Newspaper Clip

Friends, The Dartmouth decided to throw some spotlight on me for my writing. I am so honored! Read the full coverage here.

Originally published in April, 2015.

Death Comes to Aishbagh

**Originally published in the Grief Diaries' Volume II Issue 1**




I was getting ready for work when mother told me of grandma’s death. Ambulances were rushing to Beth Israel Medical Center, urgently piercing the morning air with their siren call for space. Ubers and Lyfts and cabs were angrily honking in the 9am rush hour; East Village was ablaze with indifferent and impatient office-goers trying to inch forward towards their destination. My mother’s voice carried less remorse and pain than a message of death would warrant. There was a restraint that was clearly carried over the mountains and across the Atlantic; she was unsure of the reaction her news would elicit. Her words moved from Aishbagh to New York City, from a deep dark night to an angry morning, and slipped hesitatingly into phone sets across the two corners of the earth.

“Dadi is… Dadi is dead,” she said, hesitatingly.

            I let my lipstick hang an inch away from my lips as I listened. Dadi had been fighting a losing battle with breast cancer and so the news of her death should not have come as a shock. And it didn’t. It came with the weight of a hundred bricks let loose on my stomach. It brought with it an increased heart rate and short gasps of breath. Dadi was dead. I repeated in my head as I thought of her gentle body and the familiar softness of her heartfelt embraces. Her hugs had been as big and strong as ever, even when she had lost one of her breasts to the knife, even when her body could barely keep itself straight.

            “It must be hard for you,” my mother continued awkwardly. “You two were close, I know.”

            “It is, Ma. I wish I was there with you all right now,” I replied, breathless and barely coherent.

            The scene of mourning at Aishbagh conjured up in my mind. I imagined rows of women, wearing wispy white saris, wailing by Dadi’s dead body; the children confused and subdued into silence by the solemnity of death. I felt like an intruder in my own home, voyeuristically observing someone’s private expression of grief. From my place in front of the dirty grey window overlooking New York, the place I had temporarily settled in, Aishbagh, my home of eighteen years, seemed foreign, distant, unknown. Dadi would have smacked my knuckles for thinking of myself as an outsider. She would tell me not be a firangi maidam, a foreign woman. She would have told me my two sentences of English didn’t make me any less desi, any less of her gudia, her doll.

            “This is very sudden, ma. I wish I could come home,” I said to my mother, slowly gathering my breath and wiping tears away from my face.

            “Yes, I know. But she was in pain and she is not any more. If you can come back, you know how much we would love to have you here. Dekh lo, see if you have the money for the tickets.”

            I knew she was in pain but the selfish part of me didn’t want her to leave. We had all known that she would not make it. Stage 4. We knew that her cancer had spread from her left breast to the right, and then to her armpits. We knew that the mastectomy would not stop the monstrous cells from infecting her entire being, consuming every piece of her body mind and soul. Despite knowing the weight of the chemotherapy, in spite of knowing the toll of monthly hospital visits, I wanted her to stay. She had been suffering; unable to drink water because of the excruciating pain from her mouth ulcers, could barely talk. She had been strong even with just one breast left hanging limply on her body. Why couldn’t she win the fight, bite back at the colonizing cells, banish the imperialists from her body? The childish piece of my being wanted to cry and scream her death away. It wanted to run to Aishbagh, shake her cold, still body under the yellow and saffron shroud and scream Dadi until she awoke.

            “I will look, ma. Was thinking of coming back next month but maybe I can take an advance from work. I don’t know what the point of being here will be.”

            Heavy sobs threatened to break lose from my gut and crack the mic of my phone. I held tight and took a breath, swallowing them back into the pit of my stomach.

            “Okay, but make sure to check everything before deciding to come over. You know you’ll lose a day in the time difference and what not. Maybe you won’t be able to make it for the funeral?”

            “I hope I can, ma. I really hope so.”

            “Okay, darling. I have to arrange for the flowers and food for the wake. You will be okay, right?”

            “Yes, ma. I will be. You go and take care of things.”

            “Alright. I am sorry, my dear. I wish I could have called with better news. Take care.”

