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Chapters

House Night
Borderline Reality
Midnight Meals
The Guy Downstairs
Mains
Advanced
Leap of Faith
Plans
Recovery
Blind Spot
Ice and Warmth
Mornings
Date Night
Night
Surrender
Religion
Ramadan
Haunted
Sunrise

 House Night

“What is it, that can stop them from burying themselves?”

“Jerking off, maybe,” replied his roommate easily, his eyes

violating the laptop’s screen. “Or this,” blowing out a long,
smoky breath.

They say patience brings fruits. His trust faltered, as he rose

from yet another pushup. They both failed to keep count.
For with his ever high roomie, the loud music that somehow
managed to leak even onto the third floor of Satpura, and the
steady, obvious thuk- thuk- thuk from the senior’s room
below them, all he could do was resort to his strange method
of meditation. The pump afforded him the vision to dive into
a different world.

The world in which he had decided to not fulfill the father’s

dream of sending his son home: the home where he’d fallen
in love with his mother. The Indian Institute of Technology
was nothing short of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry to him.

“So- happy- ” he had managed, in a choked voice. That

night, the tears refused to stop, as he lay alone in the hall,
reliving his secret wedding on the laptop. A dozen witnesses,
the infamous roof of Kumaon, and cake. That was it, really.
But despite routine arguments, he never managed to
celebrate the birthday of their only son. It had been nineteen
years, since one loved one was swiftly replaced by another.

“I wonder if lungs will fail you first, or that which is below,” he

replied, as the first few beads of sweat broke on his
forehead. That was the mark. He stood up erratically. The
muscles screamed in protest.

“Swag will sail my ship, bro,” replied Rohan confidently. Then

he frowned. “And, I never agreed jerking off fucks up dicks.”

“Doesn’t matter if you did. Your agreement has zero

relevance to facts.”

“Fuck off-”

“But for the record, porn was the original debate, not
masturbation. Neuroplasticity dictates that my brain will, over
time, fill any vessel that I provide, and that this brain will, in
turn, dictate who I am. Once the brain takes the shape of a
screwed up vessel, life in general will be screwed up.”

“Alright, let’s pretend I quit porn,” he replied, shutting the

laptop dramatically. “But what’s wrong with good old, eighth-
grade, thought-fueled-”

“Solutions can be difficult.”

Rohan rolled his eyes. “That’s your claim? Not jerking off is
the ultimate solution?”

“Negative. I don’t really care what happens downstairs.

That’s nature. What I care for, is this,” he replied, tapping the
side of his head. He reached for the blue bucket.

“So not even think of sex-”

“Refraining. That’s Mastery. The warrior who strives, moving
steeper with each stride. Delaying pleasure, till the fuel is
real.”


“Gay.”


“Asexual may be a better term. Temporarily, at least.”

“Bend over babe, I’m in the mood.”

“My brain, is chained at thirteen. Yours, is dreading forty.

Most of it now,” he stepped out, for fresh air, “just wants to
escape your destroyed reality.”

“You make zero sense,” he informed, but distastefully. He

hated him for killing the smoke.

A thunderous smile flashed through the tension. “Sure,” he

chortled, turning away.

“Oh fuck you. Fuck your fucked up theories-”

“Over and out, Rohan,” were the last words, before he shut
the door behind the smoke with his leg. The monkey-like
groan of ecstasy came from the floor below them. Four
minutes. He wondered if the senior managed to give the girl
the time of her life.

House Day was, in fact, the one night, when students were
allowed to freely roam in and out of the hostel, irrespective of
sex. Famously known as the ultimate party-night, the supply

of alcohol remained constant- courtesy of the suspiciously
busy theka right in front of the Indian Institute of Technology,
Delhi- with the loud music drowning all the other sounds that
may have been classified objectionable.

But the biggest party was at the rear end of the hostel, on
the second floor’s terrace, for that was the most open, yet
extremely well hidden part of the building. There were four
guys and two girls, around a tipsy Zafirah Khan, who had
been keenly listening to her friends talk, just when-

“Ow!” Rounaq complained, as her hand flew to his face,

killing the flow of words. “What was that for!”

“Who... the hell...” she breathed heavily, her stunning green

eyes fixed on the bridge that connected the third floors of the
north wing and the south wing. The bridge was the mast of
the hostel, the clear front view. There was only one man on
it, crossing, with one hand holding a simple blue bucket, and
the other, clearly, underwear. There was a black towel
wrapped around him, covering him from the waist, till the
knees. The night was dark, but the moist skin glistened in
the moonlight.

Her greedy eyes finally returned. Nalin smiled proudly.

“That, is hot, naked talent. Best coder of the Dark Web

Society. Killer brain. New born.”

“Shut up-!” Zafirah turned to him, with wide eyes. “He’s a

fachcha?!”

“Right out of the furnace,” Rounaq nodded. “Zaf, I think you

need to go to the loo too. Why don’t you join him, see if he
has a fresh pair of panties with him-”

He massaged his ribs, where the blow struck his middle

region. Zafirah had a violent arm. She turned to her best
friend again, a sweet smile pasted on her lips.

“Nalin, you know I love you, right?”

“I’m not doing anything for you-”

“Hundred bucks.”

“I- no, he’s the bloody future of the Dark Web Society, I’m
not gonna let you soften him up-”

“Shut up, every knows the Dark Web Society is just a big,
sensitive joke-”

“The Dark Web Society is- NOT- A- JOKE-”

“Two hundred.”

“I- NO. He’s too young, and I kinda care for him- I’m not
letting you-”

“C’mon on man, I’m not gonna eat him up- or wait- I mean-
dude, just hear me out-”

“I don’t want to-”

“Four hundred.”

There was a long silence. Nalin bit his lip, even as Zafirah
pouted sadly.

“What do you want..” he muttered finally. His friends

laughed. Zafirah knew they wouldn’t open their mouths if it
meant crossing Nalin. The insanely influential, master of
politics, big-shot-startup-owner Nalin. Besides, four
hundred was nothing, for the intimate setting he could
potentially create.

“Let’s do the paperwork later,” she winked slyly. “Right now,

all I need is the name. You know. Personal research.”

“Stalker,” Nalin scoffed. Zafirah batted her eyes lovingly.

Rounaq smiled.

“Raghavan.”

 Borderline Reality

Growing up, Nalin never had much to begin with. Although

his family had always been sufficient for him, a neat chunk of
that sufficiency depended on his own sacrifices.

But maybe there was some kind of truth in hard work. In a

valiant effort to escape the chokeholds of poverty, Nalin
learnt how to dream, and because some dreams are easier
to live than others, the bigger dreams soon began to feel
more real. The first dream had been induced by the society,
to top the twelfth grade. Okay, check. The second dream
had been induced by the society, to join the top college.
Check, check. The third dream had been induced by the
society, to tread the lonely path to tons of money. Triple
check.

“But then what did you do for yourself?” asked Raghavan, as

they sipped the coffee ultra-slowly in the air-conditioned
CCD. Are you mental? Nalin had asked. CCD was inside the
campus, no doubt, but there existed a coffee hundred meters
outside the shop that was nine times cheaper. Of course,
Raghavan reminded him that he was filthy rich, and that the
cold felt good in the blistering summer, and that the coffee
was better, and more lasting anyways.

“Accusing that all of that was for the society would be unfair,”
he replied honestly. “It’s bitter, but also a fact, that I need to
spend a decade’s worth of youth trying to build something
solid. Moreover, being busy channels the energies. Saves
me from killing time, with that which degrades me. We’ve

discussed this before, haven’t we?”

Raghavan sipped some more. There was agreement in his

demeanor.

“Had I not loved what I do, you could’ve said that I do

injustice to myself, bartering life for money.”

“True,” said Raghavan, “I would’ve said ‘you can do better’.

But there’s no injustice in failing to do the right thing- except
when you know, that this is the right thing. Then there is
injustice in not doing it.”

“I promise I love our start-up,” laughed Nalin.

“You walk the right road,” nodded Raghavan, “finding that

passion in life, that neither hurts the system, nor the
surroundings. That’s a rare fortune.”

Nalin rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t kill to come out of your
hiding once in a while, you know.”

Even though he was trying to ridicule his friend’s total refrain,

there was a tightness in his eyes, that acknowledged the
falsehood in his own words. Till last night, that falsehood had
been well hidden, but now, he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Raghavan. The most bizarre junior that he’d found, out of a

batch of eight hundred, in a determined hunt for the best
additions to his embryo-start-up. The guy who wore the
shabbiest of clothes, the most generic of haircuts, talked to
few men on a regular basis, and never opened his mouth
publicly, in lecture halls that held over four hundred at times-

just so he could ‘avoid hurting women’, by being ‘practically
invisible’, because apparently, he was ‘traumatizing,
heartbreaking, borderline fictional material’.

“That’s so- I don’t even know what to say- egoistic, maybe-”

Nalin had tried, only to be cut off by a laughing Raghavan. Of
all the people, he had managed in between the snorts.

But if masking his superhuman traits was the real aim, Nalin
had to admit the strategies were quite functional. Despite
being six feet tall, incredibly good looking, and genetically
gifted anyways, not many girls wanted to talk to that-male-
chauvinist-pig, thus choking most paths of the dude-that-
guy-is-so-hot circulation. For the first four weeks, quarter of
the females of his batch were either in love, or hate, while
the rest were true IITians: women who had little hope or
interest in the vain life of this material world. Everyone forgot,
or got used to him after another four weeks, with no further
hassles. The guys in his batch and wing worshipped him,
though.

Still, Nalin initially found it hard to believe that all this was for
real- for out of eight hundred freshers, he had squeezed out
a hundred, pure-blooded nerds, only to find ninety of them
attempting to bury their miserable pasts, by painting fresh,
false images. With those statistics, he had been
apprehensive, besides being bloody exhausted, when the
last candidate entered. Never would he personally interview
again. He despised the heavy glasses of mistrust and
scrutiny he was forced to wear. Fortunately, the more
intelligent the nerds got, the more soft, core-integrated stupid
they revealed, in their desperation to evolve into cool.
But the designs of nature seldom change. The best was

hidden for the end.

“Take the seat,” Rounaq had mumbled, his hands pressed

against his face. He hadn’t slept for four months.

“Compu, Ranked 14, InPhO, InMO-” Nalin looked up with a

bored expression, dropping the papers back on his desk.

Damn. Tanned. Built. Footballer. Deep scar, left forearm.

Type-1 nerd, negative. Potential.

“You have thirty seconds, to make me believe that you’re not

boring,” he said flatly, putting down the pen with force meant
to strike nervousness.

Raghavan did not flinch. That’s the fantastic thing about

those, who stand defiantly in the face of bullies, for years
and years as kids: For one, they know how to kill under
pressure. For two, they get so used to delivering the most
amazing speeches, tribute to the hours spent in their beds at
night, imagining all the things they could have done or said
to their enemies. Words, are often something they win at, for
their unheard replies get more and more satisfying, besides
intelligent, with every critical rehearsal. Life becomes their
war zone, and winning becomes their hobby.

And so he ended up saying something just as intelligent,

because he had, of course, delivered that answer many
times before. The words were few, but strangely captivating.

They loved the boy ever since.

If there existed ways to measure belief, last night, one would

have observed Nalin’s belief in Raghavan’s vision shoot from
maximum, to double the maximum. It was just a slip of thirty
innocent, shirtless seconds, that had turned his one-time
crush turned best friend into the aggressor that he knew her
to be.

But off topic, despite having the chance to take advantage of

this walking, talking, interview-smashing gold-mine, one
would have to give it to Nalin, for not being inherently foul-
minded. Sure, he felt immensely lucky, for having that one
guy on the team, who now drove the entire project almost
single-handedly, yet adhered almost zero credit to his own
name- but because he had lived with little money almost all
his life, he understood that wealth was a necessary, but very
insignificant factor in happiness.

Raghavan’s significance in that domain, on the other hand,

had to be the biggest. Sure, Zafirah was his best friend. But
Raghavan was a trump card to everything. If he someday
told Nalin to shoot Zafirah in the head, he probably would
have, knowing it would somehow be a seemingly stupid, yet
genius decision. He laughed at that thought. It wasn’t fair to
call that a non-intuitive decision. Shooting Zafirah in the head
often felt like the right thing to do.

Had he not waited much, he would have never come to this

college, never discovered the dream of a multi-million-dollar
start-up, never fallen in love with work, and most of all, never
met the man called Raghavan, who now reassured him that

he walked the right road.

 Midnight Meals

Sure, Zafirah had her flaws. She wasn’t the most subtle
person, when it came down to getting what she wanted. But
that shrewdness also happened to be her most frequent,
universal fuel. If she wanted something, no human could
stop her from getting it- and by extension, through that life,
came gifts like intelligence, power, beauty, and what not. The
only thing that lacked was solidity, though. There was no end
to her thirst. After a hundred goals, she had understood that
not everything could be achieved by setting goals, for there
were few things, that felt quite buried. Be happy, she
instructed herself. Right. What for?

There’s no point, otherwise!

Should’ve thought about that before shooting up that IQ to

one fifty.

It’s the cramps, it’s driving you mad. Rest. We’ll talk later.

Oooh, it’s the cramps, we’ll talk later! Bitch.


I’m trying to be nice.



Then this is me being honest: I don’t deal with life, and
happy, and love, and all the other gooey stuff. The guy
downstairs is your man.

This made no sense. Her key weapon- her brain- had been
neutralized. The guy downstairs- her heart- rarely spoke.
Most of her hopes rested firmly in cardio. The next night, she

hit the road again.

“Run, you lazy ass, RUN.”

Nalin panted, dragging his feet along the punishing slope.

Zafirah kept badgering insults at him. This was routine, the
time when he felt like shooting Zafirah in the head. He would
go to sleep only two hours later, with vivid dreams of blood,
bullets, redemption-

“No more... no more...”


“Come on man! Okay, till the insti. Alright, alright- no

stopping. Just walk. Walk. Okay? Walk.”

She didn’t know many things about the heart, but Nalin
seemed to help. He was one of those people, without whom
she couldn’t imagine her life anymore. It had been three
years, since the chubbiest kid in a batch of eight hundred,
had drawn the courage of proposing to the hottest girl in a
batch of eight hundred, right in front of the batch of eight
hundred. Of course, he’d gotten DISCO’d [when the
disciplinary committee screws you] for hauling himself upon
the stage, walking up to the mic, roughly pushing aside the
most important person in the Dogra Hall, and killing one of
the most boring lectures, by confessing his deep, deep love
for the woman of his dreams. Of course, the theme of those
dreams had been altered slightly, but the love remained,
nonetheless. [The grounds for not getting rusticated had
been, “I swear someone mixed something in my mango
shake I swear I’ll never drink mango shake or banana shake
or any other shake again ever again in the entirety of my
existence please don’t screw me my mom will die if she

murders me with her bare hands-”]

But that was when Zafirah decided that this wasn’t a guy to
let go. This was someone original, and awesome. Being a
mini celebrity usually meant having crapped-out friends, but
Nalin was not crapped out. Nor was he stupid. He just
needed that one savior, who could melt out the glorious
mettle. From that day, Zafirah met him every day, and most
nights, two hours before midnight, and by the end of the
year, the eighty-seven kilo teddy-bear had transformed into a
ripped midfielder. But even that wasn’t any competition for
Zafirah, who had bagged gold in three different marathons
since her twelfth grade.

They ran for two hours straight now, to chisel themselves for
next month’s half-marathon.

“Just... die...” Nalin panted, barely managing to walk.

“Aw, even before we finalize our deal?”

Nalin laughed. If she wants it, she wants it.

“I hope you brought the cash.”

“Seriously, dude. Millions invested in that stupid start-up of

yours, and you still manage to be stingy,” Zafirah rolled her
eyes, as they entered the insti area, and headed over to the
coffee that was nine times cheaper.

“Chal, just to prove you wrong, I’ll treat you with it,” said
Nalin decidedly, steering her away by the arm, in the general
direction of the expensive coffee. Zafirah batted her eyes at

him in mock surprise.

“So that’s what rekindles your love for me! Jealousy!” she
said, throwing up her arms. “Why didn’t I think of that
before!”

“Nah, I just enjoy the revenge, sweating in their soft

couches-”

“When will you stop hiding your feelings behind the

disgusting humor, my love-”

He grinned, shaking his head, while Zafirah informed him

that it was not too late at all, and that she knew a lawyer who
could come handy in the court marriage, and that their first
daughter’s name would be Zafirah Mujemdar Junior-

“Okay, back to point. This guy. Raghavan.” Nalin grinned, as

they sat down.


“Why are you laughing?”

He shook his head, but quickly succumbed to the dangerous

look that she gave him. He didn’t want to spend the rest of
the night running.

“I tricked you into giving me money,” he told her impishly.

“Pretty badly, too. I actually have no problems in you going
after Raghavan. In fact, I think I’m going to enjoy watching
you try.”

She blinked, this time in real surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that he is the perfect goal for you,” laughed Nalin,
“unachievable.”

“Is he gay?” asked Zafirah mildly, already knowing the

answer. No guy in IIT could turn gay. There was just too
much of a starvation. But then again, frustration, coupled
with high speed internet, did have the potential to bore
someone of plain old female action.

“Funny that you ask. I asked, too,” said Nalin, “but no. In fact,
he’s dead straight-”

“You would know-”

“Oh ha ha, Zafirah, ha ha-”

“Okay, quits. Go on.”

“Dead straight. He is very clear with what he wants.”

“And what is that?” she asked, no longer able to hide her

intrigue.

“You know, I’m not very sure if I’m allowed to reveal our
intimate, night long discussions-”

“Do you want me to break your bones?” Zafirah spoke

delicately. Nalin quickly dropped the grin, shaking his head
hurriedly to testify seriousness. He really didn’t want to
spend the rest of the night running.

“He wants to be exclusive. No female ties, except for that

one woman who is alive somewhere: breathing, sleeping,

laughing, crying. He says it would be cheating, for if he took
time out of the equation, this person is already his life.
Injustice, he calls it, when he knows what is right, but doesn’t
have the guts to live up to it. He told me that he doesn’t just
want that woman to ‘be okay’ with him. He wants to blow her
freaking mind.”

Even though the temperature wasn’t set very low, Zafirah got
colder with every passing word. She brought her lips to the
coffee, trying nonchalance.

“More. Tell me more.”

“He wants to sacrifice every moment in his life before

meeting her, to prepare for the day he meets her. Wants to
starve himself of dopamine, so that the first time he feels
those feelings again, he appreciates her the way she
deserves to be appreciated. Like a man appreciates water,
after an entire day of thirst. The magnificent aroma of rain
touching the earth, after an entire decade of drought.”

Zafirah didn’t talk.

“He’s different, Zaf. He is building something glorious- a

magnificent castle. And if you want to try, you can. But I don’t
think anyone can breach the walls he’s raised.”

There was a long silence.

“Gay,” claimed Zafirah flatly, once her mug was empty. Nalin
smiled a soft smile.

“You don’t fool me, love.”


She tried for another five seconds, before laughing a little.

“Okay, he sounds... I don’t know. Scary.”

“He feeds puppies every morning,” said Nalin, rolling his

eyes.

“Not that,” she shook her head, trying to form words. “It’s just
that- he sounds like if I met him, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
That it would either be the end of my dating life- or, if it
doesn’t work out, my life.”

“Nah,” shrugged Nalin, as they got out of the shop, “You’re

presuming that you can be that woman. I don’t think that’s
possible.”

“What do you mean?” Zafirah frowned. What was not

possible?

“Told you, I’d love to see you try,” Nalin grinned again. Three
more seconds passed.

“You’re challenging me?” she finally blurt out, honestly

shocked.

“I thought you were scared?”

“Now I’m not! Screw your bloody homo-sage,” she laughed,

shaking her head in disbelief, “That was the coffee making
me fantasize.”

“Haha. Sure.”

“Tell you what, I don’t think this guy is legit. And even if he is-
dude-” she looked at him incredulously, “Zafirah. Khan. Like,
I know I hang out with poor people like you these days, but
that doesn’t mean-”

“Try, try,” Nalin chortled, “I’ll give you full support.”

“I will. And I’ll fucking do it,” she swore coolly. “This is

tangible. This is brain work.”

“Take care, love. I’ll only come out of this happy, or smug.
Win win.”

“But if you’re really so confident,” Zafirah whirled towards

him impatiently, “why did I not know he’s your langot-yaar-”

“Never say those words again-”

“Don’t dodge.”

“I’ve only known him for two months,” said Nalin cautiously.

“That’s two years in IIT- dog- time! The guy’s in the start- up,
for heaven’s sake- I know everyone in the start-up-”

Nalin couldn’t hide the guilt. His steps became awkward.

“Promise I won’t make you run,” Zafirah offered, rolling her

eyes.

He didn’t think much, before speaking.

“True, I trust the dog around the baby. But I never said I
wanted the dog in the first place. Besides, the baby didn’t
turn out to be very baby anyways-”

“Haha, don’t call him a dog, babe,” laughed Zafirah, blowing

a kiss at him.

Nalin bit his lip nervously. Zafirah’s eyes narrowed. “Nalin.

Mujemdar. Did you just call me a dog?”

“Hey- hey- I- you’re the one who said- we- ouch- IIT- Zaf,
stop- dogs- years- OW!- Zafirah!-”

They finally reached her hostel. It was well past midnight, but
there were no hostel restrictions whatsoever. Nalin even
knew couples who spent weekends outside the campus.
He bade her goodnight, feeling bruised, but light. In all truth,
life was fun with Zafirah. Nothing could ever be serious
enough when he had her around. Again, he was left in
wonder, as to how Raghavan could withstand so much
steam without cracking.

“Well, he’s gonna get hammered soon,” he sighed, starting

the mile-long jog back to the boy’s hostel.

 The Guy Downstairs

It was 4 A.M. in the morning, when the ancient Nokia

monster vibrated under his pillow, and no man alive can
prove that the earth of Kryzathusthan didn’t quake because
of that. Still, he managed to survive, with half life hands,
mindlessly slapping the brick over his ear.

“I was.. about.. to shoot you..”

“Aw, I love you too, babes. But first, tell me why I can’t find
this guy-”

“Social non.. what’s that word.. Ah. Existence.”

“What?”


“No fuse.. no twitty.. no..”

“Nalin- Mujemdar: I- do- not- understand- what- you- are-

saying-”

He grimaced away from the speaker, as the words got

progressively loud. He returned when they ceased.

“Facebook.. Twitter.. Uhm.. snappy? What do you.. call that

thing?”

“Wait- you’re telling me-”

“Hmm hmm hmm,” Nalin half smiled, half laughed in his

sleep. He got up, relishing his small wins.

“Nalin Muje-”

“Personal research needs inputs, my love,” he cut her

throatily. “You can’t stalk Raghavan, because he doesn’t
want to be stalked.”

There was a pause. The angry breaths of defeat could easily

be heard, though. Nalin’s sleepy smile widened.

“Walk with me,” he apologized. “Promise I’ll play fair this

time.”

More breaths.


“Silk?” he tried, a final attempt.

“Fruit and nut,” returned the order.

“One?”

“Three.”


“Insti?”

“Hostel.”

“Okay.”


More breaths.

“Okay.”

“Before you kill me, let me just remind ourselves-”

Zafirah laughed finally, at Nalin walking from ten feet away,

clad in the shortest of shorts, with hands raised in self
defense.

“Nice,” she whistled at the batman briefs. Nalin twirled.

They headed back towards the insti. Redundant, they are,

but most walks in the campus are exactly of such nature.
The boys hostels, a tough two kilometers from the
institutional area, and the girls hostel, a further kilometer
from there. The distance, traditionally, was meant to create a
studious mahoul, but engineers have always had a knack of
finding solutions. Late night walks beneath the long, cold
greenery was the most normal way for the opposites to
interact, thus turning the difficulty on its very head. The three
kilometers now served as beautiful backdrops, to the
countless moments, and endless stories.

“Who is this guy,” she shook her head in disbelief, returning

to the night’s subject.

“Told you, he’s the human version of MewTwo,” laughed

Nalin.

“It all fits,” she realized in despair, “No social existence, no

regular sightings, unknown, blizzard potential- how do I even
begin!”

“This is tangible, this is brainwork! Ooh, I’m Zafirah Khan, I’m

so pretty, muah muah muah-”

“Horrible, horrible,” moaned Zafirah, “your humor, my

failures- so poor-”

“Quit it,” Nalin smiled, but with firm instruction. “Quit talking.
Just walk. Don’t even think.”

She nodded. She did have about two hours of overtime fuel
in her system, having slept the entire afternoon- but that still
didn’t justify the muddle she’d stubbornly trudged into. They
reached the boy’s hostels, and turned at the usual bend. Ten
minutes later, she smiled, feeling smoother.

“Now: Shoot.”

“He is the goal. You are the knowledge. I am the gamer.”

Nalin took in the words, and nodded. “Sounds about right.”


She looked at him, the green eyes rid of trouble.

“Speak.”

“Vigilance first: it’s four-fifteen. We need to get back into our

homes.”

Zafirah frowned. “Why?”

“Because your ‘goal’, will be anywhere and everywhere on

the earth of this campus, in another fifteen minutes.”

“Runner?” she raised her brows, high.

“Borderline fictional,” muttered Nalin, and laughed when he
saw her puzzled expression. “That’s for another day.”

She thought about it.

Four thirty.

“Regular?”

“You wouldn’t believe.”

But I would. Regular. Runner. Maybe..

“What are you thinking?” asked Nalin impatiently.

“A test.. my god, another test- and if true, the leap of faith..”

“Yes, that makes total sense,” Nalin threw his hands in

protest, just as they reached Himadri.

“Shut up, knowledge,” Zafirah grinned, blowing him a kiss

goodbye. “You’re the spectator, I’m the gamer. Remember?”

“Win win for me, don’t forget that,” Nalin called over his
shoulders, already on the jog back. He had only nine
minutes, to avoid confrontation.

Zafirah grinned, her heart beating fast.

Wait.

Heart beating fast.

She blinked. What- she was- was she?-

Happy!

Surely, the sudden adrenaline rush, the waves of

anticipation, the floods in her heart- this had to be it!

Told you, he’s your man.

And with that last metaphor, she succumbed back into her
bed, bathing in the dreamy twilight. The mind and heart had
finally connected. The words kept resonating through her
soul.

The magnificent aroma of rain touching the earth, after an

entire decade of drought.

Nalin sometimes found it difficult, to understand how

mundane things could sometimes hold so much of space in
people’s lives. Was that how he would be too, in another
month, when the money would pour in? Would he stop
caring about all the real things in life, and turn into the male
version of Zafirah?

Shut up. That’s not a nice thing to say.

He disagreed. I have the right to want better.

But then again, wealth often lead to battling inferior battles.

Chatniyon ki ladaaiyan, he would have told straight to her

face, had he been in a different mood. But still, was it in fact
better, that Zafirah wasn’t afraid of having no sense or
purpose in life? Everything just revolved around chasing that
man- The Goal, ha!- whose moonlit-abs she’d spent thirty
seconds ogling at. How original was that, really? What was
so special about Raghavan, anyways? There really didn’t
seem too many reasons to not call Zafirah a filthy slut-

Nalin. Mujemdar. The second of the two women, who made

you everything you are today. What- the- FUCK- is- wrong-
with- you-

He grimaced hard, trying to fight the strange thoughts. They

were not his. He recognized that voice clearly- the strange,
invisible force, sprouting the worst thoughts, the worst words.
Raghavan had revealed them so firmly, almost like he knew
them like family.

*


“Supernatural? Seriously?”

Raghavan’s eyes twinkled. They had been sitting in the

library for the last six hours, cramming in everything they
possibly could, before their respective minors. They had
exactly four more hours, before the first test.

Fact of the matter was that Raghavan had willingly sacrificed

his GPA, on the alter of the start up- just as the other
fourteen members of the family had, Nalin being the first,
besides the bravest one. Grades didn’t matter anymore: the
deal was set in stone. By the end of December, most of them
would have enough money to last four life times. But still,

ruining education didn’t seem like the most intelligent thing to
do.

And so there they were, at four in the morning, when Nalin

decided that he’d had enough.

“Give me something new,” he moaned, tired of the integrated

micro thermoelectric coolers.

“Supernatural?” his accomplice offered mildly.

“Supernatural? Seriously?”


Raghavan’s eyes twinkled.


“Bridge,” he replied, already stuffing their books.

“Dude, I have three more-”

“Dude, I have three more coolers to make-”

“Respect, junior.”

“Please,” he rolled his eyes. “This is enough to save your

hide.”

Nalin contemplated that. Three minutes later, two dark

shadows stood on the bridge outside the library, sipping on
the coffee they’d bought from below, even as four hundred
students continued cramming inside.

“This is our generation,” he sighed sadly, as five students

came out, and another five went in. Because the tests for all

the years happened on the same dates, there was that one
weekend, when students seemed to leak out of the massive
library. “The future.”

“You’re being unfair,” Raghavan replied. “For one, we know

nothing about the worlds they’re knitting. For two, we were a
part of them five minutes ago.”

Nalin snorted. “I’d love to argue, but I’m dead.”

“But I do agree, that ninety percent are just here to save their
hides, much like you an me.”

“Enough,” he sighed, “not the time, not the moment, and

definitely, not the audience. But yeah. Supernatural.”

“Apprehensive, aren’t you?” Raghavan laughed.

“No, just dead. Try your best, revive me.”



“Jump right in, then. A ground assumption.”

“Shoot.”

“There exists an invisible force, whose sole purpose is to ruin

you- in every way possible.”

“Like enemies?”

