The Secret wish List

Preeti Shenoy is a bestselling author and artist. She has several academic qualifications, but believes life is the biggest teacher. She is an avid blogger, poet, nature lover and yoga buff. She loves playing basketball, travelling and spending time with her family and her dog.

Preeti Shenoy is currently based in Bangalore, India. To know more about her, go to
preetishenoy.com.

westland ltd

Venkat Towers, 165, P.H. Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095
No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560 026
23/181, Anand Nagar, Nehru Road, Santacruz East, Mumbai 400 055
93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, New Delhi 110 002

First published in India by westland ltd 2012

Copyright © Preeti Shenoy 2012

All rights reserved

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN: 978-93-82618-18-8

Typeset by Ram Das Lal

Printed at Thomson Press (India) Ltd.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.

For Satish, Atul and Purvi
And for Mum and Dad

Heart! We will forget him!
You and I— tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave—
I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me
That I may straight begin!
Haste! lest while you’re lagging
I remember him!

—Emily Dickinson

Prologue

T
HE CONVERSATION WITH
T
ANU HAS REMINDED
me with startling intensity, of the person I used to be—a person with hopes, ambitions and a desire to live life to the brim. I was just like Tanu—bubbly, enthusiastic and positive.

I think about Ankit. I think about that kiss. I have replayed everything that happened on that day at least a million times in my mind through all these years. I loved him with all the purity and innocence of a sixteen-year-old heart. I was certain at that time that he loved me too. I wonder how he looks now. I wonder what I will feel if I were to ever meet him again.

It is ironic how the years change you and yet you remain the same. Even if you are married, become a parent, deep down you are still the person you were before you became all of that.

Later, as I cook the afternoon meal, Ankit dances around in my head. He refuses to go away when I serve my mother-in-law her meal and make inane conversation with her. He is still with me when I greet Abhay, back from school, and remains there when I help him with homework. And later that night when my husband, after his usual round of television viewing, comes to bed and squeezes my breasts and has sex with me, he is still there.

I lie awake a long time that night, the darkness of my bedroom punctuated by Sandeep’s rhythmic post-coital snoring.

I realise with a jolt that Ankit had never really left. He has been in my head all along.

And now that the possibility of reconnecting with him has been presented to me on a platter, it makes me intensely restless. It is as though someone has poured a can of gasoline to the already blazing fire and turmoil within my heart.

Somewhere at the back of my mind, warning bells are clanging, but their sounds are very feeble, almost muffled.

The voice of my heart is too darn loud.

When you cannot get someone out of your head for eighteen years, it has to be true love.

One

T
HE HEAT AND HUMIDITY DIDN’T BOTHER ME
back then. I guess when you are sixteen and in the throes of adolescent crushes (each of which you are convinced is the real thing, with feelings that chug at the speed of a locomotive, with an intensity just as strong), minor things like being drenched in sweat do not affect you as much as they do when you are an adult. You are enthusiastic, full of life and you believe that the world is yours to conquer.

I cycle back home after my Bharathanatyam classes which are thrice a week. I do not much like this difficult South Indian dance form, but Mother insists I learn it. I would much rather prefer Bollywood dancing or even ballet to this.

‘Look, now that your Papa is posted here, you should make use of every opportunity available to you here,’ says Mother. ‘Tamil Nadu is truly the cultural hub of India. You will never get such accomplished Bharathanatyam teachers elsewhere. So you might as well make the best use of it,’ she argues.

It has been a year now since we moved from Pune to Chennai. I did not like Chennai initially, but once I got used to the heat, I realised it was as good a place as any, even Pune. In fact, the co-ed school I attend here is far better than the convent I used to go to in Pune. But I will never admit this to my parents.

Some things are best not revealed.

When I suggest, very timidly, to Mother that I want to take up Bollywood dancing, her reaction is far worse than expected. She shouts and raves and promptly calls up her sister who lives with my grandmother in Ernakulam. Both take turns to admonish and lecture me about how great our Indian tradition is and how hard it is to master the Indian classical dances. They go on about how far superior Bharathanatyam is to Bollywood dancing which is crass and crude, only about shaking your booty and wiggling your hips. Like all the western dances which, according to my mother, aunt and grandmother, any fool can do.

‘Good Lord! What are you saying, Diksha? How can you even talk about the two in the same breath? Where is Bollywood and where is Bharathanatyam?’ Meera Mausi yells so loudly on the phone that I have to hold the receiver away from my ear.

I stifle a giggle at her hysteria, but she catches on.

‘Is that a giggle I hear? You shameless girl. What is so funny?’ she reprimands angrily.