            I stared at the mirror with my lipstick still in hand, streams of brown crookedly cut through the blush on my face. Nothing was different in my immediate world; the insignificant apartment remained unkempt, my hair had not been brushed, the traffic jam outside refused to pick up speed. Yet, Dadi was gone and I didn’t know how to mourn her. Could I go to a temple somewhere in Queens and pray for her? The idea sounded strange, forced almost. The best would have been to take the day off from work and sit by the Brooklyn Bridge. I could dissolve into the sea of bodies there and cry silently on a corner bench. I wish I knew a respectful way to remember her, mourn her, and let my own grief out without being a traitor to my own culture and people.

            Realistically, I knew I could not go back to Aishbagh in time for the funeral. Dadi would have wanted me there, I was certain. She had been free with her love but demanding of attention and care, sometimes pouting in wounded silence for days when I would forget to text or call her. My days would often begin with a badly spelt, short, and deliberate whatsapp message, “gud mrng. Do prayer” and ended with a stern “don’t drink much . do work . gud night.” They greeted me every morning, despite her insomnia from medication. She would send me badly taken photos of herself on the selfie camera on her phone and I would note the receding hairline, the tufts of missing hair with each passing week. By the last days of her life, she had lost all the hair she had on her being. If she had been around, she would have felt let down by my absence. She would have felt like our chats and giggles and sobs and tears had meant nothing. The two of us had maintained our relationship despite the time and cultural differences between us, and with her devotion to me came an expectation of devotion returned. And I had been devoted to her. I loved her deeply, sometimes more than I loved my own mother. But I wasn’t sure if she died believing that, or that I would ever forgive myself for not being where I should have been. I wiped my eyes and went back to applying my lipstick, trying to concentrate on the contours of my lips and the day the lay ahead of me.

*

            I crossed the street onto Fifth Avenue and thought of the gullies of Aishbagh, as loud as New York on a workday morning. Women were selling mangos with chili powder across from me, women used to sell mangos with chili powder back home. There were dogs on leashes scampering by skinny women alongside me, there were thin stray dogs skipping by skinny women on the roads back home. Everything was the same but nothing was. There was concrete and glass and large labeled trashcans around me. There were no people I liked, let alone love. There was a din, an organized manageable noise pierced irritably across the American air, but there was no familiarity in the shrieks and honks here. Everything was as foreign to me as my brown body was to these American shores. Why was I here? No one was mine. I didn’t belong. And the one I loved so deeply and sincerely lay dead and motionless thousands of miles away. A taxi whizzed right past me as I ran onto the sidewalk; like the rest of the city on its way to work, the car and its driver wanted me out of the way. There was no space for nostalgia and grief on the busy streets of New York. There was no space for me.

            Someone pushed past me and muttered a loud watch where you’re going in my ears as he bustled away. The city’s buzz assaulted my ears as I stood trying to make sense of Dadi’s death. The world around me moved on mercilessly. No one here mourned Dadi even as she lay on her deathbed, her impatient breathing now silenced forever. I walked into the subway stop, fighting away stubborn tears that wanted to flow like rivulets for my deceased grandmother, wanted to honor memories of time spent with her fingers gently caressing my hair. It was impossible to hold them back as the turnstile blurred into the dirty grey concrete of the floor; I gave in to their mutiny and cried like a child, not caring about the confused faces staring at me. The dead old woman from Aishbagh meant nothing to any of them; everyone had offices to get to, children to drop off to school, coffee to drink. And I did not care what mattered to them and didn’t. She had mattered to me, she had been important to me, and I was going to honor her life and times by crying for her with no shame or worry about social castigation.

            I wanted to hold on to the nearest human and cry my eyes out, to sob and shake like a possessed woman. Instead, I sat alone in my seat, shuddering and shivering with grief. My mouth, buried under a layer of peach wax, twitched unsteadily as I tried to hold my face in its stable state. I was to get off at 42nd street but instead I got out at 14th street and made my way back home. I walked downtown in a daze, unaware of people running and brisk walking to their offices, most heading uptown. I missed Dadi so acutely in that moment. I would never wake up to her soft crackling voice; she would never demand that I try all the Indian restaurants in Queens. I sat down at a bench opposite Whole Foods and pulled out my phone to read our correspondences. I wanted to take in all I could, as if the emails and whatsapp messages would disappear if I did not cling on to them this very second. I wished I had known the precise time and circumstances of her death so that I could have prepared for it, could have been with her as she died.