“Not like enemies,” he warned. “Real enemies. Sworn rivalry,

by nature.”

“Okay?”

“So next, I lay the claim, that this force, is, in fact, the source
of all things evil. That may be as small as a kid stealing food,
to as big as the worst crime imaginable.”

Nalin thought about that. “I just imagined some horrible

things,” he admitted after five seconds.

“That’s the genius part: this force was responsible for those
thoughts- because they were, evil.”

“That’s pretty bland. But still, let’s hold the assumption- how
can they influence my thoughts?”

Raghavan grinned.

“That’s where it begins. The force, has superpowers. They

don’t just influence thoughts. They place those thoughts.
Whispers. You know that voice? That ridiculous voice, telling
you the worst things ‘imaginable’?”

“I’ve always called that the evil part of my brain.”

“But this assumption turns that on it’s head- pun intended-

suddenly, you’re not the one who can come up with such
creative and intelligent stuff on your own- consciously, at
least. It’s the force.”

“Sounds like a way to vent my flaws.”

“Numero Dos: they can flow through your blood. Bring- if you
let them- the heart under their jurisdiction, and everything
else that it controls: which is, almost, everything.”

“So when I do something stupid-”

“They elevate you to an optimum level of excitement- rush-

that doesn’t just give you a temporary high, besides new-
found abilities, from the raw adrenaline, but also beautifies
the stupidity for you-”

“When I rafted alone, without the jacket-”

“Surely, a well-thought decision-”



“That entire bottle of vodka-”


“So good for the kidneys-”

“Ogling at that gifted african broad-”


“That’s way more respect than you can afford, clearly-”

Nalin laughed, surprised.


“The beautification is multidimensional,” said Raghavan.

“Basically, every way we realize beauty, is related to the
heart. The sudden acceleration, red heat flooding the ears,
faces, the famous ‘just-skipped-a-beat-must-be-love’-
obviously not infatuations, hah- the rushes of dopamine-”

“What in the world-”


“This is just the basics,” Raghavan smiled. “You haven’t

even heard the killer theories.”

He raised his eyebrows in shock.

“So returning to the initial topic: Asuras-”

“Wait- what?”

“Forget I said that,” Raghavan snapped impatiently, “So, this

force is, your sworn enemy.”

“Ground rule, roger.”

“And they have two powers: degrading whispers, and flowing

through blood. Controlling your mind, controlling your heart.”

“You’re scaring me.”


“That’s a good thing. But before you leak your pants-”

“Sure, Raag-”

“Imagine this: watching something beautiful, but not finding it

beautiful, and watching something downright ugly, but
somehow finding it beautiful.”

“That could be poss- wait-” Nalin suddenly gasped. “Hand-

eye co-ordination!”

“Bingo,” smiled Raghavan. “So they start off from the pure,
natural state of the mind and heart. But this force is very,
very patient. If today, you find something beautiful, Asuras
will suggest you to try something 1% different, and they’ll
beautify it by the heart. This makes you forget the old thing
temporarily, while your heart doesn’t beat the way it used to

beat for it, anymore. This goes on for weeks, months, years,
until the suggestions, turn into orders, and that 1% different,
is now 99% different, and that different, is progressively
trudging the messed up road. Now, your heart only knows to
beat for the ugly, because your brain’s wired, to believe
anything less messed up doesn’t give you the dopamine
‘kick’. Over time, this vessel becomes stronger.
Neuroplasticity: Transforming the ugly into beautiful, and the
beautiful into ugly.

“Pornography, for example. Before, they’ll saturate every

moment you spend with beauty. That’s when they deceit
you, slowly turning your natural desires into progressively
unnatural ones- that’s where you get the almost criminal and
inhuman types of so-called ‘entertainment’.”

“Rounaq’s case, with alcohol,” Nalin blew a low whistle. “He

started with me. I remember clearly: ‘Just one breezer.’
Loved them for a week. Then he got used to it. Soon
enough, two breezers. Then a beer, before two beers. Two
beers and a vodka. Two beers and two vodkas. Then just
vodkas. And now,-”

“Chaar botal vod, ka! kaam mera roz, ka!” Raghavan hype-
danced to his own beats.

“The best part, is that once the brain is so conditioned, it

would stay that way, unless and until acted upon by-”

“Yeah, yeah, Newton’s first law. External force.”

“A flash of sudden inspiration- a change of heart.”

“But if that doesn’t happen, the heart will automatically be
under the brain’s dictatorship, like any other organ?”

“Like the elephant that was bound as a child, and so he lives

his life believing that’s all there is to it.”

“True,” agreed Nalin, “If I give up, defeated, it’ll really be just
me, on the auto-pilot mode. Wired to believe that I’m bound
forever.”

“Then comes the point, when you lose all hope, and just
decide to end it all. The ultimate disease,” said Raghavan
gravely.

There was a silence.



“This is an intelligent model,” Nalin frowned. “Too
intelligent to be something as ancient as Asuras-”

“But surely, Satan and his Devils aren’t ancient enough for
your standards, right?” Raghavan rolled his eyes. Nalin’s
frown deepened. “Or how about Iblees and his Shayateen?”

“You can’t be serious.. those are.. just stories?” muttered

Nalin, suddenly feeling a little strange.

“All of them? Magically about the same, evil, enemy force?”

Nalin didn’t answer.

“The coherence is where the beauty lies,” said Raghavan

softly.

“That, plus the autopilot fact-”

“Implying that you don’t need to alter your beliefs, to know if

the Shaitaan is real or not, to use the model.”

“Schrödinger?” smiled Nalin.


“Sure,” laughed Raghavan. “Dead or alive, the cat is an

invaluable tool. Staying rooted to a rock in the sea-storm of
sensory desires chains you to teenage innocence.”

“Hmm. Rooted to the original, innate, natural desires, yes?”

“Exactly.”

“Schrödinger, though. I’m offensive, and I find that cat.”


“We have a sleep, and you need to test.”

“Right is the hostel, let’s go to what you say.”

Mains

It was in the early hours of the morning, when Vandana
Singhania made her way into Kailash, the sprawling girl’s
hostel. The female security guard didn’t stop her from
entering, even though she knew that Vandana no longer
lived in the hostel: she’d decided to commute from home for
the rest of her days in college.

She missed this place, though. She missed the perennially

half damp clothes hanging from the many ropes, the familiar
meaningless scribbles across the doors of her wing mates,
and the faint drip drip drip from somewhere in the
washrooms above. This was Kailash- this was home.

Knock knock knock- “Zafirah!” Knock knock knock- “Zafirah!”

Knock knock knock-

The door flew open.

“If you say my name one more time,” Zafirah started slowly-

“I’m the senior babe, and I make the rules ‘round here,”
Vandana grinned, and then added in a whisper, “Zafirah!”

Her junior laughed at that, allowing her best girlfriend in.

Vandana wore a white dress that ended a little way above
her knees, and she looked like she’d just come out of a
party. She had.

“Now tell me,” she said, setting her handbag on Zafirah’s

ancient table, “why am I here, when I could be with Ranbir in
my house, ban-”

“Save me the gory details,” Zafirah cut her off calmly, pulling
her hair back into a ponytail. She was in her pajamas, ready
to sleep at the usual five A.M. It was four now. “I told you
what you were here for.”

“Yes, you told me that you needed me to set a honey trap.

But that’s just one side of the equation,” she replied in a
business-like manner. “You didn’t tell me what I’d be getting
from you in return, babes.”

“Oh, if this works out like it should, I don’t think you’ll be

wanting anything from me in return,” Zafirah told her darkly,
firing up her laptop. Vandana rolled her eyes. “You know
what I mean. What’s the bet, what’s my prize?”

Zafirah looked over her shoulder, and gestured for her to

come peek at the screen.

“What?”

“Hold on, let me open up my email…there are some self-

explanatory pictures that will get you hot and going-”

“Pictures in email? Are you still living in the eighteenth

century-”

“It’s from Nalin,” Zafirah said, as if that cleared everything up.

And since Vandana knew Nalin quite a bit, it did make some
sense. Nalin’s world hadn’t yet caught up to applications like
whatsapp or instagram- or even touch screens, for that
matter.

“So what’s this abo- holy heavens who is that!”

Her face flushed a little, as she saw the picture pop up on

the screen. There was a tiny pop on her own lips, as they
parted slowly.

It was a man, about six feet tall, in the familiar, dusty

basement gym of Satpura, hanging tightly from the pull-up
bar above him. He wore just a pair of black shorts, that
ended at his strong, well defined thighs. His dark hair was
long, wet, and disheveled, and he seemed to be grimacing in
pain from the effort. Long planes of muscles pushed out
prominent, greenish-blue veins onto the surface of his skin,
running along his arms, his shoulders, and tapering smoothly
into the v-bottom of his glorious abs. He wasn’t bulky; he
was lean, but very, very strong.

“That-” Zafirah whispered to her, still struggling to find words

that could capture the simple image well enough- “is your
prize. Lay the honey trap, reel him in, and if you do succeed-
well, he’s all yours.”

Vandana didn’t need to think four seconds for her answer.

“Oh I’m so in. What more do we have?” she asked greedily,

pushing Zafirah away from the laptop to get a better look.

“Nine jpegs of pure ecstasy, and a phone number.”

“Wait- what? That’s it? A phone number?”

“You didn’t think I’d be taking you to his room, did you?”
Zafirah asked her, rolling her eyes. “You just get to talk to

him over the phone, and try your best to get your hands on
him- literally.”

“I’m so game,” Vandana rubbed her hands excitedly, her

eyes glinting from the adrenaline. That’s what bound
Vandana and Zafirah from the beginning of their journey
together- they couldn’t just back down from an open, glaring
challenge, no matter how ridiculously out of the norm it
seemed to be.

“Okay, he wakes up in about twenty minutes more, so he

might be a bit groggy if you call him right now-”

“That’s okay, men are at their best when they just wake up,”
Vandana giggled. “Catch them at their natural state. Hey, by
the way, what do you get from all this?”

Zafirah cringed a little. She’d been hoping that Vandana

would have been paralyzed enough by seeing the pictures to
not ask the obvious question, but it hadn’t turned out to be
the case. She thought for a moment, before giving a cautious
reply.

“Well I kinda like the way he looks-”

“Of course you do, he’s gorgeous-”

“And I just wanted to know if- you know- if he’s actually that
good on the inside as well.”

“My god, you wanna test him,” Vandana realized, a teasing

look dawning upon her now, “that must mean you’re finally
thinking about unleashing yourself over this someone-”

“Shut up, Vandana Singhania,” Zafirah snapped at her, but
her face had suddenly turned pink. “He either becomes
yours tonight, or mine. Deal?”

“He’s single?” Vandana spluttered, shocked.

“Yup.”

“And not gay?”

“Dead straight,” Zafirah quietly quoted Nalin.

“Okay, I’m ready. Simple and straight forward. Let’s do this.”

His phone rang once, twice and then a third time. On the
fourth ring, he stretched out a lazy arm to answer the call. He
didn’t speak, though.

“Hello?”

No response.

“Hello- is this- this is-”

“Raghavan.”

Vandana’s eyes widened with pleasure. What a voice!

“Hi Raghavan- this is Vandana, your senior.”

There was moment’s silence. Raghavan frowned, as he
propped himself up on his bed, and tried to remember that
name from someplace. He couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, Vandana- but I don’t think I know you.”

“That’s okay, Raghavan. You do now. I got your number

from a friend.” Vandana spoke a little too sensually.

Raghavan grimaced, realizing what this was. It was four ten

in the morning. Vandana, a senior. Probably a friend’s friend,
that’s the only place a woman could have gotten hold of his
number. The tone of her voice told him that he needed to get
his guard up, and fast.

“And?” he asked her warily.

Vandana blinked. That wasn’t the reply she’d been hoping to

get. Still, she kept up that voice.

“And, I was wondering if you were free right now… you

know, I’m in the campus alone here, and I’m a day scholar,
and my parents aren’t really in town, so I was wondering if
you could walk me over to my place? It’s really close from
here…” she trailed off, her words soft.

Seriously?

Raghavan cringed away from the hot words coming out of

the phone. Whoever was behind this, would have to pay.
Still, perhaps somebody did need his help, and his morning
mood was making a normal request sound perverted. He
debated internally for a fraction of a second.

“I’m texting you a name, stay at her room till the sun rises,
and then find your way back home.”

Click.

“What!” Vandana shouted, enraged. “What just happened!”

Zafirah didn’t answer, but just looked down, her eyes wide,
and shining. She felt her shoulders fall into a soft bundle
around her, from the waves of peace that suddenly hit her.
The call had been on loudspeaker. She’d heard his voice.
She’d heard him pause, judging. She’d heard his answer.

The phone vibrated within seconds. It was him.

Vandanaopened the whatsapp message, her eyes bulging in
disbelief.

Niharika Kaur. SD17 is the room. Kailash. Just knock on it, and tell her
that Raghavan sent you to stay. She’ll let you, she owes me a no-
questions-asked.

Zafirah didn’t speak. She didn’t move an inch. Inside her, her
heart was racing again, humming to the musical sound that
now played inside her head.

Raghavan. I’m texting you a name. Find your way back

home.

Who does that! Who talks like that!

Her crush- yes, she would hereon refer to him as her crush-
had passed the first test, with better results than she
could’ve ever expected. In ten more minutes, he would
probably run into Vandana as she made her way back home,
equally dumbstruck. Nobody had ever let her down like that.
Nobody. So… gentle. But for sure, he had to have caught on
to the meaning of her words. The offer had been there, bold
and clear. He’d just… refused.

As the cool morning came, Zafirah pulled back the covers

over warm, smiling face, replaying the short conversation
over and over again in her mind.

She knew a few things about the guy called Raghavan now.
One, he was incredibly, incredibly gorgeous. Two, he was
just too fast, too smart- and three, he was waiting, with a
strange, fierce determination, for the one woman who would
blow away his entire world.

The woman that Zafirah hoped to be.

Advanced

The month of October went hand in hand with Rendezvous,
IIT Delhi’s annual cultural fest. It was the biggest and best
party to be in in all of Delhi, for an entire week, hundreds of
different shows, competitions, and romantic affairs came into
being on the green and grey campus.

But for Zafirah Khan, unlike all her other years at her college,
this year’s fest was going to be something entirely different.
It was the time when she’d get to know if her innocent crush
was going to turn out to be her much-awaited ‘Prince’- her
lifelong fantasy terminology- and if she’d then have to get
him out of his castle, or, rather, forever end up in his castle.

“Nalin Mujemdar, you’re going to have to do this for me.”

“I’m telling you, there’s no way-”

“You’re his boss. DO it. Just DO it!” Zafirah growled

animatedly, taking her famous Shia-Labeouf-stance.

“Zaf- he hates being in a crowd like that- he made me swear

I’d never make him bear a Rendezvous in this place-”

“But where is he going-”

“Saudi, to his father.”

Zafirah bit her lip. This wasn’t what she had wanted. This
could not happen. This had to change.

“Has he booked the tickets yet?”

Nalin rolled his eyes, exasperated.

“Zafirah- I- I can’t-”

“Okay, okay, stop hyperventilating,” Zafirah calmed him

down, knowing that nothing useful would come out of Nalin if
he started going into his old teddy-bear-mode under her
pressure. “Tell me this. If something really serious was to
pop up in your start-up- a really, really big trouble during the
fest- and you just had to have Raghavan in the country- in
the city-”

“He would still not step a foot on this campus, Zaf-”

“Two thousand.”

Nalin bit his lip.

“What? NO. A big, fat, NO, Nalin. This is so not cool.”

Nalin grimaced, taking the bullets right into his chest, for the
sake of his best friend. Zafirah had taken it up to eight
thousand this time. She’d played it dirty.

“Dude, we’d need you on the last night- we’re running the
demo for the crowds on a freaking stall and if we screw up
we’d end up being a laughing stock-”

“Well I can work from HOME!” Raghavan shouted, his eyes

vivid.

“Raag, please don’t be so difficult- you can just hide beneath
the table all night long if you wish, just stay with the team on
the last night-”

Rendezvous. The festival that turned the entire three

kilometer stretch of IIT Delhi’s main road into a humungous
fashion ramp, that Raghavan had been lucky- or rather,
unlucky enough to know about from pictures of last year’s
fest. The guy who wanted nothing more than to keep himself
away from as many women as possible, surrounded on all
sides by hot masses of the Delhi University, leaking in from
every direction he turned his eyes to-

“Nalin please.”

Nalin took a deep breath, taking the final bullets into his
chest, his own words.

“Raghavan- as your boss in our start-up, I demand you to

stay on the campus on the last night of the fest. No-
questions-asked. I’ll even owe you one.”

There was a painful silence, in which Nalin vainly wished

that he’d dropped Zafirah and her stupid cash into the gutter
that ran near her hostel. Raghavan finally grimaced and left,
with a silent whatever. Nalin felt like smacking himself on his
face. Still, the dirty work had been done- from his end.
Zafirah better had good reasons to make him do what he’d
just done.

Zafirah finally deboarded the metro at Vishwavidhayala, the
metro station famous for being the gateway of the north
campus. Just a ten-minute walk from here would take her to
Miranda House, a college that Zafirah had made many,
many friends in, from the countless times she’d stumbled
into them in debates and dance competitions.

Miranda House was an all girl’s college, and Zafirah knew

the perfect person for the job. One of the hottest girls in this
college- or rather, in all of North Campus- also happened to
have the lowest of thresholds, and Zafirah was going to
make sure that the message she sent across was loud and
clear. Neha Agarwal wasn’t the most intelligent person one
could come across, and most times, it really showed- which
would of course not go unnoticed by someone as intelligent
as Raghavan- which would mean that if he went for her, it
wouldn’t be because he’d found his ‘one woman’. It would be
purely for lust. A simple, clean trap.

Zafirah sat with her presently, chatting her up as if she’d met

her long lost soul-sister. Neha easily soaked in the sudden
affection, mostly because Zafirah was also equally, if not
more beautiful than her. They both looked like the missing
cast of Charlie’s Angels in the cool October afternoon.

“So this guy I’ve been meaning to tell you about- because,
you know, you’d really look so wonderful with him,” Zafirah
chattered away, spreading a thick layer of pink over her
voice, hating herself as she did, “he’s super gorgeous, and
rich- his dad owns this oil business in Saudi-”

“- oh show me, show me what he looks like!” Neha cut her

eagerly, jumping in her place.

Yes! Zafirah silently punched her imaginary third fist in the
air. The job was done.

For all it took were the nine jpegs of ecstasy for the trap to
be set, and ready. Neha Agarwal, the hottest girl of the North
Campus, the dancer that every guy- except one- of the South
Campus knew and was crazy for- would soon be escorted by
an innocent Rounaq into the dense, private area of his
friend, Raghavan, who would soon enough, fast enough, find
himself all alone with Neha Agarwal, the hottest girl of the
North Campus, the dancer that every guy- except one- of the
South Campus knew and was crazy for.

It was beautiful.

“I hate you.”

“I love you too, Raag.”

“I hate you.”

“Did I mention that I love you?”

“I hate you.”

The cross-legged Raghavan sulked like a little child, literally

under the table in the tent as he’d been promised, with his
favorite gaming laptop that he swore to abuse the entire last
night of Rendezvous.

“How’re you going to manage dinner?-”

“You’ll get it for me. Right here. And I hate you.”

“Right,” Rounaq grinned at him, glad that Nalin’s trump card

had decided to show up on the last day after all. He’d missed
him a lot when he’d been in Saudi. He’d landed beneath the
table just in time for Zafirah’s missile: her code words, not
his. “Dinner will be served, don’t you worry.”

“Why would I worry?” Raghavan asked, bewildered.

“Never you mind,” Rounaq replied hastily, quickly exiting the

scene, before he could leave any more evidence behind for
Zafirah to scavenge and later murder him in his sleep.

At half past eight, and thirty eight kills into his seventh Dota
match, someone called from behind the stall’s back-curtain.

“Hello?”

Raghavan’s back stiffened. This was a female voice- and not

a one that he recognized.

“Hey- Raghavan, that’s your name right?”

Raghavan didn’t speak. The stall’s curtain-wall was

supposed to be a part of his hiding castle. This was a
breach. And whoever this was, knew his name, for some
reason.

“Yes?” he asked slowly, not moving from his mini-gaming

station.

“Rounaq- my friend- sent me to get you some dinner… here,
in the stall. Could you please lift this curtain?”

Rounaq!

“Er- yeah, sure. Come on in,” he grimaced hastily, his

manners kicking into place, taking the better of him.

As he lifted the curtain, his eyebrows raised, as a tall,

slender woman in a beautiful black dress stood in front of
him, with two plates of really good-looking food in her hands.

“Can I come in?” she asked in a lovely voice, raising her own
eyebrows as she took in the picture in front of her.

Rounaq had- for some weird reason- been kind enough to

arrange for him one of the mattresses from the boy’s hostel,
on which he’d been sitting for the last three hours, playing
Dota. He’d also made sure to give him a bottle of mosquito-
repellent oil, so that he could wear his favorite loose t-shirt
and shorts. There was a table fan in the corner of the stall,
and two bright emergency lights, that made the ‘beneath the
table’ a very, very cozy and comfortable place to be in. He’d
actually been enjoying the atmosphere until now, despite his
initial sulkiness. But that had only been until…

“Can I sit with you, here? Rounaq said there was room for
two. Told me that it was the best place to have dinner on the
campus,” she laughed, revealing a perfect set of white teeth.

Internally, Raghavan knew that there was some mathematics

involved in this picture- perhaps Rounaq was getting a kick

out of this prank in some safe corner of the campus right
now- but externally, all he had with him were his manners.

“Sure, please, make yourself comfortable,” he muttered,

hastily shoving away the laptop, and scooting onto one half
of the mattress, leaving the other half empty for her. She
smiled again, and offered her hand, after setting down the
plates in front of her.

“Neha. Neha Agarwal.”

“Raghavan.”

“No surname?” Neha grinned, gesturing for him to begin.

“I’m from a Tamilian family… we don’t really have surna-”

“-ouch!”

“What happened!” Raghavan asked her, alert. Then he saw

her scratching her left arm with her nails. The mosquitos.

“Here, apply this before you eat,” he told her, passing her the
suddenly helpful bottle of eucalyptus oil. Almost immediately,
he regretted the action.

The light shone off her skin now, as Neha thanked him, and
applied the oil all over her bare arms and beautifully-toned
legs. She eyed him softly as she did this, only to realize that
Raghavan had suddenly found a deep interest in the food
that lay in between them.

They spoke quietly for a while, talking about random things
like the fest, the competitions, books, movies, and
professional goals.

“So, Raghavan- Rounaq said you work for the start up as

well?”

And just like that, Raghavan was on his first date of his entire
existence. He’d never, ever imagined it would be quite like
this, with a woman quite as beautiful as the one in front of
him right now. Something in his heart jolted, as he dared to
look at her, simply out of politeness. This woman wasn’t just
pretty. She was downright gorgeous.

She’s finally here. Lean in, kiss her, this is the one.

Shut up, Lucifer, Raghavan calmly replied, straightening up

now. A woman was in his castle, for some reason- and
whether it be his queen, or just another woman- he would
treat her the way she deserved to be treated.

“Yes, I work here, Neha. Although this would not really

qualify as work,” he smiled ruefully at the scene around him-
the humungous headphones, the glowing laptop, the mouth
watering food-

“You’re a part of something really big, you must be really

proud of yourself,” Neha told him, delicately taking a bite of
her food.

“Pride… I don’t know. Happy, for sure. Nalin and Rounaq

sure know how to keep their team happy on their worst
days.”

“This is your worst day?” she raised her eyebrows.

Raghavan thought about that. Well, at least it was supposed

to be. Who knew that he’d be playing the best games of his
life, and be interrupted by the most beautiful woman he’d
ever seen?

“I’m debating that,” he allowed, laughing.

“This is a pretty nice place to spend an evening in,” she

giggled.

The sound of her laugh sent tremors through his chest.

Raag, get a grip on yourself. Think. Think. Pretty girl. Long,

colored nails. Eyebrows made. North Campus. Think. Where
is she? Is she here?

He straightened, taking another bite of his food. He chewed

patiently, and then finally it struck. Yes!

Beauty and brains rarely make their way together.

“And a nice laptop too,” he told her casually, lifting to show

her. It was a beautiful machine. “Asus ROG Zephyrus
GX501. Really powerful for gaming. Nice, right?”

“Sure looks nice,” Neha whistled, taking in the red and blue
lights emanating from the keyboard.

“Which one do you like?” he asked again, the same, casual

tone.

“Umm.. laptop? I don’t know. Vaio, I think. Sony Vaio? I like
that one.”

“Hmm, nice taste,” Raghavan commented, as the fish caught

the bait. All he needed was a little pulling… “what do you like
about it?”

Neha didn’t take a second to answer.

“Oh, the color, definitely. The pink one. Have you seen that?
I mean who would have thought, a pink laptop! Genius!” she
smiled gleefully, glad they were hitting it off so well.

And the fish is out!

“And so am I,” Raghavan laughed out loud now, shaking his

head.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, I’m sorry. I just remembered a joke.”

It seemed impossible, but he thought he heard another

female voice laughing in the adjoining tent. No wonder, it had
to be an IITian, who’d overheard the Zephyrus versus Vaio
talk.

“What is it?” Neha asked eagerly, ready to laugh with him for
anything.

Raghavan laughed harder, as he finished the last bites of his

food. It was almost nine now. He peeked over the table, and

knew that Nalin wouldn’t be mad at him for deserting the stall
so late in the evening.

“You can ask Rounaq, he’ll tell you all about it,” he told her,
grinning from ear to ear. He got up, and stretched out easily
inside the tall stall.

“Wait- you’re going?”

“The food’s over, Neha,” Raghavan kept grinning. “Thanks a

lot. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“You too…” Neha trailed off wordlessly, watching Raghavan

as he carelessly slung his bag over his left shoulder, and
made his way out of the tent.

And in the adjoining tent, that kinda shared a wall, an

awestruck Zafirah Khan lay flat on her own mattress, below
her own table, finding it easy to not laugh, because what
she’d just witnessed made things click into place perfectly
enough for her breath to get lost somewhere in the skies
above.

This was it. This was the man she’d been waiting for all her
life. This was her Prince, trapped in his own, self-made
castle.

Raghavan. Raghavan, without a surname. Raghavan.

Raghavan.

She sighed, and she smiled, as the sudden, cold breeze

drifted beneath the curtains, and washed over her face. This
had turned out to be the best Rendezvous of Zafirah’s life.

 Leap of Faith

At four twenty in the morning, Raghavan’s eyes fluttered
open, as usual. He got up silently, not wanting to wake up
Rohan, who snored lightly beside him on the double bed. His
feet found the bathroom slippers, and he quietly walked over
the common washroom for his morning ablutions, washing
his hands and face, and rubbing his feet and forehead. He
brushed his teeth, as he gently came out of the slumber. The
water was painfully cold now: it was the harsh month of
November. The light hair on his chest stood straight, as he
came out after he was done brushing. He’d decided to let his
hair grow, to give himself some warmth in the winters. Once
he was back into the room, he pulled over a light full-sleeved
shirt, and went over his morning rituals.

In ten more minutes, he was down in front of the hostel,

stretching out before the running began.

“’Morning, Lily,” he smiled, as his favorite dog came to him

and snuggled his face in his outstretched hands. “You feeling
cold today?”

Lily whined in agreement. The night had been harsh on her.

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do about that. You would like some
warmth, wouldn’t you?”

“Woof!” Lily replied solemnly.

“And the kids?”

Lily looked in the general direction of the basement of

Satpura, and then back at Raghavan. He got the feeling that
she wanted him to come see.

“Let’s go then.”

Quietly the made their way into the basement, where Lily led
him to the small box that was kept underneath the staircase
of Satpura. There were seven puppies inside it, all jumbled
onto each other, their breaths making the tiny jumble enlarge
and contract in rhythm.

“Hmm, it’s getting a little too small for them now, isn’t it?”
Lily didn’t reply, she just went over in one corner of the
basement, where a bunch of old mattresses were kept. She
seemed to want Raghavan to add two plus two.

“Yeah, I’ll get you something warm, love. I’ll go shopping this
evening.”

They bade each other goodbye soon after; Lily didn’t follow
him out, she knew this was routine. Her master would be
back soon, in half an hour or so.

“Beginning workout,” the female voice spoke from

Raghavan’s cell, as he took off in the general direction of the
institute.

For six mornings in a row now, Zafirah had dedicated half of

her last waking hour- four thirty to five- to observe
Raghavan’s racing pattern through the campus. She felt like
a real stalker now, as she literally hid in the bushes at
different positions on different days, to map out his pattern.
She knew that if the roles were reversed, if a guy had been

keeping track of a girl the way she was, it would have surely
been considered a serious criminal offense.

So much for feminism. Ha.

But she didn’t care for moral standards right now. For all she
knew, Raghavan’s moral standards were high enough for
both of them put together. She scratched her hands irritably,
wishing she had some of the eucalyptus oil herself. It still
brought a smile on her face, when she remembered meeting
Neha afterwards, and asking her how’d it go.

He’s gay, she’d declared, her nose held high in the air.
Zafirah was so sure that she’d cried into her pillow that night.

There he is.

She took a heavy, nervous breath. This was the seventh

morning. She’d gotten a hang of his routine- it was a simple,
long round of the campus, tracing the three kilometers of the
distance from the boy’s hostel to the girls hostel, and then
three more kilometers from behind the giant park of the
campus, completing the quadrilateral circuit. Eight kilometers
in total, including the two shorter sides- all over in under
thirty minutes. Boy was he quick. Zafirah knew, by now, that
Raghavan wasn’t the kind of guy who’d compete in
marathons- no, on the contrary, he was the kind of guy
who’d jot down the world records of 5k, 10k, and 20k, and
then try to beat them every morning in his own arena, his
own campus. Borderline fictional, she remembered Nalin’s
words, and smiled to herself. Nobody could blame her for
being a dedicated stalker for this guy.

