Padosan – Part 2: Chai and Sugar

The chai stall at the corner had three plastic chairs, a tin of biscuits and a radio that played only old ghazals. Rahul arrived first, with a paper packet of sugar in his pocket, and found the stall man already grinning at him.

"Aaj toh sugar lekar aaye ho, sahab?"

"Haan," said Rahul, pink to the ears. "Aur kisi ke liye."

Kavita arrived five minutes later, in a green salwar kameez, her hair loose and her dupatta, to Rahul's secret delight, firmly around her shoulders this time.

They drank their chai in small glass cups, watching the evening crowds walk past: students with bicycles, old men with newspapers, a girl selling marigold garlands, the call to prayer drifting faintly from the far end of the street.

"Do you know," said Kavita, "that the entire building knows about the dupatta?"

"Of course they do. Mrs. Verma has told the whole floor."

"She told me you were a very polite man who reads poetry on the balcony."

Rahul went red. "I read history. Poetry is an accident."

"Then I'd like to hear the accident," said Kavita.

So he recited a couplet, in a low voice, about a river that remembers every boat that has passed over it. She listened with her head tilted, her eyes soft, and when he finished she said nothing for a long moment.

"That's beautiful," she said at last. "Do you remember them all?"

"Only when someone is listening."

They walked afterwards along the river, the lamps on the bridge glowing gold over the water. The families in the old buildings watched them from their balconies, and Kavita felt the familiar prickle of being observed.

"Does it bother you?" she asked. "The watching?"

"Yes," said Rahul honestly. "But I'd rather be watched while I'm doing something I'm proud of than hide in my flat."

"I'm tired of hiding too," said Kavita quietly. "At the bank, at home. Everyone has an opinion about my life. My mother says I'm too old to be unmarried. My colleagues say I'm too serious."

"And what do you say?"

"That I'm careful," said Kavita. "And that I want someone who isn't scared of my seriousness."

Rahul stopped walking. The river slid past beneath them, dark and silver.

"Kavita," he said, "can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to walk with me again next Sunday, and every Sunday after, until your mother gets tired of asking me questions?"

She laughed, bright and surprised. "That could take a very long time."

"Then I'm prepared," said Rahul, grinning. "I have a lot of history to tell you."

"Can I ask you something too?" said Kavita, softer now.

"Anything."

"Can I hold your hand, here, on the bridge? Where everyone can see, and nobody is going to tell me what to do?"

Rahul's breath caught. "Yes," he said. "And if you want to let go, you can let go."

She took his hand, slow and certain, and they walked the rest of the way across the bridge with their fingers laced together, watched by every balcony on the river and not caring at all.

"Green?" he asked, quietly, at the far end.

"Green," said Kavita. "And tomorrow, you're bringing your own sugar."