            I sat there watching the morning crowd thin as the minutes and hours passed. Somewhere to the northwest, the Empire State building looked down upon my insignificant losses, the hawkers of organic food raked in their lunchtime millions as I sat ignoring a grumbling stomach. 

Sweety's Beauty Parlor

The silver wind chimes tinkled as Alia walked into Sweety’s Beauty Parlor. 

The pink room was bathed in white light and a sweet smell of cosmetics hung in the air. Light brown wooden counters were littered with make up and beauty products of all kinds; there were bright colored lipsticks in a little plastic box, different types of hair brushes lined the racks atop the counters, powder puffs and bottles of hair spray were stacked haphazardly in a corner, rows of nail polish bottles sat in their plastic containers, and different types of scissors were thrown about here and there. The disorder was characteristic of Sweety who was in charge of keeping the place tidy and appealing to visitors. The mess and the low prices at the parlor attracted only clients from the neighborhood and friends from around the area.

  “Alia! Aaj kya? What can I do for you today?” Sweety said, quickly getting up from her spot on a swiveling salon chair and in the process, dropping her copy of the Hindi gossip magazine, Sakhi.
 
“Hmm? Eyebrows I think,” Alia said absent-mindedly and sat down on the nearest chair, plopping her phone and handbag on her lap. She looked listless, preoccupied, and allowed her eyes to aimlessly wander over the old pink paint on the walls.
 
There was a dance sequence on a small TV mounted on the wall in front of Alia’s face; the sound was muted so it looked like the performers were awkwardly thrusting their hips in unison and shaking their hands to the invisible commands of a puppeteer.

“Alia, lets put on the music on the TV, na. It’ll be fun. I’ve heard this is a catchy song,” said Sweety, swiftly moving a white thread over Alia’s eyebrows, carefully plucking out each stray hair. She could feel that Alia’s head was tense, her neck was stretched on the back of the chair and it felt like Alia would not allow it to slouch down on the fake leather.

“Hmm? Yeah, sure, go ahead,” Alia responded without moving her head from under the thread.

Sweety was not satisfied with her response and did not give up trying to get Alia to ease out under her fast moving fingers.
 
“What say we watch the news? That will be fun. Aaj Tak will have something on,” said Sweety animatedly.

Aaj Tak was notorious for their sensationalistic debate topics like, IS INDIA RUN BY THE ITALIAN MAFIA? LET US DISCUSS WITH INSIDE SOURCES. The girls would often chuckle at the new channel’s 60 year old anchor with jet black hair as he very earnestly announced one conspiracy theory after another. Despite its terrible analyses, Aaj Tak was often the first channel to break many news stories.
 
“Hunh? Yes. I don’t care. Do what you want,” Alia responded.

Sweety rightly thought that Aijaz, Alia’s newest love interest, was behind her friend’s monosyllabic responses. Sweety was generally pleasantly disposed towards the young man; he was neither her favorite of Alia’s lovers, nor her least liked one. While she believed Alia could do better, she understood the excitement that came with seeing a boy outside the circle of men deemed fit. She knew that Alia had been enchanted by the idea of sitting on motor bikes instead of air conditioned cars, eating from street vendors instead of five star hotels. Sweety had also thought this would be a passing affair; one that would get over after Alia’s overly romanticized plans of visiting the boy’s hometown of Benares.
 
To Sweety’s dismay, Alia sat in annoyed silence, her mind presumably on the cool Ghats of the dirty Ganga. Sweety knew that the boy was still interested in Alia; just that morning, he had asked her to drop a package addressed to Alia in a Foremost Delivery box. It had train tickets and snacks for the journey, he had told her. It was also a surprise so Sweety had, with no real problem, kept it to herself.
 
