Chapter 21: Ishan

# Chapter 21: Ishan

## The Ehsaas

Three days after the competition. December seventeenth.

He went to give the cheque. He went to the Ehsaas Foundation office, the office, a room on the second floor of a building in Hazratganj, the building, one of those Lucknow buildings that combined the architectural ambition of the 1960s (arched windows, stone facade) with the maintenance budget of the 2020s (peeling paint, a lift that worked on alternate days, the alternate days being determined by the lift's own schedule, the schedule that the building's residents had learned to predict the way farmers predicted rain: by feel, not by forecast).

The Ehsaas Foundation's room was small. Ten by twelve feet. A desk. Two chairs. A filing cabinet that was older than Ishan. A window that looked out onto Hazratganj's MG Road, the MG Road that was Lucknow's main commercial street, the street that connected the old city to the new city, the connecting, which was MG Road's function: the road where Nawabi Lucknow met modern Lucknow, the meeting visible in the architecture (old bungalows next to new malls, chai stalls next to coffee chains, auto-rickshaws next to Uber cabs, the next-to being the Indian adjacency: the old and the new existing side by side without either acknowledging the other's existence).

Zoya was at the desk. Zoya in a blue kurta, her hair in a low ponytail, her left wrist. The wrist that had been in a cast and that was now free, the freedom (healing that four weeks of plaster had pr o)duced. Her left wrist resting on the desk as she typed on a laptop. The typing, which was the foundation's work: grant applications, donor communications, the administrative labour that non-profits required, the requiring: tax that social work levied on the people who did it: for every hour of actual work (visiting patients, running therapy sessions, organizing awareness camps), there were two hours of paperwork (applications, reports, budgets, the paperwork (bureaucracy's toll), the toll that Indian non-profits paid for the privilege of existing).

"Ishan. Aao."

He sat in the chair across from her. He placed the cheque on the desk. The cheque that was not the ceremonial oversized cheque from the stage but the real cheque, the ₹50,000 cheque that the Mahotsav committee had issued two days after the competition, the two days, which was bureaucracy's processing time: even prizes required paperwork.

Zoya looked at the cheque. She looked at it and her face, her face did the thing that faces did when they received what they had hoped for but had not been sure they would receive: the expression of confirmed hope, the confirmation that was cheque's physicality, the physicality, the proof that the promise had been kept.

"Fifty thousand," she said.

"Haan. Ehsaas Foundation ke naam pe."

Yes. In Ehsaas Foundation's name.

"Ishan, yeh bohot: yeh bohot help karega. Abhi hum log teen patients ki medication fund kar rahe hain. Isse. Isse do aur patients ki medication fund ho jayegi. Paanch patients. Ek saal ke liye."

Ishan, this will, this will help a lot. Right now we're funding medication for three patients. With this, we can fund two more patients' medication. Five patients. For one year.

Five patients. One year. The numbers: — the numbers, the translation of a dance competition prizeinto human lives, the translation that the cheque performed: ₹50,000 = five Alzheimer's patients receiving medication for one year. The equation, which was the equation that non-profits lived by: money in, lives changed. The simplicity of the equation hiding the complexity of the lives: each patient being a person with a family and a history and a brain that was forgetting, the forgetting: disease, the disease — thing thatZoya's Dadi had died of and that Ehsaas Foundation existed to fight.

"Zoya — ek baat aur."

Zoya; one more thing.

"Haan?"

"Main: main har saal Lucknow Mahotsav mein compete karunga. Har saal. Aur har saal ki prize money Ehsaas Foundation ko jaayegi."

I, I'll compete at the Lucknow Mahotsav every year. Every year. And every year's prize money goes to Ehsaas Foundation.

The commitment. The commitment, the commitment — larger than the single cheque, beginning — the single cheque, the beginning of a annual giving that would connect the dance to the foundation to the patients to the medication to the lives: the chain that a single competition had created and that annual competitions would sustain.

Zoya looked at him. She looked at him with the look that she had given him on the day she left the shop. The look of a woman who had assessed a man and found him: good. Not as a lover. Not as a partner. As a person. A good person. The assessment, which was confirmed now, confirmed by the cheque on the desk and the promise of annual cheques and the man in the chair who had danced on a stage for a foundation that treated a disease that had killed a woman he had never met. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

"Shukriya, Ishan."

"Ek request hai."

I have a request.

"Kya?"

"Foundation ki website pe; agar Dadi ki photo ho, agar unki photo ho aur unka naam ho. Toh — toh ek line add karo. 'In memory of Fatima Siddiqui, funded by the Lucknow Mahotsav Dance Competition.' Bas."

On the foundation's website, if there's a photo of Dadi, if her photo and her name are there: then add a line. 'In memory of Fatima Siddiqui, funded by the Lucknow Mahotsav Dance Competition.' That's it.

The request, which was the request of a man who wanted the funding to carry the name, the name, the reason, the reason —: Fatima Siddiqui, Zoya's Dadi, the woman who had been a Kathak lover (Zoya had told him, in the early WhatsApp days, that her Dadi had loved Kathak, had attended every mehfil, had clapped at every tatkar), the woman who had forgotten the Kathak and the mehfils and the clapping and the name and the face and the world, the forgetting, the disease, the disease, enemy, the enemy that the cheque would fight.

