Madhu had offered to meet up somewhere private, knowing she was the only person Maanyata could vent to, but her friend had refused to skip her duties as the mother of a groom, firmly replying to Madhu's concerns with, "Later, after the wedding, after Diwali."
All through their flight back to Delhi, a day before Arnav Deewan's wedding, Nakul kept nagging about how he was missing something.
"I know I've heard this name before," he said for the umpteenth time, as she unlocked their door and he dumped their suitcases in the living room, falling on the sofa with a groan. "I think he was one of the media men at Motiya?"
"Could be," she muttered, dropping down next to him. "But you weren't at the press conference."
"No," he agreed, slow realization clearing his expression, "Wait Varun Malhotra, yes it was that man on the balcony, remember I was talking to him? Nice fellow, looked a bit on edge so we shared a—" he glanced guiltily at Madhu, stopping mid-sentence.
"Shared a?"
"Conversation. Oscar Wilde and old friends."
"That's it?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
He paused a beat, returned her stare for half a second before caving, "Okay so he needed to light his cigarette and I helped him out. Indulged a bit myself."
"Your cholesterol is off the charts Nakul you'd promised the cheat days will go down."
"It was half a ciggy I'm fine."
Shaking her head, Madhu left for bed, too exhausted to pick an argument.
The Deewan-Gupta wedding was a blur of just the kind of grand festivities she had withdrawn from after making Bhabra her second home—complete with a choreographed set of performances, a reality TVesque camera crew following around both families, and a remarkably wasteful buffet. But armed with her husband's whispered mockeries, she managed to endure the inanities of old money rituals, mostly because her one friend left in those circles couldn't afford to lose any more people.
Madhu was nothing if not loyal, life had taught her the how important that was.
If Madhulika didn't know better, she would have doubted her friend even needed her support. Amidst police summons, plummeting company stocks, media hounding and hastily arranged divorce papers, Maanyata stood composed and dignified, being nothing but a mother to her son throughout the ceremonies, even through the brief scare at his reception when Arvika disappeared without a trace. An ancient sturdy island in a tsunami.
So eventually when, three weeks after Diwali, Madhu found herself in front of the old oak doored entrance of Maanyata's newly reoccupied Mumbai apartment, she expected to witness a drained form of her friend.
Ever since Raman Oberoi vanished off from the face of Earth, Maanyata and her daughter had moved back to their old home. Madhu had last been to this place as an unmarried woman, dropping by to convince a one-timed divorced friend to attend what said friend called Madhu's Cinderella fantasy. She was never big on love, Maanyata Yatis, and her shambled second marriage only reaffirmed her biases.
And yet Madhu wasn't prepared for the Maanyata who greeted her after opening the door. Cream coloured satin top over cotton pajamas and hotel slippers with a tiny insignia of Yatis over them. Her face was washed and bare, carrying more lines than Madhu had ever seen on it, matching with the increased grey strands escaping her bun. Casual. Uncaring. Ungroomed. She had finally allowed herself to crack.
"You look well," lied Madhu, stepping over the threshold, feeling out of place in her yellow chiffon sari and combed hair, "Here, I got you Navratri prasad."
She handed her a steel container filled to the brim with Champa's famous boondi laddoos, ones Maanyata wouldn't even grace with a taste unless Madhu attached some level of false marketing.
Maanyata didn't comment on the obviousness of both her lies as she carried the dabba over to the kitchen slab, heaving herself up on a bar stool, popping over its lid and stuffing her face with the orange delicacy without so much as a tissue to protect the slab from crumbs. "At least something came out of your love for that shithole."
Madhu ignored the routine jibe, looking around.
Two weeks after her son's wedding, Maanyata's apartment remained a curious mix of old and brand new. Bubble wrapped minimalistic furniture littered the living room, indicating both its residents' preoccupation to bother unpacking. But the walls carried rich portraits of a younger Maanyata and Arvika, along with several pictures of the late Dhwani Yatis. It had been her initial home, one that Maanyata had moved to after her first divorce, taking her daughter with her.
