *this space is: this space is interesting. The glass shelves. The marble floor. The incense. The bottles. The cat on the shelf. The aesthetic is coherent. The aesthetic is old Lucknow.

"Competition ki preparation kaisi chal rahi hai?" she asked. How's the competition preparation going?

"Achhi. Nandini; meri partner; woh bohot achhi teacher hai."

Good. Nandini, my partner — she's a very good teacher.

"Nandini," Zoya repeated. The repetition, the repetition (taste-test of a name on a tongue), the tongue rolling the name the way the nose rolled a new scent: sampling, assessing, filing. "Nandini Tiwari? TCS wali?"

Nandini Tiwari? The TCS one?

"Haan."

"Maine uska LinkedIn dekha tha. Data analyst. Pune se engineering. Lucknow mein teen saal se. Single, probably. LinkedIn pe relationship status nahi hota lekin, general vibe."

I looked at her LinkedIn. Data analyst. Engineering from Pune. Three years in Lucknow. Single, probably. LinkedIn doesn't have relationship status but, general vibe.

The LinkedIn research. The research. The research (thing that modern I)ndians did when they heard a name attached to a person of potential significance: Google the name, check LinkedIn, check Instagram, check Facebook, construct a profile from the digital fragments, the profile (modern)biodata; the biodata that arranged marriages had used for decades and that casual relationships now used digitally, the digital biodata being the aggregation of publicly available information into a portrait that was both accurate and incomplete, accurate because the data was real and incomplete because the data was curated.

"Tum ne, tumne uska LinkedIn check kiya?" Ishan asked, and the question was not accusatory but surprised, the surprised: why would Zoya check Nandini's LinkedIn?

"Haan. Tumhari partner hai. Main curious thi."

Yes. She's your partner. I was curious.

Curious. The word, the word: minimum. The minimum emotional investment that the word curious conveyed: I noticed. I checked. I assessed. I moved on. The moving-on being the word's subtext: I am not jealous. I am not threatened. I am curious: and curiosity is the feeling of a person who is interested enough to look but not interested enough to care.

Sultan jumped off the shelf. Sultan walked to Zoya; walked to her with the directness that cats used when approaching new humans, the directness, the cat's assessment: *you are new. I will assess you. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

Sultan sniffed Zoya's cast. Sultan sniffed the plaster and the bandage and the skin above the bandage, the sniffing: the cat's investigation, the investigation that cats conducted with the nose the way Ishan conducted investigations with the nose: by smell. Sultan's investigation took four seconds. Four seconds after which Sultan turned and walked back to his shelf.

The assessment: uninterested. Sultan had assessed Zoya and found her: not interesting enough to remain in proximity to. The not-interesting being. Ishan noted this — the not-interesting: cat's verdict, the verdict that he did not apply to Zoya but that the cat had applied for him, the cat (honest judge that the human could not be).

"Zoya: main tumse ek baat poochna chahta tha."

Zoya — I wanted to ask you something.

"Haan?"

"Yeh competition; yeh competition tumhare liye important hai?"

This competition: is this competition important to you?

"Bohot. Ehsaas Foundation ke liye prize money, woh bohot important hai. Dadi ke naam se. Mujhe; mujhe woh paisa chahiye foundation ke liye."

Very. The prize money for Ehsaas Foundation. That's very important. In Dadi's name. I, I need that money for the foundation.

"Aur: aur main? Main tumhare liye important hoon?"

And. And me? Am I important to you?

The question. The question that he had not planned to ask and that he asked because Nandini's question on Day Eight had opened a door. The door, which was door of asking, the asking that Nandini had modelled: ask the question. The question is data. Data is better than speculation. And the asking that he now performed because the data analyst's method had infected him: ask. Collect data. Process. Decide.

Zoya looked at him. She looked at him with the look that beautiful women gave to men who asked questions that the beautiful women did not want to answer — the look: the gentle calculation. The calculation of: how do I answer this honestly without losing his participation in the competition?

"Ishan; tum ek achhe insaan ho."

Ishan — you're a good person.

The sentence. The sentence. The sentence (answer). Not the answer to the question he had asked — the question was am I important to you?; but the answer to the question she had heard, the question she had heard being: do you have feelings for me? And the answer: you're a good person. The good-person being the compliment that was also the rejection, the rejection performed in the Lucknawi style: with grace, with courtesy, with the distinctive kindness that Lucknow deployed when saying no, the no — wrapped in the good-person the way a bitter pill was wrapped in sugar.

He understood. He understood because seventeen days ago he would not have understood; seventeen days ago, the bergamot of her, the bright surprising top note of her, would have overridden the base note of the rejection and he would have heard only the bright and not the bitter. But fifteen days of Nandini's instruction had trained him, not in dance only but in listening. In the precision of hearing what was being said rather than what he wanted to hear. The precision, which was the analyst's precision: *the data says what the data says.

"Main samajh gaya," he said. I understand.

"Competition mein: competition mein main tumhare saath houngi. Audience mein. Cheer karungi. Aur agar tum jeete — agar tum jeete toh Ehsaas Foundation ko paisa—"

At the competition. I'll be there with you. In the audience. I'll cheer. And if you win, if you win, the money goes to Ehsaas Foundation.

"Haan. Prize money Ehsaas Foundation ko jaayegi. Chahe main jeetoon ya na jeetoon."

Yes. The prize money goes to Ehsaas Foundation. Whether I win or not.

The commitment. The commitment — the commitment that was man's response to the rejection: *you said no to me. I will still do the thing I promised. The promise was not conditional on your yes. The promise was for the foundation, for the Dadi, for the Alzheimer's patients. The promise stands because the promise was not about you and me.

