A Long Way Home

  A LONG WAY HOME

  Mitali Meelan

  The more I discovered my light the less I was afraid of it, for the people basking in the sunlight, I realized, were built from their wreckage. They carried their scars like jewels on a crown and their voice felt like battle cries. And through the journey I learned I already had the wings to fly. I just needed to find the courage to take a leap.

  Contents

  PART ONE: Arihant

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  PART TWO: Ishaan

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  PART THREE

  ARIHANT

  ISHAAN

  ISHAAN

  ISHAAN

  ARIHANT

  ISHAAN

  ISHAAN

  ISHAAN

  TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS LATER

  Acknowledgements

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  Arihant

  CHAPTER 1

  Post 101

  Old habits die hard

  My friends always asked, ‘She took everything you had to give her, then left you for someone who offered her more, and you still pine for her love. What do you even see in her?’

  I wanted to tell them: it’s not what you see in a person, it’s what you feel when they’re around you. Sometimes, a person is your umbrella, shielding you from the pelting of a rainstorm. Sometimes, the person is the rainstorm.

  My ex-girlfriend, let’s call her Eve, was my rainstorm. She crashed unannounced into my life, but I’d like to believe she didn’t cause mayhem. If anything, she discovered the garden of words within me, which I didn’t know existed. And that changed the course of my life.

  My writing journey began when I wrote a poem for her in my first year and then didn’t stop writing even when the muse had long found another mind. Each time I thought about her, the ache came first, the words tumbled out next. But I was willing to take the assault of memories for the sake of my craft.

  Maybe that is the reason why I never held any feelings of hatred in my heart for Eve, like my friends claimed I ought to. A person who taught me to love could never replace that part in me with something as wasteful as hatred.

  But unfortunately, this thought process never gave me enough strength to stay friends with her. I am a human after all, with all the desires, hopes and pain intact. If anything, my lack of courage to remain friends helped me to move on.

  Or so I liked to believe.

  It’s funny that even now, after all this time, I think about her randomly during the day. A certain mannerism in a stranger, the smell of a perfume, an old piece of music. Anything could bring back the memories. And there’s one thing I’d realized; sometimes hearing a song, walking by a familiar place, finding an old picture or discovering a forgotten piece of cloth could do just as much damage as the person’s goodbye.

  ‘Why am I writing all this,’ you ask?

  Today, while scrolling down my newsfeed and thinking about what I wanted to write in my next blogpost, I stumbled upon a friend’s old picture of our college annual function. And that triggered a memory.

  Eve and I last met about a year ago at the same place.

  I was standing behind her at the juice counter, but being all of five feet, she was lost in the crowd. Even I, the person who couldn’t see anything past her for years, barely noticed her. So while I pushed forward, squeezing my way up to the counter, she elbowed me in the gut.

  ‘Stay back!’ she squealed, finally cracking in the chaos. ‘I’m ahead of you!’

  Hearing that voice, all thoughts evaporated from my mind. We looked at each other and her exasperated expression suddenly brightened. Her eyes widened, lips spread in a smile, and I backed up a few steps, both mentally and physically.

  I was not prepared to see her there.

  She received her order and waited for me in a quiet corner, away from the thickening crowd. I joined her a moment later.

  ’Hey!’ she greeted me with one of her goofy smiles. I tried to return it but I’m sure I failed. ‘You still use this jacket?’ she asked me, of all the things she could have said.

  The wound was fresh back then, and I hopeful. It hurt to see how casual this sudden encounter was for her, that it didn’t affect her as much as it was affecting me. But the next moment, hearing her voice—the same high-pitched, singsong tone—my stomach turned, my mind shrinking back at the thought of seeing her with someone else. I could almost see my mirror image shaking its head, telling me I should give up on the idea of ever truly moving on.

  ‘Yes,’ I said and found myself wanting to say the right thing. I looked behind her, to see if her boyfriend was around, the one she left me for.

  ‘How long have you had it?’ she asked, bringing the drink closer to her lips.

  ‘Longer than I had you,’ I said, throwing an underhanded and completely uncalled-for comment at her. It changed the look in her eyes to something that said she remembered everything, and just as vividly as I did. She sipped her drink quietly.

  I regretted saying it, but then again, not much. She’d been bundled up in this jacket so many times, I sometimes felt like I could smell her on it. But it was probably just the memory. Memories never let you forget what you don’t want to remember.

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘It’s okay.’ I cut her off, and then pushed aside the images of her with her new lover. A week before she informed me that she was breaking up because she liked someone else, I saw her with the guy in her building.

  ‘You chose him,’ I told her, ‘and I was no one to stop you.’ I assumed she’d apologized for jumping ships, although it was pretty late for that now.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, pursing her perfect lips that I had to force myself to look away from, ‘I was going to say I’m sorry for blocking your way.’

  ‘Oh,’ I murmured, then cleared my throat. ‘Right. It’s … it’s fine,’ I added and took a sip of my pineapple juice, which was salty and too watery.