Arnav Deewan didn't have any single portraits, just one with his sister. But by virtue of being its original resident, his twin's childhood dominated most of the spaces. Plaid skirts and gap-toothed smiles of primary school, a kid happy about being the center of attention. That happiness eventually molded into a kind of lonely disposition as the pictures of her middle school years progressed on the walls, steely smile resembling her mothers and her mother's mother. The Yatis smile.
Madhu retrieved a plate from the kitchen cabinet, sliding it under Maanyata as the latter took out another laddoo, casually brushing the crumbs off the slab. "Save some for Arvika too."
The infamous Yatis sardonic smile graced her again. "Arvika is obsessed with the gym these days, I doubt she'll touch this ghee infested calorie bomb."
A third laddoo was taken out of the box as she said that, prompting Madhu to slowly drag the container away from her.
"She's channeling her energies somewhere, that's good right?"
Maanyata took a tissue from the counter to wipe the corners of her mouth. "She's lying to me. After everything that's happened, she's still lying to. And the worst part is I deserve it."
"Rewind a little please," Madhu said, getting to her feet and plugging in a newly unpacked kettle, it's box still on the counter. While water for brewing tea boiled, she went around the living room, pulling on all the bubble wrap and stuffing it in the kettle's empty cardboard box. "Do you think she doesn't trust you?"
"I doubt she ever did. Madhu she..." her voice thickened. Madhu didn't dare turn from unpacking the furniture. No sympathetic looks, no hugs, that will distance her. Soon Maanyata's throat cleared, her tone still muted but calmer. "Raman asked so much of her, stretched her beyond her capacity and she agreed to it all because of me. Arvika has always been my responsibility. She might not approach Binoy and that's okay, I was fine addressing her problems. But now it was me who pushed her in this mess, dragged her down, and not once did she come to me for help. What kind of parent does that make me?"
Returning to the kitchen to throw the bubble wrap away, Madhu poured the boiled water into two dainty China cups, taking out two lavender tea bags from the bowl on the counter and passing one to Maanyata. "Arvika is an adult Maanyata, she's like you. Would you have gone to Dhwani with your problems?"
"That's the thing Madhu, I don't want her to end up like me."
Loud jingles of keys and the front door slamming behind them cut off Madhu's reply. Both women turned to see the subject of their concerns, walking in the now de-bubbled living room in gym clothes and dropping her small carry all on the old Persian rug. Her eyes lit up when she saw Madhu, who was glad—albeit surprised—to return her genuine smile. "Namaste auntie, what brings you here? All good?"
"Haan haan bacche, all great. I was just in town visiting Nitya, she started art school here, and thought to drop by." She glanced at Maanyata, who'd gone back to sipping her tea, not looking at either of them, before turning back to Arvika. "She sent this for you, I actually wanted to give this to you on the wedding but well, we couldn't find you at the reception."
"I just, my college friend was leaving for Canada so I had to see her off—" Arvika's voice faltered as she caught sight of her gift.
From her handbag Madhu pulled out a mini bust sculpture she had carved from clay on her flight from Bhabra, stylus detailing Arvika's sharp features on a mini model—as big as a Barbie doll modelled after her. A keychain ring hung from its midsection, having gotten it installed after landing in Delhi. "Nitya had a project on depicting ten influential women under thirty, wanted you to have it after it was evaluated."
The Yatis smile contrasted with her wide eyes before she reigned in her expression, gingerly taking the clay key chain, turning it over. "Thank you," she said, soft and meek, clearing her throat. "Though I'm not sure if I fit the criteria anymore."
Madhu squeezed her arm, pulling her in for a hug. "Of course you do kiddo, this is just a bump. Now go change, Maanyata has been telling me you've been exercising a lot, don't go too overboard haan?"
