As a child, Saira only ran everywhere; never walked. She ran to school, ran errands, ran to her friends' houses, ran to dance class and once, ran away from home too. Saira was a perpetual blur against the green trees that lined their lane. The only time she could be seen in clear focus was when she was with Robert and Ananya – her best friends in the whole wide world.
The trio had many names in the neighbourhood – ‘The Three Musketeers’, ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’, ‘Tridev’, ‘The Terrible Three’ (this one, they came up with themselves.) Ananya, Saira and Robert were a singular unit, blissfully unaware of the hardly hidden envy in the tones of anyone who observed their complete absorption with each other. The legend in their families (now left with no option but to befriend each other too) was that on the first day of kindergarten, Little Saira (the reigning queen who tolerated no pet names) took one look at teary-eyed, Little Ana refusing to leave her mother, walked up to her, held her hand and pulled her to where Little Rob seemed have been waiting for an eternity. He handed them all the toys he had managed to secure from the rest of the kids and after that the three of them promptly forgot the existence of everyone else.
Saira’s running away story goes like this: 5-year-old Saira's Ammi refused to allow her to go and play with the Robcat and NyaNya, till after lunch. Lunch was still about 15 minutes in coming and the wait was long and hard. Besides, hungry was the last thing Saira was. So, she decided to slip out and run to play anyway. But Ammi had secured the topmost latch of the front door. (Cheater, cheater!) So, Saira simply climbed down the balcony.
It was pretty easy: just two floors and different levels of railings and parapets. The final leap to the ground was a tough one, but she sailed down because her frock was obviously a parachute.
But when they finished playing, Saira had to climb the staircase and enter through the front door like a normal person. She stood on tiptoe, rang the bell and Ammi yanked open the door, cordless phone held aloft. She looked at her impudent daughter with bewilderment, realisation, relief and anger- a mixed potion of strong emotions – dragged Saira in and threatened to send her away to the circus, which thrilled rather than scared Saira. She was determined to climb down the balcony again, so her parents would carry out their threat. But her parents craftily got iron grills fitted in the balcony. They also laid a line of potted plants on the sill for good measure.
"I live in a jail," thought Saira, as she peered through leaves and flowers and iron rods at the cluster of sparrows fluttering below in the building compound.
‘Deshpande Puram’ despite the name, wasn’t a jail but in fact, was quite a progressive colony in a sleepy, residential area of Pune. Robert and Saira’s family made up the diversity quotient and there were even two bachelors living in the Kamath apartment (though, the householders were wary of the polite smiles of the young men as they drove by double-seat on their motorcycle.) Mrs. Soman provided enough maal for gossip and sympathy, what with her always ‘on tour’ husband and freshly adolescent daughter – Pallavi. Comedy elements were added by the Tipnis’ noisy, teetotaller Pomeranian – Tipsy, and the reticent, always tipsy watchman – Baban, who took her for walks because of Mrs. Tipnis’s bad knees. It was Ananya, who pointed out this cross connection between Baban and Tipsy. “Isn’t it funny,” she said one day, when the three of them sat on the compound wall watching Baban tug Tipsy away from other interested dogs, “that a drunk man leads a sober dog on a leash every day?” Anya would never share her observations unless it was just the three of them alone and so Robbie and Saira always paid special attention when she did. Their wise friend was sharing a precious bit of her philosophical insight with them and they recognized the privilege. The three friends sat and pondered about the mysteries of pets, intoxication and power till it was time to part for dinner. They went back to their separate apartments, ate separate cuisines, while still inhabiting their one world.
Robert learned to stay away from the cunning world of men, quite early in his life. On his eighth birthday, his Dad bought him two hot-wheel cars that completed his vintage set of eight. Robbie spent hours arranging and rearranging the exquisite miniatures on his book shelf, on the foot of his bed, on the window sill and avant-garde style, on the kitchen counter. Saira and Ananya always came to admire his carefully curated car exhibitions, but given their current conditioning, their interest in automobiles was rather limited.
So, one day, desperate for a discerning audience and critical acclaim, Curator Robert invited a fellow-enthusiast, Kapil to see his exhibition. The events that transpired were succinctly summed up (Famous Five style) by Ananya as ‘The Case of Car-crazy Robster and Carnivorous Kapil.’
