Rohan to Rohini (A Feel-Good Story)

Chapter 7: The Quiet House

Four days later, the doorbell rang in the afternoon. I was wearing the blue kurta, with the clip in my hair and the leaf studs in my ears.

A few months ago, I would have run to change first. Now I didn’t even think about it. I just opened the door.

It was a delivery man with a parcel. He looked at his phone, and then at me.

“Ananya?”

“Yes,” I said.

He gave me the parcel and left. I closed the door and stood there, holding it. He had said her name, and I had said yes. Maybe he only meant, is this Ananya’s house. Maybe he didn’t. I didn’t know. But it hadn’t felt wrong.

I put the parcel on her bed and didn’t open it.

That evening, she came into my room with it and put it on my bed.

“Open it.”

Inside, there was a coral top, folded neatly. Soft cotton, a round neck, sleeves that stopped just above the elbow. Under it was a pair of soft grey trousers, and a cream top with a tiny flower print.

I knew all of them. Every one of them was a “this one” I had said on the sofa, when she passed me her phone.

I looked up at her. She was smiling.

“Do you want to try it?” she said. I held the coral top in my hands. I didn’t move. She turned to go, to give me some space.

“Ananya.”

She stopped at the door.

“I want to wear clothes like this,” I said. My voice was shaking.

I stopped. She waited. And then everything came out.

“When I first noticed my hair brushing my neck, I liked it. That’s why I didn’t go for the haircut. Not because I was lazy.” I took a breath. “Then the pins you gave me. I couldn’t take them out. I carried them in my pocket every single day. The earrings, I wanted them the second you said it. And the kurta. And the leggings.”

My voice broke.

“Sometimes I wish I had been wearing them my whole life,” I said. “As your sister.”

I couldn’t look at her after I said it. I looked at the coral top in my hands. I didn’t know what it meant. I only knew it was true.

“I’m sorry,” I said. The tears had already started, and I couldn’t stop them.

The room was very quiet.

Ananya came back and sat down next to me on the bed. She took my hand.

“I know,” she said softly. “I was waiting for you to say it yourself.”

“You’re not upset?”

“Upset?” She squeezed my hand. “Rohan, you’ve looked so happy since you started growing your hair. You never used to come with me to the jewellery shop. And the clothes you like, I can see it on your face. You’re so bad at hiding things.”

She smiled.

“That’s why I love you. You’re a pure soul.” Then, softly: “Brother, sister, I don’t care. You’re mine.”

She put her arm around my shoulders, and I cried. She didn’t say anything. She just stayed.

After a while, she stood up. “Now try it,” she said. “I want to see if I got the size right.” And she closed the door behind her.

I put on the coral top and stood in front of the mirror. My eyes were still wet, but the colour made me smile. Then I looked at my arms.

They were thin, with almost no hair, just like always. The arms I had kept covered in full-sleeved shirts for years, even in summer. But next to the soft coral sleeves, they didn’t look as wrong as I had always thought. Maybe they even looked like they belonged with the top.

I opened the door. Ananya was waiting outside.

She checked the shoulders. “Perfect. I know your size better than you do.” Then she looked at my hair. “But this top needs a better hairstyle. Sit.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. She took the clip out, picked up my comb, and combed my hair back. Then she took a small brown clutcher from her own hair, twisted the top half of my hair at the back, and held it there with the clutcher. The rest hung loose at the back. A few short pieces at the front slipped out and stayed on my face. She didn’t push them back.

“There.”

I turned to the mirror.

It was a different person. Or the same person, finally. My face was open. The short pieces of hair fell softly next to my cheeks. The leaf studs showed on both sides. The coral top. The small clutcher at the back, just like the girls I saw at the market. Everything went together.

The next morning, Mummy left for the bank first. Ananya went back upstairs for something she had forgotten, came down with a different bag, and called from the gate that she was really leaving this time.

Then the house was quiet, and it was mine.

Upstairs, I tried to do the clutcher myself, the way Ananya had done it. I had found it on my desk that morning. She had left it there for me. The first time, I twisted too much hair and the clutcher wouldn’t close. The second time, it slid down. On the fourth try, it stayed. A few short pieces slipped out at the front and fell on my face, just like before. I left them. I turned between two mirrors to see the back.

It wasn’t as good as hers. But I had done it myself.

I put on the coral top and the grey trousers.

On the morning call, Meera saw it as soon as I turned my head.

“New hairstyle?” Then her eyes moved down. “And this top! The colour is so nice on you.”

My face went hot. “Ananya showed me the hairstyle. And she ordered the top for me. Well, I chose it. She ordered it.”

“Your sister is the best.” She smiled. Then she stopped smiling, just a little, and looked at me more carefully. “Rohan. Does your mother know?”

It wasn’t the way people ask when they want to catch you. It was the way you ask a friend when you’re worried for them.

“She knows about the hair,” I said. “And the kurtas. And the studs.”

“And this?” She pointed at the top. “Your intentions?”

“Intentions?”

“Is it just a top you like?” she asked gently. “Or is it something more?”

I looked down at the coral sleeves. Nobody had ever asked me that. Not even me.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I only know I like it. A lot.”

Meera nodded slowly. “Then maybe your mother should know that too.”

She didn’t say anything more. She just opened the report and started explaining. But I didn’t hear much of it.

Maybe your mother should know that too. I kept hearing it.

At five-thirty, before Mummy came home, I went to my room and took off the coral top. I folded it and put on my blue kurta. Then I took out the clutcher too, and put the old black clip back in, the way Mummy was used to seeing me. I told myself it was nothing. But I knew it was Meera’s question.

When Ananya came home, she looked at the blue kurta, and then at the old clip in my hair. She didn’t say anything about it.

Before bed, I put the clutcher in my drawer, under the folded coral top. Nobody at home knew I had done it myself that morning. Not Mummy. Not even Ananya.

Only me. And Meera.