Stand by you
Chapter 4
“No, Aarav. You need to talk to your parents about this. How can you stay silent?” Tara’s voice filled the room as she entered Claire and Frank’s home engrossed in her phone conversation. She raised her eyebrows and said ‘Hi’ to Claire while focusing on the phone conversation.
*Claire, seeing Tara enter her home after months, hurried over and gave her a comforting hug. ‘One minute,’ she whispered to Claire as she hugged her back while keeping her handbag on the kitchen countertop. ‘All good.’ Claire nodded with a gentle smile and went back to cleaning the fridge.
‘Aarav, the way you are handling this whole situation, it makes me think that I don’t really know who you are at all….Patience? It’s been five months already!…
Hey, listen. I’ll call you back tonight. I came to Claire’s….Love you too. Bye’
‘What does it really make us who we are? What makes Tara Tara? What makes Aarav Aarav?’ Tara’s voice echoed in the kitchen as she slammed her iPhone on the dining table.
*Frank and Claire glanced at each other with their raised eyebrows. Frank shrugged his shoulders as if inquiring, ‘What’s happened?’ to Claire; Claire shrugged back as if saying, ‘I don’t know,’ and they both pivoted their eyes to Tara.
Tara continued her Monologue, her words flowing seamlessly: “When I was in my early twenties, I had this ideal vision of how I would choose my life partner. I told myself, ‘I would marry a guy just with spontaneous conversations, just talking to him and knowing what drives him, what his goals are, what social cause he would serve, what drives him nuts.’ I envisioned marrying someone without knowing his net worth or family status, regardless of the community he belonged to. It might sound idealistic, but I genuinely believed it was possible. That’s how I met Aarav too… I thought he shared those ideals. But now… I’m not so sure.”
‘The fact that Aarav won’t even talk to his parents and give them some sense makes me even angry,’ she continued. ‘How does one achieve greatness by birth? I’m Tara, I am a woman, and these are facts. I don’t have any control over which parents I wanted to be born to, which country, which gender, I can’t even choose my first name.’ the same with Caste, too. I don’t have any say or control over it. *She sipped the camomile tea that Claire had made for her.
‘Claire, why did you give me this camomile tea? Do you think this would soothe me and calm me? I am enraged at Aarav. He doesn’t stand up for our relationship. Do you know the most painful part of all this? Aarav’s parents’ demeanor towards me changed completely after they learned about my caste. They don’t want us to get married. They didn’t say ‘No,’ nor did they say ‘Yes’ for Aarav and me to get married. They deflect from the topic whenever Aarav brings it up.
*Frank and Claire kept quiet, still listening to Tara. Claire gave a gentle smile and poured more hot water on Tara.
All of them sat silent and Frank was preening the indoor plants as he listened to Tara. After nearly two minutes of silence, Frank finally spoke. ‘Tara, this caste thing you are telling. Claire and I understand on a high level, I mean not the nuances of it. But we can understand how it is similar to Racism here in the US. What is Aarav’s position on this?’
‘Frank, Racism is nothing compared to Castesim in India’ Tara snapped.. Tara, getting hold of herself and recognizing her unwarranted anger on Frank, took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself down before speaking further.
*Claire, still quiet, not uttering a word, stopped her work and gave an attentive stare towards Tara. In her regular self, Claire would have blurted some silly joke to cheer up Tara. But, she herself had a contemplative demeanor.
“Frank… I’m sorry,” Tara sighed, her hand falling to her forehead in dejection. “Aarav, he assures me he’ll stand by me, no matter what. But he lacks the courage to confront his parents. It’s like he’s caught between loyalty to them and his commitment to us. And we made a pact not to marry without the consent and support of both our families. That’s what makes this situation so complicated. I honestly don’t know how we will resolve things between our parents.”
There was a brief silence as Tara’s words hung in the air; noticing Frank and Claire were a little perplexed, she shifted the conversation. “Let me ask you guys this. When did you decide that you wanted to marry? What exactly is the moment?”
She shifted her gaze to Frank, her expression gentle as she posed the question. “Hey Frank, would you mind sharing with me? When did you decide to propose to Claire?”
‘Um… I don’t know.. For the most part, it’s just instinct. You know it when you know it.’ he paused to look at Tara.. She saw her keenly listening. Feeling nudged and motivated by her attentiveness, he continued.. “I will tell you what my Dad told me long back, Tara. He said
‘Listen, Son. It’s about answering just two questions: One, Can I love this person in a way they like to be loved? Two, Can I bring out the best in the other person, and can I be my best version of being with this person for the rest of my life? Simple, just two questions for you to think about before you propose any girl.’ Claire and I enjoy each other's company. I can’t think of sharing my bed with anybody else. We do fight a lot sometimes. But, yeah! She’s my perfect roommate.”
‘That’s beautifully said. I can hardly imagine you both fighting, Frank. I adore you both.
‘You tell us. When did you decide on Aarav? When was the moment?’
