It was eleven in the morning. Shruti had a large bucket of butter popcorn in her hands. Just carrying it was a task, but her problem was that she didn’t have a third hand to eat the popcorn as she waited for the door to Screen 2 to open. Astha was busy on her phone in a corner, and Kunal and Sevita were in a queue to get nachos. Sama stood some distance apart from Shruti, dressed in a black tee shirt and jeans. Sevita looked gorgeous in her white skirt and pink top. She and Kunal had been gazing into each other’s eyes, oblivious to all else.
‘I’m not coming with these lovebirds for a movie ever again,’ Shruti declared as Sevita and Kunal returned with some nachos and drinks.
‘Aww,’ Sevita raised a handful of popcorn to her friend’s mouth. ‘Open your mouth, Shru!’ Shruti pretended to snort in disgust.
‘Really?’ However, she let Sevita feed her.
‘I love you too.’ Sevita playfully pinched her cheek. The door to the hall opened. Finally, they could watch "A Winter’s Affair".
‘Maybe we should sit in a different row from these two,’ Shruti told Astha as they walked behind them. The girls chose an empty row way behind the couple. Sama followed suit.
The movie started and some people whistled. Soon, everyone seemed engrossed in the story unfolding on the screen.
Sama couldn’t care less about the plot or the art direction. She watched Sevita and Kunal from the back row, oblivious to the excitement around her. She watched them hold hands and inch closer towards each other. Sama couldn’t take her eyes off them. The smile on Sevita’s face, every expression, the shy gaze Sama noticed it all.
‘They sure need a room,’ Shruti muttered to Astha as she chewed on a mouthful of popcorn. Astha sighed, tired of Shruti’s remarks.
The movie ended and the five exited the hall. Everyone except Sama was discussing their favourite scenes. Shruti was awed by the actress’s beauty and Astha by her costumes.
‘My favourite part was the fight scene,’ Kunal said. ‘Mine was the dance. It was just so cool. What about you?’ Sevita turned to Sama.
‘When they held hands,’ she replied blankly.
‘Oh! Such a romantic you are, who would’ve guessed,’ Sevita laughed and poked her.
‘Okay gang, I’ve got to be somewhere. See you tomorrow!’ Astha gave Sevita and Shruti a quick hug each and left.
‘I’m hungry,’ Shruti said.
‘We’re going to check out a new café today,’ Kunal said, taking Sevita’s hand. ‘You could join us.’
‘Umm, no thanks. You two carry on. I will go home,’ Shruti said, looking away. ‘See you later.’
‘So, it’s just us,’ Sevita said, looking at Sama and Kunal.
‘I’m not hungry. I’ll accompany you to Delisiozo and then take a bus home.’
Sevita blinked in surprise. ‘How did you know we were going there?’
‘There is only one new café in the area,’ Sama replied, holding onto the straps of her handbag tightly.
‘Okay, let’s go then,’ Sevita said. She thought it weird that her twin had guessed the name of the restaurant accurately but she brushed the thought aside. How did it matter anyway?
•••
The three got into Kunal’s car and drove off, with the car stereo playing some old school hip hop. As they approached Delisiozo, Kunal and Sevita asked Sama to join them yet again. When she did not relent, they dropped her off near the bus stop. Sama stood there and watched Kunal’s car disappear around a turn. Three buses came and left. Sama didn’t board any of them. Abruptly she started walking, not knowing why, away from the bus stop.
The road led to a riverside locality full of cafes and restaurants. Delisiozo was somewhere in those buildings, on a top floor overlooking the river. She turned to the river and stared at the big ripples it made. The water level had risen; she could no longer see the lines left by the river on the boundary walls which were visible in summer. And the monsoons were just beginning. They would be fierce, this time. At a distance, Lavasa’s water sports club was buzzing with activity. It was a two-storeyed building with glass windows, surrounded by trees. Sama noticed people gathered there, a lot of them from her class. She went closer, walking in the shadows of buildings and quickly crossing the road to avoid being spotted.
There was a huge banner announcing the ‘Lavasa Water Club Speed Boat Racing Competition’. She spotted Nik among the participants. He was all geared up for the race, wearing a helmet and a yellow life jacket over black trunks. He was flexing his muscles at every opportunity. His gang of toadies was there to cheer him on. She watched him walk around, chest puffed out with confidence, as the time for the race drew near.
‘Sevita, hey!’ Someone tapped her shoulder. Sama turned back with a jolt. The boy realised his mistake immediately.