"Done," Zoya said. "Kal website pe update ho jayega."

Done. It'll be updated on the website tomorrow.

He stood. He stood to leave. He stood and, the standing was the departure, the departure from the Ehsaas Foundation's small room and from the Zoya chapter of his life, the Zoya chapter being: the bergamot. The bright top note. The note that had surprised him and that had faded and that had been replaced by the base note, the base note: rose, the rose, Nandini.

"Ishan."

"Haan?"

"Nandini — Nandini achhi hai. Tumhare liye achhi hai."

Nandini. Nandini is good. Good for you.

The sentence. The sentence, the sentence that was Zoya's endorsement, the endorsement of a woman who had chosen not to be the partner and who was now endorsing the woman who was, the endorsement —: gracious. The graciousness: Zoya's particular quality, the quality that had attracted him in the first place (the bergamot, the brightness) and that now produced the endorsement that the bright note gave to the base note: I was first. You are permanent. I approve of the permanence.

"Shukriya, Zoya."

He left the office. He descended the stairs (the lift: on its off-day). He walked out onto MG Road, MG Road with its December traffic and its fog remnants and its particular smell: diesel and paan and the distant Gomti and the closer chai and the closest oud, the oud, his own, the oud that Sultan and the shop and the flat above the shop had deposited on his skin over thirty years, the deposit — permanent, the permanent, which was: he was the shop. The shop was him. The oud was both.

He walked to Aminabad. He walked the three kilometres from Hazratganj to Aminabad. The three kilometres, the walk that connected modernLucknow to old Lucknow, the walk that passed through Lalbagh and Nakkhas and Chowk and arrived at Aminabad, the arriving, homecoming, the homecoming, which was : the market's smell, the narrow lanes, the fruit sellers and the cloth merchants and the paan-wallahs and the attar shops, the shops, the lane's residents. The residents that had been there for fifty years and that would be there for fifty more, the fifty-more being the Indian market's permanence: markets survived governments, markets survived empires, markets survived everything because markets were the thing that people needed and the needing was the survival.

He arrived at Nakhlau Itr. He opened the shop: the shop that had been closed for his Ehsaas Foundation visit, the closing, first time in six months that the shop had closed during business hours, the first time, the indication that the thing he was doing was more important than the thing the shop did, the more-important being: the cheque, the foundation, the promise.

Sultan was on his shelf. Sultan had not moved. Sultan had not noticed the shop's temporary closing because Sultan's sense of time was not the shopkeeper's sense of time — Sultan's sense of time was the cat's sense of time: eternal, uncounted, the uncounting. The cat's liberation from the clock that humans lived by.

Waseem was in the back. In the distillation room, the room that he had not entered for three years after Haji Nooruddin's death and that he now entered daily, the daily entering: grief's resolution: I can be here now. The room is not the absence. The room is the presence. The presence of everything Abbu taught me, the presence that the attar bottles hold, the presence that the copper deg holds, the presence that the walls hold.

"Abbu."

"Haan, beta?"

"Cheque de diya. Ehsaas Foundation ko."

Gave the cheque. To Ehsaas Foundation.

"Achha kiya."

Good.

The two words. Achha kiya. Good. The two words being the father's approval. The approval that Waseem gave not with the philosophical sentence about skin and religion but with the simple achha kiya that contained: I approve. I approve of the cheque and the foundation and the dance and the competition and the woman and the twenty-one days and the fog and the bench and the everything that you have done and that you are becoming. The approval; two words because Waseem's approval was like his attar: concentrated. A little went a long way.

Ishan picked up a cloth. He began wiping the glass counter, the counter that he wiped every day with rose water, the wiping (ritual), the ritual: structure, the structure, which was the thing that held.

The shop was open. The day continued. Sultan supervised from his shelf. The oud incense burned at the threshold. The attar bottles stood in their rows: the rows, the collection, the collection that three generations of Farooqui noses had built: rose, khus, mitti, mogra, hina, sandalwood, oud, amber, shamama, kewda, chameli, raat ki rani, and now, and now a new bottle, a small bottle, a 3ml bottle on the top shelf behind the counter, the top shelf, the shelf where the most precious attars were kept, the precious —: rare, limited, irreplaceable.

The label on the bottle: Teri Khushboo.

His first composition. His first original attar. The attar that he had created from six notes: rose, khus, mitti, mogra, hina, sandalwood, the six notes: six lessons that he had given toNandini and that Nandini had given back to him in the form of a dance, the form of a competition, the form of a woman's wrist extended under stage lights.

The bottle on the top shelf. The bottle that was not for sale. The bottle that was the only bottle in Nakhlau Itr that was not for sale, every other bottle had a price, every other attar could be purchased, every other scent could be taken from the shop by anyone with the money. This bottle could not be taken. This bottle was the shop's heart. This bottle was the perfumer's first word in his own language.

He wiped the counter. The rose water leaving its scent on the glass. The scent, which was the shop's atmosphere. The atmosphere, which was the Farooqui family's air. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

Sultan purred.

The day continued.