"So you haven't seen him in two days?" I don't even want to see him. Leave. That's what he said.
Daksh is in video call and the phone is placed back on the mirror facing us, so that I and Hera are both visible to ourselves in the mirror as well as to Daksh in the selfie cam.
I'm not sad or anything of him not approaching me after what happened at the court. It's just- I feel like I deserve some explanation as to what happened that day. I don't know anymore. At the end of a day spent with him, I'm always left stranded and hanging. All the fun I had that day will evaporate away leaving only the details about him in my mind. And those aren't good ones either. I forget about the exhilarating feeling of playing again, of having the ball in my hands, the exhaustion and delight of running around the court. And all I end up remembering is the fight, the leave part, and many other small stuff that keeps getting to me. If he had little respect for me, he would have come to me.
"I have. It looks like he's avoiding her." Hera said applying a shiny red coat over her lips looking at the mirror, making a pouty gesture.
She applies the same amount over mine with a shade of coral date matte. I shift back in my seat at the impact in disgust. The matte smells good though.
"Nooo." I hear Ryan, Neil and Aaron, the soccer boyfriend of Ridha, scream together from the living room.
The boys brought some video games to play in the Tv while we were busy dressing up. They say it takes hours for us to finish so as well use this time for entertainment.
"Nah huh, that's a lot of color on her lips, Hera."
Daksh complained, looking at her with the same disgust on his face. We have the same taste in makeup. Hera scoffed at him before handing over a tissue to me. I take it and start wiping off the extra color to make it more mild and blending with my skin.
"Where's the Krish guy? I would like to meet him." He asked, when I turned around to the other side in the swivel chair to throw the tissue in trash.
"He's not here. He said he'll meet us at the temple. I can video call you from there-"
"No, no. I'm heading out to work soon." I nodded.
"I'll send pics." I say smiling at him.
"Like those Hera sent me before?"
My smiling face shrivelled with embarrassment. Hera laughed.
"How come you don't want to meet Shaurya, Daksh." Hera asked curiously.
'I don't think it'll go smoothly. Since he's-"
"He's?" Hera asked to completely obtain his idea of Shaurya.
I looked at him daringly.
"Everything that Tara says." He nodded in agreement to the answer he came up with.
"And what did she tell you?"
"Those are secrets between friends." He said winking at me.
I put on some golden bangles with colorful extensions of small threaded balls.
"I'm going home next month. I took leave for a month, so I'll be back after Christmas."
"Really?" Mine as well as Hera's excited voice slowed down into a one of regret.
"Come on you guys, five months away and you are already depressed?"
That's so straight forward, you idiot.
"While coming back, I'll land at Berkeley, stay with you for a couple days before going back to Auckland. How about that?"
"Really?" Our slow voices returned to one with full of life.
"Really."
We happily went back to our dressing up. Hera is taking care of my hair now, as we are simultaneously talking to Daksh. Hera and Ryan became friends with Daksh after seeing him through countless video calls in my phone for over an year, after which when he came home once in his last year in Master's (mine too), we all met up. It's pretty cool how I know Daksh's friends and he knows mine. I've also introduced Czes and Laura to him once. Neil and Daksh have already met, together they did a verbal attack against me on my caffeine addiction (Daksh is against it too), guess they get along pretty well too. There are a lot of other people from our college that we're still in contact with, but not so much after splitting up like unstable radicals.
"You guys aren't finished yet?" Ridha came rushing through the door. "Oh, hi Daksh."
"Hey." He replied.
"It's almost time, the guys are making a huge deal saying that we're making them wait."
"Now that their game is over-" Hera stands up, looking as pretty as she always is, in a black lehenga.
"We're ready." I say standing up in a red traditional chaniya choli that Hera packed as her luggage.
"Isn't the neck of the blouse a bit too low for her, Hera?" Daksh pointed out looking at Hera and back at my mirrored blouse.
"I told her too-" I say but Ridha cuts me off.
"It's not too low. Stop being such a control freak, Daksh."
"I- I didn't mean it like that-" Daksh says apologetically.
Everyone's surprised eyes sputtered into laughter.