Madhu didn't miss how her face flushed at those words, and she nodded quickly, ducking out of the kitchen and into the room.
It wasn't until distant sounds of running water reached them that Maanyata spoke again, "Did you see that?"
"She's lying," confirmed Madhu.
"Exactly. And not bothering to be good at it. It's as if she thinks I can't put two and two together. Or won't be bothered to." Another sip of the lavender tea Madhu had long abandoned. "Every night when she thinks I'm asleep she leaves the apartment. Drives God knows where, and returns at noon the next day, pretending she'd left early morning for gym. And this is after she refused to tell us the real reason she ditched her brother's wedding reception to drive to Punjab, with Vansh Mehra no less."
"Of the Mehra Industries?"
"Yes. We were worried sick. Both refused to answer calls for a full twenty-four hours. Called back after Vansh returned to Delhi without her." She brushed an escaped strand of hair from her face. "Reporters outside the venue actually saw them driving off, Binoy had to bribe them to prevent any stories from circulating. Can you imagine? Disgraced heiress spotted at midnight with the ex-fiancé of her brother's sister-in-law?"
"Would there have been any truth to those headlines?"
"I don't know. I thought she was with Karan Bahl."
Madhu grimaced. "That racer kid? He seems...irresponsible."
"He comes from a good family." Maanyata shrugged hopelessly. "I thought they would announce their engagement soon and honestly a part of me wanted that. But nope, now there's no mention of him ever. For the past two years Arvika and him have appeared at all kinds of social events together. He was also her date at Motiya."
Madhulika shifted in her seat as memories of an awkward encounter with Arvika Deewan and a man who was definitely not Karan Bahl nagged at her brain. She'd dismissed her discovery as young people being, well, young. But Maanyata's words brought back the significance of that finding. He was the same man Nakul had befriended. And then there was her husband's earlier realization.
The jigsaw was falling into place and the picture didn't look pretty.
"Maanyata," Madhu began, slowly sliding the laddoo container back towards her to maintain peace. "Don't take this the wrong way but, I don't think whatever existed between Arvika and the Bahl kid was ever an exclusive, legitimate relationship. Either that or your daughter was unfaithful. Knowing Arvika, I think it was the former."
"What the fuck?!"
A cursing Maanyata Yatis was rarer than a meteor shower. Madhu moved back a little. "I might've seen her with someone at Motiya—"
"Careful with your next words Madhulika this is my daughter you're talking about."
"Exactly, which is why I didn't tell anyone. Besides, we've all been stupid in our twenties."
"Define stupid."
"You know a bit...reckless with our dealings with lovers."
"And you just conveniently forgot to tell me?"
"Maanyata like you said, she's your kid. I couldn't gossip about her with you as if it was Nina Varghese I found fucking a journalist in the restroom."
A door opened, then closed. Arvika Deewan walked out of her room, dolled up and showered. Her heels clicked on marble as she reminded her mother to be on time for yet another socialite charity event, oblivious to the tension in the room. Only after she bid both ladies goodbye and shut the front door behind her did Madhu resume speaking, "Look I know this might seem like a lot—"
"How do you know he's a journalist?"
"Nakul was chatting with him earlier, said his name was Varun Malhotra. The same man who—"
"—wrote that article."
"Yes," Madhu replied, suppressing an ill-timed chuckle from bubbling over due the absurdity of this mess.
Maanyata pressed both palms against her eyes, elbows resting on the counter, releasing shaky breaths. "Do you think he's threatening her? Do you think he has a sex tape or something? Is that where she goes every night? Paying him off? Offering her body? What the fuck does he have on my daughter?"
"I mean, considering that she was out having ice-cream last night, I'd say none of the above?"
"How do you know?"
"I saw it on Instagram, didn't you see her story? She was in a car having ice-cream with someone. I assumed it was a friend but now I think it was probably him."
"Why didn't I see that story?" For good measure, Maanyata unlocked her phone to check, but Arvika's Instagram icon on her phone was un-circled.
