Free Tanya Tania by Antara Ganguli Page B

done. But it’s bothering me. I convinced Maya that Sunil has a crush on her and that she should go talk to him. And she did and he got up and walked away. And everyone saw and started laughing. And Maya is no dumb fool you know so she also started laughing and made a big joke out of it.
    But she wouldn’t look at me afterwards.
    And the fucked up thing is that this would have never bothered me before.
    That’s what I’m saying man. I like my skin. I don’t want it to change. I never thought about this shit before and I don’t want to start now.
    I guess Chhoti Bibi had to get away for a bit. I can just see her cycling away on your old pink bicycle, wanting to get away from your house, from your stupid lesson plans, from Bibi, from everything. I mean if I didn’t have a boyfriend, if I didn’t have Arjun I would totally want to get away. But I have Arjun and he’s the hottest boy in school and he loves me so I have no reason to want to get away. My life is awesome. I’m happy. I’m like totally happy.
    Love,
    Tania

5

    April 5, 1996
    New York, NY
    Dear Tania,
    Today I saw the first daffodils! Real daffodils growing in the ground, beautifully yellow and pristine and rising above the muddy leftover snow. They reminded me of gulmohurs in Karachi. Karachi doesn’t have spring but around the time that it was going to be the end of the year and everyone was slacking off in the classroom and the teacher wasn’t really trying, we used to stare out of the window at the gulmohur tree in the basketball court, especially on that magic day when it seemed like it had bloomed overnight. One day just a normal sober tree and the next day a party. I always thought the tree lived through the whole year just to have those flowers.
    It is hard to have relationships with trees here. Other than in the park, most of New York’s trees are chained up in fences. There are cherry blossoms by the reservoir though and they, like the gulmohurs of Karachi, come alive suddenly and vividly in spring. All year long, I run round and round the reservoir, imagining every pound I’ve eaten drop cleanly off my body but in spring I don’t even care. In spring, the cherry blossoms triumph and for a few days, all longings are met in paper-thin, pink and white whispers blowing perfume into the air.
    You always made sex sound so easy.
    I’m angry with you for that. I’m angry with you for a lot of things actually.
    For a long time I was angry with you for having sex with Arjun, for letting him do all those things to you. There was something so absolute with you about Arjun. You were just so sure. It set an impossible standard. It still does. Every time I have approached a relationship, I have pictured you in my head, imagined what you would have said. I compare how I feel to how you had felt about Arjun. Your love was singular, full and fecund. Mine sterile and stillborn.
    But I don’t feel angry with you about Arjun anymore. I think everyone has to have one obsession in their life. Something that grabs you by the ankle and swings you around the axis of the world until you become a doll, chucked into the universe, whirling, whirling, gone.
    Yes, I think so. I don’t think we die once in a lifetime. Sometimes in one life itself we die many times. I took a class on Hindu philosophy and I think that’s what reincarnation is really about, shedding the angst and pain of a lifetime so you become thinner, cleaner, simpler, smaller.
    Arjun was your obsession. It was clear from the way you talked about him. His crazy body, his crazy mind, the crazy way he loved you, his hands on your buttocks, his hands in your hair, his hands on your feet, his hands on your mouth holding it shut while he fucked you. You were obsessed. I understand now. I’m not angry anymore because I understand.
    Winter is almost over. This morning I woke up and opened the window and jumped out into the garden and it was