Sector 12 doesn’t sound like a hospitable place. Dwarka, Sector 12, New Delhi. Sounds more like a military theatre or a storage lot in an industrial park. The garage where Pawan had neatly squared up his car at Vancouver International could well be called Sector 12. But as we rolled quietly through the streets of Richmond, sealed comfortably from the clouds above, I realized Sector 12 raged with life in a way you could never grasp if you hadn’t seen a place like this; one that sparkled with lonesome opulence.
What were the people like? I’d have to tell mata-ji I didn’t know. As far as I could tell there wasn’t anyone here at all. Immaculate pavement, beautiful sidewalks, sumptuous trees bursting with green — we passed it all in perfect silence. Even the medians in the highway bore decorations like Rajghat Park, as if we might see Gandhi-ji’s tomb parked under a red light at the next intersection. Yet all was empty, quiet as a cave in the Himachali hills. We drove on and I spotted one person, two. Then again the streets grew barren like someone had stolen away the world. Where were the vendors with their clothing-laden charpoys, their worn-edged bookstands, their fresh bags of milk? Where were the workers tossing bricks five at once, the taxi drivers gossiping at the roadside, the restaurants with their cauldrons a-bubble? Each house looked uninhabited, like I could waltz in, lie on the sofa, and raid the fridge while facing no consequences whatsoever. An Indian archaeologist wandering the great Canadian ruins, picking through the endless reams of empty dwellings for clues to this hidden people’s secret lifestyle. Maybe that was a project to keep me busy while Pawan was at work.
The travel had kept me up two days and as my eyelids finally sank a vision of Aunt Radhika surged forth. She lay naked on her belly tending paranthas on a gas stove as Uncle V.S. pushed himself in her backside. A pang of loss struck me in the throat then and I wished she would turn from her chores to offer advice. Suddenly her head swung to me. She didn’t speak, though, just held a finger to her lips and shhhed, snapping me from my dream into the car’s quiet. I glanced at Pawan but his gaze held firmly to the road. Exhaling briskly I tried to relax, but my ears buzzed in the absence of blaring horns. Would there be no sounds to detect here, were all words swallowed by the thick clouds bearing down on us? Would no one hear me if I cried out? Would no one beat me if I ran away?
There was nothing to run from, of course. Nothing wrong. And I wasn’t against the idea of being married to Pawan, the idea of washing trace flecks of chicken from his dinner plate, of matching his warm socks as they fell in clingy bunches from the dryer. Even the idea of being his bedroom thing, the unveiled prize of wedlock. Who knows? I might give him what Aunt Radhika was so sure he wanted. I might demand it. A woman has a right to her lusts like anyone else. The possibilities overwhelmed. They blinded and couldn’t be looked at like those welding torches in dada-ji’s garage.
Love might smuggle its way in. I could come to rise and fall with Pawan’s every breath and live just to see the smile in his eyes. It was a possibility. But at the same time I didn’t know yet, and this ignorance made me shrink into my seat and disappear, made me float off on the cold breeze and feel as lonely as anything ever has. The alternative to unbridled devotion was disappearing in the night on a bus to Toronto, wherever that was. It all depended. If he loved me. If he beat me with a closed fist. If he kissed my eyelids and held me tight, or if he scowled at my stupid jokes. I’d signed up to a life raised on a plinth of unproven assumptions, forced to agree it would be fine however it panned out. Nothing could’ve strayed further from truth.
“It’s not far now, our place,” he said, pointing vaguely up the road. Our place. I wasn’t sure it belonged to me yet, though it was charitable of him to say. I needed time to see if I wanted it, even if the alternatives didn’t bear imagining. If I was to surrender my time and body, I would reserve the small choices, however ceremonial. Without them I wasn’t sure how much of me remained. We turned up a barren street flanked with towering cedar hedges. They walled in the houses as though planted by madmen seeking privacy from ghosts. Where was everyone? How could so few people build so much city? And what was the point of all these walls? As far as I could see there was hardly anyone on either side.
The emptiness unsettled me. I didn’t know if I was exiled to nothingness, or if I’d been freed. How was I to be sure? I missed my dog. I missed mata-ji’s cooking. Restlessly I shifted in my seat and tugged at the belt Pawan had insisted I fasten. Everything was wet and green, yet it seemed a desert. I thought of my last moments at Indira Gandhi International. Of mother forcing a smile in her flower-dappled salwar kameez, and of Mina laughing jealously, not seeing how little there might be to envy. I’d felt so alone.
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