"Do I look beautiful, bro?" Hera asks him expecting something good from him, when it's actually very hard to get complimentary words out of him. That reminds me of someone who once said I looked just okay.
"You always look stunning, Hera." I say making it easy for Daksh to avoid it.
"I asked Daksh." She says folding her hands over her chest in demand.
"Alright, I'm hanging up. Take care and have fun." Daksh says before kissing us goodbyes and finally hanging up.
"How sweet is he. Perfect husband material." Hera says, her eyes dreamy.
"Don't forget about Ryan, Hera."
"Why don't you just marry him?" Hera asks returning from her dreamland.
About that. It's the same sentence I've been hearing for so long now. And I've got the same old reply for it.
"Sometimes I wonder too." I say smiling.
When we reach the temple, the place is on a different level tonight. With colorful lights, hanging floral decorations and traditional stalls, the place looks great and it feels like- It feels and smells like home. I might accidently cry right now.
There are girls running with their skirts sweeping the floors, boys showing off their new sherwanis. Mid aged people in traditional outfits rushing to complete the procedures and preparations for the eve, young women standing in groups talking and laughing, kids playing around all the while disturbing the ones doing the preps, old folks sitting under trees and bluffing stories from their youth.
I've never felt so happy seeing this sight. I guess, you won't know the value of something unless it's taken away from you, especially it hurts when you take it away from yourself.
"Tara."
Layla comes in with a plate of Gulab Jamun in hand. She's wearing a baby pink sequenced lehenga with white pearl jewelry. She leans in for a side hug.
"You look pretty."
"You too." I say, my eyes still scanning the contents of her plate. She laughed at my stupid instinct.
"The stalls are open. Come."
"Where's Krish?" I ask eyeing the crowd. She starts searching for him from where we are standing.
"I don't know. He was here-"
"Layla." One of the girls call out from near the small portion reserved in the garden for programs.
"Oh, I've to go. Our dance starts soon. I'll meet up with you after that."
She waved to all the rest of us before running back in to her choreographed dance group.
"How about some Gulab Jamun?" I ask my little group.
Everyone shook their heads no and went up to the north Indian chat stall.
"You sweet tooth." Ryan complained for the zillionth time.
What can I do? I'm born that way.
I walk around the place, listening to Pani Da Rang by Ayushmann Khurana, taking in the sound and sight of the place. There are a lot of chairs arranged, but no one cares to sit and relax. I hear my tummy complaining about the delay in tasty food falling down my throat. Guess my salivated mouth is making her angry and rumbling.
I see Indu aunty walking in a beautiful silk saree. As much I want to run towards the food stalls, I go to greet her.
"Evening, Indu aunty."
"Tara, you look beautiful." She looked around searching for someone. "Krish-"
"It's okay, aunty. I'll find him later."
"Come with me." She dragged me into a group of ladies.
We stopped in front of a young lady.
"This is Tara, and Tara, this is Naina."
Oh, Naina. It's Krish's big sister. And, oh. I see a cute little thing clinging to her hands. She's holding a cute little baby girl in her arms over her chest, and the baby is busy playing with her hair. The baby is wearing a mini version of everything we're all wearing, a cute pink and white skirt and blouse, cute little hangings and bangles, cute little shoes. Everything is so cute and little. Oh. My. God. That's the most adorable thing I've seen in a long time.
"Hey, Tara. You are just as lovely as Krish and mom described you." She says, trying to get her hair off from her baby's tiny fingers. Very tiny. I just want to bite her.
There's so much things going on around, I'm getting complements and everything, but all I can see is this baby. The baby's got small thick eyelashes, the fingernails in size of a cocoa chip in miniature food art.
"Can I touch her?" I ask and Naina laughs, eventually making a sad face.
"No one wants to talk to me because of this little angel." She said, although it didn't fit as a complement for her child. Of course, the baby gets more attention.
She gives the baby to me. I go panicky all of a sudden. Holding a baby needs so much skill and care and I am always worried that I'll end up dropping the baby down because of my clumsiness. Halfway through I say.
"I- No, you hold her. I'll- It's not safe."
She smiled sadly at me.