But what she was going to do this morning was probably the
bravest and most dangerous act she’d ever pull off. She
knew that Raghavan sprinted at an incredible speed when
he crossed the girl’s hostel- probably to get away from the
‘danger zone’ as quickly as possible- and that he just loved
to sprint impossibly faster at the end of his run- near the
corner of the quadrilateral, that marked the end of his sprint,
and the beginning of his jog.

And so she would be the unaware morning runner, who’d be

running from one side of the quadrilateral towards the
corner, and she’d be meeting Raghavan head on as he
finished his sprint- and it would be the biggest crash, the
biggest accident Zafirah would have ever been.

Yes, I’ve officially gone absolutely crazy.

You could just try meeting him through Nalin.

No. I’m doing this on my own. The first meet has to be

something special.

And fake?

I’d tell him, oh someday, and as far as I know him, if he’s

really gotten to know me as a person by then, he’d probably
just get a kick out of the lengths I’d gone to get his sustained
attention.

Her brain accepted the idea thoroughly. It was going to be

awesome. But her heart wasn’t quite into it, as it thundered
and threatened to blast out of her chest.

Well, for better of for worse- here goes.

Raghavan had always been a fan of physics. Solving

problems on paper that had obvious impact on everyday life
was often his favorite way to spend his free time. One of the
concepts that he loved was relative velocity- although that
was something that he didn’t often use in his daily life, since
he didn’t own a bicycle, and IIT didn’t allow students to own
motorized vehicles.

But that morning, was going to be forever imprinted in his

memory, as the classic example of a simple, practical
application of relative velocity. He would still remember it
perfectly, years after the incident took place.

There was the end of his sprint, his favorite right turn, by the
end of which he’d be running at about thirty five kilometers
an hour- and his partner in crime- although he didn’t know
that he wasn’t a partner at all, that it was all her idea- coming
from the other side of the corner, at a right angle to him- Cos
of ninety is zero, so thankfully, there wouldn’t be a horizontal
component to their destruction- but taking thirty five out of
the square root, and multiplying it by root of two- at almost
fifty kilometers an hour, Zafirah Khan, going straight into-

Raghavan’s blurry vision turned to slow-motion. The girl’s

sprint, thankfully, had been with her head held high, straight
up. She wore long dark pants, and a black hoodie, in the
cold wintry morning. Her breath turned into a cloud of water
in front of her, and she instinctively looked left, straight into
the eyes of her doom. Raghavan’s sprint, thankfully, had

always resembled that of a cheetah- his head bowed low, his
heavily muscled shoulders moving frantically like an engine,
and within a fraction of a second, both their eyes widened,
as Raghavan’s right shoulder smashed into Zafirah’s chest-

CRACK.

“What in the world-”

The receptionist at IIT Delhi’s hospital felt her eyes widen, as

she took in the picture in front of her. Two kids, both in
matching black clothes, entered upon her, with the girl slung
over the boy’s left shoulder. The boy winced in pain with
each step that he took in her direction, and quickly shouted
for a stretcher as soon as he knew he’d be heard.

“What happened!” the doctor on night duty came rushing

from her office to see what was going on. Raghavan’s shout
had been loud and painful enough to hear.

“Cracked ribs,” he replied through gritted teeth, as he

managed to gently lay the limp body on the stretcher.

“Crack- what?”

“Ribs. Please, get her in a brace before she wakes up-”

“How do you know they’re cracked-?”

“Because I heard them crack, doc- just get her in a brace,

and we’ll have plenty of time to talk. We crashed.”

The pain had been too horrible for Zafirah. She’d easily
fainted on the spot, as she realized that her very first touch
with the man of her dreams could certainly prove to be a
lethal one. Maybe it wasn’t her ribs that had been the issue-
perhaps it was her head. Even Nalin hadn’t known that this
was going to be her strategy to get to know Raghavan- or
rather, force him to know her. Had he known, he’d have
probably stopped her, threatened to expose her- but now
that the job was done, he’d only be left wondering how crazy
could Zafirah actually go in her mind, to get what she wanted
from life.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes- I just have a dislocated shoulder- I think. Nothing

broken.”

The doctor looked at him carefully, making sure that he

wasn’t playing it low. Apparently, he was.

“You’re bleeding- everywhere- and so is she!-”

“Just superficial scratches,” Raghavan muttered, not paying

attention to the left side of his entire body. It was red from
scraping the ground, and it resembled Zafirah’s right. They’d
both been wearing sleeveless hoodies on their run. The fall
on the hard grey road had been pretty rough.

“Still, I want you to stay and get an X-ray, that’s a given-”

“Doc, I-” Raghavan internally debated, wishing he could feed

the puppies first. It was five already. Lily must be waiting.

“I’m hearing no excuses. You’re staying here, and that’s all
there is to it.”

And that settled the matter. He was in quite a lot of pain, now
that he realized.

“Get her in a brace,” he finally muttered again, closing his

eyes in agony, as he clutched his shoulder and settled into
the nearest chair.

“Hey- can you hear me?”

Zafirah’s head spun a little, as her eyes slowly focused on

the picture on top of her. She was lying flat on a white bed, in
a moderately lit room, and something warm was wrapped
across her sides and the top of her abdominals, and with
every breath she took, everything inside her seemed to throb
with pain.

“Ow…” she groaned, her eyes closing again, her forehead

scrunching up.

“Doc- Doc- she’s awake-”

“Oh thank god-”

The doctor came bustling around to her bed, where a

concerned Raghavan stood, his own forehead scrunched up
with worry.

“Are you okay, dear?”

“Where am I…” Zafirah groaned, looking around her. But

soon as she tried to prop herself on her side, a fresh pain
struck in her middle region, making her fall back onto the bed
again.

“Shsh, it’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe, you’re in the

hospital- you got into an accident with this young man-”

And then suddenly, the memories came back to Zafirah, and

in some corner of her brain, her conscious did a mini-victory
dance, as she realized what had happened. She’d done it.
She’d got injured enough for Raghavan to come over her
and ask her can you hear me- and apparently, nothing too
bad had happened to him. As for herself though, she didn’t
know, or really even care, for that matter.

“Do you feel alright?” Raghavan’s voice came from

somewhere over her. She wanted to smile dumbly, hearing
the evident worry in his voice, but she had the presence of
mind not to. Instead, she just kept her eyes closed, and
asked through silent mumbles.

“How… bad?”

“It’s nothing you’ve to worry about right now dear-”

“How…bad…” she repeated, frowning. The doctor sighed.

“No internal injuries, I’m sure. Externally, you’re pretty

wounded. And you have definitely broken two ribs cleanly-

which is a good thing- had it not been a clean crack, it would
have taken longer to heal-”

“How long… now?”

“A month, at the very minimum, Ms…?”

“Zafirah.”

“Ms. Zafirah.”

Zafirah almost smiled again. Raghavan noticed the strange

twitch of her lips, and wondered if the doc was wrong, and if
she had somehow managed to get her head hurt too, during
the collision.

“The.. guy. He hurt too?” she asked, concerned. One of them

had been hurt enough. Besides, she didn’t want Raghavan
to be in another bed for the entire month.

“I’m fine, Zafirah. Don’t worry about it,” Raghavan assured

her quietly. “Sleep for now. I’ll be back to check on you later.”

Zafirah almost smiled again. She had to try very hard to

control her lips. But this was her normal sleeping time, and
Raghavan seemed to have noticed that, since the pain
hadn’t yet taken her out of her deep slumber.

“Okay,” she mumbled, automatically looking for something to

cover herself with. The hospital was warmer than the cold
morning outside, but still not warm enough for her to just
sleep without a blanket. The doctor called the nurse, who

brought a warm blanket to cover her up- and with a deep,
satisfied sigh, Zafirah went back to sleep.

Her stomach grumbled loud enough for her to wake up to it.

Her eyes battled the sunlight that now came in through the
windows- it was already past noon.

“Anybody here?” she tried to speak, but her throat was dry
enough to make a soundless tone. She cleared it, and tried
again. A nurse came up to her, with concern on her face.

“How are you feeling, honey?”

Zafirah drew in a breath to answer. It hurt.

“Not so great,” she exhaled, and winced a little. She

coughed, and that struck a sharp pain in her chest. “Ow!”

“I know dear, I know… I’ve never seen this sort of stuff

happen in IIT… even the footballers never get anything as
serious as broken ribs…”

Zafirah tried to prop herself up upon her elbows, but the

nurse hushed her down.

“I’m hungry,” she complained, frowning.

“You can get her up, sister- she’ll need to eat something.”

Zafirah’s eyes flew in the direction of the voice- only to

realize that it was him. This time, she couldn’t resist the

smile that broke across her face. She quickly hid herself
beneath the blanket, and bit her tongue hard enough to
make her stop smiling. She had some success doing that.

“You brought her food?” the nurse raised her eyebrows,

looking at Raghavan, who was carrying a big hot polythene
with him.

“It’s the least I could do. Besides, your food sucks,” he told
her firmly, with authority. Zafirah smiled again, and bit her
tongue again. “Zafirah?”

She slowly pulled back the blanket from her face, and
Raghavan, for the first time, looked at her clearly.

The first thing he noticed were her huge, green eyes. Her
dark hair was next, that lay scattered around her face like a
flowing river of brown. As he took in her face, something
pulled deep inside his gut, and he felt his heartbeat skip. He
had thought that after he’d seen Neha Agarwal that night, it
would be hard for him to compare anyone’s beauty to her’s.
Well, that had turned out to be quite wrong, as he took in
Zafirah’s outrageous beauty. His eyes came down at the
food again, which was in his hands, this time. Blood colored
his cheeks, but not enough for anyone to notice, underneath
the tan.

“You brought me food?” Zafirah mumbled, looking sideways

at him now. Raghavan smiled kindly at her, and looked at the
nurse, who was now staring blankly at Raghavan.

“Could you please?”

“Huh?” the nurse replied, her lips parted slightly. “Oh- yeah,”
she hastily turned to Zafirah again, and helped her get up
from her flat position to a vertical position, to make her back
rest against the wall. She winced again, but the nurse was
careful to not jostle her too much.

“I hope you don’t have a problem with vegetarian,”

Raghavan told her, as he sat beside her on the bed. “I’d
have brought you chicken, but I didn’t know if these guys
would’ve appreciated that very much.”

Zafirah smiled. “I wouldn’t have appreciated that either… I’m

a vegetarian.”

Raghavan raised his eyebrows. “The nurse said your name

was Zafirah Khan.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot. ‘You don’t eat chicken, you don’t
deserve to be a Muslim’,” she smiled. “But it’s a personal
choice. I don’t really like the idea of animals being mass
produced and treated like crops.”

Raghavan smiled again. “So you’d have been okay if I’d

personally hunted one for you?”

Zafirah laughed, which made her wince terribly again.

Raghavan’s expression immediately turned into a grimace.

“I’m sorry,” he told her for the first time. “I’m very sorry. I
wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Hey- don’t be,” Zafirah told him quickly, not wanting extra
guilt on her consciousness. “It was a symmetrical mistake.

Just that you seemed to have gotten out of it just fine- well
almost just fine.”

It was true. Raghavan wore a full sleeved shirt presently, so

all the bandages were neatly hidden away from publicity, and
the doctor had given him a simple brace to support his
shoulder, which he now wore. Zafirah, on the other hand,
was still in her sleeveless hoodie, her entire right arm
covered in white.

“As for the hunted chicken- yeah, that wouldn’t have gone
against my consciousness, I guess. That’s a natural thing to
do.”

Raghavan laughed this time. “I’m a vegetarian too- most of

the times. My dad works in Saudi, so I like the occasional
mutton on the Eids.”

“Me too,” Zafirah confessed, and tried not to laugh again.

The first conversation that she was having with the love of
her life was chicken and mutton.

“You didn’t have to get me food,” Zafirah told him honestly,

as she saw Raghavan setting the contents into a thali. “I’m
used to mess food.”

“Then get used to having good food. I’m officially guilty about
getting out of the crash this morning unscathed- well, slightly
scathed- and I’ve decided to be your lunch guy till these guys
let me.”

Zafirah cringed on the inside, knowing that she’d

undeservedly made Raghavan the guilty party here, but

there was also a part of her- a big, big part of her- that
seemed to burst with joy as she processed what she’d just
heard.

“You mean- you’re going to bring me food everyday?” her

eyes widened, and then quickly relaxed, before they gave
too much away. “I mean, it’d have to be everyday, you know.
These guys are too chicken to stop anyone from coming
here to meet me everyday.”

“All the more reason to not bring dead chicken into this
place, yeah?” he smiled, as he pulled out the two spoons.

“You’re eating with me?”

“Only if you don’t mind- this thali is usually more than enough
for two people.”

“Okay, then.”

“And oh- almost forgot- the name’s Raghavan.”

Without a surname, Zafirah thought to herself, and smiled.

“Zafirah,” she replied, offering her hand. Raghavan shook it

gently, and pulled back, gesturing her to start.

“Hey- you didn’t tell me what happened after- after we

crashed-”

“You fell totally limp. I almost thought you died, but your
pulse was just fine,” Raghavan paused, as if he was
debating whether or not he should carry on. But he thought it

would be better for her to know from him directly, instead to
getting to know later. “So then I somehow managed to pull
you over my good shoulder, and trudge all the way here, till
the hospital.”

“How did you manage that? I’m not very tiny…” Zafirah
trailed off, trying to imagine the scene.

“Neither am I,” Raghavan smiled ruefully.

They ate in silence for sometime, dividing the food between

them in two halves- two slices of the one big chunk of
paneer, two rotis, and eighty square centimeters of rice
each. They ate the daal and the side-dish silently, but the
silence was not an awkward one. It was warm, comfortable.

They soon started talking about each other- the basics-

which year they were in, what they were pursuing (they both
were in computer science), their friends-

“You know Nalin?” Raghavan asked, his eyebrows raised.

“He’s my best friend.”

“Wait- I thought he was my best friend,” Raghavan

pretended to complain, smiling. “We’re going to have to
interrogate him someday about not introducing us, right?”

Zafirah’s internals squirmed, as she thought of her,

Raghavan and Nalin in the same room. The thought sent
shudders through her spine. And Rounaq! What about
Rounaq! How tough would it be for him to keep him mouth
shut? What if-

Calm down, Zafirah. They’re your friends, not enemies.
They’d probably wish for this to turn out good, despite the
fake layers of teasing.

That helped a little.

“Maybe,” she allowed, smiling back.

They finished the rest of their food in silence again, and

Zafirah bade him goodbye when they were finished.
Raghavan called the nurse again, to make her lie down
gently enough. He could have done that on his own too, but
Zafirah noticed that Raghavan had not once touched her
since he’d come for lunch.

“Will I be meeting you again, tomorrow?” she asked him,

trying not to sound to hopeful.

“I think so. These guys can’t stop me from meeting the sick,
right?”

“Okay, but please try not to hunt any chickens for me.”

And with that, Zafirah laid back, pulling the blanket over
herself again. This time, there was nobody to stop her from
grinning like an idiot underneath the covers. Her first meal
with Raghavan had been way better than Neha’s. And she
was quite sure that she’d seen a tinge of red color her love’s
face.

A month of holidays, with lunch everyday with Raghavan.

Things couldn’t have turned out any better.

That made her laugh, and of course, her ribs made their
presence known to her immediately. Two cracked ribs.

A small price to pay.

“Zafirah! Zafirah! Wake up!”

Zafirah’s eyes came into focus again, and a broad smile lit
up her face as she recognized that voice. Her elder brother
had come over to see her.

“Come here, sweetie,” she mumbled, smiling, stretching her

arms as far as she could without bringing on the pain in her
chest.

“What happened to you!” Omar exclaimed, startled by all the

bandages.

Zafirah patted his head, embracing him gently.

“Small accident yo. I was out running, and I ran into another
runner.” Zafirah tried to keep things as truthful as she could
for her brother.

“When- wasn’t Nalin with you-?”

“No, love. I’d decided to go in the morning these days- the

guy whom I ran into was nice enough to bring me all the way
here.”

Omar and Zafirah’s mom stood at a distance, an expression
of sorrow on her face.

“I’ve told you enough times to be careful, Zafirah, look what

you’ve done to yourself this time-”

“Mom, please, leave me be,” Zafirah told her, not wanting to

get into an argument with her mother over her running
practices.

Rahima Khan fell silent at her tone, not wanting to argue

either. “Dad will be here tomorrow evening, he’ll get your
clothes for you. Do you want us to bring food for you here in
the evenings…?”

“That’s okay mom,” Zafirah told her, closing her eyes. “The
food here is fine. I can manage on my own, thanks.”

Rahima fell silent then. Things hadn’t improved much

between them since the last time she’d seen her. They
talked for some more time, but she felt as if she was hitting a
wall when trying to talk to her daughter. Nothing out of the
ordinary there.

Maybe I should just go.

“Alright then, dear. Take care. Do you want Omar to be here

for sometime? Nalin could bring him to the house later.”

Omar looked at his sister, and then at his mother, torn

between the two of them. But he decided that his mother
needed him more than his sister; emotional wounds were far
more hurting than physical wounds.

“I’ll come with you, Mum. Take care, Zafirah. Get well soon,”
he bade her goodbye. They left then, leaving Zafirah alone
with her thoughts.

So much for happiness. I’m stuck for a month now, with

nothing else to do, except wait for noon to come.

Plans

They ate from the same thali again, with the only difference
being the daal’s color and the side dish offered. Raghavan
wore his usual full sleeved shirt, and because he’d noticed
that Zafirah had been wrapped in her blanket most of the
time, he’d brought her an oversized hoodie from his vast
collection of generic clothing.

“You got that for me?” Zafirah asked him, raising her brows,
her heart playing a funny tune inside her, hurting her ribs in a
rhythmic, but ignorable fashion.

“I didn’t know if your family was going to bring clothes on the

very first day,” he shrugged, offering it to her. Zafirah took it.

“Thanks a lot,” she mumbled, looking down. The cloth felt

really warm and soft. She inhaled deeply, and evident
surprise came over her face. The hoodie was perfumed in
the best scent she’d ever smelt. “This smells so good!”

Raghavan smiled. “My dad says good scents are charity. Not
that you’re poor in the that respect- no offense,” he added
hastily, not wanting her to take the wrong meaning of his
words.

Zafirah smiled back at him. “None taken. So, what are we

talking about today!”

“I’m going to have to prepare a lecture each time we meet,”

Raghavan laughed, “you’re a really slow eater.”

“Hey, I eat just fine- I match your pace!”

“No, that’s not true. I try to match your pace- that’s why I eat
slowly.”

“Well, nobody ever choked on his food eating slowly.”

“Sure, sure,” Raghavan chuckled, “so while we’re grazing,

what do we talk about?”

“You could tell me about the weather,” Zafirah laughed, and

then her face turned grim. “I mean seriously, you could. I
hate being confined here.”

“Cheer up. A few weeks, and you’ll be out. Besides, the

weather is as cruel as it could be. Cold. You’re lucky to be in
a safe warm-ball here- no classes, no morning runs-”

“Yeah, definitely none of those-”

“Which reminds me- what are you going to do about the rest
of the semester? You’ll hardly be able to make it in time for
the majors-”

“I won’t,” Zafirah sighed, “I’m going to have to write the

remajors- that’d be six weeks from now, more or less.”

“What about attendance?”

“I’m exempted.”

“And what’re you going to write in the re-majors? That a

crazy guy smashed you in your rib cage?” Raghavan smiled,
“you’d have zero idea about your subjects.”

“I was thinking about that,” Zafirah muttered, a faint frown
coming over her forehead. “Nalin’s in batti, so we don’t share
the same subjects- Rounaq is a year ahead of me-”

Raghavan didn’t consider it for a second.

“You’re in CS, right?”

Zafirah nodded.

“How many subjects do you have?”

“Five.”

“Forenoon or afternoon?”

Zafirah didn’t understand where this was going. “Afternoon?”

she replied, the uncertainty in her voice turning her answer
into a question.

Raghavan’s expression cleared. “That settles it, then.

Zafirah, would you mind being taught by a junior?”

“What?” Zafirah laughed out now, not believing what he was

proposing- lunch had been happy enough, but this-

“What’re your subjects?”

“Um.. three core, one MTL, and one hukka-”

“What’re the cores?”

“Database management, Operating systems, and theory of
computation-”

“All under the belt. Don’t worry, I’ve a fair idea of most of
these- it’ll be easy to catch up-”

“Wait- what are you saying-”

“That I teach you, of course,” Raghavan told her, puzzled, as

if this was an idea that made perfect sense. “I mean, we’re
going to have lunch everyday, might as well have something
productive to talk about.”

Zafirah thought about that for a moment. Hot, naked talent.

The best coder of the Dark Web Society.

“Competence?”

“You’ll be surprised,” Raghavan smiled. “I’ve a lot of

experience with computers, and little experience with
people.”

“And I have a lot of experience with people, and little

experience with computers,” Zafirah laughed, a little
embarrassed.

“So its probably best if we rub off on each other bits of our
complimentary skills, right?” Raghavan grinned.

“Sure. I would say that your first lesson would be not to go

around offering free tuitions to people you smash your
shoulder into- but hey, who am I to complain.”

“Its just a month,” Raghavan rolled his eyes. “Besides, I don’t
have much to do in my afternoons, except-”

He stopped short, his face coloring again. What in the world

was happening to him! He’d never felt so… easy with
someone. More than that, he’d never, ever felt this warmth
touching his face-

“Except?” Zafirah raised her eyebrows, wondering what had

made him pause.

“I- I work out,” Raghavan replied, and tried to quickly change

the topic, but-

“The entire afternoon?” Zafirah’s brows went even higher.

“No- just an hour and a half. But I am kinda a trainer, so I

train my wingies too, after I’m done with my own session.”

Zafirah took that in, and slowly nodded. “So what happens to
your sessions, if you’re sitting through my classes-
Raghavan, I really don’t think this is-”

“Oh c’mon. I think it’d be fun. I love the concept of Rancho-

ing classes, I always thought that I’d get a chance to do that
when I come to IIT- and now I do. Besides, I can shift the
sessions to evening. Have a fuller, more satisfying day.”

“And your own subjects? Don’t you have to study for them?”

“Oh please. They’re PCM, more or less. I’d get by just by

giving it a day before the majors.”

“Okay- honestly, I like the idea- but why are you doing this in
the first place- I mean-” Zafirah looked away for a second.
This didn’t add up quite well- why was Raghavan not being
the Raghavan he was with every other woman?

“What is it?” he asked her, looking sideways. The expression

of wonder on his face made Zafirah’s heart ache.

“You’re already bringing me lunch- and now you’re planning

to take up my boring classes for me, just so that I pass- I
mean, you’ve just known me for two days- why are you doing
this for me?”

Raghavan frowned.

“Well, a, I’m the reason you’re here in the first place-”

“Hey, I told you that you have no reason to feel guilty about
that-”

“And b, you’re Nalin’s best friend, aren’t you? Nalin’s my best

friend too. That means that you and I have a lot of catching
up to do, besides your core subjects.”

Zafirah took that in, even as the monkey in her brain laughed
and danced to the beats of her throbbing heart. You and I
have a lot of catching up to do. You and I. That’s what he
said.

“And c, you’re not just going to pass- you’re going to rock the
majors,” he finished confidently, taking the last bite of the
paneer.

And just like that, Zafirah had entered Raghavan’s castle- as
a queen or as a friend, she would only get to know later. But
for now, she felt elated enough to witness the intricate
design of the inside of the magnificent castle- even if she
had to observe it all from the inside of a hospital.

“Okay,” she finally smiled, “when do we begin?”

Recovery

“I never knew that you had best friends outside of your team,
Mr. Mujemdar,” Raghavan raised his eyebrows, as they sat
across each other in Satpura’s mess.

“What?” Nalin asked him, puzzled. “Who?”

“Zafirah Khan?”

Nalin’s mouth spluttered- food dropped from between his

teeth onto his plate. Raghavan cringed.

“How do you know her?” he finally asked, frowning.

“I was running two days ago, as usual- and for the first time
ever, I met another runner. Well, met wouldn’t be the precise
term-”

“Wait- you’re telling me-” Nalin paused, frowning now. Oh!

“In kinda crashed into her, we both got hurt- she got the
rougher side of it. That’s why I’m eating with my left hand,
see?” he held up his spoon.

And then it all dawned upon Nalin. Of course he should have

known about Zafirah’s next move. He had been out of the
loop for quite a while now, since he’d returned from the US
just that evening. He tried to sound casual as he asked the
next question, putting another spoonful of food in his mouth.

“So what happened? Is she okay?”

“Nothing too serious- but I ended up breaking a couple of her

ribs-”

He spluttered again, as the food came out of his mouth
again-

“Nalin, get a grip on yourself-”

“You broke her what?”

“Ribs,” Raghavan sighed, as if the memory was faintly

saddening. “She’s in the hospital now.”

“Why didn’t she tell me…” Nalin trailed off, but then
understanding dawned upon him. Of course Zafirah wouldn’t
have wanted him to know that she’d- that she’d-

“Wait, what happened exactly-”

“Freak accident, man,” Raghavan told him, shaking his head,

“we both ran into each other on a blind corner-”

Blind corner. Ha! Zafirah’s done it again. She’s got his

attention well enough, I’d say.

“I must meet her, pretend to be mad for thirty minutes, for

not telling me about this,” he shook his head, honestly a little
angry. He was going to know sooner or later, anyways.
Zafirah didn’t have to hide. But then again, she was probably
in a situation where calling people up would be the last thing
on her mind.

“So why didn’t you make me meet your best friend yet?”

“Would you have wanted to?” Nalin asked him, puzzled. “I
thought you always wanted to run in the opposite direction
from women?”

“Hmm,” Raghavan trailed thoughtfully, “now that I think about

it, you’re right. I just have a select group of women in my
circle, that I just need to have- women I meet on a constant
basis.”

“That’s right. So how come you’re here, fine and fit, while
she’s in the hospital with broken ribs?”

Raghavan shrugged, and suddenly winced as he did so.

“Dislocated shoulder isn’t the worst I could have gotten,” he
sighed, “but removing my brace probably isn’t the best idea, I
guess.”

“Wow,” Nalin breathed. She really has gone far enough for
this. “So what now?”

“I’ve promised to take lunch for her everyday,” Raghavan

told him, and rolled his eyes at Nalin’s raised eyebrows.
“C’mon, it’s the least I could do. The food sucks universally
in IIT.”

“Nah, I’m not saying anything,” Nalin told him, smiling. He’d
love to be Zafirah’s wingman in all of this craziness. “Find
her pretty?”

Raghavan’s expression stayed calm, as he took a sip of

water. “Regardless. I’d have done the same if she’d have an
extra eye.”

“A beautiful, green extra eye-”

“Oh shut up, Nalin. I’ve even promised to prep her for her
majors-”

“You what?”

“Why are you so surprised today!” Raghavan laughed, as

Nalin dropped his spoon again. “Its just five subjects, most of
them afternoon, so I’ll have something fun to do then.”

“Why couldn’t you just have suggested some of her friends

to teach her?” Nalin teased, a faint glint in his eyes.

“Dude. I’m the one who put the woman in the hospital for an
entire month. I’m bound to pay back in some way or other.
Better academics than-” he cut himself off then, his cheeks
coloring again. Nalin caught him easily.

“Than unleashing your borderline fictional potential upon

her?” he laughed, shaking his head. He had to give it to
Zafirah, her ingenious plan had worked out better than
anyone could have ever imagined.

“Shut up. Besides, I’m excited about taking up more classes

than I can afford.”

They got up soon enough after that, and made their way to
the common room. It was El-clasico night, and Nalin and
Rounaq had managed to call all of their team into a single
room for the match.

“Hey Rounaq, Raag here was asking me why I hadn’t
introduced him to Zafirah before,” he teased triumphantly;
the team rarely ever got a chance to catch Raghavan on the
back-foot. Rounaq grinned, even as Raghavan grimaced.

“Oh yeah, I heard some crazy guy cracked her ribs a few
days ago,” he chuckled, “my sources told me he kinda did it
on purpose you know-”

“Don’t make me break your bones, Rounaq,” Raghavan

growled, settling down into the chair beside him.

“So you like her?” Rounaq asked, his eyes glinting.

“What? I just met her two days ago!”

“The entire team knows Zafirah really well, you know-”

“So what-”

“Nah, I’m just saying. If you were to make her the ‘queen of
your universe’, we’d be more than happy-”

“Quit it, Rounaq,” Raghavan told him, putting his hot face in
between his hands.

“Why not dude- she’s hot, she’s brainy, she’s-”

“She’s very good, thank you very much- now can you please
shut up and let me watch the match?”

“There’s still ten minutes to kick-off, Raag,” Nalin grinned,

settling down in the chair on his right. “But of course, you

could care less, you’ll probably be thinking of her the whole
night-”

“That’s it, I’m sacrificing the El-clasico because of you idiots,”

he muttered, and got out of his chair, leaving Nalin and
Rounaq laughing behind him. They didn’t stop him. Leaving
him alone with his thoughts was probably the best thing that
could happen to him.