The exhibition was so good that Kapil couldn’t control his collector’s greed. He made the guileless Robert an offer he couldn’t refuse – Eight mint condition hot-wheels in exchange for one rickety Ferrari with chipped paint but doors that opened upwards. (Even the completely automobile-ignorant Ana shut her eyes and shook her head while Robert tried his best to defend this logic.) But what made Saira pace around in fury was that when Robert had finally realised his folly and tried to retract the deal, Kapil had pushed and bitten him. There were two tiny, vicious red marks near Robbie’s cute, now-reddened right ear and Saira couldn’t bear it. She stormed to Kapil’s house with a trembling Robcat and a resigned Nyanya in tow and demanded that the coward come out of his room to face the consequences of messing with The Terrible Three. Finally, after much name calling and door banging, adult intervention was required to drag Saira away from mauling Kapil. He returned six of the eight hot-wheels, claiming he had lost two in another loss-making venture, leaving Robert right back where he was before his eighth birthday.
Saira got her revenge, the next day at school, when she tipped a whole bottle of ink into Kapil’s school bag. It earned her much disrepute but she bore her punishment (copying out Kapil’s history and maths classwork for him) with dignity and Kapil was reminded of his close call with mortality by ink-stained textbooks for the rest of the year.
As for Robert, getting his ear almost bitten off made him understand something about the gendered world – Men fight for greed and women fight for justice. Business sense was never Robert’s strong suit and after this incident he decided to always consult his girls before taking major life decisions. He didn’t care that the other boys called him a sissy and wished him for International Women’s Day. He knew where he would be safe and he intended to stay that way for the rest of his life.
The summer holidays of the trio’s ninth year brought some more disturbance into their lives. Ananya was taken away on a family trip by her parents and Robert and Saira rode their bikes around the hot, deserted afternoon streets like lost puppies till she came back. One look at Ana when she got out of the car told the other two that an emergency Terrible Three conference would need to be convened immediately. Accordingly, they met under the banyan tree in the dead-end lane as soon as their parents set them free after lunch that day. None of them had eaten well.
Ana began on an esoteric note. “I am Ananya Joshi. But I am not Ananya Joshi,” she announced seriously to four ears, six eyes (Roberto wore spectacles by then) and two keenly concerned faces. The fact that Ananya was an adopted child didn’t matter to her chosen family. The unconditional love and acceptance in Saira’s breathtaking hug and Robster’s solemn offer to help hunt down her ‘real’ parents, should have been enough to make Nyanya feel she belonged. But that year, by repeating the school year, it was Ananya who abandoned her best friends.
Something else occurred shortly, that pushed the life-raft of their childhood innocence into the treacherous waters of adulthood and its inexplicable complexities. One afternoon, Rabbit and Saira began a game of Haunted Taxi in the abandoned Fiat when Ana wasn’t around. (Where is wisdom when it is most needed?) To pass time on the ghostly taxi ride that would take them into the Zombie City, Rob began giving Saira some recently acquired gyaan. “Do you know what Stayfree is used for?” he asked her, implying he knew but she didn’t. “What?” asked Saira, implying she didn’t, but wasn’t going to show her burning desire to know. “Girls pee blood,” said Robbie with a mix of awe and disgust he couldn’t quite hide. “You are sick.” Saira wasn’t one to take any maligning of her species lying down. “Mom told me. She said, it’s something that girls start doing when they grow up. That’s why they have babies and men don’t.” Robert was simply conveying an objective truth almost verbatim, but he didn’t know then that Truth is an expert shatterer of safety. In citing this fundamental difference between them, he was pushing his friend into a land scarier than any they had visited on their haunted taxi rides. “Then your mom is also sick,” said Saira unforgivably.
Robert found himself banished from the taxi with only his friend’s unfair rejection left to haunt him. Saira’s anger (at Robber, at the unfairness of biology, at herself) made her more stubborn than usual and she refused all of Ananya’s attempts at reconciliation. Ana, who felt the same surge of indignation and fear when she heard what ‘that Sicko said’ was equally appalled, but her love for the boy with the kindest eyes in the world, made her ready to forgive him. Saira, with the strongest eyes in the world, threatened to banish Anagram too, if she’d rather join forces with the Other. At that time, Ananya needed strong more than kind. So that sealed the border shut.
