ILA
13 min read
Ila brought the wineglass close to her eye, trying to understand why the last traces of red wine refused to reach her lips. She tried once more, but the few remaining drops simply wouldn't obey. She smiled at their audacity. She hadn't smiled in the last twenty hours.
At five-something in the morning, the world did seem a happier place. The prayers wafting in from fishermen’s colony felt comforting.
In the faint light, she noticed the impressions left by the previous night's rain. It had devastated much. But Ila wasn't thinking about the visible damage. She never had. A solitaire sat proudly on the ring finger of her manicured hand. After one last admiring glance, she removed it.
Clink.
It looked nicer in the wineglass, she thought, than it did on her left hand.
A wry smile curved her full lips.
"Bye, Rohit," she murmured.
She tossed the glass out of the window and watched it fall. From the eighteenth floor, it didn't even make a sound. It lay shattered.
She looked happy now. Her wet tresses played truant in the breeze. The storm hadn't quite left. She was sitting on the ledge of her apartment window. Eighteenth floor.
Ila considered jumping. She loved heights. She wondered if she might even enjoy this one last jump.
She tried to fathom what must have been on Divya's mind when she fell.
Divya Bharti had been her neighbour once. They shared a birthday: April 5. Nobody really knew what had happened to Divya. She was all of nineteen. Had she jumped? Was it murder? Or had it been an accident?
Ila had been sitting on the ledge for hours, through the storm. The heap of cinnamon cigarette stubs beside her said it all.
Her head spun.
Divya and Ila had shared more than birthdays. But Ila knew she couldn't share her death with her as well. She had to live. She wanted to live.
The miscarriage was gnawing at her nerves, her womb, her heart, her hopes. It had happened the previous evening. Coping with it alone was a war. Rohit, her boyfriend, was under the impression that the baby had been aborted. He had been away shooting in South Africa since March. It was late June now.
Ila was thirty-six, single, successful and attractive. And she had wanted that child.
She was the leading lady of her own life, but never quite the Bollywood heroine.
She didn't mind watching them. But there was one expression she couldn't bear to hear during her growing-up years. Every third film seemed to have those seven words:
Main tumhare bachche ki maa banne wali hoon!
That March, the line had hovered on her lips. She had met Rohit for the last time and been certain she would never, ever say it. Yet she had. In English, but she had. “Our baby is listening”
Rohit had laughed and sworn out loud. “ Language Rohit… this isn’t something she needs to hear”.
When reality dawned on him, he had stormed out of her home with his phone, car keys and wallet. Hours later, he had sent her a text message asking her to abort the thing.
Ila gave a short laugh.
The ironies of life.
She gingerly moved away from the ledge. When you give up the idea of killing yourself, life becomes infinitely more precious.
As she stepped back into her flat, she realised the window ledge wasn't merely wet. It was waterlogged.
She headed for the phone and stared at it, before looking for a number.
· · ·
A polymer push-button phone , not known to generations today in its working mode, purred to life in Nikhil's apartment. His attachment to his younger years was evident in his home. He held on to those years in many ways, and now he held the phone's receiver to his ear. He looked at the number, a flash of recognition but he kept a straight face.
He glanced at the cuckoo clock by the book shelf. It wasn't even seven.
The caller was Ila.
His face brightened. A moment later, he arranged it into something casual, he noticed his wife watching him.
Smita was pouring his morning tea. The stream had stopped midway.
"Could you call back?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"No."
There was a reason Nikhil never avoided Ila's calls.
Back in college, Nikhil and examinations had never been a particularly successful combination. He was always nervous on exam mornings. Once, minutes before an examination, a breathless Ila had called him. She needed help. She said she'd been in an accident.
Without finding out much, Nikhil had told her he had to leave for his examination. It was just ten minutes away.
She had hung up after asking him to be by her side.
His examination had begun when Ila came striding into the hall, much to the shock of the invigilator and his fellow examinees.
She told him that if he called himself a friend, he ought to know how to live up to it. She called him a spineless geek and a coward, apologised to the invigilator, wished him luck and left.