Raghavan liked the new additions to his day. He attended all

of his morning classes, then walked over to the main gate to
get the food from the delivery guy for New Punjabi Dhaba,
then went to the hospital, stayed there tutoring and eating
with Zafirah for a couple of hours, and then back to the
institute for his brand new classes in the lecture hall
complex. Nobody asked him who he was- he was extra
careful to wear a cap along with loose winter coverings, so
that nobody really cared or realized that there had been an
addition to their classes. Most of the time it was fine, except
for theory of computation, which was a small class of fifteen-
the professor had asked him a question in the middle of the
class, which he’d luckily been able to answer, but he did
catch up with him after the class, to enquire about the new
face.

“What brings you here, son?” he asked him kindly, not angry
at all. Why would he be- rarely did he witness students who
weren’t present in the class just for the sake of grades.

“Needed some conceptual clarity for a personal project, sir.

Would you mind?”

“Not at all, not at all,” he’d wheezed, and that’d been the end
of that. Raghavan wasn’t a big fan of lying, but Zafirah was a
friend now- or was she?- and lying for the sake of friends
was acceptable in his books.

But that did bring a question into his mind. Was he Zafirah’s
friend?

“Of course you can be my friend,” Zafirah laughed, before

wincing horribly, answering his solemn would you like to be
my friend?

Raghavan had simply nodded, and continued teaching her

operating systems till the hour ended.

“That’s my cue,” he sighed, as he turned off the alarm that

buzzed suddenly.

He packed his notebook silently, trying not to look at the

nurses that seemed to be staring at them now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Zafirah asked him casually, not

wanting to give away too much. Tomorrow was Sunday, and
they’d already covered most of the week’s portions.

“Depends. Would you like to eat hospital food?”

“I would not,” Zafirah laughed. “I’m getting used to this,” she

said, gesturing at the empty thali in front of them. “I
shouldn’t. It would be difficult going back to the hostel mess.”

“Oh c’mon. You’ll be here till the end of the semester, and
then you get to go home- and I get to go to mine,” he added
brightly, smiling.

“You never told me about home. Nalin told me you live in

Saudi?”

“Yeah. Dad and I’ve been there since the last decade or so.”

“Don’t you feel suffocated there?”

Raghavan laughed. “I actually don’t. It’s a lifestyle that I’m

used to since childhood- in fact, I kinda find myself
uncomfortable here, in Delhi. Most of the times I hide away
from the overwhelming crowd- but then there are times,
when I’m forced to meet new people- like this,” he said,
gesturing between them, “but those few who do come into
my life, I never let them go.”

Zafirah’s heart skipped a beat. He’s never going to let me

go. I could live with that.

She smiled at him. “Go. You’re going to be late for… oh well,

my class.”

Raghavan laughed. “I like professor Mehra. Nice guy.”

“Raghavan is making small talk with me,” Zafirah grinned,

“Nalin said that that would be an achievement.”

“Tell Nalin to talk about something other than me to you- I’d

rather that you got to know me on your own.”

Zafirah nodded, before telling him goodbye. She kept staring
at his perfectly muscled back as he went, heaving a deep,
satisfied sigh.

I never let them go.

After the afternoon classes, Raghavan made his way back to

the hostel, ready to get behind the metallic bars. He trained
along with his wing mates now, five of them, and the
atmosphere inside the room was electric. There was a lot of
shouting, a lot of grinding, as the guys pushed harder,
getting motivated from the effort that Raghavan himself put
into the workouts. By dinner time, they were more or less like
hungry lions, attacking even the most generic mess food like
it was the best dinner that they’d ever had.

“Man, I heard you’re meeting up with Zafirah Khan these

days-”

“Quit it Rohan, I just have lunch with her, there’s nothing

more to it-”

“So you are meeting her!” he shouted, as if his roomie had

committed serious offense by not telling him about his new
friend.

“So what-”

“Dude. Zafirah. Khan. Do you even-”

Raghavan ate the rest of his food in silence, wishing that he
could somehow just keep his personal life a little more
personal. He quickly went back to their room, and took out
one of his most prized possessions from under his mattress:
the duplicate key to the topmost terrace of Satpura house. In
ten more minutes, he was lying flat on the ground in the cold
night, watching the countless stars above him. This was his
favorite past-time, his favorite place to be at nights. Not a
hint of alcohol is required to be dazed by the starlight.

Too much had happened over the course of the last two
weeks. He needed some alone time to process it all. He
started humming a beautiful tune, basking in the starlight as
his brain worked in the background.

Zafirah Khan, his brand new friend. The most beautiful

woman he’d ever laid his eyes on. The way fate had brought
them together certainly seemed true to the design of nature-
the raging storm, following the seemingly never-ending
peace. Raghavan quickly realized that he had suddenly
started looking forward to the two hours, from twelve to two,
so much so that being with Zafirah was all he could think
about during the first half of the day, and telling her goodbye
suddenly seemed like being made to carry a very heavy
weight on his back.

But his eyes narrowed suddenly, as he connected the bright

dots in the stars. Zafirah Khan. That wasn’t a name he’d
heard for the first time- he’d known that name before they’d
met that fateful morning. In fact, his intuition did find a
pattern in the stars…

He pulled out his cell from his pocket.

“Hey Rounaq. This is Raghavan.”

Blind Spot

Raghavan was a bit more reserved the next day he met
Zafirah. She noticed it when he kept silent for two minutes
straight as they had their lunch, not speaking a single word.

“What’s up, Raghavan? You okay?”

“Yeah,” he replied hastily, not meeting her eyes. “Just

reorganizing what we’re studying today.”

“You don’t have to work so hard, you know. You really go

deep into the subject. I just need superficial knowledge to get
by the semester.”

“Well, I told you that you wouldn’t just pass,” Raghavan

smiled, “This is the first time I’m playing teacher- I want my
student to have higher aims.”

“Oh, now all the pressure is on me,” she replied, rolling her
eyes. “But you are a really good teacher. I think I could easily
ace the majors with all of this,” she said, gesturing at
Raghavan’s neat notes that lay beside the lunch.

Raghavan stayed silent for some more time, as he carefully

finished his food. Zafirah had had enough with the suspense.

“You can tell me, you know,” she told him in a low tone,
“What is it?”

Raghavan kept his expression straight, as he gave the nurse

the thali, and put away all the small plastic pouches in the
bigger polythene.

“Zafirah.. why did you do it?”

Zafirah’s eyes widened, and her heart felt as if it’d gone cold,
and dropped a couple of feet down through her cracked ribs.

“Do what?” she mumbled, not meeting Raghavan’s piercing

eyes.

Raghavan suddenly caught her wrist, and Zafirah flinched.

This was the first time Raghavan had touched her, since the
accident’s morning.

“Tell me you didn’t purposely come into my path that

morning,” he whispered roughly, still holding her wrist-
checking her pulse, to see if she would lie. Zafirah too
realized that lying in that one moment could be her worst
possible mistake. She was doomed. Raghavan had
somehow managed to figure out her entire plan, and lying
about it would simply be letting herself down further in his
books.

“I- Raghavan, let go of my wrist. I’m not going to lie to you,”

she said quietly.

“So you did do it on purpose,” Raghavan spoke in wonder,

releasing her. “And Vandana Singhania- Neha Agarwal- Why
would you do all that, Zafirah!”

Zafirah didn’t say anything. This was it. Raghavan had

somehow found and connected all the dots. She simply
looked down, and didn’t speak for a while. When she
realized that Raghavan was still waiting for a reply, she
looked into his eyes, trying to convey something that mere
words couldn’t.

“Raghavan- I won’t lie to you- I hate lying.”

He waited for more. There had to be more to this.

“But I won’t tell you why I did all those things today- this isn’t
the right time. You were supposed to know about this so
fast- but oh well. You are Raghavan,” she smiled ruefully.
“Just let me get out of here, and maybe we can meet for
dinner some evening, and I’ll explain everything to you.”

Raghavan processed that, and slowly nodded. He was going

to get an answer- but just not here, not now. That was okay
by him.

“Okay. But you promise to tell me?”

“I promise. But you’ve to promise me one thing in return.”

Raghavan pursed his lips. He didn’t like open ended

promises very much. But he figured nothing could be that
bad.

“Shoot.”

“Till I tell you why I did what I did- you’ve to pretend as if I

didn’t do what I did. Don’t even think about it,” Zafirah said,
and looking at the puzzled expression that dawned on his
face, she said hurriedly, “because you will solve the problem,
you’re brainy enough- and I don’t want you to be the one that
reaches the conclusion. So this is my request- do you have it
in you to make this entire episode hit a blind spot in your
head?”

Raghavan thought about it.

“I have made things hit the blind spot in my head in the

past,” he told her. “I had a rough time growing up in Saudi.”

“Seriously?” Zafirah asked him, raising her eyebrows. “I

thought Saudi was supposed to be the king of ‘nothing too
dramatic ever happens here’?”

“You couldn’t have been more wrong,” said Raghavan

darkly. “Bullying,” he told her quietly, answering her
enquiring look.

“So will you do this for me?” she asked, reaching for his
hand instinctively. Raghavan immediately pulled it back-
which hurt Zafirah more than it should have. She looked
down, not wanting the hurt to be evident on her face. “Will
you try to ignore this question- why I did what I did?”

Raghavan thought about it for a moment. He didn’t really

have a problem with waiting to find out the answer. Patience
had always been his strong suit.

“I will not think about it. On one condition.”

“Yes?” Zafirah said uncertainly, not knowing what was going

to come her way.

“I’ve come to understand that Nalin and Rounaq, for some

strange reason, have a very deep rooted fear instilled in
them when it comes to your temper- right?”

Zafirah laughed a little now. “Yes, that would be a correct
understanding. What about it though?”

“I want you to make them stop teasing me about our

friendship. Would you be able to do that?”

Zafirah laughed harder, and then winced, as usual. “Sure,

Raghavan. I didn’t know they were giving you a hard time.”

“You’ve no idea,” Raghavan muttered darkly. “I had to miss

an El-clasico because of them.”

“How could you miss an El-clasico over something so small,

you desh-drohi-”

Raghavan laughed now, cheering up a little. His eyes turned

soft, as he realized that Zafirah’s love for football was
somehow even greater than his. There were, if there really
were any, only a few faults that he could find in this beautiful
green-eyed woman.

“So, do we have a deal?” she asked him finally, as he started

opening their notebooks.

“What deal?” he replied innocently, already hitting the blind

spots. Zafirah shook her head, smiling, as they started
digging into theory of computation.

The next two weeks passed by in a blur. Raghavan had to

work doubly hard, as the quizzes before the majors started

landing, but things were easily under control. His days were
really far more satisfying now that there weren’t many long
gaps in between all the work. He loved the added pressure
from the academics during they days, and he loved it even
more to release the steam in the gym in the evenings.

Zafirah had lived up to her reputation of being a good

student, and Raghavan had lived up to his reputation of
being a trump card to everything. His teaching skills really
did impress Zafirah quite a lot, but that was only one faucet
of his general excellence. He never left a single stone
unturned in his thoroughness. Zafirah sincerely believed that
she was better off studying here with him, than she’d have
been sitting through Professor Mehra’s boring lectures.
Raghavan had a knack of making the most tedious topics
easy to understand- but that easier understanding may have
just been because of Zafirah hanging on to each word that
escaped his mouth with all her might- she wanted to make
Raghavan proud of her, she wanted to smash the remajors,
and do justice to the amount of effort he was putting in for
her sake. And when Zafirah wanted something, she made
sure that she got it.

“There,” Raghavan grinned, as they ended the very last page

of his notes. “You’re all set for the remajors, Zafirah Khan.”

“Thanks a lot, Raghavan without a surname,” Zafirah grinned

back, glad that her exile in the hospital had finally come to an
end. She could laugh now without wincing, and she could
even move about without the help of the nurse to get to the
bathroom. “Just wait and watch- I’m going to top my class.”

“Frankly, I don’t think anybody in the class would’ve spent as
much time studying as you have.”

It was true. Zafirah had had nothing much to do during her

stay in the hospital, except for studying Raghavan’s elegant
font in all of his thorough notes.

“See? My decision to crash into you had been a productive

one, however ingenious it may have been.”

“I thought we were hitting blind spots?”

“Right,” Zafirah smiled, “which reminds me- I’ll be out of here

soon, where are we going for dinner?”

“Focus on your exams first, woman- and let me focus on

mine,” Raghavan shook his head, stretching his back. “God
knows that I deserve a break. The last month has been
beautifully hectic.”

“Only you could get a kick out of that. ‘Beautifully’ hectic,”

she laughed, packing away the notes safely. They’d filled in
two 200 pages notebooks through the course of the last
month, and Zafirah really had to give it to Nalin for being
such a good sport. On her request, he had discreetly
minimized the amount of work Raghavan used to handle in
the start up, so that Raghavan didn’t have to sacrifice his
sleep to keep up with all the extra load.

“As for dinner- leave that to me. It’d be our first night out, and
I’d like to take us someplace nice.”

“Hauz Khaas Village?”

“Nightmare,” Raghavan shuddered, “No, something definitely
more classy than semi naked streets.”

“Hey, HKV is more than that,” Zafirah complained, taking it

personally that someone had disrespected her party arena.
“You should really go clubbing with us sometime. It’s a lot of
fun.”

“In your dreams, Zafirah,” Raghavan rolled his eyes, as he

gestured for her to lie down. “I don’t dance. Never have,
never will. Except maybe on my own wedding. That would be
an exception, a classy waltz.”

Zafirah’s heart skipped a beat for some reason, as she tried

to imagine a woman in a beautiful white dress, waltzing with
Raghavan clad in a sharp black tuxedo. Her heart bet faster
at that thought, and it was all she could do to put her eyes
down and pretend like the sudden color on her cheeks was
not because of Raghavan’s last words. She quickly started
speaking, before he could add two plus two.

“All the best, Raghavan. Do well. Make me proud,” she

smiled, and then, “when will I be seeing you again?”

“That depends. When do you get out of this shack?”

“Hey, don’t call this place a shack,” Zafirah complained. This

place was intrinsically connected to the majority of her
memories with Raghavan. “And I get out of here day next
week,” she added brightly. “I’m okay now, but the doctors
want to take an x-ray again, to make sure the bones have
healed completely. ”

“So once you’re out, and once our majors are done, I
promise to take you for dinner. You’re staying here through
the winters?” he asked, feeling a tinge of hope creeping into
his voice. For some reason, the thought of staying away from
Zafirah for the entire December was really, really gloomy.

“Yeah. And you?”

“Me too,” Raghavan grinned, feeling his own heart doing a

little waltz inside him already. He frowned. This was not how
he usually felt around women. His expression quickly
sobered, as he pulled out his phone, and opened his
calendar. “Okay- I’m dead busy from fifteenth through
thirtieth of December-”

“Oh yeah, Nalin told me the US guys were signing the deal
then?”

“Yeah, they’ve called us to stay with them in the Taj for the
entire two weeks they’re here.”

“I heard there’s a lot of money involved.”

“Lots,” Raghavan sighed, as if the thought bothered him a

little. “We’re basically selling the idea we made from the
scratch. I don’t really like that.”

“I thought Nalin said that you’re partnering with them?”

“Partner, shmartner,” Raghavan muttered irritably, “They get

seventy percent of all legal cuts. But yeah, I guess thirty is
still more than we could have ever asked for. Money will

never be a problem for Nalin again,” his eyes brightened at
that thought. His friend’s decades of hard work was coming
to an end. The business would soon turn into a big fat milch
cow for them.

“That would be sad for me,” Zafirah laughed, and when she
saw the puzzled expression on Raghavan’s face, “I often
bribe him to get my things done.”

“Oh, knowing Nalin, he’d still accept any bribe you give him.
He knows ‘the value of money’,” he shook his head, getting
up to go now. For dinner

“Hey- I just had an awesome idea- my birthday is on the New

Year-”

“that’s so unlucky-”

“Haha, not so much. The world celebrates my birthday,” she

grinned, “but anyways- you could take me out for dinner that
night.”

“Nalin and Rounaq would destroy us both if they got to know

that we deserted them for dinner.”

“We’ll be sneaky,” Zafirah winked, grinning. Her smile made

Raghavan’s heart ache. “Let’s both mysteriously fall sick.”

“No, that would be too easy for him to piece together. I’m
thinking I should tell him I’m going back to Saudi for the
evening.”

“That could work,” Zafirah giggled.

Raghavan finally bade her goodbye, and made his way out
of the hospital, feeling a great weight lifted off of his chest.
Zafirah was going to be here. He smiled, and shook his
head, wondering how things could turn so easy for him.
Zafirah was slowly becoming a very concrete part of his life-
a part that he found very difficult to simply ignore, keep
pushing into his mind’s blind spot. Well, he’d have to do just
that, for another month now, until Zafirah finally revealed to
him the reason behind all that had happened in the last
month. But that didn’t bother him much. Meeting Zafirah
Khan had probably been the best thing that had happened to
him- and he was very, very aware of that fact.

Ice and Warmth

“How’d it go?” Zafirah asked him, as he brought lunch into

the hospital one final time.

“When do you get out of here?”

“Tonight. They just took an x-ray this morning to make sure
I’m okay- but I am okay- see?” she stood up to meet him,
doing a couple of jumping jacks to show him exactly how
okay she was. Raghavan chuckled, setting down the food on
her familiar bed.

“Then we’re celebrating with the team tonight, monkey. All

our majors went just fine- so we’re having an end semester
party.”

“Hey, that’s not fair-” Zafirah complained, “I still have my

majors left-”

“Oh c’mon, you can take one evening off. You’ve already
studied hard enough to safeguard the majors.”

“That’s true,” she agreed, and then brightened, “so where

are we going! HKV?”

“Oh, for god sakes, not HKV.”

“How did you manage to make Rounaq go anywhere but

HKV?”

“I’m an influential person,” Raghavan replied, with a sparkle

in his eye. “Anything to get me away from the clubbing
scene.”

“So where are we going?”

“We, are going ice-skating.”

What!

Raghavan grinned, watching the expression of horror take
over Zafirah’s perfect features.

“But I suck at skating!”

“That’s only going to make it all the more fun,” Raghavan

laughed.

“Raag- I can’t- I’ve just come out of broken ribs, for God’s
sakes-”

“Don’t worry, Zafirah. You’ll be fine. I’ll teach you,” he

promised, “don’t you trust me?”

She bit her lip, but then nodded. “I trust you.”

“That settles it then. I’ll meet you at the Himadri circle at five.
It’s gonna be awesome.”

Zafirah slowly strapped on the big shoes, with some help

from Nalin, who knew this place well, having come here with
Raghavan a couple of times before.

Rounaq and Raghavan grinned as they came trudging along

in their own boots, but Rounaq’s grin had a hint of a smirk.

“Hey, sis- see who happened to drop by,” he said, gesturing

at Raghavan, who immediately gave him an elbow in the
ribs. “Whoa, don’t break my bones as well, Raag-”

Zafirah rolled her eyes, and then nervousness came over
her, as her eyes took in the other fifteen members of the
team. Somehow, it seemed to her that everyone knew this
place well, apart from her. She looked at Raghavan, whose
very expression soothed her.

“Don’t worry,” he told her in a low tone, settling in the chair

beside him. “You won’t fall- I promise.”

That reassured her some more. Raghavan rarely ever broke

his promises: so she won’t fall.

“How’re you so sure?”

Raghavan looked straight ahead, and heaved a deep sigh.

This is it. Zafirah Khan is the queen of my universe.

He didn’t look at her puzzled expression. He still looked

straight ahead- but he did something he had never done
before. He picked up her hand, and twined his fingers
around hers. He raised both their hands, and then finally
turned to look at her face. He observed her carefully, before
speaking. Her expression gave nothing away, but her face
had turned a faint pink.

“If we fall- we fall together.”

Zafirah’s heart almost leapt out of her chest. Somewhere in

the background, she heard Rounaq guffaw, and Nalin
laughing with him, but the world could have burnt down to
ashes, and she could have cared less. All she knew, was
that if they were to fall, they were to fall together.

“How do I do this?” she whispered to him, suddenly

panicking, as she gripped the railing on her right, and
Raghavan’s hand on her left.

“You told me you trust me, right?”

“Right.”

“Then let go of the railing.”

“I didn’t tell you exactly how much I trust you-”

“Zafirah.”

“Okay, okay,” she muttered, letting go of the railing. She

stood rooted on the spot, not moving an inch forward or
backward.

“Now?”

“Now- baby steps.”

They shuffled forward slowly, but soon enough Zafirah got

the hang of it- and then they were off, speeding in circles
around the huge ice-skating ring, never letting go of each
other’s hands, despite the fact that Zafirah could have
skated fine on her own after the first eight rounds. But she
didn’t let go, and he didn’t let go, and so they didn’t let go.
Simple as that.

Oh, sure, Nalin and Rounaq tried their best to make them fall
together, but every time they came anywhere near them,
Raghavan somehow managed to whirl with Zafirah and take
them both out of harm’s way- and leave Rounaq sliding
across the icy floor on his wet bum. Zafirah trilled with
laughter, as she realized that Raghavan, as usual, was
really, really good at skating- like he was at most other
things.

“Seriously, what are you not good at?” she demanded

presently, as they raced through the curve. Raghavan
gracefully left one foot off the ground as they did.

“I am a very bad cook,” Raghavan admitted, grinning. “I once

served my dad burnt rotis, and confused capsicum with
green chilies in my main course.”

“And what happened then?”

“Let’s just say the next morning was very, very forgettable.”

Zafirah shook her head, laughing out loud as she did. This
sport was thrilling. The cold wind rushing through their long
hair, their feet sliding gracefully across the ice, and
Raghavan’s warm hand in hers. Things couldn’t have been
much better for either of them.

“You two love birds- if this ring was a straight path instead,
you guys’d’ve be in Chennai by now,” Nalin came up to
them, catching Zafirah’s other hand. “When do you plan to
leave, Raag?”

“Right now,” Raghavan said, his ears turning slightly red.
Zafirah looked at him, grinning.

“This was just too much fun. We should come here every
weekend!”

“Whoa, slow down there, you monkey,” Rounaq chuckled, as

they made their way out of the ring. “You have an exam next
weekend, and we, unlike some really jobless people I know,
have work to do the next two weeks. You’d have to wait till
New Year’s for another party. HKV this time, please, Raag,”
he rolled his eyes, obviously not taking the many falls on his
bum in the greatest of spirits.

Raghavan quickly looked at Zafirah, who looked at him at the

same time with the same panicked expression, and that
made them both laugh all over again.

“Pay up,” Raghavan told Rounaq smugly, as Zafirah saw him

pulling out a hundred rupee note out of his purse grudgingly.

“What was that all about?” she asked him, once they were
out of everyone’s sight and hearing. She tried to remove one
of her boots, but her legs refused to come out.

“Rounaq is having a hard time believing that this is your first

time skating,” Raghavan replied fondly, “you were too good
for him.”

“Oh please. I’d have fallen a billion times had you not been
there to throw him off,” she tried to sound casual, but
secretly, her heart was doing a little dance inside her newly
mended rib-cage. “Oh god, how do I remove these-”

“Here, let me do it for you,” Raghavan swiftly unstrapped her,
held her ankles, and pulled out the boots one by one. “Easy,
see?”

“Everything’s easy with you,” Zafirah mumbled, as they stood

up awkwardly. Standing on feet instead of blades felt a bit
weird, after such a long time.

They exchanged the boots for their shoes, and made their
way to the parking. They realized Nalin and the rest of the
team had been gracious enough to give them some space,
as they’d hurried off ahead without them. Only Niharika
stayed back, waiting expectantly at the door for them.

“Hey Niharika,” Raghavan looked at her with a puzzled look

on his face. “Where are the others?”

“They went to the cars, Raag- said they were going to HKV
after all, for a ‘real party’,” she rolled her eyes, as if the idea
seemed childish to her. Niharika was one of the few people
that Raghavan really, really liked. She was to him only a little
less than what Nalin was to Zafirah.

“Hey, what about us!” Zafirah complained, looking at

Raghavan, and then back at Niharika. “Why did they leave
us here?”

“As for me, I live nearby, so I’d be walking home- as for

Raag, Nalin said he’d donate diamonds to Bill Gates if
Raghavan agreed to go to HKV with them- and as for you,
your brother- Omar?-”

“Yeah, Omar-”

“He called up Nalin to make sure that you don’t forget its
your dad’s birthday tonight-”

“Oh crap-”

“So that leaves me, and you guys,” she ended, dropping a
shiny key in Raghavan’s hand. “Rounaq told me to give this
to you. Said he wanted it back by the morning, in his home.”

Raghavan took the Audi’s keys, and suddenly his heart

started beating uncontrollably. Niharika lived nearby, so she
was going to walk. Zafirah had to go to her home, in Hauz
Khaas, and he had to get the car in Rounaq’s home by
morning. That would mean…

“Goodnight, Zafirah,” she said, flashing her a smile, and

then, “Raag,” she nodded, looking at him intently, as if she
was trying to convey some deep, hidden meaning.

She left them standing there in a moment of stunned silence.

“Could you excuse me for a moment?” Zafirah mumbled,

looking sideways at Raghavan. “And hold this, please?” she
held out her hand-bag that she’d brought with her.

“Of course,” he replied, glad that he could have a moment of

his own, before they started hunting for a gift for Zafirah’s
dad. He took the bag, and walked her till the sign of the
ladies washroom.

He stood there silently, looking at the black handbag. His
ears turned slightly hot for some reason, as he realized that
Zafirah had trusted him with her bag. He didn’t understand
why that should be a big deal to him, but it somehow felt a
little special.

Zafirah had one look at the mirror, to find that her hair was
totally impossible. She finally pulled it back into a simple
ponytail, and washed her face several times, because
despite the icy temperature, her face suddenly felt really,
really hot, as she realized what was happening.

He’s accepted me. Raghavan has accepted me. He wants

me to be his. Raghavan wants me to be his.

Every time that thought resonated through her brain, her

heart trembled, and her face became hot again. She looked
at the color of her face, and that didn’t hide anything. Her
forehead was white, and her cheeks were pink. She finally
decided to go out, after making sure that she looked decent
enough to face her man again.

And there he stood - not moved an inch from the place she’d
left him in. It seemed as if he was as unsure and thrilled
about this as she was.

“Ready to go?” she asked him, taking her handbag back.

“Don’t you have a gift to buy?”

“Oh, God- I keep forgetting-”

“Let’s go to Archies, maybe we can find something nice and
simple.”

“Okay,” she agreed, as they made their way to the second

floor of the mall.

They finally ended up getting a card and a coffee mug, that

read ‘Dad, you are the best’, and got it wrapped up in a blue
gift wrapper.

“You think he’ll like it?”

“Well, he’ll look at it every morning, at the very least,”

Raghavan smiled. His familiar smile somehow made Zafirah
calmer, more at peace with herself.

There seemed to be an unfamiliar electric tension between

them, as they made their way down towards the parking lot.
They’d been so close over the course of the last month, but
that closeness felt like nothing, when compared to what they
felt right now. Raghavan had already, on some levels,
declared that a simple friendship wasn’t all that he wanted
from Zafirah- and she had not refused; on the contrary,
Raghavan saw a wonder in her eyes that he’d never seen
before. They were in constant shock, even as he opened the
passenger’s door for her, in the cold wintry night.

He sat beside her presently, and turned on the heater, and

looked straight ahead, without moving.

“Raag?”

“Give me a moment to organize my thoughts, Zafirah.”

“Okay.”

There was another silence, while Zafirah looked at his face

patiently, searching for any signs of distress. But
Raghavan’s expression suddenly cleared, and he smiled.

He turned to look at Zafirah straight into her eyes.

“Zafirah?”

“Yes?”

“This isn’t the right time, or the right place. So I have a favor
to ask of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Zafirah could you pretend like I didn’t hold your hand for the
last hour?”

Zafirah looked at him silently, her eyes bulging with

questions. The scariest one came out first.

“Do you regret doing it?” she asked him, her tone colored
with a strange sadness.

“No,” Raghavan replied gently. He picked her hand again,

and, very slowly, brought the back of her fingers to his lips.

Zafirah closed her eyes, her heart was almost ready to leap
out of her chest at any moment. It bet so hard that she

almost felt it would break her bones again. Raghavan placed
her hand down again, as gently as he’d kissed it.

“Zafirah- I don’t want to do this in a parking lot, and I don’t

want to disorient you before your majors, either. So could
you please promise me one thing?”

“Yes?” she whispered- anything for him.

“Make this entire night hit a blind spot until New Year’s eve-
and I promise to keep my end of the deal- I won’t think about
why you ran into me on purpose.”

Zafirah bit her lip, but nodded nonetheless. She understood

what he was saying.

“Okay, so-” Raghavan’s tone lightened suddenly, “would you

like to revise operating systems in this one hour, or theory of
computation?”

Zafirah rolled her eyes, grinning. “You know, Nalin’s going to

interrogate both you and me as to what we did during our
way back home- and if we tell him that we discussed
operating systems, he’d assume the worst conclusion.”

“I’m not too worried about Nalin anymore. It’s only a matter
of time now, Zafirah.”

Something warm tingled at the back of Zafirah’s neck.

“Okay, you’re not making it easier for met to forget this night,
Raag. Try and make it a little less memorable, won’t you?”
she laughed, feeling at ease again. Her emotions were so

mind-boggling around Raghavan. One moment she was all
electrified, and the other, she felt completely at ease. It was
almost as if there was an on-off electrical switch on her body,
and Raghavan knew exactly where it was placed.

“You know how to make a long stick tiny without touching it?”

“Um.. keep a longer stick next to it?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh you will,” Raghavan replied, and quickly changing the

topic, “okay, blind spots. Theory of computations it is.”

And with that, they were off, cruising into the darkness,
discussing all the possible questions that could come in
Zafirah’s major.