  She probably sensed this wasn’t a pleasant meet like she’d hoped it would be. ‘Do you still write?’ she asked, clearly changing the topic.

  I wanted to break the tension between us, be my casual funny self around her like I used to be. So I joked, ‘Well, that’s the only thing that refuses to leave me.’ I assure you it sounded funnier in my mind before I said it out loud.

  She blinked at the response, then her eyes wandered like they did when she wanted to get away from a situation. ‘So, I guess I’ll see you around?’ she asked, not really meeting my gaze. I wondered if she meant it.

  I nodded, not trusting my tongue to say something appropriate. After giving me a small smile, she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  I didn’t hear from her after that. Not on social media, not on phone.

  No matter what I claim, what I let my friends and myself believe, after all the fights, tears, misunderstandings and long silences, sometimes all I wish to tell her is ‘Stay’.

  CHAPTER 2

  E

  ve—or Arvi’s—message sat in my WhatsApp inbox.

  It was only a week ago that I had written a blogpost about our college fest encounter.
The post garnered fourteen messages, ranging from an empathetic ‘that’s relatable’ to a ‘hang in there, it gets better’ attempt at consoling me. I wrote one personal blogpost every week and, if I had the time, a review of sorts—of either a book or a gadget.

  Today, I was writing a review of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, a modern classic. But halfway through writing it, I received a text from the number I immediately recognized.

  I was momentarily distracted, but gathered my thoughts and went back to finishing the review. Once I was done writing it, I hit ‘publish’. The post graced the front page of my blog and finally, I let myself open her chat window.

  She was still online, albeit silent. I clicked on her profile picture. She was standing outside the entrance of California Pizza Kitchen, her white, crooked incisors flashing brightly to the camera, a blurred figure of a boy passing by. She’d had this picture on for the past four months. She usually changed her DP every two weeks.

  Suddenly, her online status turned to ‘typing…’, pacing the beats of my heart, but only for the briefest of moments. Then it vanished, like she’d deleted the letters, changed her mind and retreated from the battleground. Now she seemed to wait probably for me to say something first, since that was what she was used to.

  But what do you even say to someone who pops in and out of your life on whims and expects to be welcomed each time they utter a ‘hey’? If anything, the one who waits deserves a sincere paragraph of apology.

  But I guess, with Arvi, I’d be lucky to get a sentence.

  The thing is she was never a good conversationalist. Not that I held it against her, though it got annoying at times. Her chats usually opened with something like ‘u der’ and ‘wadup!’ or ‘nice dp’. While I sent her—back when we were together—something like ‘At a café with friends. The coffee residue at the bottom of my cup reminds me of the tangled mesh of your hair post a long auto ride. When is the next time I get to run my fingers through it?’ or ‘Hail the photographer who defeats a writer. That picture is worth a million words’.

  If not anything poetic, I would simply send her a ‘What are you up to?’ with no abbreviated words. Call me weird, but it just showed I respected her enough to type the entire word. Besides, how much time did one even save by abbreviating ‘you’?

  But as clichéd as this might sound, being a writer could be a curse in a world that functioned on promptness and brevity. You have so much to say, and sometimes you say it better than anyone else could, but there aren’t people patient enough to listen.

  This time, though, I was going to be the listener. Whatever Arvi had to say, she would need to say it up front, no prodding.

  While Presley sang ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ in my ears, I heard an insertion of a key in the main door, the lock twisting open. The soft glow of moonlight made the movements barely visible. I took off my headphones.

  Ishaan, with his loosened tie, the top button of his shirt open and his bag hanging from his shoulder, trudged in, dragging the weight of the world behind him. He switched on the living room light and, discovering me awake, stopped in his tracks.

  Every time I saw him, he appeared to have lost a kilogram or so. We were about the same height, five-nine and six, but he was a lot thinner than I. Ishaan was only five years elder to me, but he looked old enough to pass as my father.

  I tossed aside the blanket from over my legs and sat up. ‘You’re late,’ I told him and threw a glance at the wall clock above him. ‘By a day.’

  He put his helmet on the shoe rack, the only thing he had that I envied. Of course, the bike along with it. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, not sounding too interested, which was unsurprising.

  ‘What do you think?’

  His eyes narrowed, his mouth turned down at the corners, as he took in the room. Four helium balloons had floated to the roof, white cloth was draped over the table with an empty plate, crumbs of dark chocolate on it. The window opened to the view of a dumping ground at the back of our old building. A cheap ‘Happy Birthday’ streamer hung loose across it, holding on to the Sellotape. It would leave ugly marks on the wall tomorrow.

  His eyes rested on me, not remotely impressed. ‘What is all this?’

  ‘It was Saloni’s idea.’ I shrugged. ‘She said we hardly ever do anything fun around here.’

  ‘What are we? Five?’ He wriggled out of his shoes.