“Remember that time when everyone thought Rahul Gandhi was an undercover Mafioso?” Sweety said, once again trying to get her friend’s attention to leave the recesses of her mind. When Alia did not respond, Sweety turned up the volume and changed the channel to Aaj Tak. Nothing unusual was on, just a daily update of the traffic situation on tight highways and the characteristic crawling marquee boldly declaring that the onion shortage was because of a secret deal with the Pakistani defense minister.

Alia sat still under Sweety’s dexterous fingers, not twitching or complaining about the pain from the plucking. Sweety remembered the time Alia told her she was going to visit Benares, Aijaz’s hometown. It was six months ago and Sweety had hoped Alia would throw the foolishly romantic idea out the window, but it had come up again and again in their conversations, slowly convincing Sweety that it was cementing itself in Alia’s imaginative brain. Sweety had listened patiently as Alia had excitedly regaled her about the videos she had watched, the research papers she had read, and the stories she had devoured on Benares. Rumor had it that the holy city of the Hindus had existed ever since civilization began to flourish in the northern Indian plains. Believers of this myth claimed that the city would just evolve with time, defying death and age for all eternity. Hindus and Muslims alike had held the Ghats, the steps that lead to the river Ganges, in esteem. The sound of the evening prayers and the cremation grounds that lined the banks of the river had intrigued travelers, scholars, and locals alike. There was something about the city, maybe something in the dirty brown water, which kept the Hindus and Muslims in a happy, peaceful co existence. Sweety was mildly intrigued by Benares, but she thought it to be another dirty town, a minnow compared to her beloved Dilli (Delhi).

“Hey,” Alia suddenly broke her silence, making Sweety smile with a white thread caught firmly between her teeth.
 
“Yes, you monkey. Want to talk, finally?” asked Sweety, taking a step back and letting Alia sit up in her chair.

“I haven’t heard anything and I have no idea what’s up,” said Alia, throwing her hands up in the air.

“Okay. So Aijaz hasn’t called? And you cannot call him because his phone is not reachable or is switched off?” asked Sweety, as she leaned against the back of Alia’s chair.

“Yes. And I am worried. I don’t know about what, though. Its just that I… I don’t know. I told him I’d go to Benares, as I told you. And now today is the day I am supposed to be on a train. No phone call. Nothing. How am I supposed to know what’s up, Sweets?”

Sweety shook her head ever so slightly and inhaled audibly. “Alia, like I have always said, I don’t think it’s a great idea. But, yes, you did tell me you were firm in your decision. Well, its fine. He’ll get in touch with you soon. ”

Alia opened her mouth to say something, and looked at Sweety with an impatient and petulant expression on her face. Sometimes Alia got like that and Sweety knew she did not want to be chided for her decisions in those moments. And at those times, Sweety grew more aware of their different classes, their separate worlds.

Alia had loving parents and enough money to travel the world. Alia’s complains irritated Sweety a little; she was worried about a boy who, according to Sweety, had no real or tangible love to offer and only a fleeting sense of excitement at breaking rules. Sweety worried that where she saw a short-lived, loveless adventure, her friend saw true affection and dedication. She knew Alia wanted to break rules, but when her heart went out to Salim uncle and Amina aunty, Alia’s parents. They had welcomed Sweety as Alia’s friend, had showered their only child with unconditional love. It was disappointing to see that her friend would be so callous with their feelings. Sweety herself had no family left, they had forgotten her when she had run away so that a stranger could not take her away from herself.

Sweety had left Lucknow a couple of months ago. She had hated the small town and had felt stifled there. If she hadn’t run away, she would have been Mrs. Radhika Bansal by now, for Radhika was her real name, and Bansal was the last name of the man her parents had chosen for her to wed.

One couldn’t give Raju Bansal an adjective. Was he good? Could be. Was he bad? Could be that, too. Was he a rich man? No, he wasn’t. Was he a poor man? Not that, either. Was he interesting? Not particularly. There was nothing wrong with Raju Bansal. He wasn’t striking and he wasn’t hopeless either. He just was.

 For Radhika, that was not enough. She had dreams, dreams of bright lights and big cities. Dreams of a happy home, a break from the mundane lower middle class existence she had lived for 21 years.

