“You should have seen Armaan’s face, Naina!” Tanya jumps excitedly moments later when we are in Naina’s room. After opening the room door to us, Naina had flopped down on the bed and looked away.
“She can still see his face,” I remind Tanya and, understanding, she pulls out her phone, opens Instagram and thrusts it in Naina’s face.
“I don’t want to see it,” Naina says, turning away.
Ignoring her, Tanya goes on. “It was awesome. His eyes became red, and his nose started running, and he looked like his tongue was on fire!”
Naina sits up, looking agitated. “Was he in a lot of discomfort?” she asks, clearly still worried about that loser.
This irritates me, but I don’t say anything, letting Tanya do the talking. My mind has moved on to my mother and why she is headed towards that side of town. The side that makes my skin break out in goose pimples. The side I prefer to think doesn’t exist.
I was around eight when I realised that I simply hated visiting Nana and Nani in their house.
Bhaiya didn’t mind so much, but then he was so much older than me. I think my aversion to Tannery Road started the day I stepped into a pile of cow dung right outside Nani’s house, and my new sneakers and jeans were ruined – or maybe it was when I was chased by a couple of stray dogs down two lanes and no one had come to help me.
My house, the locality we live in, is so beautiful and green that the contrast continued becoming glaringly apparent, and the divide between the areas grew bigger and bigger. I would have loved to swear off visiting my grandparents and been perfectly happy meeting them at weddings or whenever they came to our home, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted I accompany her whenever she went to meet them and usually had to drag me along physically.
Bhaiya managed to escape these visits because he was almost always studying for some exam or the other. I, however, had to go to Tannery Road – in a foul mood, staying inside Nani’s house right until it was time to leave, taking along my books and games with me.
I found everything about Tannery Road claustrophobic.
The small boxy houses, the women who walked on the streets – faces entirely covered so you could just see their eyes – the all-enveloping kitschness of the locality... all so different from where I lived and what I was used to. My unhappiness was rather apparent, I think, because a few years later, Mom just kind of gave up forcing me, and I couldn’t have been more relieved.
So I guess a lot of this factored into my developing such an aversion to the area, while still leaving me with a morbid curiosity about it. In my head, Tannery Road was the worst place to live in Bangalore and, as I entered my teens, I started looking down on anyone who was from there. I didn’t openly show my disdain, but when it came to women especially, I tended to note what they wore, and how they wore it – I give a delicate shudder. Okay. That probably qualifies me as a judgemental bitch. But I don’t care. It is what it is.
I’m quite sure that if Nana and Nani lived somewhere else, someplace a little less cringeworthy, I’d have happily visited them more. And because of my reluctance to visit them, and my grandparents rare visits to our home, I don’t know them as well as I should.
Dad doesn’t quite know about my revulsion to Tannery Road, because even though Mom stopped trying, he still keeps asking me to visit them. Since his parents are no longer alive, and his siblings and relatives scattered all over the country and abroad, he wants us to stay connected to our only set of grandparents. And I’ve assured him I’ll try, but I haven’t made any real effort.
My thoughts are broken abruptly when Naina finally sees Armaan’s face on the phone. She looks at me, her eyes narrowed.
“You did this to him?” she asks. I shrug.
“Poor baby,” she whispers, running her finger across the screen as if she’s touching his face.
“Are you out of your mind?” I explode angrily. “The guy ditched you, and he flirted with me before I gave him the chilli wala toast. You actually feel sorry for him?”
“He’ll realise he’s made a mistake,” she says staunchly.
“When?” I ask, taking the phone away from her.
“Soon,” she mumbles.
“And he’ll come running to you? Oh please grow up. Tanya, tell her!” I say, exasperated, and stand up.
“Asmara’s right, Naina,” Tanya tells her more gently. “You can do so much better than that asshole.” At this, Naina starts crying, and we spend the rest of our time with her, consoling her, telling her how there are so many cuter guys out there.
“Aren’t you going to Mumbai for the holidays?” I ask her when she’s calmed down.
“Oh! What if you meet someone there?” Tanya pitches in, and I roll my eyes. I had been hoping to change the subject, after all.
“I don’t know,” she says listlessly. “My parents aren’t really sure about anything. I might go and I might not.”
“What about you?” Tanya turns to me. “Canada, right?”
“Yes! I’m so excited! I’m going to be an aunt!” I tell them, grinning widely.
“That’s so cool! I wish I had relatives abroad too,” Tanya thinks aloud.
“Relatives? Ugh, no. This is my brother! There’s a difference,” I qualify immediately. “Bhaiya is awesome.” And yes, it’s true. My brother, who is a good ten years older than me, has always been like a cooler version of my parents, and I’ve missed him ever since he moved to Canada.
“Whatever. Brother. Relatives. People. Just somewhere so you can escape this awful city in the summer and come back with loads of interesting stories,” Tanya sighs.
“She’ll be busy changing diapers mostly,” Naina says, and I smile, glad to see she’s back to sounding a bit more like her old self.
“Who me? No chance. Mom will do all that, and my bhabhi’s parents will be there as well,” I tell them. It’s the only thing I’m not looking forward to, because if they’re going to be there, it will totally cramp our style as a family.
“Still, it’s cool,” Tanya says enviously.
“Yup. I just can’t wait!” I grin back at her.
“When are you leaving?” Naina asks.
“The day after our exams get over. And I’ll be back after a month,” I tell them.
We chat a bit more and then settle down to watch Big Hero 6 for the fiftieth time.
“Baymax would have diagnosed me with heartbreak, no?” Naina says after some time.
“Umm, hearts don’t break over silly guys like Armaan. Baymax would have hugged you with his big, squishy body, and you’d be fine in minutes,” I say, throwing a pillow at her. “Here, imagine this is Baymax and hug it. Or better still, imagine this is Armaan and punch it as much as you want.”
Naina looks at me as though I’m mad. Then she looks at the pillow as if it’s really Armaan. She has this lovey-dovey expression on her face, and I cringe, thinking that she’s going to try and kiss the pillow, when she lands a big fat punch on it and says, “Take this. And this and this!”
Tanya and I join in too, and by the time we’re done, the poor pillow is quite dead!
Excerpted with permission from Asmara’s Summer, Andaleeb Wajid, Penguin Books.
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