Mornings

The phone vibrated at four twenty-eight A.M.

Do you know a good way to not literally run into strangers at four
twenty-thirty in the morning?

No- but do tell me.

You run with them.

Raghavan without a surname, are you asking me to run with you?

Seems like I am. You game?

Betcha. Himadri circle in three?

See you there.

Raghavan ran the last few meters as if he was going to

smash into her again. Zafirah laughed, pulling out of the
bulldozer at the last moment.

“Hey, we match!” she exclaimed, as they realized that they

were wearing the same black sleeveless hoodies and cargo
pants as the first day they’d met.

“Not exactly a great omen, is it?” Raghavan grinned.

“I must tell you, I may just be too fast for you, you know…”

Raghavan threw his head back, and laughed louder than

Zafirah had ever heard him laugh. His mood in the mornings
was… electric.

“Okay, champion, you ready to go?”

“This is where I run, love,” Raghavan grinned, as they both

geared up for the sprint.

“Till the corner?”

“Till the corner.”

“Okay- Ready, set- go!”

And there were the two shadows, in the middle of the hard
grey road, racing each other neck to neck. Zafirah was taller
than the average girl, and a hell lot faster- but even her
expertise in running was nothing compared to Raghavan’s
long, swift strides; he finished the race three full seconds
before her, and then whirled to see her coming, defeated.
She blinked in surprise.

“Nalin’s never bet me in a dash!”

Raghavan’s grin widened. “You aren’t half bad. That was

actually really fast.”

“Yeah, no wonder I was in the hospital for a month,” she

laughed. “Do we finish the circuit? I can keep up with you.”

“Yeah, yeah, marathon runner. I know.”

They went off again, this time Raghavan running right beside
Zafirah. They only came to a stop when they reached
Satpura, and Zafirah clutched her stomach, bending a little
as she regained her focus.

“Damn you’re fast,” she wheezed, as she watched Raghavan

stretch out in front of her easily, as if this was just the
beginning of his day- which it kinda was. To Zafirah, this was
the very end, after which she’d want nothing more than to

take a quick cold shower, before plunging into her warm
blankets.

“That’s what I hear,” he smiled, gesturing her to walk.

“Where are we going?”

“Oh, you don’t know-” he paused, took in a breath, and then

whistled five short whistles.

“Woof!” Lily’s familiar bark came before she made her way
towards them. She gave the newcomer a warm welcome,
wagging her tail and sniffing all over her black shoes.

“Aww, what’s your name, baby?” Zafirah asked her- or

rather, Raghavan- as she scratched her below the jaw.

“Lily- Zafirah, Zafirah- Lily,” Raghavan solemnly introduced

them.

“She’s so cute!”

“Oh, wait till you see the rest of them,” Raghavan said,
motioning her to go behind Lily, who’d taken off in the
direction of Satpura’s basement.

“I’m allowed here?” Zafirah asked, surprised, as she made

her way down.

“Who knows,” Raghavan grinned, walking beside her.

“Oh! I remember, Nalin told me once that you feed puppies-”

“Yup- there they are.”

The seven puppies had grown enough over the last month
for Raghavan to allot two cardboard boxes for them instead
of just one. Small blanket-covered heads poked out from
them presently, as they heard Raghavan’s voice.

Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! The boxes fell down, as the

puppies came tumbling down over each other-

“Oh my God- they- are- so- cute!”

Raghavan grinned, shaking his head, as he went over in the

corner of the basement to bring the milk from the cool
thermos.

“Would you like to do the honors?” he asked her, offering the

thermos and the three bowls, even as she sat down in
between the eight dogs, who now played all over her- her
folded legs, her arms, and Lily taking a good lick of her face.

“Raag- I’m coming here everyday. Every. Single. Day. Do

you understand?”

Raghavan smiled. “Sure, sure. I would love it if you ran with

me.”

*
Zafirah’s remajors went by in a breeze, and she was pretty
confident that she’d done justice to all those extra hours
Raghavan had put in for her sake. He stood in the pleasantly
sunny afternoon outside the lecture hall complex, with his

hands in his pockets, waiting for her to come out of her last
exam.

“There you are,” he smiled, not removing his hands from his
pockets, for there seemed to be an invisible, almost
irresistible field that made him want to drape his arm around
her shoulders. “How’d it go?”

“Ace,” she smiled back, as they walked towards their usual,

slowly-turning-into-a-ritual post exam chocolate brownies
with vanilla ice-cream. “Can I please yell woohoo to
celebrate the end of my semester?”

“I don’t know this woman,” Raghavan put a hand on his

eyes, shying away from Zafirah, who laughed at him.

“Relax, I’m not going to expose your castle now that you’ve
allowed me in.”

“Hey, who told you about my castle!” Raghavan frowned,

and then, “I told you not to talk to Nalin about me-”

“Sorry, sorry,” Zafirah muttered, but her cheeks turned pink.

She’d not gone against Raghavan’s request one bit- but she
couldn’t just forget what she’d known before she even met
him. She quickly changed the topic. “So tell me, what plans
now!”

“Well, next week begins my stay at the Taj with the team-
we’ll be there till 30th, like I told you- if you want you can
come stay with us, I’m sure Niharika wouldn’t mind sharing
her room.”

“No, I can’t come,” she replied glumly, “I’ve still got a design
credit left to complete over this month. I’ll be lucky if the
project gets over by my birthday.”

“Hey- that reminds me- our date-”

“My God, Raghavan just said date-”

“Oh for heaven’s sakes, get over your achievements,” he

rolled his eyes, smiling. “I’m going to have to lie to the entire
team that I’m going to Saudi.”

“Well, you could just tell them that you’ll be with me,” Zafirah
looked at him sideways, and slipped her fingers through his.

Raghavan closed his eyes, looking straight ahead, even as

they crossed the Wind-T.

“Zafirah…”

“Forgot about the blind spots, sorry,” she mumbled, hurt,

bringing her hand back to her side. “But you could just tell
Nalin that we’d be someplace else- that way, I wouldn’t have
to make up an excuse either. Besides, he’ll figure it out, and
then he’ll be really pissed we didn’t tell him.”

“Hmm- you’re right. And like I said,” he picked up her hand,

and kissed the back of her fingers gently again, as he’d done
once before, “it’s only a matter of time, Zafirah. Be patient.”

Zafirah blushed. “Patience has never been my strong suit,

you know.”

“Well, you better get used to it, I guess. I have a strong
feeling it might come in handy sometime soon.”

“I don’t like this,” she mumbled, not meeting his eyes. “Do
you have to go?”

“I’m sorry, Zaf. I really am- but this time, Nalin seriously
needs me. I’m kinda their best man,” he told her, scratching
his head uncomfortably. He didn’t like leaving Zafirah all by
herself either. “Don’t get into any more trouble behind me,
alright? No running in the mornings.”

“Oh c’mon Raag- what about Lily-”

“I’ve already told the security guy to do that for me. You stay
warm and happy in your blankets. Okay?”

“Okay,” Zafirah sulked, and Raghavan laughed at her

expression. “The puppies will be half dogs by the next time I
see them.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll love you the same even if you meet them
after years. This is just two weeks.”

“And you?”

Raghavan laughed, and bumped into her playfully as they

walked. She returned the favor a little too well, only to get
hurt in her own shoulder. He laughed harder, seeing her
grimace.

“Yeah, yeah, forget all about me now that you have him,”
Nalin rolled his eyes, coming up from behind them. Zafirah
grinned, and hugged his side.

“I’ll miss you too, my teddy bear.”

“I know. But I’ll see you on your birthday, right? New year’s
eve- HKV, as always-”

“Nalin- about that-” she grimaced, and looked uncertainly

towards Raghavan. She caught his eye, and he was
somehow able to communicate to her the message without
speaking.

Leave it to me.

She brightened. “Sure. And hey- do tell me if I can come visit

you guys someday. I’ll be free from work most evenings, and
Taj isn’t too far away.”

“I almost told them to book an extra room for you, Zaf. You
can come whenever you want.”

“Cool,” she said, smiling. “Take care, you guys. All the best.
Come back to me filthy rich, Nalin Mujemdar.”

“Sure I will,” he laughed. Raghavan looked at her one last

time, and smiled, before saying bye.

Hello, Ms. Khan. What’s up!

 Nothing much, Mr. No’surname. Just design work. What’s up there!

I’m having the food of my life here. I miss having good food with your
fractured bones.

Don’t remind me of food in this place. They take the full liberty to
abuse us during the holidays… daal doesn’t have daal,
roti’s modulus of strength could beat steel.

And I’m having things here I haven’t even heard the names of.
Manicotti Parmigiano- that’s what she said. The waitress, I mean. Lol.

You’re cheating on me even before our first date, Raag. What is this. I
miss the majors though. They give such good food during the
exams in our mess.

Seriously? Good food- mess?

Yeah, just during the exams. You know, like fattening up the goats
before the sacrifice.

Haha. And I’m fattening myself up before I meet you. Tell me, you’re
not going to bring a knife with you, are you?

Keep it up with the waitress, mister, and you’ll never know what
struck you.

“Raag, you’re up in three. All the best.”

Okay, I gotta go now, Zaf. Do come here, treat yourself sometime.

 I don’t think I’ll be able to, Raag- I really want to finish this design
work by the time you guys are done- and that’s really taking a toll on
me. Anyways- bye Raag. Take care.

That’s okay. Focus on work, that’d make the two of us. Bye bye. Over
and out.

Date Night

Hey dad- I know this may be coming a little late- but I had to be sure of
this day’s existence, to tell you what I wanted to tell you.

Hey Raag- what’s up?

You free right now?

Not quite- in the middle of a boring meeting. Can’t really talk.

Can you text?

Oh yeah. I’m hating myself for getting into this deal. Stupid
sheikhs are driving me crazy. Tell me, what’s so special about this
day?

Dad- I found her.

What?

I found her, dad.

“Gentlemen,” Sirish without a surname said in an elated

tone, “excuse me for a moment, would you?”

“What’s her name!”

“Hey dad,” Raghavan laughed. “Zafirah. Zafirah Khan.”

“Muslim?” he asked him, his eyes wide.

“Yes dad,” Raghavan grinned, and cringed away from the

phone, as a defeaning whoooooohoooooo! blasted out of the
speaker.

“You sure about her?”

“I think so.”

“You think so- hah! That must mean she’s diamonds-”

“She is, dad. I have a gut feeling she’s the one.”

“Okay- Raag, I need to go back and get some things done-

but do tell me- when are you planning to tell her?”

“Tonight. New year’s eve- and take this, it’s her birthday too.”

“Hah, do your best son. I’ve gotta go now, but all the best,
kid. I’m sure you’ll blow her away.”

“I hope so. Bye dad. Take care.”

“Bye Raag.”

“Oh- hey dad, almost forgot- could you arrange an R8 for the
evening? I’m staying at the Taj.”

“Nice choice, son. I’ll text you the plate.”

“Hey Raag. Where do I meet you? I can be anywhere by the

metro in an hour.”

“And ruin that beautiful dress of yours?” Raghavan laughed,

as he made his way to the parking lot.

“How did you-” Zafirah spluttered, looking down at her black

dress. It was the same one that she’d been wearing the day
she’d first seen Raghavan, three months ago. “Okay, I’m not
even going to ask. Tell me then, what’s the plan?”

“Stay at Kailash. I’ll pick you up.”

“You bought a car?”

“Kinda. Meet me at nine.”

Zafirah’s eyebrows went high on her forehead, as the dark

car came to a smooth stop in front of her. Raghavan came
out from the other side, and made his way to her.

“You look beautiful,” he complimented, opening the door for

her.

“What happened to good old Alto days?” she asked,

laughing, as she went low into the passenger’s seat. The
view from inside looked like she was sitting three inches from
the ground- which she probably was.

“I don’t do Alto, Zafirah,” Raghavan grinned, as he got into

his own seat. “You ready?”

“I’ve waited thirty nights for this night, Raag. I’m ready.”

“I’ve tested your patience enough, haven’t I?” Raghavan

breathed, looking deep into her eyes, as he twined his
fingers through hers. “But I’m in no mood of letting go of you
tonight.”

Zafirah’s heart faltered, before quickly picking its pace.

“So is this it?” Zafirah asked him mildly, looking straight
ahead, trying to ignore the heat on her face. “The corniest of
conversations, over romantic dinner?”

“Oh, c’mon,” Raghavan rolled his eyes. “We’re IITians- we

don’t do corny. We do technical.”

Zafirah laughed, as she felt Raghavan play with that invisible

switch of electricity on her body.

“Let’s save that for the dinner, shall we?” she asked him,
playing with the auxiliary cable with her free hand. “I feel like
some fitting music for now.”

Raghavan’s lips twitched. She looked at him.

“What!”

“Nothing- its just that- it’s kinda been about five years since I
last listened to any music.”

“What?! But why!” she asked, bewildered. Who could not

listen to music for five years straight?

“Well- lets just say that I had this idea of putting myself
through a dopamine drought for many, many years a stretch-
before-”

He abruptly stopped, and his face colored. Zafirah squeezed

his hand.

“You can tell me today, love.”

“Before you came into my life,” he said, and then looked at
her with a strange sparkle in his eyes. “I want you to be my
sole source of dopamine, Zafirah Khan.”

This man is just too much. But oh well- he’s mine, after all.

“Well, this is a part of me, too, I guess- take it or leave it.”

“Just play the music,” Raghavan rolled his eyes, shaking his
head as he did.

Zafirah grinned, as she put on the first track- Something just

like this.

They zigzagged their way through the Delhi traffic- and even
though they moved quite fast on the busy roads, Zafirah felt
as if they were back in the ice-ring- warm, hand in hand, fast,
and safe.

Just something I can turn to, somebody I can kiss- I want

something just like this-

“-Doo doo doo, doo doo doo! Doo doo doo, doo, doo!”
Zafirah sand along loudly, closing her eyes. Raghavan
grinned.

As the bass dropped, she started beating her head to the

beats, biting her lower lip hard and grinning at the same
time-

“Oh let go for once, Raag, just let go!”

“Some super hero, some fairytale bliss!” Raghavan sang
along loudly, picking up the lyrics fast. “But hey, I am
borderline fictional-”

“And you’re mine!” Zafirah yelled, punching her fist in the air,
the music taking away all of her careful demeanor around
her. Raghavan laughed.

“I’d thought I’d make that revelation a little while later- but oh
well. Hardly matters now.”

“I want something just like-” Zafirah sang along with the

song, closing her eyes in pleasure.

A few more songs later, they reached the Taj, and Raghavan
gave the keys and a small tip to the valet driver as they got
out.

“Okay, are am I finally going to have ‘Manicotti Parmigiano’?”

Raghavan narrowed his eyes, with a knowing smile on his

face.

“How did you remember that name so well, Zafirah?” he

asked her teasingly.

Zafirah’s cheeks turned pink, but she replied hotly, “Oh

please, don’t pretend like you don’t re-read our chats before
sleeping at night.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be discussing this, this is borderline

corny-”

“Haha, gotcha!”

“Almost like revising for exams,” Raghavan grinned, shaking

his head, as they made their way to the best food in Taj.

“Today’s the big day, love.”

“Sure is,” he replied, pulling her chair for her, “I hope this
isn’t too sexist for your sake,” he added, as she sat in her
chair.

“No, just right, I think,” she grinned.

“Okay, so what do we have on the cards tonight?”

“Depends. How technical do you want to go?”

“Very- I’m thinking the entire scientific method- experiments,

theory, conclusions, the whole deal.”

Zafirah nodded calmly, and held up one finger. Right!

“Okay, gamification of life. The Super Mario theory- that’s the

most recent and fitting thing that comes to my mind.”

“I’m unaware. Not my fault though- I have a lot of Ted-talk

catching up to do; you, on the other hand, seemed to be well
equipped from your month of joblessness at the hospital.”

“I sure am,” Zafirah laughed. “So the experiment goes

something like this- two groups were formed, and they both
were made to solve a short quiz. They could have as many
attempts as they wanted to have to finish the quiz, but for

one of the groups, every time they failed, a message popped
up on their screen, saying that since they’d failed, they’d lost
a few marks.

For the other group, however, no such message was

displayed, and they just went on to finish the quiz without
caring for their failures. Do you follow?”

Raghavan nodded. “Let me guess- the group that was

shown no message of losing marks did better at solving the
quiz?”

“Exactly. 70% of that group solved the quiz, compared to

50% of the group that was shown the message of failure.
And you know the most interesting part was, that those who
ended up solving the quiz from the 70% group, took an
average of 12 tries to get to the solution, while those who
solved it in the 50% group, took an average of 5 tries.”

“So… the people who didn’t get to see failure in the negative
light kept trying to get to the solution until they got to the
solution? With more persistence, I mean?”

“That’s right. The group that was made to see their failure in
the negative light soon went like ‘oh, chuck it, this isn’t for
me’- and that gives us a very, very strong theory.”

“Oh, okay- super Mario- gamification of life- like, if you have

a goal, and if you keep ignoring the failures-”

“You’ll sooner or later get to the goal- you’ll sooner or later

get the princess out of the evil guy’s castle. And, as an

added bonus, you’ll enjoy the game of life too, along the
way.”

“No matter how many times we fail in Super Mario, we

always wanted to get back up and keep playing until we
reached the castle.”

“Exactly. The same principle applies to any other goal. If we

just don’t give a crap about the failures, we’ll soon have
failed enough times to learn how to not fail again- and that
would eventually, and definitely, get us to our goal, through
the straight path. Brute force method.”

“A practical way to realize ‘try, try, and try, till you succeed.’”

“Yup. But that proverb makes it sound so difficult. In my

experience, life has never been so difficult, because even
I’ve always loosely followed the same principal, but with a
different tag line- ‘fail, ignore your failure, fail, ignore your
failure, fail, ignore your failure, until life becomes like playing
a game, and until you become good at that game, and until
you finally reach the final goal of the game.”
The waitress silently waited in a corner until the conversation
paused a little, and finally made her way towards the table.

“Your order, sir?”

“Ask her,” Raghavan smiled, “it’s her birthday tonight.”

“Manicotti Parmigiano,” Zafirah immediately recited, and

laughed at the expression she gave her.

“Make that a double,” Raghavan smiled.

“Anything else sir?” she smiled warmly- almost too warmly,

Zafirah noticed, but Raghavan was too busy looking at
Zafirah.

“No, thank you.”

“So, ignoring failures turns life into a fun game, that you
eventually win, sooner or later,” Raghavan brought back the
conclusion.

“Right. It makes us naturally want to do better, to take risks,

to do what we really want, because we have to know the
final goal of our long journey through the levels of life.”

“So this model sets the tone every time we set one solid
goal- the dream goal.”

“Yup. And that’s when the fun starts: this model can easily
be suited to finding the love of our life, for example.”

Raghavan frowned. “How so?”

“You remember how I had too much time in the hospital?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s when I came up with this- so lets say, out of all the
people I ever meet, one of them is going to be my best
suited partner- the princess of the castle, in Super Mario
terms.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“So this one person becomes the end point of my journey-

the dream goal- and all the other people the I meet, are mere
obstacles on this journey of love.”

“Obstacles that you have to avoid?”

“Exactly. Obstacles like that green plant, or the ducks, or the

crawling brown snail-like thingies, or the spaces in life.
People are my obstacles- people that I must avoid getting
into a relationship with- because I know that they will be bad
for me, one way or other: I know they’d kill me.”

“And then you’d have to start the journey all over again, and
try to avoid those people, like you used to avoid the
obstacles in Mario,” Raghavan nodded.

“Exactly. I may die a few times, I may have a few bad

relationships, but sooner or later, I’ll learn how to avoid the
kind of people who are bad for me, just like I learnt to avoid
the obstacles in Mario.”

“And then, once you have successfully avoided just too

many people-”

“Many, many people-”

“Including some lusty ones- you may finally end up at the

prince of your world.”

“And that’s the happy end to the story,” Zafirah concluded.

Raghavan frowned though, scratching his chin. The food
came to their table presently. He took a bite of it, before
speaking.

“That sounds perfect on paper- that you ignore your bad

relationships- your failures- learn from them, and get back to
the game of life in search for the best person.”

“But?” Zafirah asked him, noticing the uncertainty in his

voice.

“But don’t you think coming at the rough end of a relationship

doesn’t exactly leave you ‘revived’ like Mario gets revived
after his death?”

“I thought about that,” Zafirah admitted, “but then I guessed

that’s really where the game changes. The slogan is not
supposed to be ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get
going’- the slogan is supposed to be ‘life is a game, so for
heaven’s sakes, don’t be a kid and cry if you fail or die a few
times’.”

“So you’re saying that we have the ability to totally ignore our
failures in this, no matter how much they can hurt us?”

Zafirah kept quiet. She knew where this was going.

“I thought about that too.”

“You thought about a lot of things, apparently,” Raghavan

smiled.

“Told you, I had loads of time,” Zafirah smiled back. “I
understand your point- if I end up at the rough end of a
relationship, it may be difficult for me to keep going. But you
know what may be the only thing that would drive me
forward?”

“What?”

“Hope. Hope that the obstacle I just died for wasn’t my

prince- and that my prince is there, somewhere, someplace,
waiting for me.”

Raghavan considered that. He nodded.

“But don’t you think it’d be better to just stay away from all of
this altogether, and wait for that one person to come into
your life? Best not to come at the rough end at all?”

Zafirah grinned. “You’re talking about your way of playing

Mario- but that’s the point Raag. You never played the game.
You never took the disk out of its cover. How would you have
ever ended up finding your princess- or ‘the queen of your
universe’- if you stayed under a rock for the rest of your life?”

There was a moment’s silence. Raghavan’s eyes suddenly

narrowed. And then-

“Ha!” he startled Zafirah, who choked a bit on her food.

“What!”

“That’s why you did all of this- you knew- you knew who I
was before I even met you- Nalin Mujemdar!”

Zafirah grinned. “Somebody had to come shake your world,
Raghavan. But oh well, I ended up shaking mine as well.”

Raghavan’s expression turned soft. “Why didn’t you just do it

the normal way?”

“There was no normal with you, Raag. I told you, you may be
the luckiest person in the world- you had to go through zero
obstacles, while I had to avoid so many, many obstacles
through the last- oh, five or six years to finally get to you.”

Raghavan’s cheek suddenly colored, as he realized what

this meant.

“Zafirah?”

“Yes?”

He took her hand over the table, and took in a deep breath.

“I want you to be the queen of my world.”

Zafirah closed her eyes. Her heart bet very, very fast.

“I thought we weren’t doing corny?” she mumbled, her eyes

still closed, afraid that she was dreaming all this, and that it’d
all be gone if she opened them.

“Open your eyes Zafirah,” Raghavan told her quietly. She

obeyed.

“Yes?”

“Trust me when I say this- this is the least corny thing you
could ever get out of me: I’ve waited nineteen years to ask
this question.”

“Which question, Raag?”

“Zafirah Khan- would you like to be the queen of my

universe?”

Zafirah finally opened her eyes, and just looked at his face.
His hair was dark, and long. His eyes were a liquid brown.
His high cheekbones were more than a mere compliment to
his perfect jawline. He sat straight, looking right into her
eyes.

“Yes, Raghavan. I would like that very much,” she said, and
for the first time, she brought her lips to the back of his
fingers, and then placed his hand on her cheek.

Raghavan took a deep breath in, and then breathed out

unsteadily. He was as dazed by her as she was by him.

“Well that’s lucky,” he finally said, grinning, as he brought his

hand back to his food. “Okay. I think we’ve abused Mister
Mario enough this night.”

“We have,” Zafirah laughed, “and even managed to pull out

permanent metaphors from the game.”

“So tell me,” Raghavan asked her, tried to sound casual, “did
you die from any obstacles before you met me?”

Zafirah narrowed her eyes playfully. “Are you asking me
about my dating history, Raag?”

“I very formally am,” Raghavan replied, smiling nonchalantly.

“Lets just say I’m the best, most naturally gifted super Mario
player you’ll ever come across.”

“Nobody?” Raghavan raised his eyebrows. “Wow. I didn’t

know we both were that inexperienced.”

“I just knew what I wanted very clearly, you know- the final
goal was always very vivid in my mind- and when Nalin
came about and gave me the exact description of that goal-
well, I knew I had to make sure that it wasn’t another
superficial object-”

“So you put me through Neha Singhania and Neha Agarwal,

just to be sure that you weren’t going to die if you ended up
with me?”

“Kind of,” Zafirah admitted, and then suddenly remembered

something she’d been meaning to ask for a long time now-
“hey, you never really told me how you figured that it was
me-”

Raghavan laughed before he explained.

Niharika Kaur’s phone rang at four fifteen in the morning-

which could only mean one thing: Raghavan had decided to
cash in on his no-questions-asked favor.

“Raag,” she mumbled, picking up the phone. “What is it?”

“Either of two things is going to happen, one more likely than

the other. The less likely one, is that a girl named Vandana
will be at your doorstep in a short while. If that’s the case,
then allow her to stay at your room till morning.”

Niharika fought the sleep from her eyes. “’Kay,” she yawned,
getting up from her bed. “And?”

“The second, more likely one, is that you’ll just see Vandana
going out of the hostel in five or ten minutes- and I want you
to see who she is, and give me some info about her.”

“’Kay. No questions asked?”

“No questions asked.”

“’Kay. Bye.”

After five minutes Raghavan’s phone buzzed.

Vandana Singhania. One of Zafirah’s best friends. Oh wait- you don’t

know Zafirah. Zafirah Khan. She may have been at her room five
minutes back, but I’m not very sure. Just saw her leave. Can I go back
to sleep now?

But his eyes narrowed suddenly, as he connected the bright

dots in the stars. Zafirah Khan. That wasn’t a name he’d
heard for the first time- he’d known that name before they’d

met that fateful morning. In fact, his intuition did find a
pattern in the stars…

He pulled out his cell from his pocket.

“Hey Rounaq. This is Raghavan.”

“Oh, yeah Raag- shoot. What’s up?”

“Nothing much- do you remember the girl you set me up with

during Rendezvous?”

“Oh yeah- Neha Agarwal. What about her? You want her
number?”

“Yeah, kinda- but not why you think I want her number- she
dropped one of her earrings, and I just wanted to give it back
to her. Looks expensive,” he added, playing with a tiny piece
of brick in his hand. Very expensive.

“Okay, I’ll send you a text. ‘Night man.”

“’Night Rounaq.”

“And then she told me that you’d met her that afternoon, and
I added two plus two, and there you were, at four thirty in the
morning, forcing my castle open,” he finished.

Zafirah blew a low whistle. “Well, at least I tried to be

conspicuous. I would have told you someday, you know.”

“Doesn’t matter one bit, Zafirah. You played the game for
me, I didn’t even touch the CD. I don’t hold anything against
you.”

She smiled at that, glad that there would never be any more
careful half truths or fakeness between them. She’d hated
hiding her intentions from Raghavan.

“Its not very fair you know. You get the happy end so easily,
and I had to work so hard- even fracture myself in the
process.”

Raghavan laughed. “You know but little, Zafirah Khan. While

you kept avoiding obstacles, I had made a deal with the
power of this universe, that I’d give up all the dopamine I
could while staying sane, all my sacrifices, in exchange for
finding the love of my life, and being with her forever. That
was my one request to God.”

“I never knew you had a spiritual side,” Zafirah said quietly.

“There will always be things that you’ll never know about me,
Zaf.”

“So did it come true?” she asked softly, watching his eyes.

“It seems to be the case,” he smiled. “Come on, lets get out
of here.”

“Where are we going?” Zafirah asked, alarmed, even as

Raghavan called for the bill. She’d figured he’d take her to
Taj’s new years party once they were done with dinner.

“Back to the campus,” he grinned, “the night ends well, don’t
worry. You’ll never forget it.”

“Hey, we’re splitting!” she told the waitress haughtily, as the

waitress hastily kept the book in the middle of the table and
left.

“Zafirah, this is my treat, we won the business deal tonight,”

he told her quietly.

“And it’s my birthday as well. So suck it up.”

“I bet you won’t be able to share,” Raghavan said

confidently, as they both put their cash in the booklet- half
and half.

“I already have, Mister,” Zafirah said smugly. Raghavan’s

eyes twinkled.

“Wait and watch, Ms. Zafirah.”

She turned her head sideways, a curious expression on her

face.

The waitress came soon enough to take the booklet, just

when,

“Thank God these guys don’t check for fake notes,”

Raghavan muttered, just loud enough for the waitress to
hear.

The waitress’s eyes turned wide in alarm, as she kept back

the book on the table like there were cockroaches inside.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you,” Raghavan told her
smoothly, and swiftly passed her the booklet with a shiny
black card, “pin’s 7856.”

She quickly hurried away without any further questions, and

Raghavan calmly counted the notes he’d taken out of the
booklet, and gave Zafirah her half, who sat with her mouth
open in shock.

“Told you,” he grinned at her, the smug expression now

touching his face.

“You’re unbelievable,” she shook her head, as she put back

the cash in her purse. If she’d forced him to take it, she was
sure he’d have just left it on the table to win the bet.

“That, I may be. Lets go!”

“So what are we talking about on the way back? Another

experiment?”

“Nah,” Zafirah replied immediately, “I’m done with metaphors

for the night. And besides, its your turn. What’s on the
cards!”

“Supernatural?” Raghavan offered mildly.

“Supernatural? Seriously?”

Raghavan’s eyes twinkled.

 Night

“That’s really something to consider,” Zafirah said, looking

ahead thoughtfully, as they neared the college. “I’ve heard of
the Shaitaan, of course, being raised in a Muslim family- but
I never really gave it much thought. Do you really believe in
this stuff?”