She knew she was funny, lively, and even attractive. She was just the right kind of plump, and her black hair grew all the way down to her waist. She liked some drama, love and excitement, and a real life of her own. And Raju didn’t look like the kinds to provide any of these. She dreamt of catching running trains, fighting with her family for love, kissing boys under Neem trees and waking up to the sound of car horns instead of the hawk of the vegetable seller. When Radhika had asked Raju Bansal what his wildest dream was he had said that he wanted to trek to Kedarnath, a shrine in the Himalayas that was often overflowing with rowdy children and out of shape uncles and aunties. Radhika had smiled and vaguely nodded when he had said that and had made a mental note to catch the 3:00 am train to New Delhi, lest she be left behind, wedded to the idea of trekking to Kedarnath.

She knew she could do better than Raju Bansal.

New Delhi had been her dream and she had realized it six months ago, moving in with her Nida Aunty, the one who had left Lucknow to marry her Muslim lover. Aunty understood. She, too, had run away from the small town claustrophobia. She, too, had taken the 3:00 am direct to New Delhi. It was six months ago that Sweety had turned her back on Radhika from Lucknow and become Sweety from Delhi.

When Sweety knew that talking to Alia would only agitate her further, she decided to tell her about her morning’s interaction with Aijaz. She rolled her eyes a little and said, “Well, so, Aijaz actually asked me to drop something off for you this morning. Told me it’s a surprise so I didn’t tell you about it,”

“What? You’re telling me now!” said Alia, jumping up from her seat. Her voice was a quarter accusatory and three quarters excited. “Did he say what was in it?”

“Now you want to talk! Well, he said it had your train tickets and snacks for that mad journey you have decided to make.”

“Really? I am so, so happy to hear that. Oh, god why did he not get in touch with me. I am so mad at him. Okay, no, I am happy now, I am fine. Okay so I am going to Benares. So I don’t have to worry about anything. Sweety this is great news you’ve given me. I should be but am not mad at your for keeping it from me,” Alia said, clutching Sweety’s hand in hers and squeezing it and smiling widely.

“Alright, now you’re happy, lets watch something?” asked Sweety a little dismissively. She was happy for her friend but did not want to continue talking about her lover. She wanted to bring them back to their present moment and focus on anything else.

Alia nodded in agreement, her smile big as ever. She looked like she wanted to ask more questions but was still formulating them in her head. Sweety turned up the volume and faced the TV set. The traffic commentary was disrupted and the anchor in an ill-fitting suit fixed his mouthpiece and said, “I apologize, esteemed viewers of Aaj Tak, but we will have to temporarily suspend the traffic show, there is an important message coming in. Please bear with us as we quickly transition to the breaking news section.” Sweety looked at Alia, unsure of what was going to be the breaking news. Both girls shrugged their shoulders, as if to say, “I don’t know.”

The brightly colored map with moving red dots gave way to a Spartan grey room with a massive screen behind the neat news anchor. A fast moving crawling marquee that screamed: “CONNAUGHT PLACE BLASTED APART, RED ALERT THROUGHOUT NATIONAL CAPITAL. DEATH TOLL RISING,” surrounded Adinath Dev.

“Increase the volume!” demanded Alia, sitting up straight; her phone and bag fell on to the floor.

Adidev Nath spoke hurriedly in his high-pitched nasal voice, “Official records state that 39 people have died in today’s bomb blast. The toll is likely to increase as the Intensive Care Unit in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences is still receiving patients. So far, 97 people have been reported as injured, including 14 children and 26 women. It looks like Lakshar ud Dawa is involved in these attacks, as the use of nitrite in the composition of the bombs is a tell tale sign of their strategy. Let us talk to Parmita Mathur, our reporter on the scene at the Connaught Place Metro station, and see what she has in store for us. Parmita?” The sterile surroundings of the Aaj Tak set gave way to a scene of complete chaos.

The outer circle of Connaught Place had transformed. This once bustling market place, with Nike showrooms and Nathu ka Dhaba, looked like a large bulldozer had razed it to the ground. The screech of ambulances’ sirens saturated the air; the flashing beacons of police cars threw choppy red chunks of light over the market place. There were puddles of blood on the concrete ground, people’s belongings buried under debris, dead bodies wrapped in white cloth with red blotches on the fabric.