She had driven herself to a doctor. She had actually moved around, fought with watchmen and strode about with a fractured femur.
That was Ila.
Ever since that day, Nikhil had never made her wait.
Her voice across the phone brought him back.
"Can't talk, is it?"
Nikhil forgot to respond.
"Are you lost in thought, or is your wife around?"
"Yes... yes."
"Even better. Take her permission. I need you here. When can I see you?"
"But—"
"Okay. Don't come. Forget it."
"It's that same building by the—"
"1805, Blue Mountain, A Wing. Love you."
Nikhil turned, his wife was waiting with the tea pot, by now she was looking for the tea cosy.
"Smita, I need more sugar."
Smita resumed pouring the tea.
"Go," she said.
He looked at her.
"She wouldn't call you at this hour unless she needed you."
"Smita..."
"Don't explain, Nikhil. I know who Ila is."
He picked up his cup.
"And Nikhil?"
He turned.
"Don't go there to make promises you can't keep."
He looked at her for a moment.
"I won't."
"Good. Anshu's school pickup is yours today."
He smiled, kissed his daughter who had walked towards Smita and Nikhil’s aborted tea ceremony. Nikhil headed for the shower.
· · ·
Ila tossed her phone onto the couch in the drawing room and smiled at the pigeon's nest perched over the air-conditioner.
Two fledglings were nestled in an Armani scarf and an empty carton of her cinnamon cigarettes. The nest was a little soggy from last night's rain. The mother pigeon sat protectively beside them, making little gurgling sounds.
Ila responded fondly.
"Last night your nest could have blown off, ma'am," she whispered.
The pigeon gurgled louder.
"And I'm asking you to be a little careful. Remember, you made me their godmother?"
The pigeon blinked.
Ila smiled.
The two helpless chicks huddled together. Pretty ugly creatures, she thought.
She wondered what her own baby would have looked like. A messy little red ball of hopes that had left her belly long before its stipulated nine months.
There had been one more life inside her.
Tears glistened in her eyes. She blew the pigeon a kiss and smiled through her tears.
· · ·
Nikhil drove on, his lips remembering her address. He hadn't met Ila in years, but that one phone call had collapsed the distance of light-years into an eight-kilometre drive.
At a turn, he noticed a garment store. It was where he had first met Ila.
Rain on the windscreen blurred the image.
Nikhil had been about eighteen then. A new lingerie store in the market block had distracted him. Rather, attracted him. It was the first shop in the area to display fancy lingerie and mannequins.
Ila was there too, wondering when she might be able to afford some of those things. Her friend Uma, however, was thoroughly lured by the merchandise. Uma couldn't resist shoplifting.
A crowd had gathered. The owner was hurling expletives at the young girl.
Nikhil watched Ila stick her neck out for Uma, whom she called a friend.
That day, he had seen what integrity and spunk looked like at sixteen.
That was Ila.
He also noticed that she didn't wait for accolades. She simply moved on, proud of herself. It was the first time Nikhil had seen anyone quite like her.
A sharp honk brought him back to the road.
The traffic light had turned green.
Rush-hour traffic had no time for nostalgia.
Nikhil changed gears and moved on, this time with a song in his heart.
· · ·
Ila rummaged through her wardrobe.
For Nikhil, most of her clothes were either too designer or too sexy. Finally, she found something friendly.
In the bathroom, her fingers played idly with the loofah while the geyser heated the water.
Something was stuck to the sole of her foot. She peeled it off.
A visiting card.
Her mind raced, trying to place it.
And then it all came back.
That evening at the Sheraton, when she had been high on single malt, the creative director of a rival company had been trying to poach her. The pay and perks were to die for.
Ila had smiled through the entire conversation, playing the dumb blonde to the hilt. She was convinced it was all whiskey talk.
The moment the creative director moved away to answer a call, a couple of losers at the bar told her there was a catch to his offer.
"His wife needs to be pleased."
Ila raised her glass as though saluting their little piece of news. A quick bottoms-up emptied it.
She got up with considerable flair and, in the midst of it all, kissed the creative director's wife.
Then she took a bow.
