Page 10 of The Art of Taking Second Chances

“No, darling, it’s just a business dinner. We’ll be talking about the new software.”

“That’s boring. Okay, stay safe, and get back home at a decent time.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Then he gave me a warm smile and added, “I miss you so much. Wish I could touch you right now.”

“Me too. Call me when you’re up tomorrow. I love you,” I said.

He frowned. “Did you just say what I heard you say?”

I sat upright in an attempt to defy the gravity of my words. “No.”

A few months ago, on a playful evening, I went on a rant about how stupid the idea of romantic love was. I had ridiculed the importance assigned to the phrase “I love you” in our shared cultural imaginary. Desire is more amorphous and more fluid than the edifice of “I love you” suggested, I had argued.

“It is rebellious, and transgressive, and dangerous. So, don’t ever expect me to say BS like I love you,” I had scoffed.

Only now, my words had come back to bite me in the rear.

Sujit threw his head back in his joyful, infectious laugh, his sculpted torso shaking with delight. “I could’ve never pried those words out of you. Looks like distance is doing wonders for our relationship.”

“You’d want to believe that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely! You finally went for that BS,” he said, still laughing. “Can’t wait to hear it again.”

“Again ain’t happening. Ever again,” I teased, trying hard not to break into laughter myself.

When his laugh simmered to a smile, he said, “Well, here’s something that might ease your angst. I love you too, Ms. Tara Kadam. Only I had been bullied into never saying it.”

This time I laughed. “Alright, get off the phone now, or you’re going to be late for your date,” I teased.

“Talk soon, darling. Have a wonderful evening. Love you, for real,” he said with a wink before hanging up.

I shook my head with a smile, then lolled on the couch, but a faint thought made me sit right back up. “I love you, Sameer,” it had whispered like a fool. Desire was rebellious, alright!

Chapter 4

Tara

Sameer Rehani was the bane of my life. My first crush, my first boyfriend, and the one who left me with a broken heart. Back then, it wasn’t difficult to be smitten with him. He was the boy every college girl dreamed of: tall, confident, handsome. A sharp nose under bright, intelligent eyes. A firm jaw that didn’t have to work too hard to support his cocky smile. For, behind the charisma that made him the most desired male on our college campus, bred the arrogance that comes with a lot of money.

He believed the world revolved around him, and it did. That was the power of wealth. A power I could never possess because I could never afford it. We ended up as friends only because his cousin Amar was my friend. Otherwise, high-flying rich boys like Sameer didn’t make friends with small-town girls like me. And this small-town girl had much to lose if she didn’t keep her head in the game and her vagina tucked tight in her pants.

Some people know their calling from a very young age. I wasn’t one of them. Like all bright kids around me, my future path was predetermined. I’d be an engineer, my father had declared, a great one. The first female engineer in our family, one of the very few in our community. I was destined to be a trailblazer. This responsibility, I took very seriously. While I was expected to fulfill my duties, helping Aai cook and clean, I consistently ranked among the top three in my class throughout grade school.

But my earliest fond memory was of my brother teaching me how to use oil paint on canvas. It was a picture of the elephant-headed god, Ganapati. Dada was an art prodigy, proficient in every medium he touched. He could sculpt, mold, paint, and sketch with equal expertise and passion. As a child, he used to help our neighbor build massive statues for the Ganapati festival.

I grew up borrowing his colored pencils and crayons. I wasn’t a serious artist. I dabbled, so I didn’t get any of my own. We didn’t have money for frivolities like individual colors and drawing instruments, but Baba always spared a little for him. Even a cynic could see how good he was. And I imitated him. In particular, I loved the smell of oil paint, the tactility, and how different consistencies and strokes could represent different emotions on a blank canvas. But Dada was the artist. I was a mimic.

That afternoon was the first time Dada had trusted me with his oil paints. It was a rite-of-passage ritual for the little artist in me. With laser focus, I followed his instructions while our mother yelled from the kitchen for me to drink my warm milk. It remained untouched on the table before me, tepid, just the way I liked it. It would be cold and undrinkable, Aai reminded me rather loudly, even though that had never been an issue for me.

When she finally emerged from the kitchen, with the edge of her saree, her padar, tucked in at the waist in war pose, she was an inch away from going goddess Kali on me. Dada, a teenager himself, put his hand out in a shocking display of courage and disobedience, fending her off while I finished my work. Aai was reasonably stumped and gaped at us with wide eyes, which softened quickly when she looked at the makeshift easel before me. What she saw on the canvas, what Dada had stopped her from interrupting, was clear to both. I had talent.

Three years—that was the age gap between Dada and me, just like it was with everyone else around us, thanks to the family planning policies of a young India battling population growth. Hum do, humare do was the motto: The two of us (a heterosexual couple), with the two of ours. Planned at least three years apart for the benefit of the mother’s health. My parents had two children, exactly three years and four months apart: Aditya and Tara, Sun and Star. Both destined to shine in our own light. Except only one of us did.

Like Dada, I had done well on my twelfth exams, enough to get into the College of Technology and Engineering at the M.S. University of Baroda. Enough to be eligible to choose any branch except computers, which had moved to the top of the hierarchy in the last few years. I opted for the next rung, electrical. But the day I returned with the admissions paperwork secure in my hand, I couldn’t sleep. That night, when Aai came to my room before bed, she caught me weeping silently.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, caressing my thick, wavy hair.

“I don’t know why I’m crying, Aai.”

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