Your Brother and I

“Moti bhains!” A shrill voice pierced the evening stillness making Navneet jump out of her skin and reverie. A dull ache started from behind her left ear and threatened to spread throughout her head. 

She turned her head sharply to locate the source of the shrill tone and found a fast receding thin frame clad in track pants and t-shirt running in the opposite direction. It was Shruti Yadav, her neighbor, her classmate and a constant source of irritation.

Navneet continued walking towards her house. She also decided not to take the shortcut through the park anymore from college to reach home.

Shaking her head to clear the jarring echo, Navneet aka Navi, started walking faster. When she reached the wrought iron gate of her house, she opened it and let it bang against the wall till it rattled, making, Koyla Ram, the dog, jump and hide behind the rose bush.

Navi looked up at the sky and said, “I just wish one day she grows so fat that she can’t get inside her house. Then she would stop bothering me!”

She hurried towards her house and when inside, ducked her mother’s glances and hurried to her room. Fat tears were threatening to escape and run down her cheeks.  

Navi was not fat by any standards. She was just healthy, as any Punjabi worth her salt would say. She had the correct “figure” to entice a man and keep him, her wizened old grandmother, daadi, would say. Now what did daadi know about enticing men and keeping them? Navi would often ponder, into many nights spent licking her wounds, given by girls at college, and earlier, her school. She had been a plump teenager and had become a happily plump young woman.

Daadi had had an arranged marriage when she was sixteen and had three children by the time she turned twenty. She didn’t have to bother about keeping her man (who would want to even hit on Dadaji!) by dressing up or showing her cleavage.

Navi ran inside her room, banged the door shut, and hurriedly removed her kurta. Standing in her slip and pyjamas, she carefully inspected her teenaged body. At nineteen, she was quite well endowed. Compared to the reed-thin Shruti who had started to fill out only a few months back, Navi had a voluptuous body, combined with thick black hair that fell below her hips.

She always wore her hair in a plait and ensured any loose tendrils were carefully tucked behind her ears. Her mother had always told her to walk slowly and not to look up at any passerby. She was also told not to talk to strange men, unless they were her father’s friends, or uncles from the society. Her mother would often say, “Only indecent girls walk with a swagger and hold their heads high.”

“What If I hit a pole if I don’t look up and walk?” Navi would ask in all innocence. 

“Ohho, Navi, now you don’t have to do that, just don’t keep staring and ogling at men and others. Avert your eyes beta.” Sunita Verma, Navi’s mother would chuckle.

Navi took this advice seriously and would never look into the eyes of any man. She slowly got a reputation of a wall flower, but she didn’t care, since, she was unaware of it. The main reason behind this rumor was Shruti.

Shruti and Navi had been friends as kids, but as they grew older, Shruti became aware of her tomboyish body and plain looks. When she realized that Navi was getting all the attention, she started pouring out her jealousy in words. When Navi realized that Shruti was the one who was spreading false rumors about her, she stopped talking to her. They also had a melodramatic showdown in front of their class mates. It went down as the best girl-fight in the history of the school. 

After that day, they became sworn enemies. As fate would have it, their parents were good friends and put them in the same college. But, the girls refused to bury the hatchet.

Jabrumal Kirorilal College was a popular choice because of its strict principal, Shrimati Kamala Devi. Students often whispered that her husband had eloped with a young secretary, which was the reason behind her stern outlook. She punished any students indulging in campus romances and frowned upon girls who flirted with boys.

The girls had fun at her expense and Kamala Devi remained blissfully unaware of this.

Frowning and crunching up her nose, Navi inspected herself fully in the mirror and decided that she would sacrifice her daily mithai till she lost the bulge on her hips. If she also exercised a bit, maybe she would become like Shruti… she day dreamed.

“Navi, eh Navi, open the door, what are you doing? Why have you locked the door?”

“Coming Ma, just changing my dress,” shouted Navi and quickly got into her night dress and rushed to open the door.

Her mother was standing outside the door with a box of sweets.

Looking down at the box, Navi realized her task. “No mummy, please, I will not go to her house.”

Sunita looked distressed, she nodded her head, and said, “Ok, my knees are already hurting, in this age, I can’t do so much running around, you know. How I wish I had a son to do my bidding, instead of this lazy daughter.”

“You started again, is it?” Groaned Navi and grabbed the box of sweets from her mother’s hands and asked, “Who is it this time, the mother or the grandmother?”

“The mother,” replied Sunita with a sly smile on her lips.

Sunita was great friends with Rachna Yadav, Shruti’s mother. Sunita’s sister lived in Mumbai and incidentally was a neighbor of Rachna’s mother. Whenever Rachna’s mother visited them and returned, Sunita would send some homemade sweets to her sister in Mumbai. And Navi would become the courier girl each time.   