‘Oh, Sama … Sorry, I thought you were her …’
It was the guy from class, who had asked what the name ‘Sevita’ meant. An awkward silence followed. Sama stared at him, feeling acid ooze out of her heart again.
‘Why don’t you join us for the—’ he stopped in the middle of the sentence. Sama had simply walked away from him.
Fool, the voice hissed inside her head.
She walked fast through the crowd, not caring who she pushed out of her way. How disappointed he was when he realised I wasn’t Sevita.
Sama boarded the next bus she could find to her house. She got a window seat and spent the rest of the journey staring out of it. The acid in her chest was making her sweat. Whatever it was deep inside, was trying to burst out and escape.
I’m going to explode, I will be torn apart. She clutched at the neck of her tee shirt as the voices started to hiss in her head.
The bus stopped across her house and she quickly walked inside. Her mother was busy carving watermelons when she reached home. They did not exchange any greetings. Mr Vyas was at work. Sama rushed into her room and locked the door. The curtains were drawn back, letting light in. She closed them in a hurry, breathless, and rubbed her arms as if to brush off ants crawling on her. There was only one thing to do now to release all that pain.
Sama knelt on the floor beside her bed and drew out some jars from underneath. Moths of different colours and patterns beat their wings against the glass, as if trying to escape their impending doom. Then she took an empty glass jar layered with Plaster of Paris and a bottle of ethyl acetate. Sama poured some of the liquid into the layered jar with a dropper. Then she took out a big moth. It fluttered its wings, shedding its scales between her fingers, but couldn’t escape. Its colourful scales broke between her fingers and down it went into the poisoned jar. Sama closed the lid quickly and leaned closer.
The moth thrashed its wings helplessly, breaking them off. Soon it stopped moving, except for a few occasional twitches. She took out another moth and put it in the same jar to watch it die. The moth weakened and slowed down, twitching randomly, exposing its underside before going still. Then she put another moth in, and another, and another…
The chemical didn’t seem to be working now, so she took a thin steel wire from under her mattress and slowly pierced a moth’s body. It didn’t die at once, so she pierced it a few times. However, that didn’t satisfy her, so she put drops of ethyl acetate directly on its body. It gave one last try to flap its wings in an attempt to fly, but the poison killed it. Her eyes were wild as she watched the moths die and go still. After killing a dozen moths this way, her breathing was normal again.
‘WHAT IS THAT?’
Sama sat up with a jerk. The jar full of dead moths rolled out of her lap and spilled the tiny bodies. Standing at the door, Mrs Vyas screamed at the top of her lungs, ‘Sama, answer me! What is that?’
•••
Sama stared calmly at her mother. ‘Moths.’
Mrs Vyas was visibly shaken. She saw the bottle of ethyl acetate on the floor, jars full of trapped insects and a carpet strewn with dead moths. She was aghast, and broke out in cold sweat. Without a word, she grabbed Sama’s arm and almost dragged her out of the room. She locked her in another room and called her husband home at once. When he walked in an hour later, she was on the verge of tears, still trembling.
‘This girl is mad!’ Mrs Vyas cried. She took her husband to their daughter’s room and showed him the moths. They searched her room and found hundreds of them— some stored in jars, dead, some alive and some pinned on makeshift display boards. Mr Vyas stared at them.
‘Shilpa, it’s just a hobby. Like yours is fruit carving and stuff. Insect collection is pretty common,’ he said. ‘She’s making displays—’
‘It’s not a normal thing to do!’ His wife cut in. ‘I saw her. I saw her! She was putting drops of that poison—’ She pointed at the bottle of ethyl acetate, ‘—on those moths when they were still alive. She was watching them die!’ Mrs Vyas was desperate to make her husband understand. She had seen a look in Sama’s eyes that she just couldn’t bring herself to articulate. ‘It’s a good thing I noticed she was acting funnier than usual, so I quietly used a spare key to see what she was doing inside her room.’
Mr Vyas looked at his wife, pained. He was staggered by the level of mistrust his wife had for their daughter.
‘You spied on her? You have always been too hard on her, I know that. But spying on the girl and locking her in another room, searching her room as if she’s a criminal …?’ He stood up angrily, his voice contemptuous.
‘Mohan, please, I know what I saw,’ she pleaded. ‘The look in her eyes was not normal. You have to believe me.’ She held his arm.
‘You said the same thing when that puppy incident happened.’ He shook his head in disbelief and pulled his arm away.
‘That wasn’t normal either. A child should be more scared at the sight of blood. She wasn’t.’
‘She wasn’t, because she’s different.’
‘She’s abnormal!’