As Nikhil hailed a taxi for her, he told her she was a rockstar.
The tipsy Ila smiled gratefully.
Nikhil was the only one who understood that she hadn't done it to impress the woman. She had done it to ward off the horny creative director who had been hitting on her all evening.
But Anshuman, her boyfriend at the time, didn't quite get it.
He wasn't sure he knew this woman.
Later that night, Nikhil was there when Anshuman walked out on her.
She had cried on Nikhil's shoulder, confused and vulnerable.
It was tough being Ila.
Nikhil had put on her favourite music and asked her for a dance.
She had ruffled his hair.
"I'd rather have a hot shower."
When he looked at her expectantly, she added:
"Alone!"
The steam billowed out of the geyser. Ila switched it off, biting her tongue. She hated wasting electricity.
She looked at the clock. Nikhil could be there any minute.
Dressed in a flowing long skirt and a sleeveless tee, she emerged from the bathroom, towelling her hair vigorously.
She couldn't find her cigarettes.
Then she stopped short.
A man stood outside the window. The window cleaner.
She yelled at him just in time. He was about to dislodge the pigeon nest.
Ila and the mother pigeon exchanged a knowing glance.
She threatened the window cleaner with her Harley lighter.
"If you don't want that harness burnt, you'd better be careful about what you throw out of my window."
The man looked terrified.
"Just do your job. And give me that bidi."
He had tucked it behind his ear. As she reached for it, the man winced, convinced she was about to slap him.
She lit the bidi with her Harley lighter.
"Smoking kills. Stop smoking!"
She took a slow drag. Gave him the lighter, “ you can keep this ”.
And opened the door for Nikhil, almost magically.
She had always recognised his footsteps.
· · ·
Nikhil's boyish good looks and laughing eyes were just as she remembered them.
He stood at the doorstep, awkward and unsure of which mood she might be in.
If it was tough being Ila, it was tougher knowing Ila.
She wondered how her face managed to light up like a teenager's every time she saw him.
He looked at her but avoided her eyes, as though he didn't want her to discover what he still felt.
As he was about to hug her, they both stepped back, each finding an excuse.
She hadn't realised some jazz was playing softly in the background. It stopped too. The silence underlined the awkwardness of the moment.
Nikhil extended his hand. It held a brown-paper bag.
She peered inside.
Vada pav and lots of green chillies.
They exchanged a look.
Without making further eye contact, Nikhil said in one breath, "It rained, so I thought you might want this."
She nodded, beamed and welcomed him in.
Nikhil wasn't sure what would happen next. With Ila, one simply never knew.
They were both quiet. There was an energy between them, a silence that said a great deal.
They sat at opposite ends of the room. When one was about to speak, the other began at precisely the same time. They stopped. Tried again. And once more, they spoke together.
The ring of her phone broke the silence.
Rohit.
Of all days, he had chosen this day to call her.
He told her he missed her.
"What happens if you never see me again?" Ila asked.
"Huh? Not possible. You're way too much in love with me."
Ila smirked and looked at her unadorned ring finger.
She missed the ring, yes.
But Rohit? She wasn't so sure.
Perhaps she needed his signatures to close some joint accounts at the bank.
The cold detachment in her voice told Nikhil he shouldn't be in the room.
The vapours of a dying relationship were unbearable.
He looked around, pretending to be interested in something. He tried fiddling with the music.
In his head, he even heard her say, "I love you, Rohit."
Maybe. Maybe not.
Nikhil imagined her in an intimate moment with another man, her hand on his shoulder. He wondered whether she had noticed him sulking while she spoke to that Rohit-whatever-his-name-was.
He looked a trifle embarrassed.
Before he could ask anything, or find a way of avoiding the subject, Ila said:
"Yes. That was him."
"Some tea with that vada pav?"
"Actually, I don't know him myself."
"And you decide to have his baby?"
Ila looked at him incredulously, as though she might choke him for the audacity of the remark.
"Yes, news travels. I know, Ila. And no, I'm not sorry for putting it that way."
Ila sat on the kitchen counter.
She watched him.
