“Revenge! That was the first word that came into her mind. There’s nothing more left. She had nothing to lose. Unfortunately, she realized it by the time she had reached the nadir of her self-respect. She looked at herself in the Victorian mirror and pondered her expressive eyes and dimples. She remembered how Robert had picked up her face and murmured, ‘I think I’ve fallen for you.’ It was a moonlit night…” Priya closed the paperback. She could never enjoy these tacky read-in-flight novellas that failed to differentiate between being romantic and being cheesy. She loved reading fiction but only those which had content fulfilling her level of intellectual interest. She put back the book, stretched and then called the stewardess.

“Can I get a cup of black coffee please,” she said.

“Sure ma’am.”     

“And a newspaper also?”

“Of course,” smiled the crew who seemed to be in her mid-twenties. 

Priya gazed at her while she went to bring the coffee. She was both attractive and decent in her red skirt and bouffant hair do. Priya tried to create a mental image of herself in the same get up as the stewardess. How would Vijay react to see her like that? She blushed; as if a mature woman like her got caught for pondering something inappropriate or rather unexpected from her.   

“Here it is ma’am,” the stewardess came back with her coffee and newspaper. Priya sipped the coffee lazily and skimmed the newspaper. She was just waiting to land in Delhi.  It had been more than a week she was away from home. The conference was fruitful but tiring like any other time. She wasn’t among the women who want to work but at the same time grumble every morning while going to work. She loved her white apron; she adored her stethoscope. She savoured the hustle and bustle of her workplace and of course she felt satisfaction with every smiling face she had cured. She never even felt her studies as a burden, rather enjoyed it thoroughly. It was her profession that enabled her to experience not only different ailments but a wide range of emotion; emotional moments that exude happiness, sorrow, expectation, frustration or even bewilderment. She has seen people from all walks of life due to her profession. And of course, it was during her medical college days that she met Ameya.

How could she forget that day! It was a medical camp in Munirka organized by an NGO where Priya, a medical student was assisting senior doctors. A number of young men and women from JNU campus showed up and did their check up in different booths. But one tall man with disheveled hair showed up five times in her booth.

“Can you please check my BP?” said the man

“Please join the queue,” replied Priya while examining an old woman’s throat without realizing that it was the same guy who just came and did all sort of check-up. When his turn came, Vijay was smart enough to cook up weird symptoms while Priya, in her bewilderment didn’t know what to say or to do. She just fumbled and said, “But you have just done your check up, haven’t you?”

“Doctor, what can I do if I am having these problems,” said Ameya with an innocent face.

“First of all, I’m still not a doctor, and secondly you should not come over and over again.” She couldn’t believe someone can stand in the queue for so long during the summer heat and show up five times. “If you are so sick then I suggest you go to a hospital immediately.”

“Precisely! Which hospital do you work?” Ameya asked promptly.

“That’s none of your business,” Priya went red. But there was something about the man that prevented her to seek help from others to deal him.

“I’ll find that anyway,” murmured Ameya.

“Did you say something?” asked Priya.

“Oh, it’s just that I’m having a rapid pulse,” said Ameya pressing two fingers on his wrist and holding it in front of Priya.

Many moons later, both of them always giggled remembering the entire episode. “Imagine how desperate you were,” Priya always said. “You made me do those stunts,” replied Ameya. And then he would hummed his favourite tune from Tagore, “je chhilo amar swaponcharini taare bujhite parini….”                            

Priya couldn’t help remembering those lovely moments today. It seemed to her that she had erased all of the bitterness of the past inscribed in her mind. She hoped that both of them could overcome the chasm that grew wider between them over the last couple of years. She knew it wasn’t her fault at all but Ameya’s confidence in their relationship that led them reach to that point. She was tired of snide remarks, accusation from friends and family every time Ameya’s actions surfaced.

“Can’t you see he has taken you for granted?” said Pooja, her best friend. To them relationship was either black or white. There was no gray area. But how was it for Priya? Was she different from others? Didn’t she lose her control especially when Ameya used to exude an aura of divineness in every social gathering?

“What is loyalty? What is fidelity? So, you can’t sleep with another woman but you can think of it? Your mind is allowed to be occupied with someone else’s thought even while you’re with your partner? So, you are not unfaithful just because you’re physically with your partner?” Ameya, the famous writer would go on. The crowd surrounding him, especially the women would listen to him with dreamy eyes resting their chins on their fists. He would exhibit his literary knowledge or go on discussing the definition of pure love whether it is based on supreme devotion to each other or only physical loyalty, bringing in analogies ranging from metaphysical poets to Radha Krishna stories. “One should realize that it is always Radha,” he would finish with a voluntary pause. It became cliché to her; and then gradually unbearable. Her dignity and decency broke into pieces just like the porcelain vase she threw on Ameya. She never wanted to become Radha.

