Suruchi Dinshaw - Part 3

When she awoke the next morning, the boys were already up. It was their last day home and they didn’t want to spend any more time whiling in bed. There were friends to be met, notes to be exchanged and coffee to be had at ‘Mariappa’s chai kada’. Yes, coffee, not tea, for Mariappa served the best coffee in the entire city!

Suruchi sat up on the bed and rubbed her forehead hard. What happened last night? Was it just an awful nightmare? There is NO WAY it could have been real. In fact at this moment she wasn’t even sure of what had transpired the night before. “Hey kiddo! You awake finally eh? “, smiled Kartik as he strolled into the room. He had already showered and changed into a pair of cargo shorts and a trendy t-shirt that stated ‘I was an atheist till I realized I was GOD’, obviously borrowed from Rohit.

Suruchi stared at him with zombie eyes as though trying to read beneath the smile. Memories of the cold snake suddenly flashed before her eyes and she began to feel her head swim. “You alright kiddo?” Kartik’s face wore a look of concern as he came towards her. Suruchi jumped out of bed muttering something about feeling sleepy and dashed into the bathroom.

While her brothers were out most of the day, Suruchi went about the house with a glazed look prompting her mom to wonder if the kid had indeed fallen ill. “After all” she said, “this changing weather is most dangerous”. Suruchi meanwhile replayed the events of the night over and over in her head, until she though she would go crazy. She kept telling herself that it was a nightmare and nothing more, but a tiny voice in her head told her that she hadn’t imagined anything. She hated that voice.

She avoided Kartik surreptitiously all day and didn’t remember much of the evening when the boys bid goodbye and left. Mrs. Dinshaw was in tears and didn’t notice anything unnatural about her while Mr. Dinshaw, as he usually did at partings, kept a straight face and slipped into his ‘reading room’ to deal with his emotions privately. Suruchi slept with the lights on that night.

The next few days Suruchi was as quiet a mouse, so unlike her usual self, that her parents, who initially attributed it to ‘sudden loneliness’, started getting a wee bit anxious. Mrs Dinshaw’s remedy was to feed her daughter more. She had taken the adage “A healthy kid is a happy one” straight to heart. Suruchi’s BMI (Body Mass Index, for the uninformed) was pretty good at 21, but Mrs. Dinshaw hadn’t browsed to http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm yet.

Even Suruchi’s colleagues at Lintas noted a change of mood and wondered about it. Her boss, Priya, a keen cookie could smell a rat from afar but decided to give it a couple of days before asking her anything. Priya was the ‘jaan’ of the office. Half Bengali, half malayalee and a 35 year old divorcee, she was a hot-blooded tigress, but a sweet loving one at that. When asked by a pesky colleague if she was married, Priya replied “Yes I was” and then shrugging nonchalantly, “but I decided that I didn’t like it.” A gourmet cook, the dishes that emerged from her kitchen were the likes of what you would find on a seven-star menu card. Priya loved entertaining and her friends pigged out on her creations with more gusto than a pack of racing bulls! Young, vivacious and yet matronly – she made sure everyone did ‘susu’ before they left for a concert – Priya was a darling.

Priya watched Suruchi keenly every day for signs of improvement and when she could finally wait no longer, confronted her, head on. “What IS it that’s eating you alive?” she demanded. Suruchi feigned ignorance, although she knew it was impossible to deceive her friend. Finally, when pushed into a corner, she made a feeble excuse of missing her brothers and having the ‘post-reunion’ hangover. “Don’t give me crap girl! You’re insulting my intelligence!”, thundered Priya. Suruchi fled before another word could be uttered.

At home, she anguished over if she should confide in Priya or not. How could she suggest such atrocious things about her brother? What would Priya think? What would anyone think?! Wouldn’t they think she was demented? Did such things ever happen in ‘decent’ families? Of course she had read stuff here and there, now and then, but she always thought they must be made-up. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh”, Suruchi screamed into her pillow, pulling her hair so hard that a few clumps came off in her hands. ‘Would the nightmare never end?’

...to be continued