This time, there was no witty title that Ananya could give this incident. Subsequent events caused their life-raft to split physically, first into two and later into three parts without possibility of emergency conferences or peace talks. Robert’s Mom was in fact, sick… or heartbroken, as the neighbourhood gossip informed the girls. In a matter of days, Robert’s Dad had decided to go and live with another woman (Men will be men…) and Robert and his Mom would be shifting away to live with his grandparents in Goa.
The last time that the Terrible Three would share the same spacetime, was the day the packers came. Anarchy and Saira sat at a distance, on the grey scooter as Robster stood silently by his Mom, carrying his backpack with his books and hot-wheels and translucent blue water bottle, pushing his spectacles back to look like a man paying attention to practical things. No one present could take their eyes away from the fascinating process of sweating, grunting men loading the truck with bulky wooden furniture. As the truck rolled away, Ana realised for the first time that the ancient wood was the same colour as Rob’s skin and Saira realised that the weight on her heart was heavier than a hundred truckloads of departure.
#
After Robert left, everyone grew up. Robert had held the spell of Neverland unbroken. Without him, life acquired a mundaneness, a banality that only his magic had held at bay. The years passed. The bachelors separated when one of them got married to a woman. Pallavi ran away with a man twice her age. Tipsy and Baban, like a sweet, old couple, died within days of each other. And Ananya and Saira had to face the truth that their earnest friend had tried to forewarn them about. They thought of him every time they tore newspaper into smaller rectangles to throw out used pads, endured excruciating stomach cramps and hormone driven emotional outbursts, and looked out for blood stains on each other’s clothes. But they never mentioned him to each other again. Reliving the memory of magic is perhaps more painful than the private realisation of its loss.
Saira finished school and entered 11th Science the same year Dil Chahta Hai released. Ananya was still in school, in the crucial 10th standard, but of course she and Saira would go to watch the film. Hadn’t they seen the trailer together and spent entire afternoons, listening to, and learning all the songs, sharing a pair of earphones, heads close together on Ana’s new Sony CD Walkman? And one Saturday afternoon, they did go on Saira’s bright red scooty. Zooming through the city streets, Ana initially turned her face away, when Saira’s wavy hair wafted close to her face, but soon she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and let herself get lost in the new perfume (Wild Rose) that Saira had begun using.
It was only in the interval, when Anya turned to look happily at Saira that the betrayal became apparent. Saira’s eyes (still strong but slightly wavering) told her that this wasn’t the first time Saira was experiencing this story of laughter, conflict and reconciliation between three friends. She had already felt that first-time flush of discovery, already merged its reality with their own, already knew when and how the broken hearts would mend. Of all the stories in the whole wide world… “It was a sudden plan… Neha and I bunked Chem-I and…” began Saira but had to stop and look away when Anagram said nothing but just looked at her steadily. They sat through the second half of the film, drove back in resounding silence and went about the rest of the day, each alone in their own heads and homes.
It was just a movie and of course, Anarchy and Saira went right back to being friends. But the possibility of doing new things without the other had been introduced. Ananya finished school and joined 11th Arts in a different college, choosing to study French, Psychology and Philosophy, far removed from Saira’s world of science practicals, coaching classes and competitive exams. Saira found herself swimming in chemical equations, mathematical formulae and merit cut offs and rebelled in crazy clothes, cigarettes and curfew violations, while Ananya auditioned for the theatre club, contributed articles to the college journal and won a scholarship to travel to Paris for two months; like in a dream, her heart beating fearfully all the time.
At the end of another year, Saira had secured an engineering seat in IIT-Bombay and a lifelong smoking habit. Ananya had been to the Louvre and found Art – something that wasn’t another person – to place her blind trust in.
It was a big night. At age 18, Saira and Ananya (with their worried parents) were in the big city; Saira – to enter the gates of a national-level institute, solo, and Ananya – to enter the boarding gate on her first international trip, seule. They had all driven to the airport together and it was now time to say goodbye. Their parents had a lot to talk about – what would they eat, how would they live alone, how the big, bad world would swallow them up… Saira and Ananya stood silently looking everywhere but at each other, feeling the incapacity of words to express the inevitability and pain of change, the end of an era.