"She might've hidden it from you for...obvious reasons."
"Why didn't she hide it from you?"
"I was using an anonymous account, made it to stalk Mahi. Anyway, that's a whole other story, no time to get into it right now." Madhu reached in her bag for her phone, unlocking it and quickly going on Arvika's account, clicking on the icon. Sure enough, her screen filled with a split-second frame of Arvika in a car with a man Madhu now recognized as the same person she'd seen at Jasm Inn, before the camera switched to two blue berry cones, with blue texts going: sweet-toothed winters.
Maanyata's expression was getting stonier every second.
"Does it look like he's threatening her?" prodded Madhu, daring a smile as she rolled Arvika's story again.
"Bastards have a way of disarming even the smartest people. I should know," muttered her friend. "I need to warn Arvika."
"How about you just talk to her first," Madhu suggested, rising to her feet, and picking her handbag. "You don't want to order her around and risk pushing her further away, trust me."
"We'll see." Walking Madhu out the door, Maanyata pressed the button of the lift, pausing the doors from closing. "And thank you for making her that keychain."
"It wasn't me, it was Nitya."
"Madhu, shut up. I know. Thank you." She smiled her first non-Yatis smile before releasing the doors.
Jasm Inn Mumbai was a new addition to her chain, taken over and modified when its previous owners, who ran a resort called Bombay Retreat, shut down operations to move to Dehra Dun. Tearing down the colonial styled building was out of question, its historical nature being the principal reason why Madhu had agreed to invest in it. But over the last two years, she had overseen its expansion after buying out its surrounding property and enlarging the estate of her beach facing resort.
Worth it, Madhu thought, crossing her legs on a circular footrest on the balcony of their suite, sipping on her glass of chardonnay as Nakul arranged the wooden pieces of their old portable chess on the patio table. He always chose black, and Madhu was too much of a rookie to fight him on that.
"Nitya reached her hostel?"
"Yeah she just texted me," replied Madhu, still a bit disappointed her kid couldn't stay over with them. But college came first and it was a weeknight. Pity they were flying back the next day.
"Your move," Nakul said, leaning back on his chair and taking a sip of his own wine. "We're going three nil this month."
"I don't need a reminder," said Madhu, thinking over how the week before he had checkmated her in ten minutes flat. "Hopefully that will be corrected today."
Except the room's buzzer sounded before she could move a white pawn. Nakul answered the door, expecting room service.
"Hello Maanyata, you look...well."
Not room service.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to disturb but can I steal Madhu for tonight?" asked her friend just as Madhu emerged from the balcony, barefoot and in her nightgown, glass in hand.
"Yes, of course, we were just playing chess but I guess she can lose some other day."
"I'm not forfeiting," Madhu called out from the bedroom, already changing into jeans and a black kurti before reemerging in the living room, finding the door still wide open with her friend waiting on their threshold. Maanyata looked more like herself tonight. Combed hair though still in a bun and a cream sari with a royal blue border flowing behind her. She had politely declined Nakul's invitation of a drink, or to even step inside, and he was perceptive enough to not insist.
"You'll be fine?" Madhu asked him quietly, taking the key card with her in case it got late.
"Yes, it's India versus Sri Lanka today, I'll catch the last three overs." He looked over Madhu's shoulder at Maanyata still standing on their door, face blank yet impatient. "Go before she punches me for keeping you."
Madhu smiled and pressed a kiss on his cheek, closing the door behind her.
"Chess? Seriously?" Maanyata remarked five minutes later, strapping her belt and turning her car key.
"What? We've been married over twenty years, we're allowed to have rituals."
"I've been married twice and I never played a board game with either husband," she said, joining the late night Mumbai traffic.
"Maybe that's why you've been married twice." Madhu fidgeted with the radio, turning to a station playing nineties songs since she couldn't bear her friend's nervous energy without music. "And it's not a board game it's chess."
"Fucking nerds."