“I do,” said Raghavan easily, “but I also believe in something
far greater than darkness- and that is light. I believe that
there is someone protecting me all the time- the one power
that created the universe, that created the molecules of my
body.”

“So you believe in God,” Zafirah nodded, “and you believe

he’s one?”

“That’s the biggest belief that I have about this power- that
my God, is one god.”

“Well, Omar would be really happy to hear that,” Zafirah said

quietly, to quietly for Raghavan to hear over the music. “So
you feel protected by him?”

“I do. I have no other fear, except fearing him. I’m fearless

against any worldly phenomenon- death and torture
included- but what I fear, is going back to him in a state
where he’s not happy with me.”

“You fear God- I’ve not heard that often from people who do
believe in him- mostly I’ve just heard that there’s a love in
their hearts for him.”

“Fear is a crucial part of my relationship with him- it keeps

me in check. Of course, no relationship is complete without
love- but I’m not going to delude myself into thinking that I
can do anything I want, and not get into trouble with God.
God has the ability to not love, too, as far as I can logically
think. I can’t imagine God loving a serial rapist-slash-
murderer. Or someone like Hitler, who died putting a bullet
through his own brain.”

“Hmm. I guess you’re right. But tell me, because I have
almost zero knowledge about religions, what is the one thing
that always holds true- that I can hold on to, and not get
lost?”

“Karma,” Raghavan said simply. “Buddhism never talks

about God- it just talks about Karma.”

“Like there’s an account for everything we do?”

“Yup. Good deeds will bear good fruits- no matter when they
bear fruit, in this life, or in the afterlife- and the same goes for
evil deeds- evil deeds will bear evil fruits, and you’ll see them
sometime, either in this life, or the afterlife. That’s Buddhism
in short, the simplest funda to stick to.”

“That you just do the best that you possibly can in this life-
as much good as you can fill your account with- and hope
that you’ll someday be able to cash in on it, no matter in this
life, or the afterlife- yes?”

“Yup.”

“That sounds simple enough for me,” she agreed, as the car
pulled into the campus. “So you believe in an afterlife?”

Raghavan articulated his response for a moment, before

answering slowly.

“I see a good, poor man who works incredibly hard his entire
life, just trying to get by, to feed his wife and kid- and then he
dies. And I see a rich, powerful politician who murders,

rapes, and commits all kinds of crimes, and lives delightfully
with his wealth all his life- and then he dies.”

“Okay, but what do you mean?”

“What I mean is, that if there is anything called a just God,

then this life cannot be the end of the story. I am in high
disagreement with the concept of You Only Live Once.”

Zafirah thought about that. He seemed to make some sense.

“So its all dependent upon justice, right? But we don’t see
justice in this world, anywhere.”

“That’s exactly my point- this world isn’t all that there is.
There exists a world after this, where the Karma account
finally comes into the equation.”

“That would be a perfect world. That would make everything

right.”

“Just like it is supposed to be. I believe not in random

mayhem, but in a perfect world,” said Raghavan. “Satpura,”
he added to the security guard, as they entered the campus.
There were too many cars coming in and out of the college
that night for the security to pay much attention to the
strangely beautiful one. He looked inside once, and let them
enter. The time was eleven thirty.

“Okay, where are we going?”

“I just told the guard,” Raghavan smiled. “We’re going to

Satpura.”

“And meet Lily and the puppies?” Zafirah brightened at that
thought.

“I was thinking about something more than that, but sure,

we’ll pay them a visit on the way.”

“On the way? To where?”

“You’ll see,” he grinned, as the car made its way through the
familiar curves of IIT’s main road. Some of the students who
were out stopped in their tracks with mouths open- they’d
never before seen this breed of car in their campus before.

“I thought you like to stay well hidden?”

“The glasses are tinted,” he laughed, and then a smug

expression touched his face, “besides, I think my term has
come to an end.”

“Your term?”

“Remember how I told you that I had made a wish- or a kind

of deal with God- that I’d give up a lot, in exchange for
ending up with the woman of my dreams?”

“Yes?” Zafirah mumbled, her cheeks coloring.

“Well, it seems that my karma has delivered. I no longer

have any reason to hide from women.”

“Does that mean you’ll be cheating on me with waitresses?”

Zafirah teased him playfully. Raghavan rolled his eyes.

“I just said that I don’t need to hide. Besides,” he turned to
look at her in the eyes. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to notice
another woman, Zafirah.”

They pulled the car in front of the hostel just then, and
Raghavan brought his phone out of his pocket.

“Rohan?”

“Yeah Raag, what’s up?”

“I have a new year’s present for you. Come to the balcony.”

“I’m already standing there- oh wait- oh fuck- is that-”

“Would you like to take her for a spin?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Be back by one,” Raghavan smiled, and cut the call. He

could almost hear Rohan rushing downstairs.

“Quick, Zaf- I need you to go to the basement- meet Lily, I’ll

be there in three.”

“What was that all about?” Zafirah asked him as he

approached. She was kneeling down, petting the half-grown
dogs and their mother.

“I, needed some privacy. And heavens know the kid needs
some motivation in life,” Raghavan shook his head, coming

over to kneel beside her. He had a small polybag in his
hand.

“What’s that?” she asked him, pointing at it. There seemed

to be clothes inside.

Raghavan pulled out the clothes, to show her the same

oversized hoodie he’d once given to her in the hospital, and
black track pants to go with it.

“My birthday gift?” Zafirah giggled, taking the clothes from

him. Raghavan rolled his eyes, as he went over to the
basement’s gym, and opened it with the key he’d taken from
Rohan, in exchange for the car keys.

“Change,” he ordered her, opening the door for her, “No

questions asked.”

“Okay?” Zafirah replied, wondering what was going on.

She came out in two minutes, completely covered in the

black outfit.

“Now?”

“Now,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, “you enter my

kingdom.”

“What!”

“See the staircase?”

“Yeah?”

“It leads straight to the rooms above. This is how easy it is to
sneak your friend into Satpura House.”

“You’re crazy,” she laughed, but her heart bet fast. What
were they going to do in his hostel!

“You’ll soon know,” Raghavan said, reading the expression

on her face. “Let’s go!”

They made their way quickly, dashing through the staircase

at top speed. Raghavan’s room was on the top floor, and
they finally came in front of it. Thankfully, none of the other
wingies were standing outside in the balcony.

“Do I get to come in?” Zafirah whispered to him excitedly.

“Not in the world,” he told her flatly, remembering the familiar

scene of Rohan’s underwear hanging from the fan above.

“Then what are we her for- to play Ludo?” she giggled, and
Raghavan rolled his eyes.

“You’ll see.”

He quickly went inside, and took out the terrace’s key from
under the bed. He’d also told Rohan to get a cake from the
best bakery he could find in the city- and one look at the
packing made it clear that Rohan deserved to drive his R8
that night.

With the keys in his pocket, and cake in his hand, he

motioned Zafirah towards the nearest entrance to the

terrace, and soon enough, there they were, on the boundary-
less roof of Satpura.

“How did you manage to get a key to this place!” Zafirah

exclaimed in shock. “In my three years, I’ve never been to
the top of our hostel!”

“And I’m just a semester old,” Raghavan smiled. “You just

have to know which strings to pull, I guess.”

She shook her head in disbelief, going in circles around the

clearing. The stars shone around the full moon; the white
light was enough for them to see each other’s faces.

Zafirah suddenly came close to Raghavan, and took his

hands. She took a breath to settle herself. Raghavan just
stared into her deep green eyes, and for some reason, felt
as if there was a thread connecting the two of them, that
refused to accept the fact that they were two different
entities. It felt as if they were just one person, one body.

“I love you, Raghavan,” she mumbled, looking down.

“I love you, Zafirah,” he replied easily.

“Would we get into a lot of trouble if I yell woohoo right now?”

she smiled, not matching his gaze.

“I wouldn’t care,” Raghavan smiled. “The only reason I’ll be

in this college the next year is because its going to be your
final year.”

“What?” Zafirah asked, shocked. “What will you do when I
get a job?”

“About that... I was planning to give you a job, see,”

Raghavan grinned. Zafirah let that sink.

“You mean- what?”

“I’m on the board of members in the new firm, Zafirah- along

with Nalin, Rounaq, and Niharika. There are four of us, and
eight of them. I’ll be in the US once we’re done with college.”

“You mean- you’re not going to graduate?” she asked him,

her eyes widening. For a long time now, she’d been
wondering what in the world she would do when Raghavan
was still in college, and she’d be working in a boring old
office, oh maybe in Gurgaon or someplace in the Delhi- but
this-

“Dropping out is the easiest choice I’ll ever have to make,

Zafirah,” he told her quietly, “I can’t imagine not being with
you, now that I’ve found you.”

“Are you sure, Raag?”

“Can you picture me sitting through classes in the LHC while

you’re stuck in some stupid workplace?”

Zafirah shook her head, feeling a lump coming in her throat.

“Five more minutes,” Raghavan told her softly, looking at his

wristwatch. “What do you want to do?”

“I- I want to sit,” she told him. “Without speaking. Leaning on
you, your hand in mine.”

“That can be arranged,” Raghavan smiled easily. They went

over to the west-facing boundary, that was away from the
front view of the hostel. They sat down on the edge, dangling
their legs from the fifth floor of the building.

They sat in the most overwhelming silence Zafirah had ever

felt. She hid her head into Raghavan’s shoulder.

“Hey- are you- Zaf, are you crying?”

“I-” words failed to convey what Zafirah felt right then. “I am

so happy.”

There was some more silence. She spoke again.

“I had always wondered what was missing in my life- why I

was not happy- and now that I have this-” she lifted their
hands, “-I don’t know how I was living without it- or how I
could ever again live without this.”

“So I’m not another obstacle?” Raghavan smiled.

“Let me check,” she replied, smiling through the tears. She

bumped into his side to check. “Nope. Not dead.”

“Should I get the cake, then?”

“Black forest?”

“I made sure,” he laughed, bringing the box, the one candle,
and the matchbox.

He inserted the candle in the middle of the small, round

cake, and they were lucky it wasn’t a windy night- just
comfortably cold.

“So do I blow the candle at twelve?” she whispered, looking

at the Raghavan’s watch. There were about forty seconds
left.

“That depends,” Raghavan replied quietly, “would you like to

celebrate our first kiss more than your birthday?”

Zafirah’s heart raced as she processed that.

“I would.”

“Then make a wish, fast.”

God- if you’re there- make us each other’s: happily, forever.

In this life, and if there’s an afterlife, then in the afterlife-
forever.

She blew, and the countdown began.

Ten- nine- eight- the faint countdown came from all across
the institute, and Raghavan’s grin matched Zafirah’s, as they
started into each other’s eyes: emerald green into liquid
brown.

And finally, their lips met in an endless kiss, on the backdrop

of the countless fireworks in the starlit sky.

“Rohan- Zafirah, Zafirah- Rohan.”

He shook her hand numbly, his mouth unashamedly open.

This night was turning out to be the best night of his life.

They soon bade him goodbye, as they got back into the car.

“The night’s coming to an end,” Zafirah said, a little bit of

sadness creeping into her voice. “I’ll miss this.”

“Me too,” Raghavan said, as they made their way to Kailash.

Zafirah’s phone rang just then. She looked at it, and rolled
her eyes in exasperation. Raghavan frowned, looking at her.

“Who is it?” he asked, as Zafirah cut the call.

“Nobody,” she muttered in a dead tone.

“What’s up, Zaf? You can tell me.”

“It- it’s mom. She’s probably calling to wish.”

“So why didn’t you pick up?” Raghavan asked, puzzled.

“Because I don’t want her to ruin this,” Zafirah smiled at him,

showing him their hands. Raghavan’s frown immediately
deepened, and he pulled back his hand sharply.

“Zafirah- call her. Talk to your mother.”

“Dude, please,” she rolled her eyes. “I hate her to death.
She’ll ask me where I am, I’ll tell her Kailash, she’ll say I’m
lying-”

“Zafirah. Khan. What did you just say?”

Zafirah grimaced, falling forward. Raghavan had stomped on

the brakes in front of her hostel just too hard.

“What?” she frowned at him, regaining her balance.

“You said you hate your mother?”

Zafirah rolled her eyes again. “Oh c’mon- I don’t hate-hate

her. I just want to have nothing to do with her. She’s too
much for me.”

Raghavan looked at her for three seconds, his eyes bulging,

before sharply turning his head away from her.

“You just want to have nothing to do with her,” he repeated,

his tone dead, void of all emotions.

“Um.. yeah?”

He breathed deeply for three more seconds, and suddenly,

in a flash, leaned across her and opened her door.

“Get out,” he told her, in the same dead tone.

“What?”

“Get out.”

“Raag- what happened-”

“Get the fuck out of my car, Zafirah.”

Tears came to Zafirah’s eyes. Raghavan didn’t wait to see

her get out of the door, and stand beside the car uncertainly.
By the time Zafirah could make sense of what had just
happened, he had turned the car a hundred and eighty
degrees around her, and was rushing out of the campus, into
the darkness.

Raag please pick up my calls.

Raag, I’ve been calling you for the last three hours. Please- just call me
back.

Raag- just tell me what’s wrong, I’m begging you. Tell me what
happened, Raag, please, I’ve been crying for the last five hours-

Raag I can’t sleep. I just can’t. Please, I’m begging you- pick up my
calls.

Raag just TELL ME what I did wrong- what HAPPENED- the night had
been so beautiful- the BEST night of my entire LIFE- and you RUINED
IT- RAAG WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG

You’re not the one, Zafirah. You can’t be. I’m sorry.

What? Raag- what happened- please love just tell me what happened

Zafirah, I don’t have a mother. For the last nineteen years of my

life I’ve been jealous of every person I’ve met, because they got a
kind of love that I could never, ever imagine. And you- you HAVE a
mother- and you’ve wasted your entire life chasing stupid,
meaningless, superficial goals- and that can only make you,
Zafirah, a stupid, meaningless, and superficial person. You’ve
played enough games in your life, but you never realized the most
important relationship of your existence. I- I can’t even talk about
this. Just- leave me be, Zafirah. I don’t want to talk to you.

Raag- you don’t understand- I- my mom is the complete opposite of

what I am- she’s- Raag you can’t judge me by this

I already have, Zafirah. And I want to stay as far away from you
as possible. I’ve talked to my dad already. I’m leaving.

Raag- don’t do this to me, please- I beg you- I told you, I don’t know
how I could ever go on now without you- and what do you mean you’re
leaving

Zafirah, I want to have nothing to do with a person who wants to

have nothing to do with her mother. And I’m leaving college- I’ve
already booked my tickets to New York. This can’t go on.

You what! Raag you can’t leave me here!!

This is goodbye, Zafirah. Don’t text me after this- it’d be futile. I’m
blocking you.

 Surrender

At four twenty in the morning, Raghavan gave up trying to

sleep, just as he had been doing for the last four months.
Long, disheveled hair and deep purplish circles under his dry
eyes made it look like he’d just come out of a fight- which he
kind of had; the biggest fight for an insomniac is to conquer
the monsters of his own mind.

His morning rituals were his only source of peace. He
brushed and washed up when the time for a new day came,
and soon enough afterwards, he was down in the central
park, with no earphones, as usual; just a phone that tracked
his progress.

He ran harder than ever now, hoping that the acid in his
muscles could somehow reach his brain and purge out the
memories that remained insolently attached to him. It was
almost as if he was running beside her again, every morning.
Every time the picture of her flushed face came to him, he
pushed harder, fighting against the million steel springs that
he seemed to be pulling- springs that connected him all the
way across the oceans, to the one woman whom he could
just not forget, no matter how hard he tried.

The springs didn’t go away half an hour later, when he finally

realized each day, that these weren’t springs that he could
pull far enough to break. But regardless, he was out each
morning, with his futile efforts to get into a freak accident that
could restore him to the version he was six months ago.
Computers were easy that way- they never had troubles
going back to the state they were in. But the human brain
was turning out to be an incredibly difficult machine for him
to hack into.

He’d tried almost everything. Overloading himself with work

didn’t help- for the first time in his life, Raghavan regretted
having a gifted brain. No matter how hard he tried to distract
himself by going into the coding-mode, his work fast enough
turned into a background process in his head- like a fitting
background music to his tragic life. The keys made furious
new beats everyday, and instead of distracting him from

Zafirah, they somehow kept reminding him of her with every
painful semi-colon-and-enter combination.

He’d given real music a shot too, reluctantly enough. He’d

casually asked Karren from work what songs he could listen
to get his head off of somebody. She’d been generous
enough to give him a long list, that varied from explicit
Eminem raps to Taylor Swift’s loud pop- but nothing seemed
to work in his favor. Not many people knew about his
obsessive compulsive disorder, because he had always
been smart enough to turn his curse into a gift, by obsessing
over diet, fitness, studies, his dad, and improvement, in
general- but for the last four months, the only thing he could
think about was the one girl he’d ever really laid his eyes
upon.

He searched on the web for some answers, and the best

quote that he got on neuroplasticity- the trait of the brain to
rewire itself- was this:

With obsessions and compulsions, the more you do it, the

more you want to do it; the less you do it, the less you want
to do it.

So apparently, he was thinking non-stop of Zafirah Khan
because he wanted to, and the more he thought about her,
the more he wanted to think about her- so much so that she
was the one who colored the time of his entire day, and his
entire night, punishing him, not letting him sleep.

He finally figured that the best he could do was really get out
and talk to other people who could potentially distract him.

“Karren?”

“Yes, Rag?” she looked up at him through her long lashes,

with a pretty smile on her face. Karren was a woman smart
enough to be on the board of members of their firm.

“Would you like to eat with me tonight?”

“Sure, Rag- I know a good place on the Broadway- Italian-

they have some really good manicotti there-”

“Oh come on,” Raghavan had rolled his eyes exasperatedly.

It seemed something really divine was intervening his tracks,
not allowing him to distract himself from the pain that struck
his heart.

All of his friends from IIT were still in India, finishing their
degrees. He felt so- so lonely. Sure, he could go out with
Karren, or Ashley, or Katherine- but every time he looked at
a woman, he found himself comparing her to Zafirah. This
one had eyes a bit like her’s- green, but not really with the
glint that used to be present in Zafirah’s emeralds- this one’s
upper lip was a little fuller than the lower, just like her’s- this
one’s hair was the exact same brown as her’s-

“Gah,” he groaned, putting his face in his hands, as he

settled into the tall barstool.

“Same old, Rag?” the bartender smiled at him, taking out the
jars of honey and casein that Raghavan had given her in the
first week he’d come here.

“Same old, Casie, same old,” he muttered through his
fingers.

“Tell me, why do I see you a little more frustrated today than
most days?” she asked, giving him his protein shake.
“What’s the story, Rag? You’ve got to tell me someday, I’m
your bartender- the psychotherapist that comes free with a
drink.”

Raghavan removed his fingers from his eyes, and sat

straighter.

“God knows those shadows are getting deeper!” she

exclaimed, looking at his face. “You look like a vampire
who’s not had a real drink in the last hundred years.”

“You don’t happen to have blood on the menu, do you?”

Raghavan smiled ruefully.

“Actually,” she whispered, leaning across the bar to come

closer to his face, before turning her head sideways,
exposing her throat. “I wouldn’t half-mind, you know.”

Raghavan pushed her back with a sigh, and she fell back
laughing. “I’ve told you not to do that with me, Casie.”

“I could make you forget her,” Casie told him with a smug
smile on her face.

“Hey, how do you know about ‘her’!” Raghavan complained,

groaning again.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Casie rolled her eyes, “you’ve been coming
here every night for the last- oh I have lost count- with those
circles under your eyes getting worse and worse- and the
same ‘I need some serious liquor’ look on your face- you
don’t hide your emotions very well, you know.”

“I don’t drink,” Raghavan muttered, looking down.

“One of the few things that could make you forget,” Casie
sighed, shaking her head, “and here you are, with your
tasteless protein shakes.”

“Hey, they have honey in them!”

“You, sir, need some honey in your own life. Have you tried
Tinder?”

“Do I look like I would need Tinder?” he asked her in a bored

voice.

“That’s a bit haughty, don’t you think?” she laughed, taking a

sip of her own drink. “Anyways, tell me about her. What was
she like?”

“Would talking about her help?”

“Well, not talking about her hasn’t done you any good that I
can see. How bad could pouring your heart into my drink
be?”

Raghavan closed his eyes, and put his head down on the
counter. Casie played with his dark long hair. He didn’t stop
her.

“She was beautiful,” he mumbled, still with his head down.
“The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Green eyes. Dark
brown hair. Smarter than most other women I’ve met. She
was into Ted Talks- used to get a kick from the intellectual
content. Didn’t read any fiction- said that she didn’t want
inferior minds ‘brain-plasticking’ her into stupid fantasies.
Runner. We used to go running in the mornings.. and feed
Lily and her little ones.. then she- she-”

For the first time in his entire life, something strange was
happening in Raghavan’s eyes. He sat up straight, and in
total amazement, touched the tear that had dropped from his
left eye.

“Oh my god, Rag- you’re crying-”

“But this has never happened before,” he mumbled in

astonishment. Raghavan had been through the worst kinds
of bullies, he had been through living without a mom, he’d
been through kids teasing him for being a braces-clad dork
through the first three years of his teenage life- but this had
never happened to him before, ever- he was- he was-

“I’m crying,” he repeated, in the same astonished tone, and

he suddenly felt as though a huge, huge brick had been lifted
off his chest. “I’m.. I-I feel better!”

“See?” Casie puffed her chest proudly, “I’m the best

psychotherapist you could get!”

So this was it. He had been repressing so much of stress
piled up inside him- that was now relentlessly coming out of
his eyes in the form of tears-

“Casie, I need more of this!”

“Well, I’m on duty till midnight,” she smiled, and then winked
at him, “But I could take you home after that.”

“Ah, stop it, Casie,” he half-laughed through the tears. Casie

passed him a tissue from under the counter. “Give me better
ideas. I need to do this more often- release myself.”

Casie laughed loudly. “You want help releasing yourself,”

she snickered, shaking her head. “And you still refuse all my
blatant offers.”

“Emotionally,” Raghavan snapped, but still managed to

laugh. He was laughing for the first time in four months.

“Why don’t you write about it?” Casie suggested. “Take out
an hour out of your hectic work- take a pen and paper, and
do what you can do with it.”

“You want me to write about her?” Raghavan blinked. “What

good will that do? Casie I want to get over her, not fall for her
all over again-”

“Oh please, Rag,” she rolled her eyes, finishing her drink.
“You’re already on the ground, you can’t fall any further than
you have already.”

“Still, Casie- I just can’t do that, it’d only make things worse-”

“Then find something else, Rag. I know you won’t be able to
find someone else- that’s too much to ask in your state- even
though you’d probably be able to seduce any woman in this
place in under an hour- but lust won’t heal your heart. You
need to find something you love. You need to fill your heart
with light.”

Raghavan frowned. “What did you just say?”

“Um.. it was kinda a long rant- you need love, not lust?”

“No, after that.”

“Fill your heart with light?”

Raghavan’s critical expression suddenly into a big, dazzling

smile.

“Casie?” he told her clearly, suddenly getting up from his

barstool- “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you-” he
walked out of the bar declaring his love, leaving Casie
wondering what had just happened.

I am wearing jeans, and a blue button-up shirt. I’m walking

into a big, open building, whose roof is glass. It’s night, I can
see the countless stars in the clear sky. The floor is red-
carpeted. I have a smile on my face- I’m happy. It feels as
though I am free of every responsibility I have ever had on
my shoulders. I meet a man, who’s smiling at me. I smile
back at him, and kiss him on the cheek. The wall in front of

me, unlike all the other walls of the rectangular building, is
made up of just red bricks and cement, and nothing else- it is
unfinished.

I suddenly hear shots being fired behind me. For some

reason, I know exactly where the bullets are being fired from.
I turn around, and look above through the glass, at a man
who has a big gun in his hand, and a crazy expression on
his face.

I whirl back around to see the wall in front of me- my eyes

are wide in excitement and extreme joy- this is it! A speaker
starts a song on my left: The Last Repentance.

Just in that instant, everything in my eyes turns into a light- it

is a bright, yellow light- the most blinding light I have ever
seen- and it brings a pleasure to my eyes that no human has
ever experienced- an ecstasy, a comfort, in my eyes, that I
have no words to explain-

Raghavan woke up as suddenly as the dream ended, and

after a few minutes of the daze, fell back into his bed,
exhausted.

She came out of the lecture hall complex, unfazed by the

storm of her majors. A wry smile struck her face, as she
remembered his words.

Can you picture me sitting through classes in the LHC while

you’re stuck in some stupid workplace?

What he’d never imagined, was that the situation would be
reversed over the last four months. Well, at least she could
go now- away from pretending to care about her life. She
was done faking things that made people believe that
everything in life was normal.

“Are you okay?” Nalin had asked her one day, noticing her
blank, dead face.

“I am okay,” she had told him. Of course she was okay.

What could not be okay?

“You miss Raghavan, don’t you?”

Zafirah had simply stared at him long enough for him to

apologize and leave. But her stare hadn’t been the usual,
deathly stare- it had been blank- like everything else in her
life.

But it was all finally going to end that night. She was a good
student, she had wanted to finish her semester before she
left. She boarded the metro to go to a local bazaar to get the
thing she’d be needing.

She came to the right shop soon enough.

“Rope,” she mumbled, but the shopkeeper didn’t hear her

over the babble in the tiny store. “Rope,” she told him again,
this time clearer. “I need a rope.”

He passed her one. She looked at it blankly. This was it,

then. This was all that she needed.

“Thank you,” she smiled at him, and got out of the shop.

Back in the hostel, she opened her laptop one last time
before- well, before.

How to tie a noose.

Google was helpful, as always.

Need Help? India:

022 27546669
AASRA

She smiled again, and almost laughed. No, she didn’t need
help tying a simple knot. She had an IQ of a hundred and
fifty.

So we’re back to where we began, aren’t we?

So much for happiness. This is me saying goodbye.

I thought Zafirah Khan never quit?

She smiled again.

This is me accepting defeat. The game is over. I never quit.

The instructions were simple enough.

“There,” she said in a satisfied tone. It looked just like it was

from the movies. She pulled at it- it was strong.

Her heart didn’t race. Everything was silent, blank. There
was no point waiting for an auspicious time, like, oh midnight
or something like that.

Or four thirty in the morning.

Shut up. These are the last few minutes.

She tied one end to the fan, and then heaved a deep breath.
She put her face into the noose, but then stopped. She came
down, and took out a pen and a diary from her bag. She tore
out a page.

Omar- I love you. Dad- I love you. Mom- Mom I know I

haven’t been the daughter that you wanted me to be. I
didn’t wear a hijab- I didn’t learn the Qur’an- I got
drunk, I went out with guys, I wore short clothes, I
talked filthy, I did all the things I could do to disappoint
you. But I want to love you mom. But I’m going now.
Maybe in the afterlife. Take care, mom.

Love,
Zaf.

She kept the note in plain view, where everybody would

notice, and went back to put her face in the noose. All she
had to do now, was kick away the chair from below her feet,
as far away as she could.

“This is Zafirah Khan, signing off. Goodbye, life.”

And she kicked the chair.

For the first three seconds, Zafirah was calm and quiet- but
as soon as the horror of what she’d just done dawned upon
her, she struggled violently-

NO- NO THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANTED- GOD NO

PLEASE I KNOW YOU’RE THERE- NO- PLEASE- NEVER-
THIS IS NOT HOW I DIE- GOD MY FATHER- MY OMAR-
MY SWEET, SWEET OMAR- RAGHAVAN- PLEASE GOD
JUST TAKE ME OUT OF HERE GOD PLEASE JUST -
RAGHAVAN- RAGHAVAN!

She thrashed, and tried to wail, but she was choking, she
thrashed more- she knew she was seconds away from
losing everything-

The fan above her suddenly creaked, and creaked- and all of
a sudden-

She was flying down, the fan along with her- she landed on
her feet, fell on her side, and one of the fan’s blade slapped
her hard on the stomach-

CRASH.

And there sat Zafirah Khan, inhaling, and inhaling hard,

harder than she had ever inhaled, and life filled her insides
again, bringing her back to reality. She sat there for a time
that could have been minutes, or hours, or even days, before
a part of her realized that she had started crying- a bitter,
bitter cry- as she realized that there was no escape from this
hollowness- a mere taste of death could never take her out
of the misery she’d put herself in- suddenly, she believed
every word Raghavan had spoken- she believed that this

was karma playing out, and karma would have no reason to
stop if she just ended her temporary life.

She cried harder as she remembered his name,

remembered his face, remembered his smile-

She screamed, and screamed harder, and covered her own

rebellious mouth with her hands in horror, as she heard the
people banging their fists on her door.

“ZAFIRAH!” “ZAFIRAH!” her name echoed throughout the

corridor, as she suddenly remembered where she was, and
what she had done.

IIT Delhi’s fan falls on a student would be a mundane news

that would go through the campus, and a part of Zafirah
wondered how many innocent fans would be tested for
strength because of her one act of outrageous stupidity.

She hadn’t stopped crying, which was a mystery to everyone

she met. Sure, she was hurt, but Zafirah had been through
worse- cracked ribs and all. But she soon enough got the
room to herself, where she cried, and cried, and cried, until
her eyes almost turned white. She took out her cell through
the tears, and almost immediately knew what to do.

“Nalin? I need a straight line to Raghavan.”

She took her wing mates cellphone to make the call,
promising her she’d pay her back.

He picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

Zafirah closed her eyes as she heard his voice, and hot
tears started flowing out of her eyes again.

