Rohan to Rohini (A Feel-Good Story)

Chapter 2: A Towel and a Place to Sit

The next Saturday came, and I waited for it all day.

For years, I had watched Mummy give Ananya champi. Ananya sat on the floor with a towel around her shoulders, and Mummy sat on the sofa behind her, rubbing oil into her hair while they talked about nothing. I always walked past them. I never thought I might want to sit there too. Now I couldn’t think of anything else. I wanted that feeling.

But Mummy didn’t say anything about it. Not at lunch. Not at tea.

By evening, she was on the sofa with her book, and I started to worry. Had she forgotten? Maybe she had only said it to be kind, the way people say “we must meet sometime”, and I was the only one who took it seriously.

I couldn’t ask her. Asking would show how much I wanted it.

So I stayed near her instead. I fixed the cushions, even though they were fine. I picked up the newspaper and put it down again. I stood near the window, where she could see me. When she looked up, I pushed my hair back from my face. A few minutes later, I did it again, slowly, as if it was bothering me.

She turned a page.

I felt silly. Twenty-four years old, and I was standing around my mother like a small child who wants a sweet but won’t ask for it. I put the newspaper down and walked towards the stairs. It doesn’t matter, I told myself.

I was on the first step when she said, “Come, Rohan.”

I stopped.

She had put her book down and was patting the floor in front of her. “Bring the oil. And get a towel. There’s an old one in the cupboard.”

I have never run so fast to get a towel.

I put it over my shoulders and sat on the floor in front of her, in the same place where I had seen Ananya sit so many times. The last time I sat like this, I was a small boy with a fever. At first I felt too big for it.

She poured a little oil into her hand and started rubbing it into my hair.

I kept wanting to turn around and see what she was doing. Then her fingers moved slowly over my head, and without deciding to, I leaned back into her hands.

“Like that?”

“Mm.”

She laughed. “You’ll fall asleep.”

I closed my eyes. Every time she moved her hands, I could feel the longer hair moving near my ears. She told me about her day at the bank. When I started to turn towards her, she put her hand on my forehead and turned me back.

“I can hear you from here.”

Usually I only heard about her day while she was packing her lunch or rushing upstairs to change. Sitting here, I could ask her something and wait for the answer. I realised I didn’t know most of the people she talked about. I wanted to know them.

When she finished, I didn’t move.

“Done,” she said, and pushed my shoulder gently.

“I know.”

She rubbed the back of my head one last time. I got up slowly. I didn’t want it to end.

After that, every Saturday, I kept the oil bottle downstairs. It became my favourite hour of the week. I never told her that.

One Saturday, Ananya did it instead of Mummy. After a few minutes, she stopped.

“Your hair has grown at the back,” she said. “Your collar keeps coming in the way when I do the ends. Can you take your shirt off?”

“No.”

It came out too fast. She waited.

“No,” I said again, more quietly. “It’s fine. Just do it like this.”

I didn’t explain, and she didn’t ask. But I knew why. I was thin, and my body had almost no hair. I had never liked anyone seeing it, not even at home. That was why I wore full-sleeved cotton shirts in the house, even in summer.

She went back to oiling, a little more carefully around the collar. When she finished, she wiped her hands on the towel.

“Next time, wear something without a collar,” she said. “A round-neck T-shirt or something.”

I looked at the soft, round neck of her kurta, and I felt something I didn’t have a name for. It wasn’t jealousy. It was more like finding something I had wanted for a long time without knowing it.

That night, I opened my cupboard. All my stiff collars looked like they belonged to someone else. I could have just bought a full-sleeved T-shirt. That was the simple answer. But at the back of the cupboard, I found an old grey cotton kurta. I had worn it only once, for a cousin’s wedding, years ago. Full sleeves, no collar, only a few buttons at the neck.

I held it for a long time before I put it on.

The next Saturday, Ananya did champi again. I came down in the grey kurta.

She put the towel around my shoulders. It sat nicely around the round neck, and nothing came in the way.

“This is much better,” she said. She started on the ends at the back, then stopped and looked at me. “It looks good on you too. Why don’t you wear clothes like this more often?”

I didn’t know what to say. Nobody had ever told me that something I wore looked good on me. Not like that, not as if they meant it. I looked down at my hands.

“Maybe I will,” I said.

After she finished, I didn’t take it off. The cotton was soft and moved easily when I reached for the cups. I had only meant to wear it for an hour. I slept in it that night. I had owned it for years, but it was the first time a piece of clothing felt like it was on my side.