Dhruvi ☄️

“you’re in the wind, i’m in the water,

nobody’s son, nobody’s daughter”

𝐃𝐇𝐑𝐔𝐕𝐈 ˙✧˖°🪷🦢 ⋆｡˚

𝘀𝗵𝗲/𝗵𝗲𝗿. 𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻.

𝗸𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝗮’𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲𝘁.

02 | Bibbidy - Bobbidy - Boo!

GLITTER IN THE AIR, FLOATING THROUGH THE APARTMENT — A SYLPH WITH WINGS, ’TWAS MARINE BLUE AND PINK. On its own it would’ve been powerless, but with otherwise human mediums too all it contributed to the world was a pinch of mischief and goodness.

Sometimes Ira would reverse a burnt pot of milk. A tear of a fabric. A missed rickshaw needed in the eleventh hour. She had heard of a bridge collapsing moments after a bus sped past it, held together by someone’s ability to notice the tiniest of crevices. Sometimes it was the internet working in no tower zones to send an acute message across the globe.

It was impossible for magic to be morally evil, it was just how the norms of it worked. Humans were perfectly capable of cataclysm on their own. A better name for human mediums was witches, and if it were a man, he was called a he-witch.

Ira smiled, lopsided with a curious gaze, as it gave just a touch of wonder to everything humdrum. Everything in her apartment was alive, sometimes in a literal sense, but on a regular day too anyone could tell the inhabitant was one of the few. Some called them charlatans, some believed, but anyway they were all harmless. A witch could have a divine patron spiritually, but mortally they made little difference . . . unless the butterfly or ripple effect were to be strategised with.

Nevertheless, someone else could worry about it. Ira was preoccupied ruminating on a way to outsmart it for now, since she did not have world domination to plan. She could hardly stand a whole day of public exposure — imagine having minions to engage all the time!

Nightmarish.

“If you don’t halt the passive aggressiveness, I’m not heeding you,” she mumbled, distractedly chewing on the back of her pen. Shirt half unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, and belt unbuckled but unremoved, Dr. Ira Kaushik slouched on her chair with the ancient exhaustion of an academic who was now mistaking one phonetic sign for another, and forgetting bars and emphasis every so often. Dr. D’Silva from her undergrad years would have failed her and made a sharp dry jest of it before the whole batch. None would’ve laughed, but it’d sting the entire time. He was never ill-meaning, which would’ve festered it further.

Insulted by his ghost lingering in her own mind’s eye, she glimpsed sheepishly at Maya from her periphery. The latter seemed thoroughly at home, moonlight spilled on silk, leafing through a book of Greek and Roman myths from Ira’s mini library while sipping on mint mojito. Her jet black leather jacket rested with Ira’s formal blazer.

Then a marker’s lid flew across the room and something screeched, just mildly so.

The dialogue on the whiteboard read, “I’m not messing with your mind. Go, eat some real food. You have to stand the world, and me. Snacks don’t count.”

How very helpful, darling spirit.

So she petulantly marched to the kitchen, begrudgingly put the soyabean rice and raita in her plate even though she would love every morsel of it and had for the past two decades, served Maya some and brought it to the hall room again. She wouldn’t have, if the rumble of her stomach hadn’t threatened to embarrass her and the bridge of her nose didn’t sting, too aware of the clips of her powered glasses out of the blue, the air biting.

Maya sprang to life from her previous esoteric meditation and received her share with much enthusiasm.

One would think the professor from the fashion department would have magazines to author and model in, conduct lectures while looking like the textbook definition of chic, occupy her atelier for hours designing clothes with no functional use (“For the aesthetic of it, my girl. Not everything has to be practical.”) — and Maya did, she did have places to be. However, lounging around alongside Ira in her enchanted apartment was much preferable.

Maya’s spidey senses tingled, light brown eyes darting between the white board and its owner. She raised her spoon. “What’s it raving about now?”

“My . . . dishonesty. Or so it says. You know how much it cares about the moral compass of its medium.”

Sagely nod. That checks out. “What did you do?”

Ira made a face, teetering over the edge of a very gooey puddle with the cheek of a gremlin.

Maya deadpanned, setting her plate aside. “Girl.”

Oh, so she was on her back too now.

“Eat. Or I’m telling Aunt Yashoda.”

Maya picked her property back really slowly, gaze narrowed, muttering exasperatedly about socially half sequestered unscrupulous witches she’d befriended long ago without wholly knowing their questionable daily life. “Blackmailer.”

Maya was no witch. That superhuman part of her brain had been scratched in her past life. Now she was into no divine shenanigans, at least for a while.