“Please fasten your seatbelt ma’am,” said the stewardess. Priya woke up from her trance and smiled to herself. She was about to land in Delhi. She felt something in her bosom. Something she had almost forgot; a feeling that was a part of her old self. If asked she wouldn’t be able to describe it one word. What was it? May be a concoction of satisfaction, craziness, dependence and love? Whatever it was, no doubt the level of Serotonin had already increased in her blood after the prolong conversation with Ameya over phone. “Sometimes it’s not the proximity but distance that works,” she thought while looking through the oval window. The plane had just touched the tarmac in Delhi airport. “It is a new chapter for me and Ameya,” Priya thought to herself.

The home phone was ringing when Priya opened the door at her Safderjung residence. She quickly threw the key as well as her shoes and ran to pick the phone. “Hello, Ma,” she said before the person at the other end could speak.

“How did you know it was me,” said her mother.

“Simple! Who else would call in landline phone.”

“I hate mobile phones.” Both the mother and daughter laughed at this.

“Why didn’t you call me if you have returned before schedule?” asked her mom. “I saw you yesterday at Dilli Haat and beckoned; and even the driver honked to draw your attention,” she said.

“Ma I have just….” Priya couldn’t finish her sentence.

“But I am happy that you and Ameya are spending more time together.” Priya could sense the enthusiasm in her mother’s voice. It was something that was triggered by expectation to see everything falling in right place after prolonged denial of truth. She remained silent.

“You never listened to me whenever I asked you to wear red chiffon, but see how it made you look chic?” her mother continued. “I couldn’t see your face properly, but Ameya looked charming as always in that gray kurta.”

“Exactly when did you see me Ma?”

“Around five in the evening yesterday, why?”

“Nothing, how’s your knee pain?”

“Oh please don’t go on again. I’ll do the exercise from tomorrow, I promise.”

Priya knew the easy way to make her mother hang up the phone. She needed her own time now. She hung up the phone and looked outside through the window. She could see the small water pitcher and bowl she kept in the balcony for birds. There was water, there were grains, but she couldn’t see any bird coming. She looked over the balcony and saw the cement mixer in front of the under construction building tossing cement and tiny bit of bricks inside it. The sound of it was piercing the mid-morning silence in the neighborhood; just the way wailing sound of a kid would do whose sandcastle caved in just after completion.       

Priya dragged her feet to bedroom and threw her travel bag. After a pause that could be half a minute, she started to unpack it vigorously. She was taking out her stuff one after another. Her clothes, her toiletries, chocolates for her niece and then those two books also; the books she bought for Ameya from his favourite book shop in Singapore yesterday, at around five in the evening Delhi time. She gazed at the books. The titles read “Serendipity” and “The Revenge”. She knew Ameya was looking for the books but couldn’t find in any of the bookstores in Delhi.   She felt no urge to open the books.

She threw the books on her bed and began to pace up and down the room, just like a pendulum. There was a silent conversation going on. It was she and herself only.

“I don’t like cladding in red chiffon. It’s not me. I love blue”

“Blue is incapable, although it’s soothing.”

“So, you acknowledge that it is soothing?”

‘It’s habitual. If you think it soothes, it does.”   Priya stopped pacing.

What do people do when things really fall apart? She asked herself. There wasn’t any answer. Priya has never followed any footsteps. At the same time, her life was her own territory, off limit to any trespasser.

“No! I can’t let things fall apart. I have to get a grip,” Priya thought. She went and sank on her wooden rocking chair. Then she began to rock slowly back and forth with her eyes closed. There were random images floating in her mind. Suddenly, her eyes struck open with a vision of a red chiffon sari hanging in a clothes line. Priya stared to the empty wall and then, she picked up the phone.

“Hello Arun? I need a little favour from you.”

Priya was sitting on the rocking chair sipping her coffee and listening Tagore songs after a tiring day. She was even humming when Ameya entered the room.

“Hi, dear. How was the day?” she smiled looking at him. Ameya didn’t reply.

“Want some coffee,” she asked. Ameya still didn’t reply.

“See, I got the books you were looking for.” Priya still continued in her cheery voice.  

“I’m perished Priya,” said Ameya in a grave voice.  It was not unusual for him to opt for archaic literary expressions even for the mundane issues. Priya chuckled like in their old days. But then she didn’t see any sign of reciprocation from Ameya. It was the time she could grasp the gravity of the situation.

“What happened Ameya?” she asked.

“It’s all over Priya.” Ameya dragged his feet to her, went on his knees and handed her a paper saying, ‘It says positive.” Then he hid his face in Priya’s lap and started sobbing.   “It says positive; I’m HIV positive Priya,” his voice choked. “I feel like I’m marooned in an island.” “Please rescue me Priya! I know you’re the only one who can.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll confront this just the way we confronted all ups and downs so far,” said Priya. She began to pat Ameya gently. Ameya still did not lift up his face. Priya bent over and reached for her phone with one hand and began to text Arun, the lab incharge in her clinic. She typed just two words; ‘thank you’ and went back patting Ameya. The room was still filled with the sound of Ameya sobbing and of course with the songs of Tagore Priya was listening to. It was a new one starting after the previous one ended. And that was Ameya’s favourite, “je chhilo amar swaponcharini taare bujhite parini.…” She who dwelt in my dream, I couldn’t fathom her mystery.