  ‘It wasn’t so bad. The food was delicious.’ My words ricocheted right off him. Ishaan tossed his shoes on the rack, his bag on a plastic chair and took off his tie on his way to the kitchen. ‘You know, you could have just told us that you didn’t want to celebrate,’ I said, stretching my legs. Travelling home, especially on a weekday, made them a little sore. ‘We wouldn’t have done all this.’

  He threw me a look. ‘You know me for how many years?’

  True, he was the last person to want any kind of birthday celebration. I was a bit surprised when Saloni called to tell me she was planning a surprise for him and I had to be there, had to, had to, had to.

  He washed his hands, scooped some water in his palms and splashed it on his face. Ishaan was always an ungrateful bastard, but I never took him for a liar.

  ‘Where were you though?’ I asked him, sounding as casual as I could.

  He dabbed his face with a hand towel. ‘In office.’

  ‘Really. So you must be invisible. Because when I called hours ago, they told me you had already left.’ I gauged his reaction, half expecting an outburst. Honestly, I didn’t like to work him up, but he was so easy to tick off that, at some point, it had started becoming fun. Opening the refrigerator door, he stopped and turned, any residual mirth gone from his eyes.

  ‘Girlfriend?’ I wiggled my eyebrows.

  ‘Stay the hell out of my life.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not interested in your life.’ I held up my hands in defence. ‘I just called because Baba told me to. I didn’t want to worry them, so I lied you were still caught up at work.’

  He took out a bottle of water and flung the door shut. ‘So? Should I thank you?’

  ‘I’m just saying.’ I shrugged. ‘I didn’t do it for you.’ I did it for our parents, so they could have a good sleep, but he would need another lifetime to understand that.

  He twisted the bottle cap open with more force than was necessary. ‘Don’t breeze into this house whenever you want and pretend like you care.’

  I narrowed my eyes. Pretend? Okay, that was a line crossed.

  ‘Mom slept without eating anything, waiting for you. Saloni has been saving up her pocket money to get you a watch. She was more excited than you were. So, contrary to what you think, I do care about my family.’ I didn’t add the fact that I had left my office two hours early to be here. I would have to work overtime the next day as a compensation. But I didn’t want to rub that in his face. Mostly because I already knew his response.

  ‘I’ll take the watch from her tomorrow,’ he said, as if that solved the problem. Talking to Ishaan was like hitting your head against a wall and expecting the bricks to crack. ‘And Mom is just dramatic. I’m tired of telling her not to wait for me to have her dinner.’

  ‘Well, you know how she is. You can try and understand—’

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do,’ he snapped and I involuntarily glanced at the closed door of the only real bedroom this house had, where I knew the three of them slept soundlessly. He took the half-full bottle of water and his bag to the storeroom, which doubled as his bedroom.

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I just came to wish you a belated—’ He shut the door in my face.

  That went well…

  I stared at the old wooden barrier and muttered, ‘Happy birthday’, then walked back to the bhartiya baithak in the living room, my make-shift bed in this house for as long as I could remember.

  CHAPTER 3

  S

  plash! The Pulse of Youth magazine’s office was on the seventh floor in a sleek commercial building off New Link Road, opp
osite Rise & Shine Café. Across the road, beyond the street food corner, was a small garden I frequently visited to write my novel, often on a Sunday morning. No one bothered you even if you were to sit there all day. You could bring your own food and leave whenever you liked. It was an ideal hideout to let my mind wander.

  My office didn’t have the fanciest interior as compared to the others, but there was something about it that made me want to stick around. Maybe it was the youthful energy that buzzed through the space. Everyone working at Splash! was under thirty. There was no pressure to wear formals; laughter ricocheted off the walls whenever someone in one corner cracked a joke and it toured all the way to the other end. People were generally friendly and welcomed suggestions from all if it meant the final issue would turn out to be better.

  Despite being on the lowest rung of the hierarchy, I had given inputs on how we could market the February issue better online and told the creative team why a picture they had chosen wasn’t working for the write-up I had proofread. They hadn’t incorporated all the inputs, but they had sat up and taken notice.

  The owner, Jasmine Nair, wasn’t any different—authoritative but friendly. I didn’t interact much with her through the day, but whenever I did, it was somewhat informal. A twenty-nine-year-old frizzy-haired, dark-skinned south Indian beauty who co-founded this magazine only seven years ago, she let you be as long as you did your job well. She also insisted we call her by her first name, something I was yet to get used to.

  ‘Morning, Arihant. How was the party?’ Jasmine asked as I entered her cabin.

  I had left home that morning after hastily brushing my teeth, washing my face and changing only my T-shirt, to catch the less crowded local to Dadar, then Borivali, followed by a bus ride. It took me two-and-a-half hours to reach the office, which was one of the reasons why I stayed away from home and avoided going there during weekdays.

  ‘It was okay,’ I told her. ‘A little hectic.’

  ‘It shows,’ she said, gesturing to a chair. ‘You don’t look too well rested.’