SAMARTH

I’m in Paris for an afternoon. Free to meet for a quick lunch?

AVANTIKA

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AVANTIKA

How is this for Vikram Dada’s birthday gift?

horse-print tie.jpg

I designed it.

SAMARTH

Is he still playing?

AVANTIKA

Nope. Too much on his plate with kingdom work.

But he misses it for sure.

SAMARTH

Then this might make him cry :D

But he’ll love it after a month of crying.

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AVANTIKA

I can’t sleep. Are you awake?

SAMARTH

Now I am

AVANTIKA

Which time zone are you in?

SAMARTH

India

AVANTIKA

Oops. Sleep.

SAMARTH

What happened?

AVANTIKA

Random sleepless night

Her phone buzzed with an incoming call.

Samarth Calling…

Avantika rolled her eyes, changing sides on the bed and splaying on her stomach before toggling the speaker button to answer.

“Nothing is wrong here. Sleep!” She whisper-shouted.

“Now I am awake,” he grumbled, shutting some door.

“Where are you going?”

“To my room.”

“Where were you?”

“In Sharan’s room. Our Late Night Boys Club went on too late. I don’t even know when I fell asleep…”

“You and your clubs,” Avantika chuckled.

“Dada Sarkar’s legacy,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice. “I am just taking it forward.”

Another door shutting and she could picture him laying down on his bed. Stretching his legs. Pushing his hair off his face. Or not. Lately, it didn’t fall down on his forehead.

“You miss your Dada Sarkar.”

“Very. In the final years, he really went off most of the time. I don’t even remember the last time I had spoken to him as Dada Sarkar and had him recognise me. But it’s… it will always remain. What if he had lived a little more? A few more good years?”

“He was confined for decades, Samarth.”

“I know. And I also know how selfish it is of me to ask that he would have stayed, even like that… anyway. What’s keeping you awake?”

“Nothing in particular. Just one of those nights, you know? When there’s no reason you can’t sleep. Nothing good to think about, nothing bad either. The kind of night that drives you insane,” she groaned. “You know?”

“No,” he laughed softly. “Because either I pass out after practise or can’t keep my eyes open after work.”

“Work?”

“Papa hasn’t been going easy on me lately. I just returned from a tour of Jam Jodhpur and Kalavad yesterday. Papa himself hasn’t taken these district tours for years but insists that we start again.”

“Maybe that is why. Because he hasn’t taken it in years, he wants you to go.”

“Maybe. And also… after Dada Sarkar, Papa is a little… alone. He misses somebody to shoulder it with him. He reigned alone for all these years but he always had Dada Sarkar to fall back on, bounce ideas off, go to for advice or opinion. I think now he is looking at me.”

“Even though you are not inheriting?”

“Even if I am not inheriting, I am still serving Nawanagar. Papa proposed that Sharan’s Prime Minister position be reserved for me. I asked him to keep that thought tabled for now.”

“Why?”

“That would be Sharan’s decision, if and when it happened.”

“If and when? What do you mean ‘if and when?’”

“If I would be around when Sharan took over.”

“Of course you will be around.”

“I am just saying.”

She sat up in bed — “Look, Samarth, you are around for a very long time. You promised me a long time, remember? Now don’t talk rubbish stuff like that at night.”

He laughed. “See, I gave you something bad to think about tonight.”

“Well, let me return the favour — what if I am not around to see you become Sharan’s Prime Minister?”

“That’s the thing — I am not as gullible as you. Saying and happening are two different things. Say whatever you want, you won’t be able to change what happens.”

“Right back at you, God-complex.”

His husky laugh vibrated in her ear. Avantika splayed down again, pulling her duvet over herself. The warmth of September was slowly trailing into the beginnings of autumn in Paris. She couldn’t sleep without a thick duvet anymore.

“Ava? Are you there?”

“Yes, was getting comfortable. It’s getting cooler here.”

“How cooler?”

“No fan, windows bolted and a-thick-duvet-kinda cool. But not so cool that I have to swap my shorts and spaghetti for anything more covering.”

Silence.

“Samarth? Did you sleep?”

He coughed. “No… no. I was drinking water.”

“Are you coming this side anytime soon?”

“Not to Paris. But we have a tournament in Tuscany in October.”

“Oh.”

“I can take a connecting flight from Paris.”