Navi grumbled under her breath and walked out of the house and into the Yadavs’ house. She rang the bell and waited. She was about to ring the bell again when a strong arm closed on her wrist, twisted it behind her back, and made her yell in pain.

“Caught you, you prankster. You didn’t find any other house to disturb, is it. Let me teach you a lesson.” Barked a deep male voice, just behind her left ear.

“What did I do?” Cried the bewildered Navi, trying to break free.

“Ma, Papa, Naani, please come fast. See I caught her, she was about to ring the bell and run off again. Please come quickly.” Cried the male voice.

“I didn’t ring the bell, I am…” Protested Navi only to be cut off rudely.

“You did, you did that thrice, now you are lying when I caught you.” He said.

When Shruti’s parents and grandmother arrived at the scene, a brief drama ensued and Navi was free from the clutches of the monstrous owner of the deep male voice.

Who is he? Wondered Navi, rubbing her throbbing wrists.

They trouped inside the house, where Rachna cluck clucked over Navi’s wrists and applied a soothing gel over the burning portion, and Naani pampered Navi with a sweet laddoo. Meanwhile, all of them gave a piece of their minds to the deep male voice, aka Rahul Yadav, Shruti’s elder brother.

Navi had played with Rahul as a child, but had not seen him for ages. He was studying in some university in Mumbai and stayed with his Naani. After finishing his studies, he had attended a few campus interviews and had got an offer from TCS. Now he had come home to be with his parents before he joined his new job. He had not recognized the grown up Navi so he had thought she was the child who had irritated them earlier by ringing the calling bell and running away.

Now as he looked at her closely, he realized he must be blind to mistake her for a child. She was well, nicely rounded, shapely, and, damn, so pretty. Was she so pretty as a child? He couldn’t actually remember her face. He could just recollect a long plait with red ribbons and a fair chubby face. He had never thought Navi would grow up to become so pretty.

Rahul was finding it very difficult to take his eyes off Navi.

Meanwhile, Navi was feeling a lot better and she remembered to hand over the box to Rachna and conveyed her mother’s message. She also said her mother couldn’t come since her knees were acting up again.

Navi then got up to go and happened to look in Rahul’s direction. She was still smarting at the way he had manhandled her. She threw an angry glance at him, but was slightly taken aback by the way he was looking at her. She got up, smoothed her dress and announced that she should be getting home soon, her mother would be worrying.

Everybody told her to go carefully and Navi said her byes and walked out. When she was about to cross the threshold, she looked back into the living room and met Rahul’s eyes. She felt she was inside a Bollywood movie, when the hero had eyes only for the heroine and the others couldn’t see or hear them. She felt as if he was willing her to turn and look at him, and was trying to suck her inside his black-brown eyes, with a mere glance. She had never seen such passion in anybody’s eyes, never for herself. In fact she wouldn’t know because she had never made eye contact with any man.

Somehow, breaking the eye contact, she managed to turn around, and walked out, quickly walking through the open gate and into her compound. She rushed inside the house and went to find her mother. She relayed the news to her mother and told her she was going to sleep. Her mother who was preoccupied with dinner simply nodded her head.

Navi dream-walked into her room and sat down on the sofa. She put her foot up on the bed and pulled out the book she had borrowed from the college library, from her bag. She tried to focus but she kept hearing the deep voice as if a record player was running inside her head. She closed her ears to shut out the voice, but now she could see his face, on the pages of her book. Disgusted, she threw away the book and decided to sleep. What was with the siblings, their voices seemed to haunt her wherever she went!

Even sleep eluded her. She gave in and day dreamt about Rahul and how they had met, a few minutes ago. She tried to recollect how he used to look as a child, and was surprised to realize that he looked the same but for his voice and body. He had become so tall and handsome. Handsome, yeah, he had become incredibly good looking, but why was she thinking about him? True he gave her a look and all, but to think such a guy would even be remotely interested in her, was plain foolishness. But, what if he had also liked her and he was thinking about her? She would meet him everyday till he is around; they would go on dates, the way they show in movies. She will finally be able to change her damned status on Facebook from Single to Committed. Wow! Then she would be the most popular girl in college because she had such a good looking boyfriend. But, only if this guy feels the same way about me, only if he is thinking about me right now, only if…”                                         

Dreaming lazily about Rahul and how they used to play as kids, Navi slept off.

When she woke up, it was quite dark outside. Her room was bathed in moonlight as if the moon had been specially commissioned to provide light to her room. When she opened the door, she heard the soft murmurs.

She crossed the corridor that connected her room, her parents’ room to the living room, she stopped dead. There were at least fifty people in her living room and they were discussing something in hushed tones. When they sensed her presence, they stopped talking and looked at her.