Moments before her flight was called, Ana stood gripping the raised handle of her suitcase, like it was the only thing keeping her afloat. Saira stood in front of her with her hands in her pockets, wishing she could light a cigarette to have something to hold on to. Then, they looked at each other because looking at anything else would now be a waste of precious seconds. Everything went blurry when Saira gripped Ana’s hands, leaned in and kissed her on the lips. When they separated, an eternity had passed and no one had even noticed.
Passport, boarding pass, parents giving last minute instructions while holding back tears, turning and waving till the opaque glass of security blocked her view, feeling the rush of take-off and landing in a strange country… Ana went through all this with her mind’s eye on Saira and their first kiss.
Distance by itself is not a shatterer of trust. It is the available means of reaching out that fall short of bridging this chasm. Letters carry words, not voices. Phones carry voices, not visuals. Video chats carry visuals, not touch. Far into the future, AI may carry touch but never essence. In the absence of actual teleportation, everything else will always fall short of the real, sensual experience of being with someone.
And now, sensuality had become the whole point of life. Saira and Ananya had to remember not to forget each other when they could have forgotten everyone else instead. They had to yell to hear each other when they should have just had to whisper. Cold, impersonal entities like telecom companies, network speeds and time zones loomed over what would have been secret signs and stolen kisses in rooms full of others and unravelling layers of clothes and thoughts in rooms away from others.
Instead, swimming in the confusion of what it meant, (other than a fleeting, desperate expression of impending loss) what all they would have to do (and deal with) to give it more meaning, neither ever admitted that some inexplicable hurt (or the fear of it) had restrained them addressing their unmistakable desire.
Under the weight of the digital distance, their friendship crashed and burned in disparate chat windows:
“Was waiting fr u onl fr 2 hrs yest… U cudve atleast emailed.”
“I jst tld u everyth I’m busy w… goin crazy w all the submissions…”
“Cool. Gtg nw. Late fr class.”
…
“R u into tht guy?”
“Dunno… jst goin to hv coffee. He’s cool.”
Words lost letters, networks lost signal, pauses lost anticipation. Worlds disintegrated swiftly across continents. By the time Ananya was back home, she dreamt of becoming an art curator, decided she preferred wine over beer and had kissed a boy and liked it. Saira had maintained top percentile grades, discovered immense joy in pure mathematics and tried and rejected penetrative sex.
“Cnt cm onl tnt… Goin to a party…”
“Whr wr u all day? Staying up late every nite jst to talk to u and u rnt interested in anythg am telling u.”
…
“If we cnt tlk to each other thn whats the pt?”
“Wht is the pt of ths? Wht do u want me to do?”
…
“I dnt thk we shdve kissed at all.”
(pause)
“U thr?”
“I dnt thk we shd talk at all.”
In their last proper meeting on Christmas break, they ended up sharing neither interests, nor friends nor kisses. Ananya had plans with her college friends on Saira’s next visit around the time of her birthday and Saira was nowhere to be seen (she was volunteering at a programming conference in Bangalore) when Ananya went to IIT Bombay for the intercollegiate theatre fest.
#
After watching Tamasha with her new office colleagues in Bangalore, Saira tried calling Ananya but Ananya was watching Tamasha too, with her new boyfriend in Delhi. A WhatsApp message easily replaced the call.
“Saw Tamasha. Did you see it?”
“Ya. Loved it.”
“Hey, btw, Rob’s on FB.”
“Is he? Got off FB last year.”
“Ok. Didn’t send him a request. Too awkward.”
“Ya, I get it.”
“What’s up? How’s things?”
“Going on. Busy as always. You?”
“Good, good. You have fun.”
“Take care.”
Robert also watched Tamasha with his wife in Goa. Then they went to Florentine’s and had the usual – Chicken Cafreal and house wine. Robert noticed that a woman at another table had Ana’s eyes (the brightest in the world) and he imagined Saira would be like the hippy biker girl who had just walked in. He relived a million memories and shook his head and changed the subject, when his wife asked him why he was smiling.
Three is supposedly the most stable. Two is shaky and One, arguably, is the loneliest number in the universe.
Glossary:
Maal – stuff, alcoholic drink in urban slang
Gyan – Knowledge, used as a slang
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