I don't Wear Sunscreen (8 page)

“
That was not required,
Laksha sounded confident, and she will manage and be back tomorrow
morning, so stop arguing. Wait for some twenty minutes, I will get
dinner for all of you,” with this, Laksha’s mom walked off to the
kitchen, bundling her hair into a knot.

After she left, a cousin asked Laksha’s
dad to pass on the man’s number, but he refused and escaped to the
bathroom. After a simple dinner, the relatives left; Laksha’s mom
thanked them heartily for their help. It was almost 11 o’clock as
she set the bedroom for her and her husband to sleep. As she was
adjusting the pillows, he came in and asked her to sit
down.

“
What's going on? My
daughter is a courageous woman like me, not a weak person like you,
so smile,” she said, looking at him..

“
Why don’t you cry? Let it
out, enough of this,” he replied.

“
You think I want to cry? I
didn't cry the day I married you or even when I gave birth to
Laksha after hours of pain. A mother’s instinct is stronger than
anything else. So if I had felt that she was in trouble, do you
think I would have refrained from approaching the police? I don’t
even care about going to the media for help, I just knew she was
fine,” said Laksha’s mom, laughing at him a little.

“
Let’s sleep for some time,
she will come early in the morning and jump on my head for coffee.
I want to sleep, do whatever you feel like,” she lay down while he
watched her sleep, like a puppy.

Women are not the weaker sex, even
after experiencing such pain, they still have the capacity to get
up and walk, regardless of how long it would take. Men on the
contrary, though they look a lot stronger, wiser, and meaner, and
of course, masculine, are not really strong enough when it comes to
their children, especially a daughter. No matter what she does, no
matter how rude or soft she is, the daughter would come first, then
the rest of the world. It was evident that her mom is bold,
beautiful inside, which helped her maintain the family so well and
raise Laksha in the best possible way.

***

“
I can’t thank you enough,
sir, you are a messenger from God himself, thanks for saving my
daughter,” Laksha’s dad spoke to the gentleman who dropped her
safely.

“
It’s my pleasure sir, I
have three daughters and I know the pain of raising them, take care
of your daughter, she seems to be a very nice girl,” he retired and
left their house after some coffee, which he had had to drink after
requests from everyone in the family.

“
Talk to her, ask her the
details,” her dad whispered.

“
Why? She is fine, you shut
up already,” answered her mom and walked to the kitchen.

“
Mom, actually,” Laksha
started after a good lunch.

“
No explanations required
honey, just take some rest and carry on with whatever you want to
do,” her mom answered and left the room, placing some new clothes
that she had bought on the bed.

Laksha thought for a while and asked
her dad for his phone. “I informed Pallavi last night itself. I
only told her not to call since you are tired,” her mom said from
the kitchen. “Don’t talk much to anyone for a few days, all they
will do is to simply question you on what, where, how, why.. You
will be tired of answering. There was a guy named Sai, who called
in late night, he said he is your colleague. We told him you are
fine and just lost your mobile, so maintain the same
story.”

“
Goddamn, I don’t remember
his number,” Laksha snorted. “I must talk to him about some office
work, let me talk to him, give me his number dad,” she called
out.

“
It's in my mobile, check,”
he handed over the phone and walked away.

“
Sai, I am fine, nothing to
worry about. I will explain in detail when we meet. I am just sick
and will get back in a week's time. Please inform Saurav for me.
Don’t call for now, I can't talk much, my mom has strictly told me
not to talk to anyone about anything. This is my dad’s number, so
please don’t reply.”
She quickly sent a text
message to him and deleted it.

While she left the phone and tried to
turn, she was hit with a tight hug from behind. As she stammered
and settled in a second, the deodorant by itself said to her it was
Pallavi.

“
I’m so sorry, it's because
of me, I should not have invited you to Coimbatore,” Pallavi said
emotionally.

“
Chill, no big deal and
shhhh! Mom told me not to talk about this, okay?” she
said.

“
So it takes something
terrible to bring the princess Pallavi to our home?” Laksha’s mom
walked in with a plate of savouries and a cup of tea.

“
Aunty, why all this
formality, I just had lunch,” Pallavi said.

“
Who said it's for you?”
Laksha’s mom asked and all three laughed. “Any age limits for the
audience? Shall I join you girls for the chit chat?” she
asked.

“
You are younger than us
aunty, by heart!”

“
Okay, you guys carry on, my
cooker is calling me, you stay and have lunch,” Laksha’s mom said
and left them.

“
What really happened? I
don’t get it, you left and spoke to me soon after boarding the
train, then all of a sudden you vanished,” Pallavi was
concerned.

“
Let’s not talk about it
now, I will tell you after some days, even my parents don’t know,
they didn’t ask me,”

“
Fine, you look very dull,
hmm.. I don’t know what to talk about now,”

“
I know what to talk about.
Come here, let me show you something,” Laksha told her, picking her
small handbag.

She looked in the bag for something,
when Pallavi noticed that her bag was torn badly. It had been in a
pretty good state in Coimbatore, so she understood that Laksha may
have fallen down somewhere or missed the train and run behind it
like Kareena Kapoor.

“
This is Sai, my best friend
for now, I am interested in him and I guess he is also interested
in me,” Laksha blushed as Pallavi took a closer look at the picture
she was holding.