Madhu had heard more curses from Maanyata Yatis in a day than she had in all previous years of knowing her combined.
"No but if not games, what else do you do when the lube runs out?"
"Madhu we've never discussed our sex lives and I plan on continuing that."
"Sorry I thought it was appropriate since we're on our way to stalk your daughters."
Maanyata ignored her jibe, letting Alka Yagnik's high notes fill the silence.
"Isn't that where we're going?" pressed Madhu, "Or are you also craving midnight ice-cream?"
"Look I tried taking your advice alright?" she snapped, turning off the radio as she pulled over in front of her own apartment building, parked in a dark corner under a tree and switching off the ignition. "Asked her to dinner and everything, I planned to speak to her. But she said she's 'going out tonight Mumma, a bit urgent. Kal?'"
"Umm...so talk to her kal?"
"It can't wait. If I can't confirm she's safe I'll fucking explode. She told me everything was fine with Raman too and then she continued getting pushed around, getting trapped in his shit. I can't let her be blackmailed again."
"Maanyata he's a journalist, not the mafia."
"And Raman was her stepfather not a fucking national fugitive. Like I said, you can never trust these charming bastards."
"Nakul said he was a nice fellow." Madhu knew it was futile, but she didn't feel very comfortable about invading Arvika's privacy. Yet leaving her friend alone meant risking an uncharacteristically impulsive Maanyata doing something worse. Such as walking in on her daughter's date.
"What would Nakul know?" Maanyata said, rubbing her forehead as a sigh escaped her lips.
"Well, for one he's an excellent judge of character."
"Hmm, can't say about that, given he willingly married you."
Arvika's Honda was in a guest parking, since she was a newer resident. The tree and the dark night camouflaged the two women as they sat there, waiting for their prey. "She thinks I'm sleeping, was in the shower when I sneaked out after locking my bedroom door from inside."
"How old are you again?"
Before Maanyata could answer, Arvika emerged from the building, carrying what looked like a bottle of wine along with the same duffle bag she had when Madhu had met her in the morning. Her Honda's lights came on a minute later and she reversed, driving out from their sight. Maanyata waited for five minutes before following after her.
"Won't she see us tailing her?"
"We're keeping our distance." She threw a guilty, almost sheepish glance in Madhu's direction. "I might've left a spare phone with its GPS on inside her dashboard when we drove back from the shelter home event this afternoon."
"Good God woman."
"I'm just looking out for her."
"You're actually stalking your own daughter!"
"You've been doing that with Mahima too."
"On Instagram," defended Madhu. "Not following her around to her boyfriends."
"He's not her boyfriend. We don't know that yet."
"What if he is?" Madhu asked quietly. "Would he have your blessing?"
Silence. One minute, two minutes, three minutes and then: "We're here."
She stopped in a homely colony, a comfortable dwelling of nuclear families in white-collared service jobs. The kind of families which were miles away from the worlds of both Madhu and Maanyata. This upper middle-class suburb was the kind which centered around a park—not unlike Nakul's own apartment block back in Lucknow.
Retired old men roamed around the park—laughing in large groups as they discussed politics and grandchildren, their wives chatting merrily on surrounding benches. At ten thirty in the night, dust swirls under the streetlights illuminated a line of low-rise buildings—nothing like the glossy, modern apartment complex Maanyata had driven from.
They spotted Arvika's Honda in front of one of the larger Row Houses, opposite a three-storey building, a mere ten feet ahead from where they stood hidden under a canopy of trees extending from the park. In front of her car, right in the house's compound, was a blue Ford.
Madhu looked at Maanyata, failing to gauge the meaning of her thin-lipped expression, then snapped her gaze back to Arvika who had stepped out, fetching her duffle bag wine from the passenger seat and waving at the man standing on the first-floor balcony of the house, overlooking a cozy lawn. Madhu couldn't make out much of his face and expression except that he was smoking and didn't wave back. He did, however, leave the balcony to open his front door when Arvika reached the top step of the outdoor metal staircase.
