Chapter 20: Nandini

# Chapter 20: Nandini

## The After

The competition was over. The families had met. The kebab had been eaten. The chai had been drunk. The December evening had deepened into December night, the night — cold, the cold; Lucknow's December cold: the fog rolling off the Gomti, the fog wrapping the Residency grounds in a white gauze that blurred the string lights and muted the festival's noise and converted the Mahotsav from a celebration into a memory, the memory: the thing that the fog did to events, the fog softening the edges the way time softened the edges, the softening, which was preservation of the essential and the dissolving of the incidental.

The parents had gone. Sunita and Sudhir to Kavita Mausi's house in Aliganj, the Mausi's house being the Tiwari family's Lucknow accommodation, the accommodation that Kavita maintained with the careful readiness that Indian aunties maintained: the guest room always ready, the sheets always fresh, the nimbu paani always in the fridge, auntie's hospitality. The readiness, the hospitality that said come anytime. The room is yours. The room is always yours.

Waseem and Rukhsana to the flat above the dukaan. The flat that was five kilometres from the Residency, the five kilometres covered by auto, the auto fare negotiated by Waseem in the December fog with the auto-wallah who charged ₹200 for the fog-tax, the fog-tax, the auto-wallah's innovation: the fare increased in fog because the driving was harder and the harder driving deserved compensation and the compensation was the ₹50 fog-premium that Lucknow's auto-wallahs had invented and that no meter in the world accounted for.

And Zoya. Zoya had come to them after the results; come to them in the crowd, in the festival's noise, in the space between the stage and the chai stall. Zoya in the red kurta, the healed wrist, the face that was, the face that was genuinely happy. Genuinely. The genuineness, visible in the way that genuine happiness was visible: in the eyes, not in the mouth. The mouth could fake a smile. The eyes could not fake the specific widening that happiness produced. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

"Congratulations," Zoya had said. "Dono ko. Bohot achha tha."

Congratulations. To both of you. It was very good.

And then Zoya had done the thing that Nandini had not expected: Zoya had hugged her. Zoya. The woman whose broken wrist had started all of this, the woman whose name had been the question between them, the woman who had been the bergamot that had faded, Zoya had hugged Nandini. The hug, which was : brief, warm, the hug of a woman who was not a rival but an ally, the ally, which was role thatZoya had chosen by choosing not to compete for Ishan's attention but to celebrate his achievement.

"Tumne usse dance sikhaya," Zoya had said in the hug. "Woh, woh pehle kabhi aisa nahi tha. Tumne usse badal diya."

You taught him to dance. He, he was never like this before. You changed him.

You changed him. The sentence that Zoya had whispered in the hug. The sentence that Nandini had filed alongside all the other data of the twenty-one days, the filing, automatic, the automatic, which was analyst's reflex: file it. Process later.

Now it was later. Now it was 10:30 PM on December fourteenth, and she was walking through the Mahotsav grounds with Ishan, and the fog was thickening, and the festival was thinning (the thinning — festival's natural rhythm: thick at 7 PM, thinning by 10 PM, empty by midnight), and the parents were gone and Zoya was gone and the audience was gone and the judges were gone and the trophy was in her jhola and the cheque was in his jhola and they were walking.

Walking. The walking that was not the stage-walk and not the baithak-walk but the walking of two people who had finished the thing they had been working toward and who did not know what came next and who were postponing the not-knowing by walking, the walking (postponement), the postponement: if we keep walking, we don't have to decide. If we don't decide, the possibility remains. The possibility of everything. The possibility of nothing. The possibility that the walking itself is the decision.

They walked past the food stalls: the stalls closing now, the closing (roll-down of shutters and the stacking of) plastic chairs and the scraping of tawa and the counting of cash, the counting (night's accounting): how many kebabs sold, how many kulfi faloodas consumed, how many ₹20 chais served, the accounting (festival's invisible commerce), the commerce that ran underneath the culture like the wiring underneath the stage.

They walked past the Residency's ruins. The ruins, lit from below: the below-lighting being the Mahotsav's aesthetic choice, the choice that converted the ruins from historical monument to theatrical set, the set: dramatic, shadowed, the shadows climbing the broken walls like the ghosts of the siege of 1857. The ruins that had held British soldiers and Indian sepoys and the exact violence of empire and resistance, the ruins now holding Indian dancers and Indian audiences and the precise peace of a December festival.

"Kahan ja rahe hain?" she asked. Where are we going?

"Nahi pata," he said. I don't know.

"Main bhi nahi jaanti."

I don't know either.