“You will be flying longer and then taking a U-turn, my friend.”

“So?”

“Take it then, if you want to.”

Please take it and come.

“Let me see the dates and get back to you.”

“Hmm…”

“How are you there? What’s your daily update?”

“Oh on a daily basis, I am good. Mummy-Papa visited last week and stayed through the first half. Fancy stuff they did.”

“They?”

“I had work all day. They had Vishwa-Ajay time. In the evening we would go out for dinner, opera, stuff like that. Fancy. Princess stuff.”

“What else?”

“My weekdays are spent working, walking around, going out to lunches with the team at least twice a week. I cook at night — the full Indian meal, FYI. I found an Indian store and Mummy insisted I have them deliver to my apartment. If I don’t, she calls them every weekend to deliver fresh produce,” Avantika rattled.

“I am learning to make stuff on my own too. Again, Mummy offered to have a chef hired or send one from our palace…”

Silence.

“Samarth?”

“I am listening.”

“I thought you fell asleep.”

“I am listening, Ava.” There was a smile in his voice. “Why did you reject the chef?”

“Because it defeats the whole purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“Of my parents believing that I am capable of living and surviving alone.”

“Why are you hellbent on proving that?”

“Because…” she widened her eyes, as if he could see her.

“Because what?”

“Because my parents are pressuring me to start settling down. So, I get that they are worried. It’s a thing with our parents that they want us to get married.

I get it. And whenever I have brought up the argument that what if I don’t want to get married, my mother goes bonkers.

But my father always puts this point which I don’t know how to rebut…

he always says how can you live alone? How will you live alone?

Kresha will have her own life, we will not be around forever…

I want them to see and believe that come what may, I will be able to live alone.

They should have that peace of mind when I go on an all-out war against their marriage campaign. ”

Silence again. But the sounds of his breath were fast. He wasn’t asleep.

“Helloooo? Anyone there?”

“I’m here.”

“You again went silent.”

“You kept talking,” his low voice sounded. “Where was there space for me to butt in?”

She laughed, rolling in bed and tightening the duvet around her.

“Are you really planning to loop your connecting flight through Paris?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do here?”

“I’ll go to the Seine and eat poha with sev. Oh, and wear my waist chain this time.”

She howled. Her bed shook with how loud and how big she laughed. It turned into a cough, all the phlegm rising up to her throat.

“Drink some water.”

“Hang on,” she wheezed, grabbing her water bottle from the nightstand and taking a long draught.

“Phew. Do you pack that humour for late nights, Kunwarji?”

“I come alive after 2.”

“How did I not know this?”

“Even I have discovered it lately with Sharan. We lose it after 2. It’s like something switches off and our crazy, dark humour sides emerge. He is only 9, but man, the way we joke.”

“What do you joke about?”

“Now when you ask like that I can’t put it in words. It’s random stuff. Just weird, random stuff. But we can’t stop laughing and getting each other off.”

“You adore him, no?”

“Oh yes. I saw him within the first ten minutes of him being born. Did a lot of nappy changes too. Taught him cycling recently. He is slowly becoming my best friend.”

“I thought I was your best friend.”

“You are not my friend, Ava…”

She gulped.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that, right? It just came out…”

“Yeah, no, I understood. No problem. It happens. And we can’t let that awkwardness pull us down every time. We will slip up and say something stupid. How will we talk all our lives if we keep freezing up every time?”

“All our lives? Ava, are you sure you will never meet somebody? You say it now but…”

“Are we doing this again?” She turned on her back and set the phone on her stomach. “If yes, then goodbye and goodnight…”

“No, no, ok, I am sorry. I was just saying that… how do you derive this willpower?”

Her eyes rose from the darkness in front of her to the mild Paris lights pouring across the skyline.

She had never questioned that after the first time when she had walked away from him at Saraswati Crest and known that she would never find anything even close to him in her life again.

Ten years later, she still knew that to be true.

And what was true didn’t need any willpower to sustain.

“Ava? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“You went silent this time.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” she answered honestly.

“I know.”

“What?”

“If you were a king, you would reign over all the kingdoms. If you were a commander, you would conquer all the lands. If you were a vizier, you would conquer all the people, keep them in your thrall…”

“And if you were a poet…” she giggled.

“But the problem is,” he continued, unaffected by her comic comment. “You are all of it.”