Diya looked at Snigdha in a way that she only reserved for her closest friends. It was halfway between a stare and a jab: an accusatory stare that blamed the person concerned for screwing things up royally for one reason or the other.
“What?”
“I am kinda getting tired of Crimson’s,” Diya said. “I think I spotted a pair of thirteen year olds the last time I was here.”
“I get what you mean, but that’s what we get for living in Dhanmondi. We can try the North End at Road No. 2 but that’s not that good, either.
And besides, we promised each other, right? That we would meet here, every six months.”
Diya nodded, settling deeper onto her sofa. “We were so young then. And we kinda looked like kamlas too, didn’t we?”
Snigdha snorted. “Not you, Di. You always looked like a queen. Your makeup skills have only magnified your innate beauty.”
Diya bowed. “You are too kind. Anyways, things have changed since then, right? I mean, we graduated last year. Most of our friends are getting jobs and/or getting engaged. Not like I would know though, since I rarely get invited to engagements or weddings.
And here I am, single, and unemployed.”
“To your credit, you held down a job longer than most of us. Two years, right?”
“Yeah. And then the startup went under. Serves me right for betting on myself.”
“You will land on your feet before long,” Snigdha said, sipping some of her hot chocolate. “Worst things worst, you can skip abroad for master’s and then start things over again.”
“Uggh, I barely know how to take care of myself. I am not moving to another country when all I can cook is frozen samosas.”
“I thought you would like it, given how fond you are of booze. That’s much cheaper out there.”
“That’s a good point. But why are you so bent on making me move to a whole another continent?” Diya pouted. “I thought you loved me and all.”
Snigdha grasped Diya’s hands and squeezed. “That I do, Di, that I do.”
Snigdha thought back to that night, three years ago, when she had found Diya unconscious in her bath tub. For the next four hours, Snigdha had felt a dark presence hovering around them, as she drove Diya to the hospital and got her stomach washed. Death was keeping tabs on them, and it stuck around, like a watchful dog, for the next few days.
Diya always had been complex: as hard to crack as a Rubik’s cube. She mingled with people, sure, but no one really knew her, not as a person is supposed to know another person. It was as though she was juggling with portraying a hundred different sides of herself to a thousand different people, and something was lost in translation.
But Snigdha liked what she had with Diya. Their relationship was like that between two recliner chairs: they talked, sure, but not nearly at the volume you would expect between two best friends.
Diya always preferred to stew in her own thoughts rather than venting, and while Snigdha had tried many times in the past to pierce past her surface, by now she had learned to settle into a mode that she called ‘active listening’. Like a whale navigating through the oceans, she listened to her gut instinct and only said something if there was something meaningful to be said.
“Hey, can we just not go to that laser tag place?” Diya asked. “I know we are supposed to catch up with our friends there, but…well, are we still really friends with those people?”
Snigdha frowned. “We already said we would be there. Sometimes adulting means we have to spend time with people we don’t necessarily like.”
“Uggh, sure, but don’t expect me to be on my best behavior.”
~*~
“Hii, Snigdha! You look so great today! Great job with the eyeliner and lip gloss, by the way.”
Snigdha dimpled, embracing the smaller Afsara with practiced glee. She had a love-hate relationship with Afsara. On one hand, she was all for Afsara’s optimistic outlook, and her bubbly nature made her a fun person to be around. On the other hand, Afsara was one of those people who talked and talked, and while Snigdha was a good listener, there were times when she preferred silence.
Afsara was there, of course, because her boyfriend Shoummo was there. And because Shoummo was there, his BFFs Faiyaz and Wasif were there too.
Snigdha felt silly, dressed in the light bulb infested vest for laser tag, but then the others were wearing that too, so at least they were all silly together.
She and Diya were paired with Wasif, which was good, because he was gangly and towered over the rest of them. And of course, she and Diya were rather good together, thanks to countless hours in CS: Source and Modern Warfare.
In the next thirty minutes, Snigdha revelled in the pure adrenaline and release of the game, the kind of animalistic joy you only get from blasting down your acquaintances with plastic rifles. For those precious few minutes, all of her anxiety about work (and her future) vanished. She didn’t just live in the moment: she thrived in it, as did Diya.