And there were people running. Running into each other, running away from the market, running to take cover from the bomb that had already exploded. The market place, one of the most thriving in the country, had been brutally shut down, its life ripped away from it.
 
“Shailendra, focus here, yaar. We are in a hurry focus – Sorry! The scene here looks positively horrendous, can you hear me, Adidev?”

“Yes, go on, Parmita, what have you got for us?”

“The death toll … 139 people. Multiple bombs in the area... 2 more bombs planted here… but the bomb squad has diffused them. The range has been huge, around 250 meters completely destroyed. The main blast come from a Foremost Delivery courier drop box… disguised as a parcel… involvement of the LuD… investigations are on. Parmita Mathur reporting live from New Delhi, with camera man Shailendra Verma.”

Sweety got up silently and shut the TV off. Her hand clammy with sweat, her lip quivering ever so slightly. Alia was silent, too. She stared at the TV screen, blinking away the tears that were trying to spill onto her cheeks. Alia got up from her seat, trying to steady herself by clutching at the armrest.

“I… I  think. I think I think I… listen just just don’t look for Aijaz. Not right now. You should go home. Just uhh… let him be. Just let him go,” Sweety said between broken, strained breaths.

“Yes, umm, I think, I believe I should go home,” Alia said in a tensed whisper. “What are you going to do? I – I think I can drop you home. Maybe I should.”

“Listen. Just be careful and go – go home. I’ll try to… clean this place. Theek? You go.”

Both girls stayed in their places and looked around them silently. The pink room felt suffocating, oppressive in its disorder and quiet. The blank screen of the TV stared at the girls as they stood confused about their next steps. There were no sirens or loud noises outside the beauty parlor, but the calm was scary and girls chose to stand still.

Sweety looked from Alia to the TV and then to the floor, her cheeks getting redder and her head warmer. She fought her tears but they rebelled against her will and began pouring out of her kohl-lined eyes like a smooth cascading waterfall. Alia looked around the room before uneasily allowing her gaze to settle on her crying friend. Sweety could see questions and concerns and fears written all over her face.

“Alia,” sobbed Sweety, taking a gulp of air between the two syllables.

Neither girl said more but they had the same questions. Was she close to the Foremost Delivery box when that parcel was dropped in there? Was that person who dropped it in near her? Did she talk to him when she bought her morning tea? And, worst of all, the question that they didn’t want to ask: what was in the parcel that Aijaz gave her?

Alia walked slowly to the door and turned around to face Sweety. She looked unsure of her next steps and swerved just the slightest as she steadily held onto the doorknob. Sweety looked at her through eyes glazed over by thick tears, and shook her head slightly.

“Hey, listen, are you going home now?” she asked Alia quietly.

“I think so. Should I?” Alia asked, looking around uncertainly.

“No, I mean yes. You should go ahead and go home. Is your driver still outside?” Sweety asked, her voice shaky.

“Yes, he should be outside. You sure you will be fine here?”

“Yeah, I think I will be. You go.”

Sweety watched Alia slowly walk out of the beauty parlor, her steps unsure and her gait unhurried. Sweety immediately pulled open a drawer, counted out a thousand and sixty five rupees, closed it shut silently, put the notes in her purse, and began cleaning the parlor. She thought it might unclutter her mind to get rid of the excess and filth in the tiny room. Sweety dusted the cushions, swept the floor, threw out empty lotion and cream bottles, removed hair from the many hair brushes, scrubbed the counters clean, arranged the chairs in a small circle, and stood back to look at the result of her labor. She breathed heavily in the same spot for a few minutes. She picked up her purse and walked out of Sweety’s Beauty Parlor.

