Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Thirty Eight : In Between Living Nightmares

I could have cancelled the date to lie down in a quiet, breathable place and pluck the disturbing thoughts that pullulated like weeds in my mind, but the source of them was in my quiet, breathable place, Pavitra in my room. She had a chance of having her room at her in-laws' place and she lost it by the widest margin ever. Cheating. I couldn't believe that I was living with a cheat all this while, the cheat who swindled families of their happiness. Three families. And Lila. Especially, Lila. The silly giggles and the overly beautiful outlook on life which was concealing the ugliness of the world around her. Ugliness caused by my sister.

It was when my eyes connected to a random passerby who shot a bizarre look at the phone which I was anxiously tapping against the palm of my hand, it was then that I realized this date was an awful plan. I was standing by the bus stop, opposite to which was the restaurant where I would meet Aastha. I remembered how she was looking forward to meeting me and I wondered for a fleeting second whether she would be impressed. The answer was a big, fat NO. I could barely think about anything other than my sister cheating with a married man twice her age and how Lila had looked pitiful that day at Marine Drive because of all that. Seriously, with all the men that existed in this world, it had to be Lila's father?

If my parents got to know about this . . . No, no. I had to make sure that Pavitra wouldn't tell them out of spite. Her husband's family was tied to some secret honour code which prevented them from exposing the affair, but I couldn't trust them entirely. I had to make sure that they wouldn't tell my parents out of spite. Nobody should underestimate the rage of a victim.

I received another bizarre look from a passerby for pacing up and down the bus stop like a possessed woman who chanted strange words to herself. After fighting with Pavitra, I hadn't come straight to this place, I had marched through every empty street while racking my brains to find a solution out of this. The solutions were from time travelling and smacking the past Pavitra to deluding myself that none of this was true, it couldn't be, it was one of Pavitra's tricks for passing time. I had marched past the little lanterns that dubiously flickered in the windows and smudged rangolis of the previous day since Diwali was over. I had arrived here fifteen minutes late when a lone firecracker burst lamely in the black sky, but Aastha still wasn't here.

It was close to forty-five minutes of waiting here and despite my multiple texts, she hadn't replied. Even if she chickened out, I didn't care any more. I was content to be somewhere else other than my home.

"Tulsi?" I heard an unfamiliar voice behind me and I turned around in a daze, but before I could respond, I was pulled behind the bus stop. That was how moments of terror went, all happened so fast and without a warning that one didn't have the means to defend oneself. It was the shock that I couldn't shake off, no matter how hard I tried to make sense of who was in front of me, I couldn't make the logical decision of running away. In the darkness, I could barely see how they looked, two figures larger than me and they were speaking something to me that I found hard to understand in that moment of confusion. Suddenly, one clasped my arm and the other aimed at my stomach, so adept. My breathing was knocked out of me in one, single blow and tears leaked out of my eyes. I heard and felt him on my face, spitting out in Hinglish, "Fucking lesbo! Stay the fuck away from my sister or I'll do worse than this!"

Those words rang in my ears even hours after they had been said, they clung to me annoyingly like a catchy song, repeating itself in my mind over and over again. I was about to crouch over from the impact of his knee-kick, but he kept me standing by gripping my arms with a tightness that clawed at my skin. A sudden beam of white light flashed at me and it came from the phone of the other guy lurking in the shadows. I realized that he was recording me, but I couldn't hide my face, my hands were so utterly useless. I turned my face away. Stupid, stupid, stupid. For a scary second, I thought that I would be killed here behind this bus stop and a weak whimper escaped my lips.