“Hello- may I know who this is?”

“Raag,” she whispered, knowing he would take no time to

recognize the voice. There was a small silence. Was he
going to cut the call?

“Zafirah..” he whispered back, and that one word enough for

her to make out that he wasn’t too far away from her state
either.

“I surrender to you, Raag. My life is in your hands. You are

my end. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I don’t care if you
take me back or not- but just tell me why I’m losing the game
of life. Tell me why my karma is running out. I try not to be a
bitch, and most of the time I think I am pretty okay at this.
But I don’t know why I’m losing, Raag. So I surrender myself
to you. Tell me that which is best for me, and I will obey.”

There was a stunned silence as she finished her words.

Raghavan felt the pain in her voice, and winced when he
heard it. Still, a part of him had heard what Zafirah had just
asked, and the answer came to him in no time at all.

“Fix your relationship with your mother, Zafirah. Everything
else will follow. She is your gold mine of goodness.”

Zafirah nodded obediently, as if Raghavan could understand

that she’d nodded. “Yes,” she added sincerely. “Anything
else?”

“No. Just that. That’s all there is to it.”

“Okay. Thanks Raghavan. Can I call you if I need any more

help?”

“You can call me if you need any more help.”

“Okay. Thanks again. Bye.”

“Bye Zafirah.”

She cut the call, and saw the time spent. A minute and a
half. She took out a twenty bucks, and gave it to her friend,
along with her cellphone.

Mom. She’s my gold mine of goodness. I must be good to

my mom.

For the first time in four months, Zafirah felt a sense of

belonging, filling the hollowness inside her. What she was
now holding on to was a rope, strong and tangible. All she
had to do, was obey Raghavan in all aspects of her life. And
the first thing that he had asked her to do, was be good to
her mom. It was simple, really. She knew the best person for
the job.

 Religion

Omar Khan roughly pushed his way through the mosque, as

soon as he’d heard what had happened. His little sister had
come home, finally. And nothing in the world was going to
stop him from getting to her now.

“Omar,” she mumbled, not meeting his eyes, when he finally
came in front of her, his chest heaving. He had strode into
her room without asking for permission- which was the most
un-Omar thing he could do. He banged the door close
behind him, and for once, was thankful that the home had
soundproof doors.

He came close to her, closer, until he was just one hand

away from her, and-

SLAP.

Zafirah stood in stunned silence of what had just happened,

her eyes wide. The six feet tall Omar came straight into her
now, his mouth inches from her face.

“Zafirah Khan,” his voice furious, “the entire world will believe
that stupid story of a fan falling on you, but you will never be
able to fool me, you stupid stupid woman-”

“Omar- I-”

“SHUT. UP.”

There was five full seconds of silence between them, in

which Omar’s frame trembled. Zafirah stayed stunned on the
spot- too stunned to defend herself from her too-intelligent
brother.

“Why,” he asked in a low, threatening voice. If there was one

person who could have a bigger temper than Zafirah in the
house, it was Omar.

“Omar- I can’t talk-”

“WHY,” he repeated, and then his eyes widened. “It’s a guy,

isn’t it?”

Zafirah remained silent, raising her hands in her protection.

“Zafirah, tell me it was a guy, and I swear I won’t kill anyone.”

“Omar- promise me you’ll hear me out.”

Omar’s trembling frame calmed down the tiniest bit. He still

breathed heavily, as he settled on the edge of her bed.

“Speak.”

“Subhan Allah… what a man. I can’t even want to kill him,”

Omar whistled, and Zafirah felt the strangest of urges to
smile. “But I still can’t process this. Why would he do
something so extreme just because you don’t get along with
mom?”

“I don’t know,” Zafirah said sadly, but then she remembered

what Raghavan had told her. “But I need to change this,
Omar. I need to become a better daughter- a daughter who
mom would accept fully-heartedly, no compromises.”

“I’ve been telling that to you for the last decade, and nothing
fruitful came out of it,” Omar shook his head, “and this guy’s
rejection-” Zafirah flinched “- is somehow enough to drive
you to this.”

She looked down, not answering. He hadn’t asked a
question.

“Zafirah, I’m sorry I hit you- but I was furious with you, Zaf-
and I still am. What in the world had gotten in to you?”

“Omar- this guy is incredible. He really is. And he became a

part of me- almost an inseparable part, in too short a time-
and then when he detached from me- it felt as if the entire
world had turned dead. Nothing made sense without him
anymore. For four months I lived like a dead person. I-” her
voice cracked, a lump forming in her throat. Omar pulled her
close to him, embraced her.

“Mom.. you want to be the best daughter for mom?”

“Yes, Omar. What do I do? You’re her favorite in the family,

you have to help me out in all of this mess.”

“I can give you superficial answers Zaf- like spend some

more time with her, do the things she tells you to do, and
things like that- but those are just branches of a tree whose
root you’ve got to understand, and internalize.”

“What’s that?” Zafirah asked, frowning. She had never really

thought about what drove her mom as a person. Omar’s
answer left her startled.

“Islam.”

Rahima Khan woke up before the sun rose, just like she did
every morning. She woke her husband and Omar, and they
prepared to leave for the mosque in the cold, dark winter.
Zafirah’s father owned a shop in Chandni Chowk, and the
Jama Masjid was walking distance from their home,
thankfully. Nobody usually woke Zafirah up, but on her
request, her brother had entered her room that morning to
get her ready for the morning prayer.

“Omar, I don’t know how to pray,” she whispered, as she put

on a black scarf over her hair. “What will I do there!”

“Don’t panic, Zaf. Just do what everyone else does, and

you’ll be fine.”

She’d nodded, and come downstairs to meet her mom,

whose eyebrows went high on her forehead as she saw
Zafirah up so early in the morning. It was dawn. This was
usually her sleeping time.

“Good morning mum,” she smiled at her the most casual

smile she could muster.

“Good morning Zafirah. Are you coming with us?” Rahima

asked in a surprised, but happy voice. Zafirah did not usually
wear a hijab- but here she was, all dressed up.

“I am. I feel like praying with you,” she lied, but oh well, she
wanted it to be true. “Ramadan’s coming up in two weeks-
I’ve finished all my design credits- so I thought I could be a
little spiritual these holidays.”

“Wow, that’s a great idea, sweetie,” Rahima smiled at her
kindly, but there was a hint of surprise in her voice, which
Zafirah ignored.

Once she’d gone to her dad’s room, Rahima gave Omar a

hug.

“The fan didn’t fall on her head, did it?” she whispered to
him, and Omar laughed.

The four of them soon made their way out of the home,
answering the call of the prayer, the azan; it was a short
walk to the mosque.

“Do you know how to pray, sweetie?” Rahima asked her

kindly, putting a warm hand over her shoulder. Zafirah
blinked at the affection she was receiving from her mom.

“No,” she told her truthfully. “Could you teach me?”

Rahima’s eyes widened with joy. “Sure I could! But for now,
just stand beside me and do what I do, okay? I’ll tell you
what to say during the prayer when we go back home.
Okay?”

“Okay mom,” she smiled at her, and felt that sudden feeling
of belonging again- the one she had felt when Raghavan had
ordered her to fix her relationship with mom. Being on this
track felt.. fulfilling. She just had to do what he had wanted
her to do. Her rebellion lay in her obedience.

They entered the beautiful mosque, and washed their face
and hands, and rubbed their forehead and feet. The water
was cold and refreshing. Zafirah blinked.

This is not half bad.

“Come, Zafirah,” her mom took her hand, as they made their
way to the women’s prayer area.

It all felt too strange and sudden to Zafirah. She felt a little
disoriented, but somehow, the place felt really.. home. More
home than her own home. There was a faint and beautiful
scent that lingered in the mosque, and for some reason, she
remembered Raghavan’s jacket, and what he’d once said
about scents being a charity.

They stood in line with all the other women, and Zafirah
suddenly understood why she felt so comfortable. They were
in a line, and there were lines behind them, and lines in front
of them, and with people on her left and her right, she felt
like she was a part of something- something bigger than her.
A sense of belonging suddenly wrapped around the many
wounds on her heart.

Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar! The voice came from below, and
her silent moment of comfort was momentarily paused, as
the final call to prayer began. The call to Fajr.

They started moving around her soon, and again, Zafirah felt
that sense of belonging, as she did what everyone around
her did. Her shoulders touched her mother’s on her left, and
another women’s on her right.

They stood straight for sometime, and so she stood straight.
Then they bowed, and then they came back up again. Then
they went into the one position Zafirah knew- the Sajdah. A
random memory of Omar suddenly came to her, telling her
something.

Allah is the closest to his slave when he is in Sajdah- so a

slave should ask for whatever he wants in Sajdah.

Zafirah didn’t know any official prayers. She didn’t know

languages like Urdu or Arabic- all she knew was that there
was a power in her life who had brought her here, with her
forehead touching the ground in total submission to it. A tear
managed to escape her right eye.

God- I know you’re listening to me- you listen to everything.

You saved me from myself-

And even before she had the chance to finish, everyone

beside her sat up straight. She hurriedly sat with them, and
as soon as she had, they went down in prostration again.

God- I don’t have much time in this position- God, teach me

to be a good daughter to my mother. Make me fix my
relationship with her- whatever it takes.

Satisfied with her wish, she smiled, as everyone stood up

around her.

The same routine happened again- two more Sajdahs, and

Zafirah blinked in surprise. This was something enjoyable.
She found herself waiting for the next Sajdah, to talk to God
again, to pour her heart out with all of her wishes.

God- I miss Raghavan. I love him. When he left, everything
became lifeless for me. I want him in my life again, God. I
made a wish-

And they all sat up straight again! Why couldn’t they let her
finish her wish, her personal talk with her God?

And then they went down again!

I made a wish God, on my birthday- and I’m making the

same wish today. Make him and me for each other, God,
happily, and forever. Wherever we are.

They sat straight again, for the third time, and this time,
nobody stood up. The prayer was easy enough- and Zafirah
actually liked it. She loved that she could ask for whatever
she wanted in her Sajdah- and somehow, a very, very strong
feeling told her, that with her forehead, nose and knees
touching the ground, she was being heard, by a very, very
aware listener.

“Did you like it?” Rahima asked her, taking her hand again.

“Yes, mom,” Zafirah told her, in a surprised tone. “I liked it a

lot!”

“Would you like to pray with me this afternoon?”

Zafirah thought about it for a moment.

God, teach me to be a good daughter to my mother.

Well, she wouldn’t ever become a good daughter if she

stayed stuck to the bed in her room. Or she wouldn’t ever
become a great runner if she never hit the track. Or she
wouldn’t ever pass the exam if she never studied. She really
felt that it was a three step process. Step one, you ask. Step
two, you work for it. Step three, hope you get what you ask
for.

Alhamdullilah, her mom taught her that afternoon, before

their prayer. Literally, it meant ‘all praise is to God’.

“That’s why when people forget the first step- when they
don’t consciously ask God for things- they eventually think
that whatever good came their way was due to a solo effort,
which generates pride- when with total humility, we have to
declare in every prayer, that the praise has always been,
and will always be to God,” her mom explained to her.

She thought of herself, and figured that whatever good she

had in her life, was a gift from God- and whatever bad she
had in her life, was her own Karma reaching out to her. She
didn’t understand how this was true- but her mom told her to
accept it on face value, and so she did. There was no way to
prove that it wasn’t true. God: the power that made any good
thing possible.

All this, she discussed with her mom, who was kind enough
to answer her million questions. Slowly, Zafirah realized that
every one of the questions she asked were being answered
thoroughly by her mother- which really showed how much

time and patience Rahima had invested in learning the
religion.

She got the basics soon enough. God is one, and no human
being could ever be great enough to be called God. Rather,
the greatest human beings all used to worship the same
God. Soon, people made these great human beings their
own God.

“Tell me, Zafirah, logically,” her mom asked her.

“Yes?”

“If somebody was to ever kidnap me, what would dad do?”

“He would… call the police?”

“Yes. He would. But what would he think about before

sleeping that night?”

Zafirah thought about that.

“He would probably pray to God to keep you safe, wherever

you are, and to return you to him unharmed.”

“Exactly. See, the greatest of men had to overcome the

greatest of challenges to be called the greatest- but in their
stories, people forgot to realize the fact that they were still
only human. That they turned to that one God in their biggest
crises, and found their comfort from there.”

Zafirah seemed to understand a little. “Go on,” she told her

mom, wanting to learn more.

“Or do you think the greatest of men called people up, oh I
don’t know, around six thirty in the evening, and went like-”
Rahima puffed up her chest animatedly, “‘Okay everybody,
its time to worship me. Come, come, I ask you to worship
me.’ Do you think any good man would have ever asked
someone to do that?”

“No,” Zafirah replied honestly.

“And if someone did worship a person- say someone

worshipped your dad in front of him because he killed the
bad guy who kidnapped me- what would dad do?”

“He’d have been embarrassed. He would have told him to go

worship Allah,” Zafirah giggled, understanding where this
was going.

“And even from a scientific point of view- God made this

universe, then he made earth, and just like he made the
earth, slowly and without any effort, he made man, slowly,
and without any effort. So here is man, before him there was
no man, here is earth, before which there was no earth- and
here is the universe, before which, I honestly don’t know
what was. So I, for one, will never worship any created man
or woman- rather, I’ll worship the one created this universe,
the one that created humans, the one that all the great men
and women used to worship- the one God, the one
Bhagwan, the one Allah, the one power, who runs the entire
universe.”

“So you’re saying, that as these great men and women died,
people forgot what their teachings were, and turned them
into God?”

“Exactly. Take a case study, an easy example: Sai Baba.

The guy lived his entire life saying “Sabka maalik ek, sabka
maalik ek” and people forgot this teaching completely, and
turned him into a god. Guru Nanak isn’t far away either,
people will soon start worshipping his pictures if his message
is not revived: Waheguru, the one and only God.

“So this is the biggest message of Islam too, sweetie: La

ilaha illa Allah- that there’s no God except the God. Do you
understand?”

“I understand, mom,” Zafirah nodded. This much was easy

enough. “But why is this so crucial, mom? What’s wrong with
the people who call onto more than one God?”

Rahima thought for a moment. “Could you give me some

time before I answer that question?”

“Sure, mom. I’m not going anywhere,” she smiled. The hour
had quickly passed by them; they soon ended their
discussion, but there was still a lot on Zafirah’s mind.

So I know that you’re not a person like me, God. I know

there are people, like me, mom, dad, and Omar- who eat,
sleep, drink, and use the washroom- but I can’t imagine you
eating, sleeping, drinking, or using the washroom- so
logically, you’re not a human. But you’re there- you’re there
for plants, animals, and all the other souls beside you. You
are the Super Soul, in some ways- you’re the greatest,

because everything good that has happened in my life-
including the fan that fell on me- is a gift from you. That
means my entire life is a gift from you. So Alhamdulillah.

Asr, the midday prayer, came soon enough, and Zafirah

found herself thinking what she was going to ask for this
time. The same happened with Maghraib, and Isha, the two
evening prayers. She finally removed the Hijab from her
head, and suddenly felt quite... uncovered. She didn’t dare to
pray without a hijab, for some reason. It just felt natural to
have it on while she prostrated and asked for something- so
of course it felt hypocritical now, to take it off. But oh well,
her mom took it off while sleeping… so maybe she should do
that too- wear it over dinner, and then take it off while hitting
the bed.

“Omar, tell me,” Rahima asked her son, who was helping her
with the dishes, “what are the things that Zafirah really
likes?”

Omar looked at her curiously. “What’s up, mom?”

“I just have a feeling that she’s for some reason reaching out
for me- and I would like to have a two way relationship. So
what is it, that she does during her free time?”

“Um.. I don’t really know mom. I know she likes to watch

football- almost every night, after you go to sleep.”

“Which I can’t do,” Rahima sighed sadly. “Anything else?”

“Well, she’s almost always on her laptop the rest of the

time.”

“Why? What does she watch, movies? I can do movies,

maybe.”

“No, mom- she isn’t really the movie-type.”

“What, then?”

“Ted-Talks, I think. That’s what I see most of the time on her

laptop.”

“Ted-talks?” Rahima asked, puzzled. “What are ted-talks?”

“So Zafirah- you know, I was watching few ted-talks recently-

”

Zafirah had been drinking water, unfortunately- and she

choked on it, spat out half of it out, as she processed what
Rahima had just said.

“You- what?”

Rahima rolled her eyes. “You think you’re the only one who
can process intellectual content?”

Zafirah’s cheeks colored. “No, mom- but I didn’t know you

were into ted-talks,” she told her, surprised.

“It’s a recent thing,” Rahima replied hastily, not wanting to tell
her exactly how recent. “So I watching this talk about
addiction, that really kinda answers your question- you know,
the one you asked, why worshipping one God is so
important.”

“The addiction talk? I think I may have come across it.. once,
a long time ago- but its been months. I forgot- could you tell
me how it goes?”

“Sure. So there are two experiments, with rats. One, in which

a single rat was placed in a tiny glass box, with two different
water bottles- one bottle had normal water, while the other
water was laced with heroine. And it was observed that the
rat repeatedly chose the bottle with the heroine laced on it.
Now this would seem pretty obvious, that a rat got addicted
to heroine.

But the second experiment was what really changes our

perception of things. What the guys did, was create a kind of
wonderland for rats- a huge glass box that had cheese,
playing balls, tunnels, and so forth- and the rat wasn’t alone-
rather, there were many rats in this wonderland, so they had
a lot of company; they could even mate. Finally, this glass
box also had two bottles of water- one bottle with normal
water, and another laced with heroine.”

“Oh, right! Now I remember this- in the second case, in the

wonderland, none of the rats got addicted to the heroine,
right?”

“Exactly. And so the resulting theory is something like this:
every individual seeks to create bonds. Nobody can stay
without creating any bonds. We create bonds with people,
with things, with activities, and so on. But when we have
nothing to create a bond with, we will be kinda forced to
create a bond with the only thing left in front of us.

For the rat in the first case, the tiny glass box, it was the
heroine it created a bond with. But for the other rats, in the
wonderland, they had a lot of bonds- bonds with friends,
bonds with mates, bonds with food, bonds with activities-
and so they didn’t choose the degrading bond- the bond of
heroine.

This happens with humans all the time. Most of the time,
when a person is socially cut off, when he can’t create good
bonds with other humans, friends and family, and he can’t
create good bonds with healthy activities like exercising and
so on, does he turn to abuse drugs, alcohol, pornography,
etc.”

“I agree,” Zafirah nodded, “Every person has to have some

bonds in their life. I know many people who literally live on
video-games. I live on football and ted-talks.”

Zafirah closed her eyes for a moment, as a sharp pain struck

her heart. She once used to live on a guy, too, she wanted to
tell her mother, for some weird reason. She wanted to share
her relationship problems with her. But she bit her tongue,
deciding she wasn’t ready to live on her mother too, just yet.

“But what does this have to do with worshipping one God?”

“See, Zafirah, Islam takes this to the next level. It tells you to
accept a few things that are bad for you on face value-
haraam, as we call it, meaning ‘forbidden’- things like drugs,
alcohol, pornography, sex before marriage, etc.- but
following that path of sacrifice can be difficult, as you may
know-”

Zafirah looked down, not meeting her eyes.

“Because these things may be pleasurable, Zafirah. Don’t be

shy, look at me, I’m teaching you something important.”

She felt her cheeks color, but looked up at her nonetheless.

“Let’s call these haraam things the heroine of Islam. Surely,

staying away from this heroine can be difficult, because we
have a tendency to bond to these pleasurable, but
detrimental things. But you know what can actually make it a
whole lot easier to stay away from this heroine?”

“Yes?”

“Creating a bond with Allah. It’s as if all the bad things that
you could choose to have in your life, all the desirable things
that may hurt you, are like strings attached to your back, and
when you stand up in prayer, you strengthen the bond you
create with God in front of you, and all the other bonds, the
strings that pull you behind, are snipped.”

“So we replace the detrimental bonds with the bond of Allah,”

Zafirah nodded, processing this.

“The only reason we worship Allah, Zafirah, is so that we can
avoid the harmful, by strengthening our bond with Allah. This
is called Taqwa in Islam. Do you understand?”

“I do. Hey, that answers why we worship just one God-”

“Because there shouldn’t be any confusion. It’s all about

creating that one, strong, unbreakable bond- not thirty
thousand useless bonds, which don’t mean anything to you.”

“That makes statistical sense,” Zafirah nodded. She didn’t

know any of her friends- well, except one- who had a real
relationship with God. And she doubted whether ninety
percent of the population of India did.

“Besides, it is also simply true, that God is one. Worshipping

falsehood could only take you so far,” Rahima finished, glad
that she’d made her understand the fundamental pillar of
Islam with clarity.

Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar! The azan came from Zafirah’s

phone. She’d recently installed a new application to remind
her to come to her mom.

Remember why you’re doing this. You’re doing this to be

obedient to Raghavan. You’re doing this to strengthen your
bond with mom. And you’re now doing this to strengthen
your bond with God. Things could have been worse. I could
have been dead. So Alhamdulillah.

 Ramadan

The first two weeks of her vacation passed by quickly. Her

schedule was now set not by the clock, but by her prayer
timings. Zafirah couldn’t believe how easy it was to be with
her mom. In a lot of ways, she realized, her mom was
exactly like her- sharp, intelligent, and bluntly honest. The
only difference was that Zafirah had invested all of her
intelligence in various things, while Rahima had invested her
entire life in learning about Islam.

The biggest change in her life, Zafirah felt, was coming from
her prayers.

“I really like praying, mom.”

Rahima smiled. “That makes the two of us, sweetie.”

“Can I pray more often than five times?”

“Are you sure? Why’d you want to do that?” Rahima turned

her face sideways, curious.

“I just- mom, for the last four months, it felt like somebody
had carved a hole inside my heart, and I had nothing to fill it
with,” Zafirah told her, with as much truth in her reply as
possible, “but every time I pray, it feels as if that hole is
getting filled with- I don’t know with what. Love, I think. A
sense of.. protection. When I’m in front of Allah, I forget the
rest of the world.”

Rahima’s couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But she

suddenly frowned a little.

“So your bond with Allah is getting stronger… which makes

you feel fuller… but you felt hollow for four months?”

Zafirah bit her lip.

“Which bond did you cut off, Zafirah, for you to feel hollow?”
Rahima scanned her face, to check if she was going to lie.

Zafirah looked down, and didn’t reply.

“You can tell me, sweetie,” Rahima told her quietly. “Was is a
boy?”

“My face is like an open book,” Zafirah mumbled. “Yeah

mom. It was a guy, who left me last semester.” On the new
year’s eve, she would have added, but she didn’t want to
make things overly graphic, as they had been.

“Who was he! Muslim?”

“No, mom. His name was Raghavan,” she felt a lump

building up in her throat- but for some reason, Zafirah didn’t
feel shy of telling her mom about him. Instead, she felt as
though someone was relieving her of her burdens, as she
told her mom about him.

“So he believes in one God, and he believes in things like

shaitaan, and things of the unseen, like the afterlife- and he’s
not Muslim?”

Zafirah shrugged. Raghavan was brainy enough to come to

rock-hard conclusions without the help of any religion,
apparently.

“Well, if he read the Qur’an, he’d take his shahada then and
there,” Rahima whistled. “Why did a boy like that leave you,
Zafirah?”

A tear escaped Zafirah’s right eye, and her mother

instinctively reached forward to hug her. Zafirah hadn’t felt
very sad for the last two weeks- in fact, she’d felt strangely
peaceful, as if her prayers had been sedating her, driving the

pain out of her, healing her wounds. But remembering
Raghavan opened up those wounds all over again.

“Mom, can I not talk about it right now?” she mumbled

against her chest, and right there, in her warm embrace, she
realized that she loved her mom.

Who knew this would be so easy.

“Sure, sweetie. I don’t want you to go begging him to be

yours again. If he left you, then it was his loss,” Rahima told
her firmly. “You’re a strong woman- you get that from me.
You’re already getting over him.”

“I am,” Zafirah smiled, her face still in her chest, glad that
she had another bond to replace the old bond that had made
her feel so hollow. Her bond with her mom felt very, very
warm, and strong right now.

“So you want to pray additional prayers?”

“Yeah,” she finally pulled away from her, sitting straighter.

“Ramadan’s here, and I want to fast and pray as much as I
can. But mom- I still don’t know much about what to say
during the prayers. Could you teach me?”

Rahima smiled. “I am your teacher, sweetie. You just needed

to ask.”

“This, is the Qur’an,” Rahima told her, handing her a small
iPod with earphones. “This is what we recite during the
prayers.”

“I thought Qur’an was a book?” Zafirah blinked, surprised.

She put on the earphones. A really, really beautiful voice
was singing something she didn’t understand- but it was still
beautiful enough to make the hair on her arms stand.

“This is lovely!” she told her mom, removing one of the

headphones.

“The Qur’an, sweetie, literally means ‘recital’. This was the

form in which it was revealed.”

Zafirah frowned. “Revealed? What do you mean- nobody

wrote the lyrics to this stuff?” she asked her, pointing to the
iPod.

Rahima laughed. “No, most surely not. There was once a

man, more than fourteen hundred years ago, who was
known for being the most honest man of the village. His
name was Muhammad, and he was an illiterate- didn’t know
how to read or write.

So anyways, this man, at the age of forty, began to receive

this recital- that you’re now listening to. Its still considered to
be the finest Arabic literature ever.”

“Receive? You mean- who came up with these words?”

Zafirah asked her, puzzled.

“This man said, that these words were given to him by God.
The one and only God.”

Zafirah took that in slowly. “So you mean to say- these words
are not something that someone wrote?”

“Not on paper and pen, no. This was all an oral tradition-
about thirty hours of recital. Only after he died, were the
recitals written down, so that people wouldn’t forget them.”

“So these same songs have been sung for the last fourteen
hundred years?”

Rahima smiled. “Not an ‘a’ has been replaced with an ‘i’,

sweetie. The purest scripture that exists today.”

“You mean to say- that there were other scriptures too,

beside this one?”

Rahima’s smile faltered slightly, and she sighed.

“Muhammad was a messenger of God, Zafirah. That doesn’t
mean he was the only one.”

“There were more messengers, more scriptures?”

“In every time and place, Zafirah, God took it upon himself to
send his message to people- in their own language, by the
best person amongst them. Whenever there was a rise in
evil and a decline in religion, God established a messenger,
to re-establish this ancient religion. Islam means submission
to God. This religion of submission to the one God has been
there since time immemorial.”

“So you believe in Christianity as well?”

“Islam teaches us that Jesus, Moses, Abraham, were all

messengers of God, who came with their own scriptures.
Every time, the scripture was revealed in the same fashion-
beautiful recitals, with verses easy for the common man to
memorize, which were penned down later by men, to
preserve them.”

“So why don’t we study other revealed scriptures too? Why

just the Qur’an?”

Rahima frowned, articulating her response before her

answer.

“You know Zafirah, the way you have software updates in

your phone?”

“Yeah?”

“Like first came Donut, then Éclair, then Froyo, then

Gingerbread- all the way up to Jellybean and Kit-Kat?”

“Yes?”

“So what happened, is that once a software was released,

things got a whole lot better for the users- but soon enough
the software got bugs and viruses in them. So android had to
revive the software, bring out a new software, to replace the
old one.”

“Okay… but what does this have to do with religion?”

“So similarly, every time God sent a new messenger, he
gave him a new scripture, that was perfect for the time and
place. But people meddled with these scriptures, to earn
money and power for themselves- they adulterated it. These
were the bugs and viruses of religion. So every time such an
adulterated scripture became useless, God made the people
forget it, by establishing a new messenger, a new scripture.
Exactly how the software is updated by android.”

Zafirah grinned. She had never imagined her mom could be

this perfect in laying out metaphors. A sudden tinge of pride
colored her expression.

“So isn’t there any other software that’s more recent than
Islam? I mean, this message is fourteen hundred years old
now,” she said, showing her the iPod.

“So Muhammad,” her mother answered, and whispered

something under her breath, which Zafirah didn’t understand,
“told that he is the final messenger, with the final message-
said that there will be no more messengers after him. That
holds true, obviously. In the last fourteen hundred years, no
scripture has come to us claiming to be directly from God,
just like he informed us. The man never lied.”

Zafirah took this in. “So this is like the final version of the
software?”

“Yup. One medium-sized book is pretty much all we’ve got.”

“So what happens next? And what if this scripture gets

adulterated?” Zafirah wondered aloud.

“As for the scripture, Qur’an itself has a verse from God that
says ‘We are the ones that revealed the Qur’an, and We will
be its Guardians’. It’s true as of today, that nobody can alter
the Qur’an now: it’s been digitalized, universally the same.
The only book without any updates.

“And as for what happens next: Next, comes the end of the
world- the Day of Judgment-”

“MOM!” Omar’s voice suddenly came from the floor below

them, startling both of them. “DINNER, I’M HUNGRY!”

“Well, we’ll have to continue this the next time,” Rahima

smiled, as they got up for the evening rituals.

Ramadan was simple enough for Zafirah. All she had to do,
was cut off a few more strings that bound her to the
materialistic world- food, water, movies, and music were cut
out from her days, and she found her newfound connection
with God stronger than ever. Overnight, it transformed the
way she thought, acted, and spoke.

She became quieter. She didn’t talk much to anyone about

anything, but when she was in her prayers, she found herself
speaking more than she ever had. She prayed extra in her
own room, without telling anyone about it- alone, because
that way, she could stay in Sajdah as long as she wanted to,
wishing for anything and everything good she could think of.
She realized that most of her duas were turning
unidirectional; the most important ones surfaced easily.