Sweety skipped the bus stop and walked on home. She was scared. Maybe some police car would follow her. Maybe someone would stop to question her. She had no answers but had many, many questions. As she turned the corner into Hauz Khas, she began running. She ran with all that she was worth, tears running down her cheeks. She was afraid of answering her questions and also aware of a deep anger welling up inside her. Part of her knew, or was certain enough, about the parcel she had posted. There could be no other explanation. Why else was Aijaz’s phone always busy? Why was he never reachable? What was he doing when he wasn’t with Alia? She had not trusted him fully and had thought of him as a heartbreaker. She had sometimes thought about his absences and his excuses but never really allowed herself to think too much about them, lest she begin to believe something that wasn’t true. But today, as she ran through the uncharacteristically empty Hauz Khas, she let her mind wander to that morning. She began to get angry with him, with herself. And soon, the anger merged with an acute worry that someone might see her running and stop her to ask questions. What would a sweat drenched woman sprinting through the empty streets of the capital mean to a person hurrying home from Connaught Place?

“Take this parcel and drop it off for me?” Aijaz the tall, lanky boy from Benares had asked.

She ran until she could run no more, until her sides ached and her mouth was parched, until her eyes closed and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She collapsed on the sidewalk, right next to an open drain. The smell of ammonia and rotting garbage rose up to her nose.

“Don’t forget. By 9am this morning. If you don’t drop it off, Alia won’t be able to come to Benares. You want your best friend to be happy right? You know she will cry for days if she finds out you forgot. Now you don’t want that, do you? Remember it’s a surprise so don’t open your mouth or the package. Foremost Delivery drop box, Connaught Place,” the rascal had said.

The street was deserted, not a soul could be seen. As if in a trance, Sweety got up again and walked on slowly. She dragged her feet on the concrete, her footsteps slow and heavy as if lugging large iron weights.

“Of course not, Aijaz. I won’t forget. First thing after this chai. Right before I get to the parlor. I promise,” Sweety had said, happy that this rascal had finally decided to pay more attention to her best friend.

Sweety was now in the Okhla Industrial Area. She wiped her dirty face with her large stole and, fixing her hair, walked into her little home.

“I knew you would not disappoint me,” the boy who had no home, who had never seen the Ghats of Benares, had said.

It looked like no one was home, for the lights were off and there was no sound, not even that of faint breathing. Sweety went into her room and bolted the metal door behind her. She should have demanded that Aijaz open the parcel in front of her, never mind that there was no right way of doing that.

She grabbed the water bottle beside the bed and drank the entire contents. Then, moving quickly, she took out a small overnight bag out of her broken tin cupboard. She counted all the money in there, six thousand and fifty rupees, and added the thousand and sixty five to the stack and placed it next to her on the bed. From this, she extracted five thousand rupees and wedged the folded notes between her breasts in her bra. She tied the other notes together with a rubber band and went into Nida aunty’s room. Quietly placing the notes under aunty’s pillow, she walked out from the room and then the home. She hailed the only auto-rickshaw she could see on the streets.

“Nizamuddin Railway Station, bhaiyya,” she directed the driver.

The auto-rickshaw cut through the unusually empty streets of the capital. She was going back to that railway station that had opened up a new life to her, made her Sweety from Radhika. It seemed like that glorious chapter of her life was coming to an abrupt, blood stained end. She hadn’t even caught one running train yet. She had not seen the entire capital or met half as many people as she had wished to. In just six months, her book of adventure was closing shut, her dreams left unrequited.

Tears came back to her eyes as she thought of the TV screen. Parmita Mathur’s voice reverberated in her mind, “the death toll has gone up to 139 people… The main blast seems to have come from a Foremost Delivery courier drop box…”

She closed her eyes and thought of Lucknow, the claustrophobic town she had left. She would have to go back to the stifling slowness of India’s worst kept state, back to her family, back to the people who had not called once. She shook her head no; they might not even take her back. She would sit in the first train that she could find and go wherever it took her. All she needed was to get out of the capital. Hoping and praying to avoid being recognized, Sweety turned her head away from the road and towards the back of the auto-rickshaw.

The auto-rickshaw slowed down at the entrance of Nizamuddin Railway Station and Sweety hurriedly handed him a few notes. She ran to the ticket counter and looked up at the man lazily sipping chai behind the glass divider.

With a steady voice she said, “One way to Benares, please. For Radhika Bansal.”