“You both know how many guys I’ve dated these last three years. All of them were very nice, and for a long time, I just kept thinking and speculating about how my life would have been if I married one of those guys. I mean, even when I thought I was in love with some guy, I was living these parallel lives in my mind with my exes. But when I met Aarav, I stopped imagining and dreaming about my other parallel lives. Maybe that’s when I realized that I am in love with Aarav.”
“So, do you still live in parallel lives with all your exes?” remarked Frank teasingly. Claire just blurted out, laughing in response.
Frank continued, ‘There is this Russian author Anton Chekhov who once wrote in one of these short stories that ‘woman live their lives looking forward, and men live their lives looking backward.’
Noticing the relaxed vibe, Tara pivoted the conversation. “So, what’s cooking? It smells amazing.”
“We’re making Cambodian fish curry, and I’m just chopping these Brussels sprouts,” Claire replied, shifting her focus back to the culinary task at hand.
“Where’s that eucalyptus scent coming from?” asked Tara in a curious tone.
‘That eucalyptus smell is coming from the Aromequinox.’
‘Where’s that?’
*Frank pointed Tara towards the device. ‘We call it Aromequinox. I was trying to think of a word that combines aroma, equanimity, and intelligence and came up with that one. It’s little hard to pronounce but year.. What you are seeing is a smart home device and you can see a bunch of these around the home.’
‘Yeah, I saw something similar in your restroom.’
‘That’s correct. Think of it as a smart smell dispenser. Claire loves gardening, but some days, she forgets to water her indoor plants in the morning. So, I thought, “How can I use technology to adapt to our daily rituals, remind us, and transition us from one ritual to another? I thought, What if we blend scents with our daily rituals at home? The Aromequinox would emanate a Lavender scent at 8 am as a reminder for Claire to water the plants. This device interfaces with both of our Google Calendar. We have customized scents for reading, sleeping, and writing. We are experimenting with scents we both like. You know your best friend. It’s hard to get a consensus with her on certain things,’ Frank said, winking at Tara.
‘I’m the accommodating one. You’re the tough one to come to a consensus with. Agreed? Say, Yes!’ Claire retorted in a teasingly belligerent tone, pointing the kitchen knife at Frank.
Both of them laughed at the banter on Claire.
‘So, is the Eulyptus scent for cooking?’
‘Oh no, it’s not for cooking. I forgot to tell you. This device can also sense emotions. The real smart part about this Aromequinox is that it has a built-in microphone that can sense the tone of our voice. It doesn’t exactly record our conversation; it just collects the voice in real-time, sensing the emotions and tries to categorize them, emanating scents accordingly.’
‘Wow, it sounds very Sci-Fi. Is it really that smart? Tara paused with a sense of amazement still not taking her eyes of Aromequinox. She continued speaking slowly as she thought, ‘But emotions are complex and subtle. Can it categorize them accurately?’
‘For the most part, Tara. Maybe 60% accuracy. Currently, I’ve trained it on thousands of voice clippings from movies and TV shows where characters express anger or tension. So, whenever it senses those emotions, I’ve programmed it to emanate an eucalyptus scent. It works well for the most part, but there are still a lot of false positives. It sometimes mistakes my singing for anger.*chuckled Frank at his joke.
So, Now your Aromequinox thinks I am tensed and angry?
‘Probably’ laughed Frank and Claire and Tara joined along with them.
‘Hey guys, I need to pee. Where’s the restroom?’
‘It’s the small door next to the guest bedroom.’ *Frank pointed her towards the restroom.
*Seeing how unusual Claire had been this morning, Frank prodded her.
‘You wanted to talk about what happened last night?’
*Claire looked at Frank with a reactionless straight face, looking almost indifferent.
Frank continued in a concerned tone, ‘I woke up to go to the restroom, and I saw you standing barefooted in our backyard, just staring. It was 38(Fahrenheit) outside yesterday. What were you doing out in that cold? You know that wolves could roam around that time of the night, right? You looked like you were possessed by some ghost yesterday.’
*Claire’s body was facing Frank, but she didn’t look into his eyes. She instead peered out the window in the kitchen.
‘I just had a weird dream.’
‘What weird dream?’
‘I’m just standing in front of the mirror one morning and I see my head look so different, without any hair. I am having little sprouts of hair on my head. I was panicking because it felt so real. I was thinking all the while about how I was going bald. I am holding this shredded black hair that feels like it’s been soaked in blood. I touch my head to see if there is any blood, I feel nothing. My head was completely clean and I never felt any pain either. I fear touching my head and hair again because I am so afraid of going completely bald. And then the building and house starts crashing down.’
*Frank gently touched her shoulders and gave her a concerned look. He raised his eyebrows as if silently asking her, ‘Are you alright?’ Claire turned her head to meet his gaze, her eyelids moist with emotion. Frank felt like asking Claire if she had been smoking again. But he curbed his urge to ask her that. As he heard the bathroom door closing, he moved away from Claire to attend the fish curry.