God, make me a better person. Give me good Karma. Make
me a good daughter. And if he’s good for me, then give me
Raghavan, God. I am still in love with him… God, if he’s not
the one for me, then purge my soul of the love that I have for
him. But if he’s the one for me, then make it easy for me to
be his. Okay. This is what I wish for.

When she was starving from hunger and thirst during the
day, she felt the strangest urge to feed any poor person she
saw on the street, because she now felt what they felt. She’d
never really thought of herself as a compassionate person,
but she was slowly and surely turning into one, as the fasting
days ended.

The first food and drink she had at the end of the fast- dates
and water- felt so good that she had to close her eyes in
pleasure every time she broke her fast. The iftaar meal
reminded her of Raghavan, who used to sacrifice all the
dopamine he could, waiting for the one woman to come in
his life. But the thought of his face pained her heart, and so
she quickly shook her head, to throw away the thoughts.

She gained patience in other aspects of her life too. Surely, if

she could be patient over hunger and thirst for over twelve
hours, she could easily wait in a line at the restaurant, or
explain to her younger niece what equations meant, oh a
hundred thousand times or so.

Most of all, she didn’t let her brain go idle during all of this.

“Ramadan is the month in which the Qur’an was revealed,

sweetie,” her mom told her on the first evening, after they’d
broken their fast.

“I want to learn it, mom. Not just read the English translation-
I want to learn Arabic, to understand what I recite during the
prayers.”

“But I don’t know Arabic, Zafirah,” her mother had told her
sadly. A sudden inspiration struck Zafirah.

“Hello, Raghavan?”

“Hey Zafirah,” a cautious voice responded.

“I wanted to learn Arabic- to learn the Qur’an- I figured you

lived in Saudi for so many years, so you’d know Arabic-”

There was a moment’s silence. Raghavan’s heart bet fast.

“I do know Arabic, Zaf- but I can’t obviously teach it to you-

but I do know a person who can. Would you like me to send
you a link? It’s a paid subscription to a really good teacher.”

“Sure, Raag. That won’t be an issue. Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it, Zaf.”

The call ended then. She checked her whatsapp soon

afterwards, to see a link to a scholar called Nouman Ali
Khan, who’d made an Arabic program with his daughter at a
fairly cheap rate. Being a quick learner, it didn’t take Zafirah
more than the month of Ramadan to quickly get the hang of

basic classical Arabic- enough for her to understand what
she was reciting during her prayers.

Another change came into her life, in the way she spent her
nights- before she usually stayed up till late watching old
football matches or listening to ted-talks- but now, she slept
just after dinner for about six hours, before waking up and
praying for two long hours. Her feet really showed the proof
of her pleasure, as they swelled with the red blood that
flowed into them in her long time of standing.

She would stand for forty minutes straight, reciting and

internalizing the words of the Qur’an, pausing at the places
that she liked, before finally falling into prostration. She cried
a lot in her prostration now, as she slowly fell in love with
someone she didn’t know anything but a little about. Then
she would, after twenty minutes of prostration, get back on
her feet, and recite another forty minutes of Qur’an, before
falling in prostration again, whispering her wishes, sharing
her day, talking about her mistakes, apologizing for the
smallest of mistakes, and thanking him for the smallest of
favors.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard, Zafirah,” her mom told her
in a worried voice one day after Ramadan had ended. “Look
at your feet, they’re all red and swollen!”

Zafirah smiled at her mom. “I’m not doing anything more

than I’m comfortable in, mom. Besides, I’m learning new
things about the Qur’an with every recital.”

She was. She learnt that this was the last message, the last
‘software’, as her mom had taught her, before the final day of

judgment: the afterlife, as Raghavan had described. The day
by which all the humans and animals would have died, and
the day all the souls will be put into their respective bodies
again, resurrected. The book of Karma, the account, would
then be placed in their hands: if they are given the book in
their right hands, it will be a good thing, that would mean
they’d ended on the good side of Karma; if they are given the
book in their left hands, it will be a bad thing, that would
mean they’d ended on the bad side of Karma.

“What does the good side like, mom?”

“Read Surah Waqiah, or Surah Rahman, sweetie.”’

So she did.

Jannah, heaven, paradise, swarg, whatever the different

scriptures called it- was the reward for the good people. It
was a place where people entered young, and where there
was no ageing, no dying, no diseases. No boredom for the
rest of their existence. Anything that they desire therein
would be theirs. They would have a direct connection there
with God: their duas would be instantly answered, and God
will talk to everyone there, both personally and publicly.

Zafirah had a fun time imagining what she would want in a

place like that. Raghavan, she immediately wrote on a paper
in her diary. That was the first name. Apparently, God hadn’t
taken his love out of her heart yet.

Friends- an endless collection of friends like Nalin, Rounaq,

Vandana, Niharika- with no awkward moments ever. The

best humor, the best things to do, the most picturesque
places to visit.

Football- oh just give her twenty one more girls and a ground
to play football. Quidditch too, maybe. And a wand! Oh, and
eating as much food as she would want, and not get fat- and
drink as much mango-shake as she would like, without ever
feeling full-

“Fun fact about the food and drink that you won’t find in the
Qur’an,” her mom told her one day, as they were discussing
what they’d want to have on their list, “no washrooms in
Jannah. Food and water come out as the best perfume you
can ever imagine.”

“No way!” Zafirah exclaimed, laughing. “Who said that!”

“The messenger told us about it.”

“And he never lied?”

“No lie was ever recorded coming out of his mouth. No lie
ever came out of his mouth.”

Zafirah sometimes found herself not being able to believe

that all this was for real. But reciting the Qur’an made it
easier to believe that there were gardens under which rivers
flowed, wherein people would live forever, eating of fruits
and relaxing under cool shades- reciting it over and over
again in prayers created strong neurological patterns in the
brain, that made the belief stronger and stronger, until
Zafirah could almost taste the feeling of Jannah. Her prayers
became crucial to her survival, just like food and water and

air: she was dependent on it, and unlike the bond with
Raghavan, nobody on the planet could break this bond of
hers.

Still, she found it all very hard to believe sometimes, but then
she researched all the other religions that seemed to be
pointing in the same direction. Jannah and Jahannam,
Heaven and Hell, Swarglok and Narglok, and even
Buddhism, without even the mention of God, stating the
existence of a final achievement, Nirvana, and a hell called
Nirayavagga.

“So, logically, do you think Muhammad, Jesus, Moses,

Krishna, and Buddha, were all lying? And lying the exact
same lie, across different times and different places across
the globe, in the same fashion: beautiful verses in different
languages?”

“No,” Rahima laughed, as she realized the low probability.

“And there are about twenty five prophets in Islam and
Christianity and Judaism- Moses’s religion- all of them
randomly lying the same lie? Nah. I don’t believe that’s
possible.”

But what really scared Zafirah was the description of Hell: it

was fire. A fire seventy times hotter than the fire of Earth.
Every time she recited the verses of Hellfire in her prayers,
her belief would strengthen, and she would only get more
and more scared, until she could almost taste the
punishment in her prayers. Three times, she fell down
straight into prostration, tears flowing out of her eyes, when
the verses of Hellfire came.

She remembered Raghavan’s words about fearing God. She
understood now, why God deserved to be both loved, and
feared, as she experienced both the overwhelming emotions
in her prostration.

Her mom told her that God loved her more than a mother
loved her lost child, when she found her child.

But something in this picture didn’t fit. Why would the most
merciful God punish someone so severely? She thought
about Hitler, and the torture that the Nazis had imposed on
the Jews, and that somehow made her see a little sense.
Those were the people who deserved such punishment. One
easy death was not enough punishment, surely not enough
to end their Karma.

But still. Eternal fire? How could the limited sins of one life be
compensated with unlimited pain? It somehow didn’t make
sense to Zafirah, even though she believed it. She asked
about it to her mom, who did give her a little clarity.

“People with even an atom of good will someday be taken

out of the fire, Zafirah. The fire also purifies: never will a
sinner ever think about sinning in Heaven, because he has
been through fire, known the consequences. Only then will
he be ready for Heaven, after the purification of fire. Can you
imagine Hitler trying to find Jews in heaven to go around and
torture them?”

“No,” Zafirah laughed, feeling a little better.

“There will be countless people who come out of the fire and
go to heaven.”

“But not all?” Zafirah asked, wondering how horrible a
person needed to be to be eternally doomed in fire.

“Not all,” her mom told her gravely, picking up the Qur’an
and showing it to her, “this book will act as a witness against
those who’ll be permanently doomed. Not one person will be
thrown in the fire if the message hasn’t been clearly sent to
them, Zafirah.”

“Seriously? So if someone is unaware of the message of the

Qur’an or any other scripture-”

“Then they don’t go to the fire,” Rahima told her simply.

“Read Surah Mulk, if you want to make sure.”

Her discussion with Rahima had made her feel a bit better.
But something still bothered her. She couldn’t really put her
finger on it, but it was nagging her at the back of her head.

“Oh well,” she sighed, giving up, “this is enough for one
night.”

 Haunted

There was one thing that Zafirah needed to repeat to herself

over and over again: one of the biggest rules for a Muslim
woman, was that she couldn’t marry a non-Muslim, until he
accepted her faith.

“So Raghavan is out of the equation completely?” she

mumbled to her mom, not meeting her eyes. She had
recently given up hiding anything from her mom- she’d even
told her about the time she’d felt so horrible that she’d
decided to end it all- and even though she got scolded for

some time, Rahima could only end up thanking God for the
gift he’d given her. He’d given her her only daughter: brand
new, religious, sincere, and completely open.

“He may not be, sweetie. The only reason he left you was
because of our relationship, right?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, wincing a little as she remembered

that night.

“But now the things are better than ever, aren’t they?”

“They are, mom.”

“Then don’t worry. I’ll propose to him on your behalf, and ask
him if he’s willing to accept Islam.”

“You’ll do that for me?” Zafirah’s eyes widened in shock.

“And you think he’ll accept Islam so easily?”

“He will, if the message is presented it to him well enough. A

man with the intelligence of Raghavan cannot deny the truth
of Islam.”

She thought about that. Suddenly, getting Raghavan back

into her life didn’t seem to be that big of an issue- if he didn’t
accept her way of life, then so be it. If he did- well, she would
be happy. Zafirah realized, that everything in this world
meant little to Zafirah now- they were all weaker strings,
when compared to her string with God, that just kept getting
stronger and stronger, filling her heart with light. Everything
else was just a temporary thing, that will someday die and go
away- including Raghavan. All she cared now, was-

Her thoughts paused, as she remembered Raghavan’s
words, form a long time ago.

I’m fearless against any worldly phenomenon- death and

torture included- but what I fear, is going back to him in a
state where he’s not happy with me.

She realized that she had more in common now with

Raghavan than ever. One of the Qur’anic instructions for
both men and women was to lower their gaze from the other
sex- and she knew that Raghavan followed that policy as
stringently as she did, possibly from his upbringing in Saudi.
Zafirah had even given up watching movies and listening to
music, because the Qur’an covered almost every second of
her day. It was all she listened to, all she thought about,
every waking second of her day, and it was what she recited
at night.

But the verses of Hellfire were now literally torturing her.

Every time she recited them, her heart became heavier and
heavier, as if someone was putting bricks on top of her. Her
knees gave way under her, and she fell down every night
into prostration, crying, because she didn’t understand.

The most evil thing she could think about- or get the
whispers of Shaitaan- came to her one night, while she
stood.

Why did Allah create evil people if he knew that they were
going to go to Hellfire? He is the All-powerful, why did he
create Shaitaan? Why did he create Iblees, knowing he was
going to mislead everyone into Hell? How is it Iblees’s fault,

if Allah all along knew that he was going to go to hell? Is
Allah playing a game with us, creating some people good
and others evil?

She closed her eyes, and tears fell relentlessly from her eyes
as the questions poured down upon her. She felt the burden
on her tiny shoulders turn heavier and heavier, until she
almost fainted from it.

Time had made it clear to Zafirah that Islam was true.

Everything the Qur’an said was going to happen, was going
to happen- there was no doubt about that in her mind. But
what she couldn’t find was the answer to the one question in
her mind.

WHY did Allah create evil souls?

Her heart trembled, as the weight got progressively heavier

on her. Her health came down, too, as she lost five kilos
within the space of two weeks. Her skin turned pale, and
bags under her eyes became visible, as she turned
insomniac, the same monstrous question hunting her down.

She couldn’t even ask Rahima or Omar about this: she didn’t
want them to go through what she was going through,
because she knew that they’d never gone so deep into what
she had gone into.

“What is happening to you, Zafirah? You’re sick all the time,
you’re losing weight, your hair is all over the place- what’s
the matter, sweetie?”

Zafirah had just shook her head, fighting the tears.

God- I know you’re here, listening to me. My eyes go white

every night, God, as I doubt your character. Is a part of you
evil, that created evil? That cannot be. I can’t even think of
that. You are the creator of all things good. But what about
Iblees? Why did you have to create him!

She found her prayers turning impossible on her. She

thought of this when she prayed.

I am in a safe, safe home. I am in God’s home. There’s a

storm outside this home, I can see it from the window: but I
am safe. The house is yellow, and warm in the cold, from the
fire that’s crackling in front of me. I am safe here. There is a
door behind me, which if I get out of, I will be destroyed.

The door was very, very weak. Every time she thought of
Hell fire and the eternal punishment there for Iblees, the
Devil, the door seemed to pull her closer towards the storm
outside.

God save me from my own self. I seek refuge in your

happiness, from your anger. I see refuge in you, from you.
Misery and evil has touched me, God, and nobody except
you can make me functional again.

She found herself thinking about Allah all the time, fearful of
her own thoughts, as her small imaginary house’s door

threatened to pull her out into the storm all the time. She
couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Every time she stood
in prayer, tears escaped her as she found herself judging if
God, the most merciful, had done the right thing by creating
Iblees and other evil people. Had she been in God’s position,
would she have created evil people too? Or would she have
created only good people?

Rahima Khan had never felt so worried about her daughter.

Her strong, bold daughter, who was now crying rivers in
every prayer she stood. Crying in prayers was a good sign,
the sign of a soft heart, but she couldn’t help but wonder
what it was that was turning her daughter into the tiny, huffed
up ever-fearful ball she was turning into.

“Zafirah, would you like me to take you to a psychiatrist?”

“No mom I’m okay,” she had told her in a choked voice. The
more troubled she felt, the more she wanted to pray, and the
more she prayed, the more her one question haunted her,
with every verse she recited about Hellfire.

Allah created Iblees knowing that he will go to fire eternally,

doomed.

Three times she fainted in her night prayers. One of the

mornings, her mom found her down, and finally, she’d had
enough.

“Zafirah Khan, I’m not letting you go to college in this state-
you’re to stay home this semester. I’m asking for a drop. Do
you understand?”

“I understand, Mom,” she’d nodded. She was in no condition

to go to college. Over the last three months, she’d lost ten
kilos in weight.

“And I’m sleeping with you from tonight. I’m not going to let
you pray at night-”

“MOM NO-”

“Zafirah Khan, you’re my daughter, and this is in your best

interest-”

“You can’t stop me from praying mom, please!-”

Rahima picked up the phone, finally.

He picked up on the third ring.

“Hello- is this Raghavan?”

 Sunrise

Raghavan woke up at four twenty, as usual. He made his

way to the washroom, and washed his hands and face, and
rubbed his forehead and feet. He came out then, and spread
out the mat on the floor in front of him.

“Allahu Akbar,” he said in a clear voice, and brought his

arms in front of him.

His phone ringed just when he was done with his morning
rituals.

“Hello- is this Raghavan?”

Raghavan’s back stiffened. This was a female voice- and not

a one that he recognized.

“Yes?”

“Hello Raghavan. I’m Zafirah’s mom.”

His back relaxed, but his head tilted in confusion.

“Assalam alaykum, aunty.”

“Walaykum assalam, beta. Raghavan, I have a quick

question.”

“Yes?”

“Do you love Zafirah?”

Raghavan’s throat turned dry. He didn’t speak for three

seconds. Finally, clearing his throat, he spoke in a cautious
voice.

“Does she love you, aunty?”

“She told me everything, beta- including why you ran away.”

Raghavan flinched at the words ran away.

“And?” he asked her, his tone sharp.

“And our relationship is better than ever, beta. Thanks a lot

for everything you’ve done for her. She always reminds me
of you, says that you’re the reason all the good things in her
life have come. She even practices Islam now- more
stringently than I’ve ever seen anyone practice it, too.”

Raghavan’s eyes widened, as he heard this. Surely, he had

to be dreaming. This was Zafirah Khan they were talking
about-

“So do you love Zafirah, Raghavan?”

He didn’t need another moment to answer.

“I do, aunty. I have loved her for the last three hundred days
of my life. The only thing that gets my mind off of her are my
prayers.”

“Your- prayers?”

“Yes, aunty- me and my dad have been Muslims for the last
five years, ever since we settled in Saudi.”

There was a full minute of stunned silence, as Rahima Khan

processed this. Raghavan stood awkwardly, feeling it would
be disrespectful to cut the call.

“Hello? Aunty, are you there?” he asked uncertainly, even

though he could hear her breathing heavily. “Aunty?”

“Raghavan?” she finally spoke.

“Yes?”

“Would you like to marry my daughter?”

The phone slipped from Raghavan’s grip, and fell on the

floor with a resounding thud.

Ting-tong.

Zafirah happened to be the closest to the door. A part of her

registered that the bell had been rung, but she was sitting in
a trance too deep to notice.

“Zafirah!” Omar’s voice came from the floor above. “Open

the door!”

She got up with a start, alarmed, and walked numbly to the

door, and opened it.

She had little time to process what happened in that split

second: one moment she stood on one side of the door, and
a tall man with long dark hair and a strong beard stood on
the other side, and in the very next moment, she was
wrapped tight around his chest, smelling the brilliant scent of
his shirt- the same scent that she had once worn before- her
hands went all over his strong back, feeling his presence, as
she realized who this was. Tears started flowing from her
eyes as easily as they did these days, almost on command.

“Raghavan! Raghavan- Raghavan- Raghavan-” she pulled
back, taking one look at his face, before falling back into his
chest, harder than she had before.

“I’m sick Raag-” she cried into his shoulder, and Raghavan
froze. He pulled back from her this time.

“What has happened to you, Zafirah- aunty told me that you

were becoming worse and worse every day-”

“Raag- I started following Islam- Raag I need you to help me-

I’m sick, Raag-”

“I’m marrying you Zafirah Khan- where’s your father?”

“There, in the room-” Zafirah hugged him again, but lifted her
finger to point in the direction of her parent’s room.
Raghavan took her by the hand, gently, and walked over to
the door, and knocked on it thrice.

“Come in,” Rahima Khan’s voice came from the room.

They entered, still hand in hand. Rahima and Hussain Khan

sat on the bed, drinking tea.

“Hello aunty. Hello uncle- my name is Raghavan.”

Hussain Khan smiled. “I know, Raghavan- Rahima told me

all about you. So what do you say?”

“I want to marry your daughter, uncle. Do I have your

permission?”

“Just one second,” Hussain took out his cell, and called
Omar. “Omar? I need you in my room. Now.”

Omar entered the room in thirty seconds.

“Yes dad?” he asked, and then looked at Raghavan and

Zafirah, who stood beside the bed, hand in hand. “Is this-
Raghavan?”

“Yes, son. He’s just asked me permission to marry Zafirah.

And with you and my wife as witnesses, I give Raghavan the
permission to be my daughter’s wali. Zafirah, do you accept
him as your protector, as you wali?”

Zafirah blinked. What was happening!

“I do?” she said, her tone turning the words into a question.

“This would mean he’ll be your husband in another three

seconds- are you sure?”

Zafirah’s heart leaped. What-was-happening! Where was all

the drama she’d once expected for her marriage!

“He- he’s not Mus-”

“He’s been practicing Islam for the last five years, Zafirah-
longer than you have-”

“You have?” Zafirah whirled to face him.

“I have!” Raghavan told her, grinning.

“Why-didn’t-you-ever-tell-me!” she pounded his chest with
her fists. “I-wondered-all-these-nights-”

“Zafirah, stop,” Raghavan laughed, trying to fight her off. He

finally caught hold of both her wrists. “Do you accept me as
your husband, your protector?”

“I DO!” she yelled and suddenly laughed, as if all the weight

of the world that had been burdening her shoulders was
swiftly lifted off of her. “I DO, YOU IDIOT, I DO!”

“Then let’s get out of here and cure you,” Raghavan said
roughly, as he pulled her out of the room and closed the door
on the laughing faces of Omar, Hussain, and Rahima.

“Before you kiss me-” Raghavan tried to tell her, but she’d
already launched herself on his lips. He kissed her back
passionately, but pulled back before he could go any further.

“Zafirah. Tell me what is wrong with you,” he told her,

catching her by the wrists again, to stop her from launching
on him again.

Zafirah furiously shook her head. “NO. Raag, I can’t. I can’t

burden you with what I have been burdened with-”

“What is it, Zaf- look at you, you’ve lost so much weight- and
the color of your face- you’re telling me about this, one way
or other-”

“Raag- I can’t-” tears came out of her eyes again, as the
same question came to her head, threatening to fall out.

Why did Allah create evil souls?

“Zafirah, listen to me. I am your lawful husband,” a proud

glint came to Raghavan’s eyes. “You have every right to
share your burdens with me. We are one tonight, not two.”

Zafirah looked at him for a long time, the tears still coming
out of her eyes. Finally, she spoke.

Raghavan laughed the biggest laugh he’d ever laughed.

Zafirah’s green eyes almost popped out of her sockets, as
she took in his reaction.

“DUDE,” she yelled at him, “this ONE question has been

eating me from the inside for the last three months and
you’re laughing-”

“I’m laughing Zafirah Khan, because I’m happy that I know

the answer to your question!”

Zafirah’s face turned into an expression of unparalleled joy.

“So look, before I tell you the answer, I want you to

understand what is wrong with you.”

“Okay?”

“So the messenger told us, that Allah told us, that

‘I am near my slave’s assumption of me’.

That means, he is what his slave expects him to be. If the

slave expects him to be the most merciful, then he is, to him,
the most merciful. If the slave expects him to be the most
cruel, then he is, to him, the most cruel- even though that’s
not who Allah really is. Thinking that Allah is cruel is equal to
assuming a lie about Allah. It is equal to setting up a rival to
Allah, a God that is cruel.”

“So if I think that Allah was unfair and unjust in creating

Iblees-”

“Then you are not really worshipping Allah- you’re

worshipping a God you made up, a god who is not the most
merciful, who is not the most just. You’ve been worshipping
a fake God for the last three months, Zafirah- and that is
your problem. Do you understand?”

Zafirah nodded her head slowly.

“But why is he not unjust and cruel, when he created Iblees

knowing that he’ll be sending him to hell?”

Raghavan’s eyes twinkled.

“Who said Allah created Iblees’s soul, his consciousness?”

Zafirah blinked.

“But.. Allah created everything.. didn’t he?”

“All things material. He’s the one who made man, and then
blew the man’s soul into him.”

“Wait..” Zafirah’s eyes widened. “You’re telling me-”

“The thing which is created, Zafirah, will one day meet its
end: our material bodies will one day die- but our soul, our
consciousness, cannot die. It can’t be killed by a weapon-
can’t be burnt by fire- can’t be wetted by water- it simply is
impossible to destroy.

“This soul, this ruh, this consciousness, has always been, is,
and will always be. Nobody can destroy your consciousness.
No messenger ever taught us that Allah created our souls.
All we know, is that Allah created everything material.”

“So we have been around.. forever?” Zafirah mumbled,

shocked.

“You have been around forever, I have been around forever,

and Allah has been around forever.”

“And so the punishment for not listening to Allah..”

“Is a punishment that will last forever. It’s been infinite time
since Allah has been trying to make us people of Heaven-
and this is the final call, the final messenger, with the
strongest warning of landing on the wrong side of Allah.”

“A fitting punishment..” Zafirah whispered. “I had always
wondered how unlimited punishment could be justified for
limited sins- but this clears everything. So Iblees’s soul-”

“Kaan min al-kafireen,” Raghavan told her in Arabic. She

understood. He had always been evil. Inherently evil.

“But how do you know this for sure Raag?” she asked him.
“Sure, the Messenger didn’t teach us that souls are not
created, but he didn’t teach us that souls are uncreated
either.”

“Your own question will answer in the simplest possible

manner, Zafirah,” Raghavan told her easily. “Would the most
merciful, the one who is free of all needs, create a soul
knowing the soul was going to go to Hell eternally? Is that
the God we worship?”

“No,” Zafirah replied simply, realizing the truth in Raghavan’s

sure words. Subhanallahi amma yasifoon, the words rang in
her head. Glory be to him, above what they ascribe.

“The messenger taught us that Allah hates to put his slave in

the fire more than a mother hates to put her child in fire-
surely, because the most merciful would never let his slave’s
mercy exceed his own mercy.

So do you think Allah made Iblees’s consciousness simply

because he wanted to torture him in the fire?”

“No,” Zafirah laughed, feeling the weight of the heavens

being lifted by the words of her lover.

“Do you believe in Allah, who is the most perfect creator in
the heavens and the Earth, Zafirah Khan?”

“I do,” she whispered, coming close to him. The night had

come to them sooner than they’d expected.

“Are you cured now?”

“I am,” Zafirah told him easily. “But I do have, oh a billion

more questions for you- but those can wait till the morning, I
think.”

And it may well have been the best night of Zafirah’s life.

The sun rose soon after their prayer. Raghavan had himself
led Zafirah in the prayer; they’d gotten too late to go to the
Mosque. They succumbed back on her bed soon afterwards,
and Zafirah snuggled her head in Raghavan’s chest.

“Who is he, Raag?”

“Who, Zaf?”

“Allah.”

Raghavan smiled.

“The light of the heavens and the Earth, Zaf. He is all

goodness: he is the strength of the strong, the intelligence of
the intelligent, the bravery of the brave, the knowledge of the
knowledgeable, the love of the heavens and the earth. It is

only because of his love all our lives are possible. He is Al-
Ghani Al-Hameed: the one free of all needs, but the one who
is still praiseworthy, as he keeps giving anyways. He’s the
King of kings, the King and protector of the entire universe. I
can go on praising him until I die, but it will still be nothing in
comparison to what he deserves. And what will all these
praises do? With one fragment of his own self, he pervades
this entire universe, resides in the heart of every being.”

There was a stunned silence.

“And what about the people of Hell?”

“Those will be the people so far away from Allah, that they’ll
not be able to even smell the fragrance of Heaven, although
it would travel to an enormous distance. They will try running
towards Allah on the Day of Judgment, but it will be of no
use on that day. They pushed Allah out from their hearts,
they chose to cause misery over happiness, and Allah
created the world for them to change, but they never
changed.”

“A fitting recompense.”

“You can’t be more merciful than the most merciful, Zafirah,

nor can you be more just than the most just. I do not know
many things about this justice, but on the Day of Judgment,
not a hair of injustice will be done- be sure of that.”

Zafirah smiled. The tiny yellow room that had saved her
through the storm had now been upgraded to a huge, huge
palace, whose walls shut out every storm on the outside, so
thoroughly that she didn’t hear anything.

There was one question though, which still troubled her a bit.

“Raag- I know things turned out beautifully because of what

you did- and I love you for that- but why did you leave me
just because there was a time I was crazy enough to not love
my mother?”

Raghavan smiled. “The messenger never lied, Zafirah- and I

knew that he taught us one thing about the womb. He taught
us that Allah will take care of whoever takes care of the ties
of the womb, and that he will sever whoever severs the ties
of the womb.”

“So when you saw me severing my tie with mom-”

“I saw you in the fire, Zafirah,” Raghavan shook his head, “it
was the most horrible thing for me. It felt as if the best thing
that had ever happened to me was an invitation to Hell.
That’s why I ran away so hard. That’s why the only thing I
told you to get right on your Karma list, was the most
important thing: goodness to your mom.”

There was another moment of stunned silence.

“You saved my entire existence, Raghavan,” Zafirah

whispered.

“I didn’t,” Raghavan smiled easily. “Allah is the intelligence of

the intelligent. The praise is always due to Him. I’m just a
soul lucky enough to acknowledge that fact.”

He’s closer than anyone can ever imagine, Zafirah realized.

“Okay, will you now let me go to work?” Raghavan asked her
playfully, as she snuggled harder into his chest.

“US is far away,” Zafirah mumbled, not looking into his eyes.

“I’m offering you a job, Zafirah. Would you like to work for
me?”

“I would run to the ends of the world with you, Raghavan

without a surname,” she told him, looking into his eyes now.

“About that,” Raghavan grinned, “I texted my dad this

morning- he’s doing all the paperwork as we speak. For the
first time maybe, a guy’s going to inherit his wife’s last
name.”

What!

“Seriously?” Zafirah laughed, looking at his face to make

sure he wasn’t kidding. “Raghavan Khan! You’re not lying!”

“What was your wish, Zafirah?” Raghavan whispered, not

paying attention to her excitement. Zafirah looked down, her
cheeks coloring- but she spoke the truth, knowing what he
was asking about.

“God- if you’re there- make us each other’s: happily, forever.

In this life, and if there’s an afterlife, then in the afterlife-
forever.”

“So now you know that’s what I wished for every night for the
last three months- and what I will keep wishing for the rest of
my life.”

There can be many ways to end a book. A flourish of happy

words, a scene from a dream, a flash of hope. But Raghavan
and Zafirah’s life cannot ever be limited to words on pages. It
would be unfair to ever end their conversations. Perhaps the
best I can do is this.

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.