‘Shilpa, you have a misconception that both our girls should be the same.’ Mr Vyas was fuming now. ‘But here’s the news; they are not. Accept it. Sama is different.’
‘I am not comparing them. She was like that from the start, I know, but there is some problem here.’ Mrs Vyas sighed, covering her face as tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I don’t feel good around her. She makes me uneasy. Mohan, as a mother, I shouldn’t be feeling that.’
Mr Vyas stood still, speechlessly watching his wife cry. ‘Shilpa, I’ve never felt uncomfortable around her, and I’m her father. You have treated her differently since birth. Is it because she put your life in danger?’ he asked sorrowfully. His wife looked up at him. An uncomfortable silence fell between them.
During childbirth, Sevita’s delivery was without complications, but Sama’s neck was entangled in the placenta. Bringing her into the world had put Mrs Vyas’s life at stake. Maybe he was right. Maybe she had, somewhere in her subconscious mind, hated Sama for putting her life at risk. Her shoulders dropped as she yielded to her husband’s logic.
‘I just can’t put a finger on what is wrong. Maybe it is me,’ she said, rubbing her eyes. Mr Vyas put his arms around her and comforted her.
‘I know she’s not the easiest person, but everything will be all right with time. Don’t worry. Let’s throw all this stuff out, except for the displays she has made. I will get her proper equipment for her hobby so she won’t have to use acid on them, okay? It’s unsafe for her too.’ He smiled at his wife.
•••
‘Sama, I never knew you had an interest in insect collection. Do you want to study biology?’ Mr Vyas asked. Sama was currently enrolled in an engineering course.
‘No,’ Sama replied without looking at him. Mr Vyas put an arm around her and looked at his wife, willing her to say something.
‘Sama, I’m sorry for reacting like I did. It’s just that … killing insects is … it doesn’t feel good to see all that.’
‘I see,’ Sama replied. ‘Do not enter my room again.’ She finally raised her eyes to look at her mother.
A chill ran down Mrs Vyas’s spine. ‘I only wanted to make sure you were okay,’ she said as calmly as she could.
‘No, you did it to spy on me.’ A flicker of anger lit her eyes as she stared at her mother.
‘Sama, your mom is saying she’s sorry. She was worried about you. I think we need to forgive each other.’ Mr Vyas raised his brows to stress his point. Sama looked at her father, her eyes expressionless again. Mrs Vyas was taken aback by the sudden change in her expression. Had she imagined it?
‘If you say so …’
‘Great! I will get you the right equipment for your hobby. Let’s go together to the dam one of these days. There are many water insects there that you can sweep up with a net.’ He smiled at her.
‘Okay …,’ Sama said, a small lopsided smile at the corner of her lips.
Mrs Vyas stood silently against a wall.
•••
‘Oh!’ Sevita said when her father told her what had happened. ‘No wonder she ventures out into the forest on her own. She goes to collect moths. Phew! At least she has a hobby. And now I see why she didn’t talk about it in class. People would just make more fun of her.’
‘More?’ Mr Vyas frowned.
‘Well, Nik and some of his cronies made it to our college, same class.’ Sevita pouted. ‘He’s added more apes to his group to make things worse.’
‘Those bastards,’ Mr Vyas cursed under his breath. ‘Talk to the authorities if they harass her again. And call me immediately. Those clowns put her through enough grief in high school.’
‘Yes, don’t worry.’ Sevita patted his arm.
‘What’s brewing?’ Mrs Vyas walked into the hall, carrying a huge plate of fruit salad. It was a beautifully designed platter with all kinds of carved fruits and a whipped cream topping. She had arranged them in a clever 3-D geometric design. Father and daughter sprang up to grab some. ‘No!’ She slapped their hands away.‘First, I will post this picture on my Instagram. I need to get more orders!’ Sevita and her dad cribbed while Mrs Vyas posted the picture. As soon as she was done, they attacked the salad, relishing the whipped cream on top and the custard inside. It tasted like heaven.
‘I’ll go give some to Sama,’ Sevita said. She took a serving to her sister’s room and knocked. The door opened slightly.
‘What?’ There was a tinge of anger in Sama’s voice.
‘Fruit salad from Mom! It’s a gesture of peace.’ Sevita grinned. Sama stared at the plate, took it without a word and shut the door. Sevita was used to her sister’s moods and so she turned to leave.
‘Sevita …?’ The door opened again slightly. Sevita turned in disbelief. This was something unique, her twin calling her by her name!
‘Yeah ?’
‘Any plans for the night?’
‘Oh, nothing’s certain,’ she said, looking away.
