Chapter 11: Rohini (After the Garba)
We came home after midnight. My feet were hurting. My voice was gone from laughing.
Nobody had eaten properly. So I went to the kitchen, still in the purple suit, and heated the dal and made a few quick rotis. My bangles made their sound the whole time.
We sat at the dining table, the three of us, too tired to talk. Mummy still had her garba bangles on. Ananya had taken off her sandals and put her feet up on the chair.
Then Ananya put down her roti and looked at me.
“You know,” she said, “we can’t keep calling you Rohan. Not when you look like this.”
I stopped eating. Mummy looked up.
“Then what?” Mummy asked.
Ananya smiled. She had been thinking about it. I could tell.
“Rohini,” she said.
Nobody said anything.
“Rohan. Rohini.” Ananya shrugged. “Same person. Just a little more.”
I sat very still. I didn’t trust myself to move. Rohini. I said it inside my head. It fitted, the way the green kurta had fitted. As if it had been waiting for me.
I looked at Mummy.
Mummy looked at me for a long time. The tiredness in her eyes. And something else, something soft.
“Rohini,” she said slowly, as if she was trying it on. Then again, more sure. “Rohini. It’s a nice name.”
My eyes filled up. “Say it again,” I whispered.
“Rohini,” Mummy said.
I smiled, and at the same time I started crying. “Thank you, Ananya,” I said. “Thank you, Mummy.”
Mummy got up from her chair. Ananya got up too. And the three of us held each other there, next to the dining table, with the dal going cold. All three of us were crying.
Then Mummy stepped back. She wiped her own tears first. Then Ananya’s. Then mine, with her thumbs, the way she had on the sixth night.
“No more tears,” she said. “Enough now.”
We sat down again. Ananya picked up her roti.
“Rohini,” she said. “Pass the pickle.”
I laughed. I passed her the pickle. My bangles made their sound.
A few weeks later, on a Saturday, Mummy came home late from the bank. She looked tired. I had already put the oil bottle and the old towel on the sofa.
“Sit,” I said. “Today, I’ll do yours.”
She looked at me. Then she sat on the sofa and let me put the towel around her shoulders.
I poured a little oil into my palm, the way she had taught me, and started on her hair. It was thinner than I had thought. There was more grey at the roots than I had ever noticed.
“Tell me if I’m pulling,” I said.
“You aren’t.” She closed her eyes. “My mother used to do this, when I went home after my wedding. I can’t remember the last time someone did it for me.”
I thought about the purple suit. Her mother had made it. And now I was the one oiling her hair.
I slowed my hands. She sat quietly for a while.
“Rohini,” she said, with her eyes still closed. She said it easily now, like she had always said it. “Will you keep growing your hair?”
I looked at my hair in the dark window and remembered that first Saturday.
“For a while,” I said. “Let’s see.”
She smiled, with her eyes still closed.
Monday
On Monday morning, I made my tea. I put on the green kurta, the one with the little leaf, and the clutcher, and the leaf studs. I joined my call with Meera.
“Hi!” she said.
“Hi,” I said. Then I took a breath. “Meera, from today, can you call me Rohini?”
She didn’t ask anything. She didn’t look surprised. She just smiled, the same bright smile as always.
“Good morning, Rohini,” she said.
I pulled the curtain all the way back and opened the window. The morning came in.
For a while, I was Rohan.
Now, I’m Rohini.
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