The Fat Indian Girl (#9)
Everybody is a couple
One thing that happens when you have just gotten out of a relationship is either, you see happy couples everywhere and think I wish I was in that person’s place or you see fighting couples and start thinking oh my god if I was in their place, I so wouldn't do that.
Meera was going through all of this, it’s almost as if suddenly her sensory powers to detect all the couples of the world — fighting, canoodling, whispering sweet nothings to one another — had gone up a notch, now she could see nothing but young and old people, either already in love or falling out of love.
Meera is shopping for Sara’s trousseau and listening to Sara constantly ramble about her impending wedding which was adding to Meera’s misery and making her feel even more single than she already felt. It’s not like Meera wanted to get married — especially not after dealing with nearly suicidal Karthik — but it still annoyed her that her relationship did not have a happy ending like Sara’s. Meera thinks that she is at least more tolerable than Sara as a partner, yet it’s Sara who is engaged to be married.
This is another common post-break symptom, suddenly you feel as if you have sage advice to give to everybody who is having relationship troubles. You feel you know better than all of these people, who may be happy right now but really they are just living in a bubble of happiness, that will break soon and then as a love-veteran, it will be your duty to go save them. Also, you think most fights that the couples you know have, are juvenile and stupid.
With every piece of jewellery that Meera helps Sara pick out, she feels like maybe there is something wrong with her. Maybe she is not the type of person who another person loves forever. Finally, when she is done with helping Sara pick — the perfect shoes for her bachelorette party, Meera leaves to go home. She cannot wait to go back and finish watching, Master of None.
Meera’s cab is waiting at the signal, she is looking out of the window and in the cab adjacent to hers she sees a young couple, where the girl is practically sitting on the boy’s lap and doing something to him, which may have been considered kissing in some cultures but it looks more like an animal devouring her prey. She is feeling sick, get a fucking room she thinks.
Then she feels like a hypocrite because just sometime back, she was doing the exact same thing with Karthik. She tells herself that she did all of this because Karthik liked it, she is not much of a romantic anyway, she was just making him happy. And then as if on cue, her cabbie turns up the volume of the car radio, a bittersweet Hindi love song about a wife separating from her husband is playing. Exasperated Meera shifts to the other end of the seat, so she does not have to look at the animals mating in the other cab, she puts her head on the windowpane of the cab, shuts her eyes and tries to empty her head.
When Meera gets home she sees her mother is talking on the phone with somebody and smiling too much. She is suspicious because whenever her mother is talking on the phone it’s to talk about other people and her tone is always accusatory, today she sounds like a cat purring after being caressed in the stomach.
Something is wrong.
Her mother looks at her and smiles widely, she does not even comment on the fact that Meera’s hair is tied in a messy bun, to Meera, that should have been the first warning.
Roma puts down the phone hastily, calls Meera to sit next to her. She straightens her hair and pulls her into a hug, which is extremely awkward for Meera.
“What’s up?” asks Meera looking very suspiciously at her mother.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” says Roma, twiddling her thumb, looking here and there, buying time.
“Ummm, with your mouth and voice box” jokes Meera.
“Haha funny,” says Roma and stands up to pour herself a glass of water from the jug at the dining table, she takes a sip from the glass and sits down again.
“No, seriously what happened?” asks Meera again.
“Arrey, Kajal aunty introduced me to this person, this umm man. His name is Brijesh Joshi, he is a widower, no children, he is single. We met today, he seemed really nice. You know I might meet him again tomorrow” says Roma and looks at Meera nervously, as if she’s half expecting her daughter to stand up and punch her.
Meera is stumped.
“So you’re seeing somebody” Meera confirms, just to be sure she has not misunderstood her mother.
“Sort of not exactly,” Roma says and smiles sweetly.
“Oh,” says Meera, her face is blank, mirroring her head — both in a state of acute shock.
“What happened, you have a problem, you know I won’t go ahead with it, it’s you kn..” stammers Roma nervously.
“No, no I am really happy for you, all this shopping I am just tired. Yay! mom go ahead, have fun.” said Meera, gaining some composure and forcing a smile on her face.
Meera kisses her mom on the forehead and walks towards her room, behind her, she can hear her mother saying, “Yes, she has no problem” and laughing shyly on the phone. Meera shuts her door tightly and then checks if it’s locked properly.
She picks up her newly acquired copy of “How to be single and happy” and drowns her sorrows in practical advice given by the bestselling author of the self-help book.
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