‘Meera Mausi, I just pictured you as Goddess Durga,’ I say amidst helpless giggles now, whereupon she quickly changes tracks sensing that being so far away, she cannot do anything and that her anger is not having the desired effect. Her tone becomes gentle and persuasive. She tries to explain the dedication and discipline involved in classical dancing, and that I am fortunate to get admission in Natya Kesari Dance Academy, run by the renowned, Padma Shree awardee, Mrs Subhalaksmi.

Finally, under the weight of their collective persuasion, I agree and now find myself waiting for the dance class to get over so I can cycle home leisurely along Elliot’s Beach, watching the waves as I do. I love this part of Chennai where we live. Besant Nagar faces the beach and I enjoy the tiny garden which our modest middle class home boasts.

I cannot help thinking how unfair it is that my brother, Rohan, is never forced into doing things he doesn’t want to. A year older than me, he is the school captain and is on the school debate team. I think my parents are very proud of him and never miss an opportunity to mention his achievements to anyone who visits us.

Being a popular boy, his friends come over to our place often. They lock themselves in his room for hours and plan and prepare for all the upcoming school functions like plays, debates and dumb charades. They are an active bunch, very involved in the interschool cultural scene and have won many laurels for the school. Somehow our home has turned into their hub, probably as Mother is friendlier and sweeter to our friends than most other parents of teenagers.

‘At least they are sitting indoors,doing useful stuff, right under your eyes and not loitering about and wasting time,’ Meera Mausi had commented to my mother when these meetings had first started. My mother had nodded approvingly.

So far as I am concerned vis-a-vis my brother’s friends, I merely say a ‘hello’ to them when they arrive and a ‘bye’ when they leave. That is the extent of my interaction with them. I am a junior at school and the senior guys do not really talk to juniors unless they are ‘cool’, and I have not yet qualified to gain entry into this category.

Sometimes Mother asks me to make chai for them and when I take the tea tray to his room, Rohan opens the door, takes it from me and shuts it again. In those brief seconds, I catch a glimpse of his friends. Some are sprawled on the floor, some having animated discussions, some practicing their lines.

My best friend and classmate, Tanu, thinks I am very fortunate to ‘have access’ to the senior boys.

‘I so wish I had an elder brother, Diksha. You are so lucky! How cool is it that these guys hang out at your place.’

‘It’s no big deal, Tanu, I hardly interact with them,’ I say, but that does not convince her.

Ankit Uttam is one of my brother’s many friends. Tanu and I would have never dared speak to a senior, that too someone as cool as Ankit, but for a blue canvas satchel with two large buckle-down flaps in the front and a red-piped border. The bag is what set the whole thing in motion.

One evening, I find this satchel lying by a pot in the foyer at the entrance of our home. I do not remember leaving it there and so I carry it into my room, a little puzzled by its odd placement. Tanu is with me as we meet most days under the pretext of combined studies. In reality, we just giggle, talk, gossip and, occasionally,
try
to study.

Ankit and my brother, Rohan, emerge after an hour or so from his room. They start frantically hunting for Ankit’s bag. It does not strike me that the bag I carried in to my bedroom could be his. It doesn’t even occur to me that his satchel is exactly like the one I have. I bought mine, choosing it with great care to project just the right amount of coolness and nonchalance so important at that age.

And so Tanu and I help them look.

We search for at least a quarter of an hour. We look in the hall, in all the possible places in Rohan’s room, in the dining area and even in the kitchen.

‘How can a bag vanish into thin air?’ moans Ankit. ‘And God! We have a Bio test tomorrow and I so need my notes,’ he grumbles.

‘Dude, we have wasted enough time looking for your bag. I tell you what, let’s study together and then you go home,’ suggests the very practical Rohan.

Ankit agrees that it is the best they can do and both return to Rohan’s room.

Tanu and I go to my room, still wondering about the missing bag.

‘Maybe he left it outside your house and the
kachrawala
cleared it away thinking it was garbage,’ giggles Tanu.

‘Shut up,’ I say, but with a smile.

Then I open ‘my’ bag and out tumble Ankit’s books. It takes us a few surprised seconds to comprehend what has happened. And then the penny drops. Tanu cackles with excitement.

‘Quick, let’s look at his handwriting,’ she hisses.

‘No way. We can’t do that. Let’s go and return it,’ I whisper back equally fiercely.

‘We will never get a chance like this. Come on,’ she insists.

Finally we take a quick peep, our teenage excitement peaking an all-time high at the prospect of checking out a ‘cool’ guy’s stuff, something we would never have had access to but for the serendipitous confusion. We riffle through notebooks covered with his neat handwriting and are amused to see the doodles on the back of the book. Then we shut it hurriedly, giggling away.