Zoya finished the water. She placed the steel glass on the bench, the glass making the feel of steel on wood, the sound, the small percussion that punctuated the conversation's end.

"Mujhe jaana padega. Auto milna mushkil ho jaayega sham ke baad."

I need to go. Autos will be hard to find after evening.

He walked her to the door. He walked her through the oud incense, past the glass shelves, past Sultan who did not look up from his shelf, past Waseem who did look up from the counter but who said nothing because Waseem was Waseem and Waseem said nothing.

At the door, Zoya stopped.

"Ishan."

"Haan?"

"Competition mein: competition mein achha karna. Nandini ke liye. Apne liye. Ehsaas ke liye."

At the competition — do well. For Nandini. For yourself. For Ehsaas.

For Nandini. She had said for Nandini before for yourself. The ordering: the ordering — either accidental or deliberate and the accidental; unlikely because Zoya was a curator and curators ordered things deliberately: the painting before the frame, the primary before the secondary. For Nandini before for yourself. She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

"Shukriya, Zoya."

She left. She left and the shop's oud incense closed behind her the way a curtain closed behind an actor's exit: the exit, which was the end of the scene, the scene having contained: a rejection, a promise, and a name.

Nandini.

He returned to the winter collection. He returned to the oud and the amber and the sandalwood and the shamama. He arranged the bottles on the glass shelf, the arranging, shopkeeper's meditation, the meditation of a man who processed emotions through objects, through the tactile act of placing glass on glass, the placing, processing, the processing —: she said no. She said I am a good person. Good-person is no. No is data. Data is: move on.

He picked up a bottle. The bottle was rose attar, the same rose that he applied to Nandini's wrist every day, the same rose that he would apply on stage in five days, the same rose that was the beginning and the constant and the thing that connected the bench in the shop to the marble in the baithak to the stage at the Mahotsav.

Rose. Gulab mohabbat hai. Rose is love.

But love; love was not bergamot. Love was not the bright top note that surprised and that faded. Love was the base note. The note that stayed. The note that you did not notice at first because the top note was louder, the louder: distraction, the distraction: the brightness that pulled your attention away from the thing underneath.

The thing underneath was: the base note. The base note was: the person who sat on the marble and counted your tat and corrected your hip and told you about her Nani and held a forty-year-old dupatta to her chest and said your feet will say everything you can't say.

The base note was: Nandini.

He closed the shop at 8 PM. He walked to the haveli for the evening session, the session that ran from 8:30 to 10:30 PM, the evening session; additional practice that the countdown demanded, the countdown, : five days, the five days requiring double sessions, the double sessions requiring the stamina that fifteen days of training had built.

Nandini was in the baithak. She was practising the chakkar: spinning in the amber dupatta, the dupatta flying, the chandelier's dark arms watching from above.

He entered the room. He entered and she stopped: awareness of his arrival, the stopping, the awareness that she had developed over fifteen days: the awareness of his footstep, his scent (sandalwood and rose, the shop's ambient perfume clinging to his kurta), his breath.

"Aaj ka attar kaunsa hai?" she asked. What's today's attar?

He opened his jhola. He removed a bottle. The bottle was smaller than the others, 5ml, not 10ml — the smaller bottle indicating the rarer attar, the rarer attar, the more expensive attar, the more expensive: indication that this was not a lesson. This was a gift.

"Yeh. Yeh Nakhlau Itr ka sabse purana attar hai. Yeh mere Dada ne 1971 mein banaya tha. Pehla batch. Pehla attar. Iss bottle mein; iss bottle mein woh pehla batch hai. Forty-five saal purana."

This, this is Nakhlau Itr's oldest attar. My grandfather made this in 1971. First batch. First attar. In this bottle, in this bottle is that first batch. Forty-five years old.

She looked at the bottle. She looked at it the way she had looked at the Banarasi dupatta; with the understanding that this was not a lesson but a giving, the giving —: *this is the most precious thing in my shop. I am giving it to you. The giving is the saying.

"Kaunsa attar hai?" she asked.

"Gulab," he said. Rose.

Rose. The first attar. The first lesson. The constant. The love.

He applied the forty-five-year-old rose to her wrist. The attar that his grandfather had distilled in 1971, the attar that was older than both of them, the attar that had been waiting in a glass bottle on a shelf in a perfume shop in Aminabad for forty-five years, waiting the way mitti waited for rain: patiently, knowing that the rain would come, not knowing when.

She smelled. She brought her wrist to her nose and, her face changed. The change, not the change of a woman smelling a new attar but the change of a woman smelling something old and deep and layered, the layers — forty-five years of ageing, the ageing having done to the attar what it had done to the Banarasi silk: deepened it, mellowed it, given it the distinctive richness that only time could give.

"Yeh, yeh sabse achhi smell hai jo maine kabhi sungi hai," she whispered. This. This is the best smell I have ever smelled.

"Yeh tumhara hai," he said. This is yours.

She held the bottle. She held it and she looked at him and the looking was the looking of a woman who understood: the understanding. Complete, the complete understanding being: *you are giving me your grandfather's first attar. You are giving me the beginning. The beginning is: you chose me. Not as a dance partner. Not as an exchange. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

"Shukriya," she said.

And then. Then they practised. They practised the choreography for two hours, the pair work and the tukda and the toda and the contemporary section and the finale with the chakkar and the attar application, the application that they had rehearsed twelve times and that had become the performance's emotional centre: the moment when the perfumer applied rose to the dancer's wrist on a stage in front of a thousand people.

Five days to go.

And the bergamot was gone. And the rose was here.