Ira lackadaisically chewed, legs stretched before her and sight beyond the palladian windows, steadied over the monsoon clouds reigning Vadodara’s skies. Her mother was down there in the bakery cafe they’d inaugurated not three summers ago, and it being Saturday, Agastya (or Oggy as she called him, that tom cat) was assisting her with it along with the teenagers who worked there part time. The Daily Drizzle was a small, cosy place with brown interiors and aureate lamps — the aroma of fresh loaves of bread and whipped cream scenting its ambience. Much of the young adult crowd flocked there due to Nutan’s sweetness and the tranquility the bakery cafe housed.

Maya crossed her limbs, leaning ahead. The weakest of sunlight caught her wheatish skin, dark golden and ethereal, as her pulchritudinous curls held their spring. To Ira, she’d been an inspiration to write — about unexpected arrivals and their magnanimity. “Tell me what happens if you don’t eat like the magic says,” she inquired. Ira had disobeyed the force, and she would, they behaved like a bickering old couple. Why then, had she now obliged with no ifs and buts?

The witch did that clumsy shake of her head again, the kind she did when she dodged around an uneasy topic of discourse. “I’ll let you know later.” She swallowed, downing half a glass of water.

“Sure, but only if you wish to,” said Maya gently, her protective concern and suspicion weathering into more trust. There was enough chaos in the world already, they didn’t need to add to the other’s.

A warm smile bloomed on Ira’s milky countenance as she briefly inclined her head to the side.

~ ° ~ ° ~

“BIBBIDY-BOBBIDY-BOO!”

If the lunch hadn’t dispersed the cloud of disorientation from her eyes, Ira wouldn’t have turned to glare at her brother with Medusa-level vexation. Face splitting into the grin of a Cheshire cat with the beard on his face making him resemble a balding coconut, Agastya welcomed her with the usual sibling rituals, uncaring of the public situation, even as the bakery cafe employees muffled their giggles at the monkey business. From the reception, Nutan waved at the girls.

“Hi, Maya Didi! Your bronze eyeshadow looks really pretty.” Agastya stood to his height again as he was crouching half-way before, 5’8 feet of unseriousness around 25 years old, two fingers gesturing at his own eyelids. The other hand held a laptop, while headphones hung around his nape.

Maya returned his ridiculous amusement, “Why, thank you.” -then smacked Ira on the arm with some remembrance- “See, you didn’t catch I got a new palette. He did. Such a sweet boy. Ira, do you even love me anymore?”

The said woman, unimpressed, peered into her book again. Jean-Paul Sartre stared back, lecturing about how humans exist first and must then actively define their own meaning, their purpose. She nodded imperceptibly. Would the humanist Sartre believe some of his beloved humans chose to be defined by annoyance for the sake of it?

‘Yes, the same way he believes some choose to be wet blankets. Like yourself,’ was the prompt thought. Now her own mind was being positioned against herself. No one was on her side.

Belatedly, she caught on that it had been the notorious sylph.

“Of course he’d be noticing make-up now. You didn’t tell me you have a girlfriend you are serious about, tom cat.” The ripple effect had led to Ira remembering this new piece of information brought to her the previous eventide, and smacking Oggy on the back of his head with the speed and steadfastness of light, dutiful and righteous. He unnecessarily fell back on the free chair between them with a theatrical wince.

“It’s not my fault you don’t get out of your apartment other than your office hours.” Agastya impishly shrugged, as his elder sister slid a plate of peeled lychees in his direction. His face immediately lit up, voltage skyrocketing, as he put one in his mouth. On the leftmost side, his friends had gathered around alongside Rishika, the one yet to be introduced to Ira alone amongst the family, while their father patiently established rapport with the youngsters.

Gautam Kaushik always had been a social butterfly. It didn’t matter which age group he was introduced to, he had the ability to mingle well. His sixties had made him somewhat closed off and cranky, so if Ira’s pattern recognition was without fault, it was only Rishika he was judging to determine if she and Agastya would fit the ideal couple image youngsters must embody to keep the culture pristine and preserved (Ira could not decrypt what that meant, neither could Agastya, since most of what Gautam claimed to cherish were colonial notions masquerading as traditions, not Hindu in spirit). But he knew his son — a spitting image of his own personality in many ways, and that was enough.

With a modicum of a jumpscare, Ira found herself being the observation subject of her father. Rishika maneuvered her way to Nutan with a new recipe in hand; Agastya followed.

“Wouldn’t marry before you do, that boy.”

Well Mom, it’s a bit of a sad situation here, because guess who refuses to perform under pressure?

Ira, who, long before would’ve torn her gaze away and escaped, did not even move a muscle.

Only two people remained in the room. Gautam and Ira. Gunpowder and Match.

Victor Frankenstein and his creature.

01 | Mother Knows Best.

IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED THAT A SINGLE WOMAN IN POSSESSION OF HERSELF, shall be repeatedly hounded by societal and familial questions regarding this hyper specific life-altering occasion hovering everyday life like a grumbling phantom. You know, the one.

For Ira, there were no exceptions.

The black analog clock on the wall had a purple sheen, she’d never known. Not had she realized when the third cup of coffee this day had gone cold. The sun here in Gujarat was immaculate in his gilded splendour, even as he retired to his own abode, orange and red (yes, too similar to a ripe kapuri mango. Who could even blame Lord Hanumana?)

“—yes, yes! I keep telling her. Not all men are like that. In fact, neither her father nor I have had issues with love marriage either,” Her mother with her phone pressed between her ear and shoulder, was prancing around the living room with the vivacity that had lacked in her youth. Nutan was grateful, and thoroughly fortunate, for the privacy she had so coveted since forever, without the chatter of a humongous Indian family directing her every move. No men with weaponizing incompetence sprawled around now. That had come with Ira, her eldest one.

“Wise men say . . . only fools rush in,” hummed Ira, partly a soliloquy and partly to her mother. Except this was no rushing. She was almost into her blissful middle age now, only three more years to tick off. “But I can’t help falling in love with you,” she sang, a lilt in her voice, a teasing even as she advanced an arm towards Nutan who avoided it with the grace of a peacock and swaggered away.

Ira promptly retrieved her hand and dramatically put it on her heart. “Ouch! How very unaffectionate, Mother. You wound me.”

“She hasn’t brought a single boy home. No- not a date or even a mention! God knows what she is to do with all her life ahead alone, Bhabhi. Didn’t your two angels find their princes charming? She would too, if she were to put in the effort.” In this humble span of an hour long call, Nutan had managed to dust the dining table and arrange the kitchen spice boxes to her liking, scrutinize all the new ostentatious hardcovers on her daughter’s spruce oakwood table, estimated the price of the new fairy lights dangling the gargantuan bookshelves, and shoot her daughter at least forty-seven different flavours of mom stares. Ira distinguished a few (five stages of grief to be precise), then quietly brushed off the rest.

The woman had put plenty of effort already. Especially today. As soon as she was out of the University, she had scuttled to the house in a beeline. Changed into her maroon satin PJs. Flopped herself on the sofa and surfed the internet on her laptop in search of a new murder documentary her best friend had suggested on their last day out. She was wine pooled into golden brown chalice, liquid and wayward. Not to mention, she had also bought healthy baked snacks and laid them out beside her so Mama Kaushik could pick some in her trance and she wouldn’t have to move a muscle anymore. Extra classes today. Her third year undergrad students, such knaves! Wouldn’t shut up. And she, who had a naturally low voice, had to nearly shout the entire time to address all thirty-five of them, get them to comprehend the introduction of phonetic transcriptions. She’d been such an obedient thing back in her days, unlike them. Physically incapable of 7 am classes, but morally punctual.

Now she’d have to prepare a report of the two hours and send it to the department head at the earliest too. Her mom’s cold stares had frozen her evening coffee.

The call ceased somewhere between the swirl of deliciously bitter dark chocolate in her mouth and the strike of temple bells nearby, dusk dark blue and silver. Once in a while, preteen kids would snicker and scream playing cricket. The day had been fairly serene, the usual. No change, no discomfort. The Mrs. and Ms. Kaushik residence thrived on predictability.

“Ho gaya?” Audaciously, she lifted an arched brow and looked above the doomed screen to glance at Nutan. The sun could have been dimmed through her glasses, but not her mother. She glowered. “Mami needs to worry about her youngest now. He’s only a few years behind me. I know she means no harm but seriously, this topic of conversation has begun to rot. Worse, I see fungi bubbling on it.” And truly, her Aunt was a kind, sweet lady; if only a little nosy and gossipy like all aunts. Ira had managed to scandalize all her father’s side of nefarious relatives and half of her mother’s with her lifestyle. Fortunately no major family unions would happen for everyone to meet and conspire against her dear peace, but this thing called cell phone needed to bugger off.

Nutan took her seat on the couch, with all the dignity of a queen-mother entrusting the weight of legacy on her heir, engendering a more lady-like posture as Ira snapped the laptop shut (lie, she did it most tenderly. One doesn’t even handle bone china with such care). The sixty-one year old countenance of her mother had aged a few more years in this one hour, trepidation in the downturn of her lips and the slump of her shoulders. Nutan would never wish a life like hers for anyone, let alone Ira, who stood at the exact opposite end of this spectrum with her mien. Sure, Nutan was once as spirited if not more — Ira, however, would rather break than bend any further.

