"Honestly, those look absolutely identical to me!" Seema says, exasperated. She had the afternoon off from the hospital that day and Shruti had decided she needed to go shopping. Now her daughter was standing in front of her holding two pairs of black jeans of the exact same colour. For the life of her, Seema couldn't figure out the difference.
"Maa!" Shruti says, "They're not identical. One is high-rise and the other is low-rise. I'm going to try it on and you'll be able to say."
"Honestly, Shruti." Seema says, knowing she wouldn't be able to notice the difference even if she used magnifying glasses. "The only rise I want for you is rising early!"
The sales-girl who's been looking at them with curiosity and then quickly hides her laughter by pretending to be busy with a selection of shimmery tops that are hanging on the holder. Seema laughs as well and Shruti flushes in embarrassment.
"Maa!" She pleads again, "Please be serious!"
"Alright," Seema says, very pleased with her joke. "Maybe she can help you out." She says, beckoning the sales-girl and Shruti isn't very convinced.
"I should've brought Shweta with me." Shruti sighs and Seema replies, "That's exactly what I told you to do!"
"I didn't want her to skip yoga class! I knew it was going to be late!" Shruti says, turning back to answer her mother.
"Late? Shruti how long is this shopping session going to go on for?" Seema asks, her eyes widening. "I want to reach home before the sun sets!"
"As long as it takes for me to find a perfect pair of jeans." Shruti says and Seema sighs, "Just stop answering back and please go change. At this rate, you'll be here tomorrow as well!"
Shruti sighs as she heads into the changing rooms and finds one that sits empty. Opening the little cubicle, she latches the door. Her hands are sweaty and clammy and her belly is fluttering. She hasn't even consulted Shweta about it; all of this is her own decision. And nine out of ten times, she knows what Seema is going to say. But she owes it to her mother, to be honest.
Unlike Shweta who went head-on with her mother, Shruti is never very confrontational. She understands her mother- the irrational, the rational and the in-between. The shopping trip had just been an excuse to get out of the house alone with her mother where the conversation can happen. There isn't a lot of time left before she leaves for Belgium; she needs to give her mother time to prepare.
She looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are rarely bloodshot and patchy these days, her face is healthy and glowing. Maybe it was the yoga classes, maybe it was the soul-satisfying food that Shweta had been cooking lately. She takes a deep breath. The ring sits in the pocket of the dark-blue jeans she's currently wearing; the importance of it she'd waived off with Shweta. She'd pretended it was casual, a decision she'd taken lightly. Maybe she'd done it because she herself was afraid of how important it was to her.
She hadn't lied to Shweta; she really hadn't said yes. Ashish had known enough to know that Shruti wouldn't be jumping straight into his arms screaming "Yes, a thousand times!" Right when he'd broached the subject, he could see the practical glimmer in her eyes. Not the part that was freaking out, the sturdier, more stable part of her. The one that would refuse not because she was afraid of commitment as she always joked about- she'd been steadfastly loyal to him for over three years now, he knew she wasn't afraid. She would refuse because she knew she had to build herself up, prioritize herself first. She was fiercely independent.
But she hadn't insisted on no, either. She'd made a few of her jokes, trying to wiggle out of the situation and laugh it off. But when he'd pulled the ring out; he could see her eyes widen in genuine surprise. It wasn't all talk, all flirt as she had expected. The fact that he had followed through with the action, he'd had the guts to do that surprised her.
Shruti often wondered if Ashish had been disappointed by the answer, she had given him. However, it had gone so much better than he'd expected to. Shruti hadn't said no and he still couldn't believe he'd managed to pull it off. Could there have been an instance, for the briefest of briefest seconds, where she'd envisioned a future with him?
And the gap in her answer had provided him with a 'maybe'; something far better than what he had feared she would say. When he'd dropped her off at the airport, she had it strung in between the chains of her necklace. Sitting delicately against her collarbone, the streetlights fell onto the stone and reflected in all directions.
He could hear her thinking as she pressed her lips against his before they got out of the car. Maybe, maybe?
Shruti herself was surprised by how comforting the ring felt. She hadn't thought of marriage, she didn't want to think of it so soon. But it wasn't an improbable possibility, something she wanted her mother to know. There was no way of saying if she would marry Ashish or she'd find herself with someone else down the line.
But the idea of marriage, as old-fashioned and liberal-hated it was, she wanted her mother to know- wasn't something she was entirely against. There was no saying if she would find her way back to him; an international experience changes people in ways more than they'd like to admit. She had made that much clear to him and if in the event that did happen, the ring box would arrive at his doorstep sooner than you could say "commitment issues."
She presses the ring that rests snugly in her pocket, against her thigh. The jeans she's wearing are high-rise. Looking at the low-rise black jeans, she rolls her eyes in disbelief. Why had she even considered that as an option?
High-rise jeans sitting neatly in a brown paper bag, while her mother traversed the highways; would the conversation be bound to hell?