The mutual not-knowing. The mutual not-knowing being the state that the competition's end had produced: the deal was over. The exchange was complete. She had taught him Kathak. He had taught her attar. The competition had been entered, performed, and won. The structure was finished. The structure that had held them. The structure that had said we are here for the competition, we are here for the exchange, the structure was finished.

And without the structure — without the baithak's schedule and the marble's floor and the tabla's rhythm and the attar's progression: without the structure, they were: two people walking in fog. Two people who had spent twenty-one days together and who had built something and who had performed the something on a stage and who had won the something's prize and who were now. Who were now in the territory that the structure had kept them out of. The territory of the not-deal. The territory where the question was not what are we practising today? but what are we?

They stopped at a bench. A stone bench near the Residency's main gate — the gate, the entrance that the British had used and that the Indian tourists now used and that Ishan and Nandini now sat at, the sitting that was stopping, the stopping, which was decision that the walking had postponed: sit. Be still. The stillness will produce the conversation that the walking postponed.

He sat on the bench. She sat beside him. Beside him with the specific distance that the bench's width allowed: one foot between them, the one foot: space that the boundary had occupied fortwenty-one days and that was now: space that was shrinking, the one foot.

The fog was around them. The fog, which was Lucknow's December fog. Dense, white, cold, the fog that reduced visibility to twenty feet and that converted the Residency's string lights into blurred orbs of orange and that converted the distant festival music into a muffled sound that could have been music or could have been memory, the ambiguity, which was fog's gift: in fog, everything was approximate. In fog, the edges dissolved. In fog, the certain became uncertain and the uncertain became possible.

"Ishan."

"Haan?"

"Deal khatam ho gaya."

The deal is over.

"Haan."

"Toh — toh ab kya?"

So. What now?

The question. The question that the twenty-one days had been building toward, the question that the attar lessons had circled and the Kathak lessons had approached and the conversations had touched and the confessions had opened and the Zoya visit had clarified and the families had endorsed and the stage had performed: what now?

He was quiet. The six-second pause. The perfumer's processing time, the time that she waited for with the patience that twenty-one days had taught her, the patience: he thinks in six seconds. I think in two. The difference is four seconds. The four seconds are not empty. The four seconds are his nose working and his brain processing and his mouth preparing.

"Main. Main tumse ek baat kehna chahta hoon," he said. I: I want to say something to you.

"Kaho."

Say it.

"Main, main attar mein sochta hoon. Tum jaanti ho. Main attar mein sochta hoon kyunki attar meri bhasha hai. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

I: I think in attar. You know that. I think in attar because attar is my language. The way Kathak is your language. Attar is my language.

"Haan."

"Toh — toh main tumhe attar mein batata hoon."

So; let me tell you in attar.

"Batao."

Tell me.

He reached into his jhola. He removed: not the rose bottle, not the mitti bottle, not the mogra or the khus or the hina. He removed a bottle she had not seen before. A small bottle — 3ml, the smallest bottle, the size that Nakhlau Itr used for its most precious attars, the precious, : rare, limited, irreplaceable.

"Yeh: yeh mera attar hai. Main ne yeh banaya hai. Sirf main ne. Pehli baar. Yeh meri pehli composition hai."

This: this is my attar. I made this. Only me. For the first time. This is my first composition.

His first composition. She understood the weight, the weight of a perfumer's first original composition, the first: the debut, the debut that every artist had: the first poem, the first painting, the first dance, the first attar. The first that was entirely yours, not your teacher's, not your father's, not your grandfather's. Yours.

"Isme kya hai?" she asked. What's in it?

"Isme: isme sab kuch hai. Gulab hai: kyunki gulab mohabbat hai. Khus hai: kyunki khus ghar hai. Mitti hai — kyunki mitti intezaar hai. Mogra hai — lekin halka, bohot halka, kyunki mogra tez hai aur mogra ko partner chahiye. Hina hai; kyunki hina yaad hai. Aur — aur sandalwood hai. Base mein. Kyunki sandalwood sab kuch pakadta hai."

It has, it has everything. Rose: because rose is love. Khus, because khus is home. Mitti — because mitti is waiting. Mogra; but light, very light. Because mogra is strong and mogra needs a partner. Hina, because hina is memory. And; and sandalwood. In the base. Because sandalwood holds everything.

Rose. Khus. Mitti. Mogra. Hina. Sandalwood. The six notes — the six attars that he had taught her over twenty-one days, the six lessons that had built her olfactory vocabulary from zero to six words, the six words being: love, home, waiting, strength, memory, foundation.

"Yeh; yeh attar tumhare liye hai," he said. This attar is for you.

"Iska naam kya hai?" she asked. What's its name?