Liar …
‘I see,’ Sama said before closing the door again, leaving Sevita baffled.
•••
It was eleven. Sevita was sitting beside her window, her cheek pressed to the glass. A single bedside lamp lit her room. She felt bad for having lied to Sama, but this was a secret she couldn’t tell her. Soon enough, there was a knock on the glass. Kunal had come! A broad smile lit up her face as she opened the window and let him in. He had become so adept at climbing in over the past few nights that he could do it without much help now. Sevita put her arms around him.
‘What were you getting for me?’ she asked him, quickly closing the window.
‘This.’ Kunal held out a small gift.
Sevita bit her lip and took it. She scanned the prettily wrapped box with a ribbon at the top, turning it around in her hands, and opened it carefully. A beautiful heart-shaped locket sat on a little red cushion inside.
‘Go on, open it,’ Kunal whispered, bending close to her ear and causing her skin to tingle. Sevita opened the locket. There was picture of them on one side.
‘Why is the other side blank?’ she asked, smiling as if she knew the answer.
‘There’ll be a picture of us there after you marry me,’ he declared. ‘After college, of course. Once I propose to you properly.’ She smiled brightly, thinking back to an afternoon when they had talked about how their lives would be once they were together forever. Then she looked away, blushing.
‘I still have our picture from when we first met, when I wrote my phone number on your hand and you wrote yours on the back of that picture. That was the day when you first called me. We talked for hours,’ she said. and stepped closer as they stood beside the window. It had started to rain. A storm threatened to smash the window panes.
‘Yeah, I wrote my number on the picture so that you couldn’t say you didn’t recognise the caller. Can I see it?’ He asked as his lips brushed against hers, and then over her neck.
‘It’s always with me, like a lucky charm …’ She closed her eyes and surrendered to the sensation of his lips on her skin, moving down from her neck towards her chest. He gently pushed her towards the bed, and she lay there as his hands caressed her waist, slipping further down. She could feel his body press against hers. All the boundaries seemed to fade. Just then, Kunal moved his hands away from her and dug his head into the pillow beside her.
‘I keep losing control with you. I’m sorry,’ he whispered, breathing heavily.
‘So do I.’ She brushed his hair with her fingers. ‘It’s just that it’s better to have some boundaries for now. You understand, right?’
‘Yeah, I do.’ He pecked her cheek with a small kiss and lay beside her, gazing into her eyes.
‘You are so beautiful.’
Sevita chuckled.
They talked for hours, lying side by side, playing with each other’s fingers. Sama saw it all, right from the moment he had started to kiss Sevita. She had a little eye in the corner of the ceiling. There was also a microphone on the side of Sevita’s bed, but they were speaking too softly for her to hear. It was only when Kunal finally left that she switched her tab off. She reached under her bed and grabbed a glass jar. She took a live moth out and pinned it alive on a display board, piercing its thorax. Then, she took out another and pinned its wings, waiting and watching till it stopped moving and died.
•••
From the next day, classes picked up speed as Prof Rawat, or Mr Oogway as the students called him, started on computer programming. Sevita would rigorously take notes in his classes and sit with Kunal during lunch break to try and understand programming. It was one subject that stressed her out, but Kunal seemed to have got the hang of it.
Sama would sit alone in the classroom as always and disappear at lunchtime. The classes were too slow-paced for her. She had mastered many programming languages on her own a long time ago. No subject was difficult for her and she could learn anything without guidance. It was with this self-acquired expertise in computers that she was able to set up her web of little cameras and microphones anywhere she wanted without being noticed.
After one such boring lecture, Sama slipped out, as silent as still air. The patch of woods behind the college building had become her preferred retreat. The rotting stump belonged to her. Ants would still make a file and march around her, even though she scratched their path out every day. What a pity! They never learn, she thought and quietly ate her sandwiches, watching them run helter-skelter.
‘So that is where you run off to.’ Sama heard a brash voice behind her. She turned and saw Nik strut uphill towards her. Three of his gang members followed him with cocky grins. ‘Do you know what happens to weird girls like you who go off into the woods alone?’ He stretched the word ‘alone’, smirking.
He advanced slowly towards her, as his cronies snickered in the background.
Sama stood still. She didn’t know what he was planning to do, but it certainly wasn’t going to be good. She moved closer to the stump, feeling her heart beat become louder. Nik’s cronies cackled, making fun of how she stood stiff with terror. Sama’s eyes were fixed on him as he approached, flexing his shoulders and popping his knuckles.
One quick move is all it would take. How much would it hurt?