"Maa?" She says softly against the lull of the traffic. The dusk is settling in, the fading colours of the day wetting the canvas of their combined humanity. The traffic lights are blurry as the car's wiper pushes against the rain.
"Maa?" Shruti tries again, a little louder looking out of the window.
"Hm?" Seema asks distracted.
"Maa, can we take the long way home?" She says, her voice feeling very thick and close to tears. This was something she had not anticipated; she hadn't taken into consideration just how emotional the conversation would be.
"You're not driving today, Shruti. Last time's close call with death was enough for me!" Seema says, her eyes are still focused on the slow-moving traffic.
"I don't want to drive, maa." She says, fiercely trying to blink her tears away. Fucking inconvenient eye-water.
"Shruti, I'd very much like to reach home fast, today," Seema says.
"Okay." She says, quietly. "Okay."
"Was there something you wanted from Just-In?" Seema asks, referring to one of the café's that was located on what Shruti called the long-way.
"No." Her daughter says, a voice just a decibel above a whisper. "I wanted to tell you something."
Seema shoots her a glance, her deep brown eyes scanning Shruti's face. But Shruti won't meet her mother's eyes. Her gaze is fixated on the blurry yellow traffic lights outside.
"And what was it?" Seem asks, after a while when she's taken the longer route. The road is quiet, away from the jam-packed city route. Its' longer, winding- takes them directly out of the city and then back to the outskirts where their home is.
"How- how did you know you wanted to marry papa?" Shruti swallows, forcing the words out of her mouth. The last word sounds so brittle and foreign after years of no use.
Seema doesn't reply- the question is a shock. Like a mother's womb that has layers of fluid that absorb the shock; Seema can feel the walls around her shoot up. Numbing the effect of the question; how did she know she wanted to marry Sanjay?
After a long pause, the duration of which Seema doesn't glance at her daughter once. The roads in front of them are dark; the yellow of the headlights causing the little animals to scamper around. These roads aren't very used to being disturbed; the animals are mostly used to daylight. Seema's headlights are too flashy, too bright- unlike the sun, it is a wrong, loud shade of yellow.
"I just did," Seema says, after a while. She pauses to collect her thoughts. If it was Shweta who had asked the question, Seema would have jumped straight into protective mode. Why were these questions being asked? What was going on in her head? Was her little one, okay? But because it is Shruti, while these thoughts flutter in her head- they are not insistent. The question didn't need a contrary question, it needed an answer.
"I just did. There was never a moment of wanting some other person. Maybe because of how taboo love marriages and relationships in general were. You didn't just fall in love and fall out of love- it wasn't that convenient. And I think it was the same for him- there was never anyone else as long as I was there. Now, I wouldn't know."
"What if- what if Shweta and I wanted the same for ourselves? How does that sit with you?" Shruti asks her right hand pressing hard against the ring in her pocket. A brief flash of the shocking revisit by her father stirs up in her memory. The ring is going to leave a little indent in her skin for a while until the blood rushes back in.
"Then," Seema says, slowing down the car remembering the difficult conversation with her mother from many years ago. These worries had been so far away then, but now they were here. Real and very tangible in the form of her beautiful twenty-five-year-old; her young confidence trying not to waver. "Then, I would I have to see."
"What would you have to see?" Shruti asks, now looking at her mother. Seema's gaze is still focused on the front. Is she looking at the illuminated road? Or is she staring at the dust specks that have accumulated on the dashboard?
"If he can love you as much, I have." She says, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe she was having this conversation. She's caught off guard by the intensity of emotions bubbling within her. "Because, Shruti. You have both been raised with so much love. From the moment you were conceived, you were conceived of love. When I brought you in, it was love. Even when I am angry, I have never loved you both more."
"Maa," Shruti says, her father's green eyes sparkling in the warm glow of the light in the car. She closes her eyes, the salty warmth of the tears falling against her skin. The mascara she had so carefully applied, blotting and inking her skin. Her voice is thick with emotion, there is nothing left to say now.
Seema's own eyes are pricking with tears. She is Shweta's mother; she doesn't cry easily and so she stares ahead furiously at the dust specks on the dashboard. She'll have to clean the car tomorrow. Shruti would be leaving soon, but she would have to clean the car. Someday, her daughters would be married and gone, she would still have to clean whatever car she owned then.
There is nothing left to say and for a while, Seema doesn't realize it. Shruti's movement is so nimble when she places it on the dashboard of the car. But when it catches the light from the car, its blue glimmer darting in all directions- it catches her eyes. Light, beautiful metal that has been moulded to fit her daughter's ring finger. Once stubby fingers that her mother had lavished endless kisses on.
"He had a question, maa," Shruti says, her voice raw. She is looking at her lap. The dark blue of her jeans is darker in places where her tears have fallen.
The unmistakable, unfaltering sapphire answer stares Seema right in the eye.
A/N: Bet you didn't see that one coming!
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