"It's okay, Tara. I felt the same when the nurse handed me to her cause she looked so fragile. Try it, I'm near so it won't be an issue."
She handed the baby over to me, Indu aunty helped me with her, while I took her in my arms with extra care than I have ever given to any of my science apparatuses. Her flesh is pink and so soft that I'm afraid of the damage I'm making to her skin with my contact. She looks so lively and peaceful at the same time. She's so cute that I just want to squish her. Cute aggressions as the scientific world calls my emotion to seeing this cute kid, it's just my brain trying to cope with the strong amount of positive feeling by tossing a dash of aggressive element to it. I don't want to hurt her, but.
"What's this lady's name?" I ask the mother while joining noses with the cute little nose of the baby.
"Neerja. She's three months old."
Aw. Three months. Neerja is so small. I love her so much already.
"Neerja."
I call her and play with her for sometime. Her cute little fingers grabbed tight of my forefinger. And she refuses to remove it at any cost, in turn she takes her hand along with my forefinger to her mouth for sucking it. Then we have this big cute tug of war.
Naina introduces me to Neerja's dad, aka her husband, her cousins and friends. And when I walk around the stalls with all kinds of food from different stalls in my plate, I am stopped at groups of new sets of people to do the introducing stuff. That's too many people I met in an hour, I'll forget everyone's name by tomorrow. Or maybe not everyone.
I'm not much of an extroverted kind, but if I find someone comfortable I'll catch up to it to keep them close. Like Krish.
While stuffing myself with traditional and ratified junk food, the adult crowd goes silent, leaving the chatter and laughter of the carefree kids roaming and playing around. I walk over to my group of people before dumbing the bamboo plates in the trash and licking off the extra spices sticking to the tip of my fingers.
"What's going on?" Hera asked, still not finished with her part of the stuffing.
"The dance, maybe?" Ridha says looking for the dressed up girls who are supposed to do the choreographed dance.
When the lights focus on the center of the garden left free for performances, Krish stands with his frame showered in yellow tinge from the lighting arrangements. He looks perfectly handsome in a sherwani, perfectly handsome as to other Indian girls and young ladies giving audible comments. I can here Who's that guy? Then some He's so hot. Another set of amused That's Indu aunty's son? It's very rare that youth from India talk about people or looks in public, everyone is busy worrying what happens when someone hears it. But about him, no one cares cause everyone has the same idea. The perfect and playful Krishna Das.
"Please don't tell me he's going to dance." Ryan said cringing at the thought.
"Who knows. He might be more good than you." Hera added her sarcastic comment while taking the last bite of the barfi.
"Well, I'll keep the emergency contact of ambulances in speed dial."
I say, hoping to get a laugh from the group. They take a whole minute to process my comment, still not understanding the point.
"In case the girls fall unconscious during his hot performance..." I add and their faces light up. There it goes.
He is handed over with a wired microphone. He's going to sing? No...
"No, I'm not going to sing, Tara." He tested the microphone replying to the fossilized look I was giving him.
That gets a few laughs from the teenage population. You girls don't know how bad he sings, provided he himself suggests having karaoke while hanging out at our homes.
"Namaste, ladies and gentlemen." He bows respectfully then continues "Happy Navratri, everyone." Many shout back their wishes.
So he's doing the hosting. Very well.
"Everyone ready for some entertainment?"
A few people say their yes.
"That's too much energy." He says shaking his head smiling.
A boy, probably four or five years old, runs beside him in a rush but ends up falling down after getting hit by the pillar stand of him. He helps him up, whispers something to him and he runs back from where he came running.
"Are you guys ready?" He shouted with extra made up enthusiasm.
"Yes." I shout back with everyone else.
"Hera, if you don't reply I'm going to make you solo dance." He blackmailed the still-busy-eating Hera. She threw her bamboo plates away, before getting ready for not doing a solo. She looked at all sides to see all eyes on her. Embarrassed, she poked her tongue out, shrugging.
"How's the josh?"
"High, sir."
In between when I look back at Hera to make sure she's doing okay with all the attention on her, I end up witnessing Ryan brushing off the remaining crumbles of barfi from the corner of her mouth. Woah, that's not normal brushing off, it's way too slow and lusty for that. I focus back to the spotlight.