“Sooo, Tell us about Aarav,” Frank asked, mustering a smile as she approached them.
Tara paused for a minute and pondered the question. ‘Give me a minute, guys. I just realized that she had never introduced Aarav to you guys or to anybody.’ Tara pondered about that question for a moment. Introductions! She know how important that first moment of introducing someone. As much as an introduction might tell a few things about whom you are introducing, hidden in those words are what that person means to you. Hidden in those words are what you think is so peculiar about someone’s identity.
Sure, Aarav is the guy with boisterous laughter. Aarav loves being around kids as long as they are less than two years old. He likes kids before they start talking too much. He’s the guy who eats bread with honey mustard. He volunteers at the local non-profit to spread awareness about child trafficking. He’s been doing that for over seven years now. He cannot eat alone. He always needs people or at least a TV. He’s the guy who always hugs me two seconds less.’
‘The guy who hugs two seconds less’ *smiled Frank at that last sentence. ‘What does he do for work?’
‘Oh, I forgot. He’s an Architect’
*Tara notices the taint of red lipstick on the rim of the coffee cup in the kitchen sink. A smell of Amber emanated from the Cube. That particular perfume evoked the memory of meeting Tara for the first time at a cafe five months ago.
***
It had been three months of chatting and video calls. Just two days ago, Aarav finally let his guard down and confessed to Tara, “Hey, you know, every day I can’t wait for your call… I think I’m falling for you already.”
After 20 minutes of silence, Tara responded with a single-line text: ‘But, we have not met in person.’
“How about Poetry Cafe tomorrow at 3 PM?” Aarav suggested.
“Yes, I think I can make it work,” Tara agreed, and there they were.
The cafe was adorned with classic poems printed on canvas, adorning all sides of the wall, and had a refined aroma of Amber. It also boasted shelves of books open for anyone to peruse. Tara arrived 10 minutes early, surprised to find Aarav already waiting for her.
He greeted her with a clumsy, tight hug that lasted for three seconds, a mix of firmness and restraint to avoid awkwardness. He hugged her so tight the first second, not to make it awkward for both, he eased the next second and then tight again, with a vacillation. Tara just smiled as she reciprocated the strength of his hug. They sat down, facing each other, and kept smiling like two long-time friends meeting after a long time.
As they conversed, Aarav felt a cool breeze from the left, realizing the air conditioner vent was directed towards him. Noticing his discomfort, Tara suggested, “Do you want to switch seats and sit beside me?”
Aarav chuckled, “Yes, I think I’ll have to come to that side soon. Let me see how long I could hold up here.”
Aarav started looking at the menu while Tara’s eyes were peering into Aarav’s eyes as he talked to him. It almost seemed like her eyes were searching for something.
He didn’t notice at that moment, But his eyes and brain were noticing Tara’s eyes. Frank’s brain bifurcated at the moment into two conscious pathways. One side of his brain was responding to Tara’s questions, and his other half of the brain was working unconsciously in the background, trying to decipher ‘What are her eyes searching for? My love? My trust?’
Tara, still young and naive, didn’t realize the folly of seeking love in a man’s eyes. Men’s eyes can be tricky. They can lie. To really understand a man’s love, hold his hands. If the opportunity presents itself, hug him tight. A man’s eyes can lie, but his touch and embrace cannot lie. However, to understand a woman’s love, it’s just enough for a man to look into her eyes.
Aarav wasn’t smart enough to know that, but his eyes and brain knew about it. Hence, whenever he talks with any woman, his eyes and brain notice the woman’s eyes first.
As they conversed for three hours, Aarav’s feelings for Tara grew stronger. Using the excuse of the chilly AC, he moved closer to her and held her hand, feeling overwhelmed by his emotions.
They talked for three hours. Aarav, feeling his love overwhelming, made the chillness of AC as an excuse and went and sat beside Tara. He he enclosed both of his hands over Tara’s left hand and said to her ‘you should see how cold me hands got.’ Tara’s face glowed with a mixture of shyness and shock, she looked around the restaurant, to see if anybody is looking at them. ‘Your hands are so soft,’ said Aarav in a blushing tone as he gently rubbed his hands over her hand. After 2 minutes, without her awareness, Tara found herself clenching Aarav’s right hand tightly.
Shy to meet her gaze, he distracted himself by pointing out a poem on the wall that caught his eye.
“Look here to our left. There’s a poem that starts with the word ‘hands,’” Aarav said, reading aloud:
Hands put your empty hands in mine
And scars show me all the scars you hide
And hey, if your wings are broken
Please take mine ’til yours can open too
’Cause I’m gonna stand by you
Oh, tears make kaleidoscopes in your eyes
And hurt, I know you’re hurting but so am I
And love, if your wings are broken
Borrow mine so yours can open too
’Cause I’m gonna stand by you
~Rahul Sekar
P.S: You can read the first three chapters of this series here,
Chapter 1 — Mood ring, empathy, and brown tomatoes
Chapter 2 — Mandalas, oxidation paintings and everything ephemeral