Nikhil couldn't find a pan to make the tea in, but there was something about him following through with the idea of making tea. He looked earnest even when he hadn’t sighted tea leaves or anything close to that.
Seeing him grope around for things he knew nothing about, she relented.
Ila made him sit on a bar stool at the far end of the kitchen and spun it around a few times.
He was taken aback.
He found himself smiling again.
"How old is Anshu now?"
"She turned four last month. You remember her name?"
"Does she look as pretty as her mother?"
"Well, she doesn't look as bad as her father."
"Oh, yeah? Thank God for small mercies. Sugar?"
"Usual."
"I don't even know what my baby would have looked like."
She looked at her stomach.
The electric kettle whistled, cutting through the traumatic image forming in her head.
Nikhil walked towards her.
She wasn't sure she could cope with any intimacy at that moment and made him leave the kitchen.
"Keep away, married man."
"As if you care that I'm married."
They looked at each other.
When he was about to touch her shoulder, she broke the silence. He stopped midway and picked up the biscuit jar instead.
"I'll be fine."
"Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"It's only me, Nikhil. Why should anyone else be bothered?"
"You want to sound like the mother of some Hindi film heroine?"
Ila screamed.
"I can't be strong all the time!"
Nikhil fell silent.
He poured the tea into their respective cups.
Meanwhile, she picked up a bottle full of pills.
"What's that?"
"The doctor gave me these to heal my body."
· · ·
Years earlier, Ila had lain alone with a bottle of pills in her tiny studio apartment. She had just moved in.
Comics, CDs and cartons lay scattered everywhere.
The red couch was the only piece of furniture in the large space. The medicines lay beside her.
She hated medicines.
She had once missed her brother's wedding because she didn't want to take them.
She couldn't get up. In her delirium, she remembered her mother and Nikhil.
She couldn't sleep. She didn't even know what she was down with, having never bothered to read what the doctor had prescribed.
That night, she had stolen some country liquor she found near the elevator. The watchman had forgotten his bottle.
In her sleep, she had apologised to her mother.
The next day, Nikhil had come to visit.
She was still on the couch, pale and distraught, but working on her assignments. She had answers to everything. She was smiling.
He looked at her papers.
"Ila Shenoy will flunk, you think?"
"Nothing can get you down."
"Did you go to the wedding?"
"I didn't dare."
"You will remain a coward."
"I couldn't tell them that you waited for the last flight out and missed it because you had what? Flu? Loose motions? What? You couldn't make it to your brother's wedding. Who are you bullshitting?"
"It's pox, not flu, stupid. Run! It's airborne, Nikhil. Run for your life!"
"Pox?"
"Yes. Chicken!"
"Big deal, man!"
"How could I risk the family? There would be children, and examinations are round the corner. Nikhil, I still have a heart."
Nikhil was moved by her compassion and concern for everyone. This side of Ila was rarely seen. Most people thought her brash.
He kissed her.
And ran!
· · ·
"What would have happened, Nikhil, if I had died and my baby had lived?"
"Shut up, Ilu."
"Ila. Don't mess with my name. Marriage has been good for you, partner."
Nikhil stared at her.
"You've seriously got funny."
He laughed.
She managed a smile too. Not at what she had said, but because she loved seeing him laugh.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"What? Sex?"
"Since you laughed like that."
Ila slowly left the kitchen. She didn't feel like waiting for an answer.
Nikhil knew he must have said something wrong.
He didn't follow her immediately. He joined her a few minutes later. Girls needed time to gather themselves.
He quietly sat beside her.
She moved away.
"What is it?"
Ila didn't respond.
"Ila."
"Don't you have coll... I mean, office?"
Nikhil didn't respond.
"Don't be upset. Please. We've met after what, five years..."
"Stop counting."
"Your office?"
"No."
"Food?"
"No."
"Walk?"
"No."
"Scrabble?"
"No."
"Football?"
"No."
"Maths?"
"No."
"Hide and seek?"
"No."
"Book cricket?"
"No."
"Facebook?"
"No."
"Beer?"
"No."
"Wine?"
"No."
"Music?"
"Yes."