"Alright, here I welcome Layla and Team for a dance performance." He steps out clapping. A boy comes and removes the extended wires off the place they're going to dance.
They dance to most of the new and old festive songs, flowing their hands around, catching their skirt during graceful jumps, making everyone tap their legs and vibe to their moves. It must have took a lot of practice for the formations and coordination. I was foolish enough to think I'll be able to dance with them by coming an hour early today to learn.
Everyone cheer them up when they finish up their hard work with a cute pose at the end.
"That was so good." Neil says, his eyes running along the girls who danced.
"Excuse me, playboy." I crash him back from his imaginations.
"What?"
"I thought you had a girlfriend."
He seriously started giving a thought about it.
"Hmm, no. I don't have one."
"Helen?" I asked hoping to bring him back from his high spirits.
"Helen?" He seemed clueless for a moment, before brightening up into a apologetic smile.
"Oh, right. We broke up long ago." He said deciding.
"How long?" I ask him. I've never seen them together other than the fundraiser night.
"We broke up the next day of the fundraiser." He said casually, like the whole thing didn't affect him in any ways at all.
"Oh. I didn't know."
"It's not like we were really dating-"
I raised my eyebrows at his sudden stop of words.
"What?"
"I mean, it wasn't anything serious to begin with."
Not convincing enough. What's he hiding? It looked like something slipped his tongue, but somehow he ended up collecting it together before I figured it out. Whatever.
"Did you check out the lassi stall?" He asked me changing the subject, his look still creepily suspicious.
"Those were some great moves we got to see." Krish came back dragging the wired microphone with him.
All the chattering crowd returned their gazes to him.
"Now we have a dance performance by our beautiful little boys and girls."
It took some time for me to see ten little kids, all in the age group of five to ten, in pairs, taking their position in the center. Their mothers are giving them directions as to where to stand and where to move. Each pair consists of a cute little boy and a cute little girl dressed up in traditional wears. Woah this dance is going to be too cute to resist.
They start by shaking their little hips sideways, holding hands with their partners and shaking their heads to the rhythm of the bollywood song playing in the background. As expected, everyone mouths Aws and wows, their eyes googly and cheering. Everyone started singing back the song and dancing.
Ryan and Hera started their own version of shaking their hips to the music.
"Why don't you join those kids?" I ask them jealous of all the couple-y fun they are having.
"Nice idea." They start tapping their toes and slowing pacing with all the other couples to the center to dance with the kids. Many grab a partner to join the fun.
I look sideways expecting to go with Neil, since I want to dance so bad right now. But he has already left the crowd with Layla to dance. So, it's Layla he was staring so hard earlier.
I walk, enjoying the song on my own, lonely as hell, into the circle of people dancing non uniformly. One of the boys who was dancing earlier, in a cream sherwani, seems to be separated from his girl partner. He's standing in a corner looking at everyone doing his dance, while he's left in the corner. I walk up to him and offer my hand to him.
"Wanna dance with me?" I ask as he looks up to me. His eyes light up at my request but soon goes back to the gloomy mood.
"How will I make you twirl? You're too tall." He says looking at the ground sadly.
I sit down on my knees.
"It's okay. You can twirl instead." I say.
"No. Only the girls twirl." He says pointing at all the couples where the man catches the woman's hand to twirl her around, their skirts lifting up with life, taking the full diameter.
"The offer is going to die soon." I say acting as if I'm looking for another partner to dance with.
"Look, that boy wants to dance too, I guess. I'll dance with him, then." I say
showing the least interest towards the tiny gentleman near me and starting to walk away.
I get stopped by his grip on my skirt, as he shyly swayed the fabric forward and backward.
"I'll dance." He said with a low voice.
"Alright, let's go." I say taking his hand.
Someone else stops me by my other hand. The sensation feels eerily familiar that my heart starts pounding louder and louder.
I turn around withdrawing my hand from the soft touch, my other hand still holding the kid near to me.
"Hey." He says, his tone dense and calm.
I'm not ready for him to ruin my today yet again.