After laser tag, Afsara asked the two of them out to dinner, but both of them declined. They were running on a budget, and also, Snigdha wasn’t feeling like it. That didn’t escape Diya’s attention.
“What’s up with you?” Diya asked, as the two of them got into their Uber.
“Apparently, Afsara got accepted to UCLA. She’s starting classes this September.”
“Ah. You kinda wanted to go there, right?”
“Yeah. I mean, that was the plan. But then my dad’s business crashed and I had to take on a job instead of going abroad. And here I am, stuck working in Dhaka for who knows how long.”
“I get where you are coming from and all, Snig, but there’s not much use dwelling on all that. Life works us all over. None of us gets out of this in one piece. And yeah, life has dealt you a tough hand for the past year or so, but you know you are more than capable of taking that on the chin.
We are survivors. We pull on our big girl pants and deal with things. Ain’t no use bitching about it.”
Snigdha sighed. “I hate it when you are the mature one, Di. It’s like someone reversed the Earth’s magnetic poles.”
Diya shoved Snigdha playfully, laughing. “Give me some credit. I have always been a clever, observant girl.”
“Yeah, but nine times out of ten it’s your misanthropy that stands out over those other traits.”
When they reached home, Diya opened their wine closest, grabbing the oldest whiskey she could find. She poured in two shots for her and Snigdha, while Snigdha paired her phone with her room’s Bluetooth speakers, playing the Cure as loud as she could on a Saturday night.
“It’s already ten pm, and we haven’t even had dinner,” Snigdha said, holding her glass of whiskey testily. “Do you think this is a good idea, seeing that I have office tomorrow?”
“Pssh. You have to train yourself to hold your liquor better. You are, like, twenty five. Now’s the time to enjoy yourself and to do stupid things.”
“Says the one who doesn’t want to go on trips.”
“Blergh. So what if I am a shut-in? Sue me. If I wanted to walk I would buy a treadmill or join the gym. No need to go to Nepal for trekking or paragliding or any of that stuff.”
Snigdha was bracing for the hit when she downed the whiskey in one go, but still, when it came, it tackled her like a professional American linebacker: with huge, rock-hard shoulders that knocked the wind out of her limbs.
Diya poured more whiskey into both of their glasses, and then grabbed her guitar from her room. She tried to match the tone and tempo with the Cure, but she gave up her ten minutes of trying.
“Here, let me try.”
Snigdha took the guitar, cradling it gently on her lap. And then her fingers moved, dreamlike, across the strings, echoing the haunting guitar solo from M. And as she played the guitar, Snigdha felt dimly aware that she was there, with Diya in their living room; a part of her was transported elsewhere, to some sort of white space, where the music bled out of her and into the environment, reacting with it, echoing around her before dying down.
As she picked up the tune for Seventeen Seconds, Snigdha realized that she was barely hanging onto her life amidst a sea of changes. She hadn’t spoken to her mom for three months. Her on-again-off-again relationship with Kabir had been off for a while longer than that. And she had run out of antidepressants last week, and she wasn’t feeling like spending a thousand bucks on her meds again.
But amidst all, she was okay. Partly because, like Diya had said, she was a survivor, and partly because Diya was there with her. She had grown into adulthood with Diya, these last four years; and even though they weren’t the best kind of adults, when all was said and done, they weren’t half bad people.
She still needed to get her things in order before her thirties, but she had some time for that. She was twenty five now, and right now, she was taking things one day at a time.
And that was okay, for now. She had Diya by her side. Tonight, she could drink and listen to the Cure for a little while longer. Tomorrow, she would face the world on her terms and take things as they come.
“Alright, I am off to cook dinner,” Snigdha said. “You better haul your ass to the kitchen too if you want to eat something other than pasta.”
Diya shrugged, opening YouTube on her phone. “Right, right. I am coming. Although your pasta is still to die for.”
Diya resumed a cooking video on her phone, paying close attention to how the woman was frying her eggs and onions. Then, murmuring prayers to herself, she grabbed a pan from the cabinet and grabbed the necessary ingredients from the fridge, turning on the stove. She cracked two eggs and poured them on the pan, which sizzled, the yolk spreading across the surface, hissing in response to the heat.
Snigdha chuckled to herself. She didn’t know how long she had to live like this, but she was going to cherish every moment that came her way.
~*~