He looked at her. He looked at her with the look that he had been holding for twenty-one days — the look that had been building from the first meeting in the shop to the bench in the baithak to the confessions and the dupatta and the stage and the families and the fog. The look that was not the teacher's look and not the partner's look and not the perfumer's look but the look of a man who was about to say the thing that his feet had been saying and his hands had been saying and his attar had been saying for twenty-one days and that his mouth had not yet said.

"Teri Khushboo," he said.

Your fragrance.

The name. The name of the attar. The name that was also the name of the thing between them, the thing that had no name until now and that now had the name that a perfumer would give it: not mohabbat (too direct), not pyaar (too simple), not ishq (too literary), but teri khushboo; your fragrance. The name that said: you are not a single note. You are not rose alone or khus alone or mitti alone. You are the blend. You are the composition. You are all the notes together. You are my first composition. You are the thing I made from everything I know.

She took the bottle. She uncapped it. She brought it to her nose.

The attar was, the attar was everything he had said. The rose opening first (bright, the love, the top note), then the khus (green, the home, the settling), then the mitti (earthy, the waiting, the depth), then the mogra (light, the strength diluted, the partner-note), then the hina (the memory, the grandmother's hands, the mehndi), and underneath all of it: sandalwood. The sandalwood holding. The sandalwood, the base that held everything together the way the baithak's marble held everything together and the way the taal held the Kathak together and the way Nani's teaching held Nandini together: foundationally, permanently, invisibly.

Her eyes were wet. Her eyes were wet for the second time today: the first time (stage), the stage's tears being the release of fifteen years. This time the tears were different. This time the tears were the response to being named, being named by a person who had studied you for twenty-one days and who had translated you into the language he spoke best and who had given you the translation in a 3ml bottle in the fog on a stone bench near the British Residency in December.

"Yeh. Yeh sabse achhi cheez hai jo kisine mujhe kabhi di hai," she said. This, this is the best thing anyone has ever given me.

"Tumne mujhe Kathak di," he said. You gave me Kathak.

"Tumne mujhe attar diya."

You gave me attar.

"Toh, toh hum barabar hain?"

So. Are we even?

"Nahi," she said. "Barabar nahi hain. Kyunki tumne mujhe ek cheez aur di hai."

No. We're not even. Because you gave me one more thing.

"Kya?"

"Tumne mujhe phir se naachne diya."

You let me dance again.

You let me dance again. The sentence, the sentence, which was thing that the twenty-one days had been about, the thing that was larger than the competition and larger than the attar and larger than the stage: the dancer had danced again. The dancer who had stopped dancing fifteen years ago because grief had sealed the room where the dancing lived, the dancer had been given a reason to open the room. The reason: a notice in a newspaper. A letter on a wrist. A bench in a shop. A marble floor in a haveli. A clumsy man who could not walk through a market without bumping into things but who could learn to dance because a woman believed he could.

The fog was thick now. The fog had consumed the Residency grounds, the string lights invisible, the music inaudible, the festival dissolved into the white. The fog reducing the world to: this bench. This man. This woman. This bottle. This fog.

She placed the bottle in her jhola; next to the trophy, next to the ghungroo, next to the forty-five-year-old rose that sat on her bedside table in spirit and in the jhola in reality. The jhola containing the twenty-one days' accumulation: the trophy (the competition's artifact), the ghungroo (Nani's artifact), the attar (Ishan's artifact). She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

She moved. She moved on the bench. Moved the one foot that separated them, the one foot that had been the boundary's last measurement, the boundary that had shrunk from twenty feet (the baithak's width) to ten feet (the pair work's distance) to three feet (the frame's distance) to one foot (the bench's distance) to, to none.

She was beside him. Beside him without the distance. Beside him with her shoulder against his shoulder, her left shoulder against his right shoulder, the contact, which was first non-choreographed touch, the first touch that was not the frame and not the pair work and not the attar application but the touch of a woman choosing to be close, the choosing; decision that the walking had postponed and that the bench had produced.

He put his arm around her. His right arm, the arm that had held her waist for seven days of pair work; his right arm going around her shoulder, the shoulder that had been the partner's shoulder and that was now the person's shoulder, the person —: Nandini. Not the teacher. Not the data analyst. Not the partner. Nandini.

They sat on the bench. In the fog. In December. In Lucknow.

The fog did not lift. The fog stayed. The fog, Lucknow's December gift: the gift of invisibility, the invisibility that the city gave to its lovers, the lovers who sat on benches and in parks and in the lanes of the old city and who were invisible in the fog and who were grateful for the invisibility because the invisibility was the privacy that Indian lovers rarely received.

Rose on her wrist. Sandalwood on his chest. The composition: Teri Khushboo: in her jhola. The trophy in the bag. The December in the air.

The deal was over. The something else had begun.