It was a nice property, a duplex, with two balconies. One overlooking the lawn on which Arvika's date had been smoking a minute ago and another, smaller one protruding from the side, away from Madhu's line of sight. A huge swing, complete with Gujju patterns of weaved pink ropes and little bells, was placed in the lawn, and its picket fence shone a bright white despite the late hour, giving away its fresh coat of paint.
Maanyata took out two binoculars from her dashboard, handing one to Madhu. "They're antique. French. Helped a couple of French World War two veterans resist Nazis."
"They must be glad these are being put to such good use." Madhu pressed them against her eyes anyway, curiosity getting the best of her. The lawn-facing balcony was open with curtains withdrawn, letting in the breeze for the two occupants now settled on the couch—Arvika's feet up on his lap as they sipped the red wine she had brought over. The binoculars indeed were good, with the man's face becoming clear as day before her when she focused the lens on him.
"Yep," Madhu declared, chucking the binoculars on the back seat after it was confirmed he was, indeed, the same journalist from Motiya. "That's Varun Malhotra. I looked him up on Google too today."
When Maanyata didn't remove her binoculars, Madhu snatched them from her grasp. "Enough. You saw what you needed to. Anymore of this and you'll be a certified peeping Tom."
"It still doesn't mean they're dating. He could be threatening her."
"Look around you Maanyata." Madhu was truly losing her patience now. "Does this seem like the adda of Mumbai underworld to you? She's cuddling and chatting with him, and we need to leave before they start doing more."
Madhu watched her close her eyes, inhaling deeply, exhaling from her mouth, fingers white from gripping the steering too hard. "She's unwinding, telling him about her problems, isn't she?"
"Would that be a bad thing?"
"If he's the wrong man for her, yes." Maanyata nevertheless reversed out of the colony, entering directions to Jasm Inn in her GPS. "And if they indeed are dating, it means he betrayed her too, he doesn't deserve her."
"I think if Vika loves him, it shouldn't matter." Madhu thought back to the man waiting for her back home. "Besides, if she feels comfortable around him enough to dump her problems on him, every day, despite his profession, don't you think it speaks volumes about his character? You don't have to trust Nakul's assessment but at least trust your daughter's."
Streetlights reflected wrinkles on Maanyata's face, getting deeper as she pursed her lips, her usual, stoic expression settling in after a whole day of visible emotional turmoil. Maanyata Yatis was back to being an island. "I'll trust my own judgement."
"Fair," conceded Madhu, relieved it wasn't complete disapproval.
All the best Varun Malhotra.
At noon the next day, as Madhu waited for her flight home at the airport, Nakul getting them both chai, her phone chimed with a simple text from Maanyata.
"Nakul was right."
She smiled, starting to type a reply when her phone rang. An incoming video call—Mahima's picture on her screen.
Biting back her tears, Madhu swiped the green button, greeted by her kid's apologetic smile. She spoke first, cutting off what, at this point, would be already-accepted apologies. "Mahi, I need you to take over Jasm Inn's social media."
And THAT was what prompted Maanyata Yatis to barge into BizNest and scare tf out of Varun. I LIVE for her being a protective mother. But this chapter was about her vulnerability, something she guards from most people (except Madhu) but something that drives a lot of her actions, actions that may be defined as "boss lady" behaviour. In this regard, I find Arvika a lot like her mother.
Shubhodiya chaashnee has weaved magic with her characters and it has been an absolute privilege to write about one of them so intimately, and for it to be regarded as semi canon. Thank you so much for your story, characters and just in general your presence as a write babe. Yes I'm, like all Dil stans, are sad it's ending but I'm so, so proud of you for pulling off such a massiva and research intensive project and yet managing to retain the heart of the Dil series--its human connections.
I'll yeet before I get more emo. Thanks for your wishes in the last a/n. The eye appointment was fine, nothing major.
Love,