Love, Hate and Other Filters(13)

It’s been two weeks since we met at the wedding, and weirdly, it feels like a million years ago, but also yesterday. We’ve texted or messaged each other lots. But that also means my contact with Kareem has been virtual, and my contact with Phil has been real. But for years—literally years—Phil was neither real nor virtual; he was a faraway dream. Until now. Only now I’m about to go on a date with a guy who is actually available, infinitely more suitable, and definitely interested.

This is why they invented drugs for heartburn.

The guest room door is half open, but Hina knocks anyway before coming in. I sit up on the edge of the bed as she perches next to me. “How about we eat a quick lunch and go to a movie before your big date? Or we can on-demand something. Have you seen Roman Holiday? You know, about a princess who feels trapped in her life?”

I smile. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Trust me: Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn are pretty much Saturday afternoon perfection,” Hina says, giving my hand a squeeze.

My mom picks Bride and Prejudice. Hina picks Roman Holiday. Somehow their movie choices totally define my relationships with them. They both try. One misses the mark. The other nails it.



After the movie, we sit on the couch, sipping cups of creamy spiced chai.

“Did I ever tell you about Anand?” Hina asks out of the blue. She rarely talks about the guys she dates; it must be some tacit agreement she has with my mother. So I immediately perk up.

“Ummm, no. But I am all ears.”

Hina smiles. “It was in India, before I left to study in England. He was such a beautiful boy. You know I went to the same Catholic girls’ school as your mom, in Hyderabad? Well, there was a brother school run by priests. We shared the same athletic fields. That’s how I met Anand. I was at field hockey practice, and he was playing cricket.”

“Awww. And it was love at first sight?”

“Not exactly. Maybe? I don’t know. I never really thought about it in those terms. Anand just started showing up to my field hockey practices and our games, and one day I finally asked him if he was going to talk to me.”

“Bold move, Hina.”

Hina chuckles. “My friends were so scandalized. But you know, I’ve always been a straight shooter.”

It’s one of the things I love best about my aunt.

“Well, he started bringing tiffins, and we would have little picnics of samosas and chaat and pakoras with mango juice in glass bottles.”

“So he would cook for you? How adorable.”

“Oh, no. He had his cook do it, and then his driver would bring it to the fields so it would still be warm after practice.”

“Must be nice.”

“It was. Of course, we could never really go anywhere, so the entire fleeting romance took place on school grounds.”

“I’m guessing from his name he was Hindu?”

“Exactly. But honestly, we barely even talked about that. We both knew nothing more could come of it. So we spent that spring talking and eating and laughing, and then he went to Bombay to study architecture at university.”

“That’s it? That’s the whole story? You never saw each other again?”

“We saw each other once more, when he came home for holiday. I went to see him at Nampally Railway Station just when he was leaving to go back to school.”

“And …”

“And that was my first kiss. A little peck in a dark corner of a bustling train station.”

“That is so cinematic,” I say.

Hina laughs. “From you, that is high praise, indeed.”

“So were you heartbroken? Did you regret it?”

“Heartbroken? A little. Regret? No. What was there to regret? I wasn’t going to Bombay with him. We were both young and different religions, and I had no desire to elope and bring down the entire wrath of both our families on our heads. So now it’s simply a sweet memory. That’s all it was ever going to be.”

I sit back and stare into my half-empty teacup.

“Something on your mind?” Hina asks. “First kisses, perhaps?”

“Yes. No. Maybe, but not necessarily with Kareem …”

Hina raises an eyebrow at me and gives me a warm smile and settles into the couch.

I hadn’t planned to, but I end up telling her about Phil and the tutoring sessions and how my stomach roller-coasters every time I’m around him and about how he has a girlfriend. Then I talk to her about Kareem, who is the parental dream of suitability. But he’s a lot more than just his biodata.

“The thing is,” I say, after my breathless debrief, “the timing is all so bizarre, I mean why now? Why me?”

She stares at me as if I’m totally clueless. “Why not you?”

Even Hina can make me blush. It really is a disorder.

“What is, in fact, bizarre, my dear,” she continues, “is that you don’t see what a beautiful, brilliant young woman you are. You still think of yourself as that gawky, flat-chested seventh grader with braces and two braids.”

I’m not sure how to respond. I wouldn’t admit this to anyone, not even Hina; I can barely even think it when I’m alone, but there are moments when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I’m happily surprised at the reflection—it’s me but not me. I can see the shiny black hair that falls below my shoulders, the woman’s body that looks good in a fitted sweater and tight jeans. Plus I can see I’ve been upping my lipstick game.