“Bhabhi’s son has a girlfriend. When I was your age, you were already three. And such a sweet child, you never gave me any trouble, if only too many curious questions to answer. But then you grew up to be so quiet and wise. You’re doing it now- the troubling,” she said, with a tenderness only she could muster. I don’t want you to be alone, don’t you understand? I won’t be here too long and you have already been too picky with your choice of company.

Ira chuckled perfunctorily, willing the awkwardness away but who was she fooling? She was the very embodiment of it. “Agastya did. He even committed my share of shenanigans for you to dote over.”

“He too has a beloved. I’ve seen her, so much like him. Won’t marry before you do, that boy. Seriously, think of it now, child. Not as a compulsion or a bondage, but like every accomplishment you’ve owned anyway. A milestone, a celebration. To have someone worthy to love, to let someone love you.” Nutan had now taken Ira’s slim hands in hers, and only now the latter seemed to have realized how wrinkly and paper thin the former’s were — as opposed to the mildly calloused ones that had once braided her dense tenacious hair. She had smooth ones, one of her mother’s sparse genetic contributions to her looks apart from her almond eyes and straight nose. Most of her looked like her father.

Something in the touch made her wish she could shrink and retreat into herself, unobtrusive to the common eye. Nothing to see, just a woman. Ordinary Ira, self sufficient and busy.

It seemed, however, that there was no escaping it today.

Ira took a deep breath in, “If-”

“When.”

She sighed, defeated, “When I find someone, or you do for me, I’ll try and if it works it works. Once. If not, we shall never be extending this discursion. Hmm?”

Nutan had that wet, soft sort of look that wounded animals do, “But you’ll genuinely try before giving up, promise?”

“Promise.”

~ ° ~ ° ~

“-LET SOMEONE LOVE YOU.”

The coffee mug warm in her hands again, her feet dangling against her bed, Ira would admit: that she had grown to find loneliness safe. The predictability. The fairly huge apartment. Her degree choices. The tedious routine and job of an associate professor at a prestigious university, fostering young minds to believe in themselves and subsequently, in goodness and reason. Especially in a time wherein intellectualism rapidly declined, capitalism fed on their very souls, and everything became relative — even literature (post-modernism, you see? Lacked substance). Safe was her room, crowded with everything and everyone she had ever loved — whimsical floral lamps, a small dollhouse she had never asked for as a child, a family picture frame, a candid polaroid of her best friend, Maya, stuck at the frame over her study table, some dried red roses from the temple in a delicate glass vase. A few suspicious looking crystals (glowing blue, third time this week) with scented candles (picking scents on their own, so it was earthy musk today), and a lone resin bust frame of a smug-looking goddess.

She screwed her eyes shut. “No. Go away.”

The paraphernalia alive fizzed out, taking the flicker of fairy lights with itself.

The last daring thing she’d committed to was her doctorate. Rest, even the heavens wouldn’t be able to bribe her into another degree. Or another habitation. Another place to call home. That would mean starting something anew. A tentative reinvention of Ira’s concept of safety, with no assurance of everything falling perfectly together ever again. This initiative of her mother carried no such promise either.

Let alone a person.

Only that she’ll grow to like it. She’ll learn to find it beautiful. Things change, my child. Change is inevitable, and uncomfortable. You understand everything, don’t you? Why be so headstrong now?

But she could not let anyone have so much agency over herself.

Ira Kaushik -- a 32 year old witch breezing through life with the placidity of a lotus pad atop a moss covered pond -- welcomes a charming stranger -- a beam of sunshine, as soon as her anxious parents look for an eligible bridegroom for her.

The catch? Ira knows he has a motto. Her parents don't. So while she's busy and too grown for a cat and mouse game, this might be her final way out of the marriage market.

Too bad, the charming stranger in question has motivations beyond her knowing.

I was thinking to go for literature but I don't really know about back up options

Dw. You can go for mass communications after your bachelor's degree to be in digital/ print media, or you can go for a master's and appear for any competitive exam such as net/set/jrf if you want to be in higher academics and research. Or get a b.ed after your master's and be a high school teacher. Or teach online. Or go for law. Or you could work in publishing as editor/copywriter/copyeditor/writer. Or get a celta course so you teach English to people looking out to go to other countries. Or go for language instead of literature — linguists also appear majorly in academics and/ or research or now train AI, also are speech-language pathologists. All these require skills in language. If you have the option to, opt for psychology as a minor so you can pivot to it too. My friend majoring in geography will be competing for a forest officer's job, my other friend in economics wants to be in finance. Translators exist too, so you may have to learn a foreign language other than English too. Other than that, look up paralegals and technical writers.

I'M DONE WITH THIS RE-WRITE!