Chapter 6: The Next Morning
On Monday morning, I put the green kurta in the wash. Three days was too long, even for something I loved.
I put on the grey kurta again. It was soft and comfortable, the same as always. But when I looked in the mirror, something was missing. I didn’t smile.
I was making tea when Mummy came into the kitchen, dressed for the bank, putting on her watch. She hadn’t said anything about the green kurta on Saturday. Or on Sunday.
She looked at me. “No more green today?”
I didn’t know she had even noticed. “In the wash.”
“Hmm.” She picked up her lunch box. “Actually, the green one suits you better than this one.”
I just nodded.
She left for the bank, just like any other morning.
When I turned around, Ananya was standing at the kitchen door. She had been listening the whole time. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.
After she left for the studio, I stood next to the stove with my tea going cold. It had taken Mummy two seconds to say it. I wanted to keep those words much longer than that. I think I still have them.
That evening, Ananya came into my room and put three folded kurtas on my bed: blue, off-white, and rust.
“For home,” she said. “I don’t wear these much. Try them first.”
Then she put a pair of plain black cotton leggings on top. “And these.”
“What for?”
“Your grey pyjama,” she said. “It was killing the green kurta all weekend.”
I laughed. I had thought the same thing in front of the mirror on Saturday. I hadn’t told anyone.
I unfolded one leg of the leggings. Next to my loose pyjama, it looked very narrow. “Will they fit?”
“They stretch. Try them with the blue one. If they’re not comfortable, we’ll find your size.”
We. She kept saying we.
That night, I tried the kurtas. The blue one sat easily on my shoulders, and it was longer than the green. The off-white one was comfortable too. The rust one was cut narrower, and it pulled across my back when I moved my arms. I took it back to her, feeling guilty, as if I was refusing a gift.
“Can you make it a little loose?”
“You don’t have to keep everything I give you,” she said. “Do you even like it?”
I looked at the heavy, dark cloth. “I like the blue one better.”
“Then wear the blue one.”
I had never thought I was allowed to choose.
The leggings stayed in my drawer for two days. I could imagine exactly how they would look with the blue kurta, and that was the problem. The green kurta, I could explain. It was borrowed. It was comfortable. But leggings felt different. Wearing them felt like saying out loud what I wanted to look like.
On the third afternoon, between two calls, I closed my door and put them on with the blue kurta.
I stood sideways in front of the mirror. Then I turned to the front. A long line of blue, and simple black below it. Everything matched now. I sat on the bed and stood up again. Nothing was tight. Nothing pulled. Nothing felt wrong at all. Somehow, that was harder than if it had.
My laptop made a sound. My weekly video call with Meera was in two minutes. For a second, I thought about changing. On the screen, she would only see the blue kurta, not the leggings. But that wasn’t the point. I would know.
I sat down and joined the call.
When it ended, I kept them on.
That evening, Ananya looked at the black leggings under the blue kurta.
“Okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “I like how they look.”
“Good.” She took another cup out for tea. That was all. And it was everything.
After that, I wore the blue kurta and the off-white one almost every day, with the leggings. The green one too, whenever it was dry. My shirts stayed folded in the cupboard.
The next week, on my call with Meera, I didn’t wait for her to notice.
“Ananya gave me these,” I said, and pulled at the sleeve of the blue kurta. Then I stood up and stepped back from the desk, so she could see all of it. The kurta. The leggings. All of me. “Do they look okay?”
Meera leaned towards her screen. For a second, she didn’t say anything.
“Okay, now I’m jealous,” she said. “Your sister has very good taste.” Then she smiled. “They look really nice, Rohan. Much better than the shirts you used to wear on our calls.”
I sat down again. My heart was beating fast, but I was smiling too.
“Now,” she said, “can we please talk about this report?”
Six weeks after the piercing, on a Sunday morning, Ananya knocked on my door.
“It’s been six weeks,” she said.
I knew. I had been counting.
We went back to the same market, to the same earring shop. The curved silver earrings with the tiny leaves were still there. Ananya picked them up and held them next to her face in the mirror.
“Still these?” she asked.
“Still those.”
She bought them. Then she turned to me. “Your turn.”
I looked along the glass counter for a long time. Then I saw a small pair of silver studs. On each one, there was a tiny leaf, the same pattern as hers, only much smaller.
I didn’t say anything. I just pointed.
Ananya looked at them, and then at her own earrings, and laughed. “Matching. Fine.” She bought those too.
On the way back, we walked past the clothing shops. I tried not to look. But I couldn’t stop. Kurtas on hangers outside the doors. Soft tops folded in the windows. A long cotton dress on a mannequin, with tiny flowers on it. Every time I looked, I looked away quickly.
Once, when I turned back, Ananya was watching me. She didn’t say anything. She just started walking a little slower, so I could look again.
At home, she helped me take out the first studs and put in the new ones. My hands were shaking too much to do it myself.
In the mirror, two tiny silver leaves.
I looked at them for a long time. Then I went to show Mummy.
That night, we were all watching TV. Ananya was on the sofa next to me, looking at clothes on Amazon on her phone. Every few minutes, she passed the phone to me.
“This one or this one?”
I didn’t say no. I looked at each one carefully, and I told her which one I liked. Then she took the phone back, scrolled, and passed it to me again.
After a while, she put the phone down. “Okay. Done.”
“Which ones did you choose?”
She smiled and turned back to the TV. “You’ll find out when they arrive.”
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