They were all there. Rachna aunty, her husband, daadi, her parents, the entire Singh family (who lived across their house and had four nasty looking unfriendly dogs), their dogs (they seemed quite quiet), the entire Kapur clan (at last count they were thirty three living under the same roof), and of course the security guards.

How they fit inside her small living room was beyond Navi? She didn’t want to think about it now. Her stomach was growling and she wanted food badly. But, wait, why had they all assembled here? She had seen such a congregation last two years back when the Singhs’ only daughter ran off with the colony’s only paperwallah. Now the entire colony had assembled at their house not to discuss how to bring back the girl, but what to do about a new paperwallah.     

As fate would have it, the girl had returned the very next day, and peace was restored. The paperwallah had vanished though. Eventually, the Singhs got her married off to a distant cousin’s brother-in-law. They got a new paperwallah, a married man with two kids.  

Now, who had run off? thought Navi. She asked her mother, “What happened, Ma?”

“Beta…” Sunita narrated the entire story.

It turned out that Shruti was last seen in college. She had left as soon as Navi had started and had followed her. Shruti’s two best friends, Maya and Chaya, had been with her. They were witnesses to the incident in the park, when Shruti had called Navi a fat buffalo and sprinted off.

Now, the issue here was that neither had Shruti returned home nor did her friends know where she had gone. They claimed that they had seen her off at her gate and had gone off to their house, but had plans to meet that evening. They had not given much thought about her absence when they didn’t get her call. She was slightly moody and would forget to call.

Only when Rachna came looking for Shruti at their house did they realize that something was amiss. They had joined the search party which was threatening to make Gandhiji’s Dandi March look like smaller.

Now, Navi started getting worried.

After narrating the incident to Navi, her mother started talking to Rachna who was crying copiously. She was inconsolable.

She felt sad looking at Rachna aunty looking so distraught. She liked her a lot and for her sake, and only for her sake, she felt Shruti should be safe. Then she recollected the afternoon’s incident and shook her head. If she had vanished or eloped, good riddance.

When she went to sit down next to Rachna aunty, there was another murmur and the sea of humanity slightly parted to make way for a person who was trying to squeeze in. It was Rahul, looking, oh so handsome, and sad! Oh my god, he loves his sister and if she is not found, he will not smile, a worried Navi thought, all the while staring at the handsome face.

Rahul turned towards her, gave her a warm smile, that immediately filled her heart with love and…

Who was that behind him? Oh god, was it..? How did this happen?

Shruti came inside the room slowly, dragging herself with eyes downcast.

A collective sigh went up and Navi could not believe her eyes.

The thin, anorexic Shruti had bloated and now resembled a big hydrogen balloon with facial features.

Rachna’s rushed forward and attempted to gather her daughter in her arms. But, Shruti had bloated so much, she could not even stand without support from Rahul.

Getting over the initial shock, people in the room started bombarding Rahul with questions.

Where was she? What happened to her?

Rahul simply shook his head and looked at Shruti. Presumably, Rahul had gone to the police station to lodge a complaint with a photo of his sister. The inspector in charge called him aside and told him that they had been informed of an unconscious girl in front of Saheli, a popular beauty parlor, which Shruti frequented. The people standing at the bus stand had called the police.

Would he care to check if it was his sister?

When Rahul saw the girl, he had to rub his eyes to clear his vision. The face resembled his sister’s but, the body, oh god, this grotesque bloated body was somehow not his sister’s. He told the inspector so who told him that they would run some tests on the girl to prove her identity. Later they would try to find out what actually happened to her.

When Shruti recovered, she immediately recognized her brother, (this was not a case of amnesia) and hugged him tightly. Rahul took her to the local hospital where Dr. Dayal, their family doctor ran some tests and proved her identity.

Now that Shruti was their Shruti, everybody wanted to know how she became what she had become, and most importantly, how?

Shruti had no answer. She said she had gone to the parlor, she was her usual self then, when she walked out of the parlor, she couldn’t see the sunlight so she lifted her hand to cover her face, and fainted when she saw a giant hand instead of her puny, reed-thin hand.

How she managed to reach the police station, she didn’t know. She also had no idea how she became so fat within a few minutes. 

The human sea started dwindling slowly and by nine, people had gone home and had started snoring in their beds. Most of them had beaten the topic to death and had moved on to a newer topic.

Shruti was, almost forgotten. Nobody bothered why she had suddenly become fat, people were glad that she had been found.

Navi’s wish had come true. Rahul had actually fallen in love with her and proposed to her after two months of dating. The same day Navi changed her FB status from Single to Committed. And, she also clicked the Confirm Friend request that had been pending for two months.

Shruti was after all, family now.