Little Book Of Red Lies | Shubman Gill ✓

41. Healing, haule haule.

Lambiyan judaiyan hisse saday aayian
Rabba ve mohabbtan kyun tu banaiya.

These long-term separations are in our fate, Oh god, what have you created love for?

- Bilal Saeed, Lambiyan Judaiyan

*****

Kavya Arora

Amritsar suited the two of us much more than I had imagined. The city had so much to offer to the two searching souls. We roamed the streets of Punjab like aimless Fakirs who had broken apart from their caravan long ago and had no endpoint to their journey. We fed our empty hearts with Amritsari Chole Kulche. I purposely avoided ordering Aloo Parathe for I don't think I would have enjoyed them knowing that I had left behind the guy whose favourite they were. And so I drank Lassi and along with it the bittersweet pain of separation.

We visited a Gurdwara everyday and helped prepare the Langar. Making food for people who visited the Gurdwara was a joy in itself. It gave us something to look forward to each day. More than the food we prepared, the people we met were a delight. In a span of eight days, we already knew some familiar faces. There was Harmehar Taiji and their daughter Bani who were the most familiar to us. They even invited us for dinner yesterday!

We have taken to playing a little game. As we walk the streets together, Rahi and I make up scenarios in our head. We imagine our parents in this city. This must have been where they would have come for walks in the evening…this could have been the shop where Biji would have brought Mummy for Jutti shopping. This would have been their favourite Lassi vendor.

Even the television soothes us. We play Punjabi music all day. Hearing a language our parents used to speak to us feels like a warm embrace. Rahul casually comments one day that after they died, we had stopped saying phrases they often used. And I agreed but yesterday when a bike rushed past us almost throwing us on the sidewalk, Rahul and I broke into expletives in Punjabi. And once we realised we were uttering our Papaji's go-to expletive, we burst into laughter.

Just when Punjab is healing me, I hear a knock on our door from the past.

With pensive eyes, Sara took the surroundings of our lodge in.

I welcomed her inside, feeling nervous. So she had somehow managed to bribe Ishan Kishan about our location huh!

"Paani doon?" I ask her. She looks at me, her expression turning hurtful.

"Haan, mehman hi hoon na, dost thodi. Agar dost hoti toh tu aise Bina bataye yahan nahi aati." She pauses. My eyes are downcast but I know that she has a lot to say.

"6 mahino tak tu uss sadist ke paas thi aur kal jab pehli baar tujhe dekha toh ek hug Tak nahi karne Diya?"

I look up, asking her with my eyes if she'd like me to hug her right now but she looks away. I sigh.

"Sara…I needed thoda time yaar. Sab kuch itna draining tha mere liye ki I was totally numb when he died. Mujhe aise murde ki shakal leke nahi milna tha tujhse."

Being the bestfriend she is, her eyes water when mine do.

"Aur Shubman ka kya?"

I freeze at his mention.

"Why are you punishing him, Kavi?"

It is my turn to look away. She moves closer to me and searches my face until I finally meet her eyes.

"Woh, I thought he would understand." I give the first excuse I could think of.

"But do you? Do you understand what he has gone through in these six months? Do you know how difficult it was for him? That you were the one who made him weak in the knees but it was you whose thoughts made him strong."

I look at her horrified.

"What are you talking about Sara?"

"What I am talking about is actually not my story to tell but you tell me, did you think of him to draw strength, too?"

I painfully realise that now is the time where I have no option but to admit my feelings.

"I am so sorry Sara. I never knew when- I didn't want to… I thought I would get over him but I - I just I don't know how, I thought I saw him as a friend, and I did, but then I - I"

I break into sobs. Hating myself for doing this to my bestfriend.

Astonishingly, she smiles at me.

"It's okay, Kavi. It's okay to love." I look at her too puzzled to utter a single word. Isn't she angry at me?

"Besides, it has always been you. And it will always be you." Her voice is full of emotion and it breaks my heart to see her like this. I wonder what does she mean by saying that it has always been me.

Reading my face as always, she tells me.

"He'll explain everything." She gives my hand a squeeze and then buries me into a bear hug. After wiping my eyes with her handkerchief she calls out,

"Shubman…."

And then she leaves me alone with him.