"Long drive?"
"Yes."
"Love?"
"Yes."
"Baby?"
"Yes."
"With me?"
Ila looked at him.
"Don't, Nik."
He fell silent.
For Ila, time seemed to have stopped.
She had all but turned to stone.
The rain started afresh. The windows looked charming, drenched in the voluptuous monsoon.
Nikhil silently got up and began shutting the windows. He closed the doors, drew the curtains and switched off the lights that had come on. The day was overcast.
He checked the music CDs.
Ila was still sitting on the floor, her head resting on her knees.
Even the tears wouldn't come.
Her heart skipped a beat when she felt Nikhil's hand on her forehead.
She didn't move. Didn't raise her head.
She heard him walk away.
Then return.
This time he had a glass of water in one hand and a tablet in the other.
"Go on, Ila. Take it. We could all do with a little help sometimes."
Ila obeyed.
She heard a metallic clink.
Nikhil picked up his keys and found hers as well. He slowly slipped her feet into her slippers and handed her his raincoat.
"You won't get up?"
"No."
He scooped her up in a matter of fact manner.
She stared at him. As he carried her out through the main door, she couldn't believe she was about to face the world in this fashion.
She asked him what exactly they were doing.
Nikhil didn't reply.
He headed for the lift, then the car park, then the car, opening the door for her each time.
Ila insisted on knowing.
"You were never such a coward."
She shut up.
He hadn't even looked at her.
· · ·
Nikhil started driving.
Ila felt a little more relaxed.
He put on the music.
She tried not to smile.
He looked away.
She managed a wan smile.
"Remember Chandni Tea Stall?"
"Of course."
"I was there last week and..."
"And?"
"I saw this girl there."
Ila looked away.
"I mean, this infant."
She looked at him again.
"I call her Chandni."
Ila waited.
"I know her. She lost her mum, I stopped for tea last week, on my drive back from Pune. She must be about three or four weeks old…"
He nodded.
"Yes. I keep thinking about her."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Perhaps because she was so tiny. Perhaps because someone will have to take care of her."
Ila looked out at the rain.
Nikhil pulled over.
"What?"
"You wanted that baby, didn't you?"
She looked away.
"Don't."
"I'm not going to tell you everything happens for a reason. It doesn't."
She looked at him then.
"Thank you."
He waited.
"And I know you wanted to be a mother. If you still do, there are ways. Adoption, for instance. But that's a decision you make when you're ready. Not today. Not because of what happened yesterday."
Ila looked out at the rain.
"You're married, Nikhil."
"I know."
"And you have Anshu."
"I know."
"Then don't make me promises."
He didn't answer.
For once, neither of them tried to fill the silence.
A little later, Ila asked him to take her to Chandni Tea Stall.
They sat there with their tea. The vada pav was soggy, the green chillies were fierce, and the rain showed no signs of stopping.
For the first time in twenty-four hours, Ila wasn't thinking about the baby she had lost.
She was thinking about the life she still had.
· · ·
It was now January next year, Ila sat across from a social worker, going through the next stage of her adoption journey.
There were forms, questions, home visits and a great deal of waiting.
She had discovered that wanting a child was the easy part.
The rest required patience.
She had begun thinking of the little girl she hoped to welcome as Chandni.
She wasn't looking for a replacement. She wasn't trying to mend what had happened.
She simply wanted to mother someone.
Her phone lit up.
A message from Nikhil.
How are you, Ilu?
She smiled.
Still here, Nik. Still here.
She put the phone away and returned to her papers.
Editors' Note: An earlier version of this story was published by Sunflower Collective in 2017. This is a revised version.
Author: Barnali Ray Shukla is an Indian filmmaker, writer, and poet whose creative writing and poetry have been published and anthologized internationally in the US, UK, Australia, and across Asia. Her authored works include the poetry collection Apostrophe and contributions to major anthologies like The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City. Alongside her literary writing, she is an independent filmmaker and director of feature films (Joon, Kucch Luv Jaisaa) and documentary shorts. She heads the independent boutique banner Dark Chocolate Films.
Instagram: @barnalirays