Free Ode to Broken Things by Dipika Mukherjee Page B

speak about it. When he finally had the courage to bring it up, he only said that calling Agni Bonu , little sister, as he had been doing all his life, was a little silly. From now on, we call each other Bondhu, like friend, OK?
    OK . One sound in the Bengali alphabet, the aspirated breath of a ‘d’, renamed their relationship. Bondhu . Or Bondhu, shortened to B. That was how it had been ever since. They didn’t go into that unfamiliar territory for a long time. No more kisses, chaste or otherwise, until Agni came back from Texas, alone.
    A touch of a button and the window slid down silently, bringing in heat and cacophony. Abhik craned his neck to see the cause of the delay along Jalan Sultan Ismail, and cursed as an office boy on a fumigating motorcycle swung his way out of a certain collision. The stale odour from his body grazed Abhik’s face and hung, vaporous, in the air. The mirror of the BMW now reflected the golden spires of Hotel Shangri La.
    “Bloody fool! You fucking nyamuk !” Abhik shouted and, as the boy turned nervously for a fleeting look, he added a few choice invectives in Hokkien.
    But the curses were swallowed by the honking, hurtling crowd. The lone traffic policeman, with one sweep of his arm, parted the traffic in both directions.
    Abhik wished he didn’t jump every time Agni called, but he couldn’t help himself. This old family friend – she had texted – since Professor Ghosh’s parents had known Abhik’s grandparents, would he please, please invite the guy home for the Deepavali party? They would all be in Port Dickson for Deepavali, but on Friday was the big Open House feast where everyone in the neighbourhood would be free to drop in at his house for a bite, Malaysian style.
    He imagined mounds of greasy food. He imagined the slew of relatives who would ask him why he was still unmarried, and then try to ‘introduce’ a niece or a daughter, and he would be trapped completely, the ever-polite host. Although Agni spent most nights at his apartment now, she didn’t want to make their relationship public. Yet. It was still too new, with too many uneven edges.
    As if all this wasn’t enough, he would have to entertain this American gatecrasher as well.
    Right now he had more important things to think about than another national holiday celebrating gluttony and gossip. He was such a fool – but then, he could never say no to Agni. All she had to do was to pick up a phone and say “Hey B – take a break from that Excel spreadsheet life of yours and do me a favour, yah?” and he would agree.
    He would call his grandparents and ask them to call this professor – he wrote on the back of his hand, Ghosh – and invite him formally. Meanwhile, Agni was probably escorting the old fart around town. The lights changed; he stepped on the accelerator with unwarranted savagery, taking a steep curve.
    Yet, he reflected, he couldn’t even name what he wanted from Agni. He had tried, more than once, but quickly retreated, abashed. Like their first kiss; they were more comfortable leaving things unsaid.
    Abhik floored the accelerator as the lights changed to amber ahead.
    Even when she had been living with Greg, he couldn’t let her go. He was in England when he received that strange email from Agni, worded in a way that only he would understand as abnormal, something reflecting a deep unhappiness in what she had left unsaid. He flew immediately to visit her in Texas. He hadn’t expected it but he and Greg got along, with the easy bonhomie that men affect over a few drinks despite the difference in their ages. Then Greg yawned, pleaded the excuse of an early morning meeting, and left them to catch up with each other.
    Abhik got straight to the point. “You ok?”
    “I miss home, lah ! Miserable, yah?”
    “Yeah. But I don’t fit in at home either. Not that that’s a bad thing… it would be so boring to not stand out!”
    Agni smiled at him, both remembering the child he had been, one hand