“
He was the one helped me to
get a stable job in Mumbai, he is from Andhra, very nice guy. He
works in finance and is such a nice person, we were just friends,
but for the long run, I felt that I could really like him. We
didn’t propose to each other, but I have a strong feeling that he
is also in love with me. We keep fighting and work to resolve it,
then we fight again, we are crazy about each other.” Laksha smiled
while Pallavi kept looking at the picture.

“
Hello, why are you standing
still like a statue?” she asked and tapped Pallavi on her
shoulders.

“
What’s his
name?”

“
Sai,”

“
Full name,”

“
Huh..some Some North Indian
name, his great grandfather got married to a North Indian and the
flavour kept going, he said one day,” Laksha answered very
casually,checking to see if her parents could hear them.

“
His full name is Sai
Prabhu,” Pallavi said in a very flat tone.

“
How do you know that?”
Laksha asked in a confused tone.

“
Don’t you remember? Prabhu?
The one we met at the Greenpeace rally when we had a great fight
during school?”

“
It’s him, he challenged me
when he left for Mumbai that he will find you and take revenge for
being the one who drifted me away from him. I thought he was just
kidding and eventually forgot him completely, with my studies and
stuff. This picture just shook me, I am so sorry Laksha. I never
knew he would do this to us. It was just an infatuation, he was
just blabbering in emotion, I thought.. I didn’t know that it would
go to this extent,” Pallavi said quietly.

Laksha was puzzled. “I don’t
understand, what is happening? So Sai was just fooling me? He is
not in love with me? He just wanted to take revenge and did all
this to me?” Laksha blurted out in anger, the truth dawning on
her.

“
Don’t shout, calm down,
your mom is here! I’m so stupid, you're sick and I said all this.
But I had to. Thank God it’s still in the initial stage, see, and
just don’t reveal this to him. Okay? He will trouble us even more,
so just stay smart, we will work through this,” Pallavi said in a
soft tone to Laksha, who was still rewinding the best moments with
him.

“
Come out girls, time for
lunch,” they heard.

“
Come, let’s have lunch,
stop thinking too much right now, this is not necessary. We have to
forget and move on, we will talk later, after lunch we will go to
my place and talk it over in the garden,” Pallavi was already
making a plan, and moved Laksha to the kitchen.

They had lunch and went to Pallavi’s
garden. Having gone through a tough time, Laksha found this even
more devastating. All she could do was to cry and think of every
sweet moment she spent with Sai. The only thought that that kept
running in her mind was him and nothing else she felt like she
could never think of anything else, even if she wanted
to.

The next few days were hard and even
when Pallavi tried to help her, all she could do was ignore her and
turn over the other side. It took three full days for her to
recover what she felt was only 10% of the trauma, and she was still
burdened with thoughts. Her confidence felt broken.

Pallavi met her every day to make her
feel better, but she failed again and again. The sad face remained
the same.

“
He helped me a lot, he was
searching a room for me to shift into since I am not comfortable in
the present one. Daily, he would jog with me to help me lose
weight, even when he was healthy enough. He used to pick and drop
me, he would come wherever I called him, and he was so possessive
that he wouldn’t even let his cousin to talk to me.” Laksha poured
out her grief to her best friend.

“
Look, he wanted to spend
some private time with you, that’s why he took charge of searching
for a place for you. He can easily mesmerize and pull you into bed.
Who is he to force you to lose weight? You look great even if you
are chubby, if he is really in love with you, why should this
bother him? He was not possessive, he must be afraid that his
cousin would tell you about the plan Laksha, don’t be an emotional
fool,” she knocked Laksha’s head.

Life is not really fair, this should
not have happened to Laksha. Well, you can’t expect a lion to stop
pouncing on you just because you are a vegetarian, as the saying
goes. Yes! Shit happens to everybody, regardless of how good at
heart you are. This is karma and it will screw you.

Chapter Seven

Whenever Laksha looked at her phone,
she thought of Sai, since it was his choice. He had paid the first
EMI, so that they could be in touch through technology
better.

These kinds of memories just killed her
inside. Like the crumpled chocolate wrapper that had both their
names written in the tissue paper in which they played FLAMES that
resulted in LOVE. Life in Mumbai was all about Sai and only Sai.
Small things preserved to sound sweet aftermath, only drowned her
in misery. Love, after all, means different things to each of us.
For some it’s parents, for others it’s a pet; for Laksha, it was
only Sai. She wrote his name first with every new pen she bought;
she loved to buy pens just for this reason. Throughout her life,
she had been waiting to fall in love and pour all her affection on
somebody even before they declared love for each other. They have
been in love already, according to Laksha.

While she was all travelling down
memory lane, Pallavi interrupted her.

“
Are you still thinking
about that guy?”

“
No, just thinking about
work and pending assignments, taking leave often is not really good
during the probation period. I have to join back ASAP.”

“
Emergency, doesn’t know
Probations Laksh, forget it and concentrate on getting out of this
trap, I know how it feels, when I first missed him, you were there
for me. So likewise, now I am here,” she held Laksha’s hands
tight.

Laksha smiled sadly and put her head on
Pallavi’s shoulders.

“
Did mom ask anything?”
Pallavi inquired.