‘Look, Ashray.’ I shook my head. ‘Please,’ she whispered. I looked up; sad eyes stared back at me, but the face was the same, selfishly unchanged by the heartache and turmoil inside of me. ‘You are the sum total of her existence. She lived because of you, and she died because life is cruel. She isn’t the boxes or the clothes or the memories you cling to, Ashray. She is you, and you are her, and you are so privileged. Do you know why?’ I shook my head, not understanding what she was saying. ‘You’re privileged because you know without a shadow of a doubt that she loved you. Every breath she took, every moment of every day, she loved you because she chose to love you. You weren’t born of her. She chose you, and she loved you. How beautiful, how magnificent is a love like that?’ Tears flowed as I looked at myself, finally seeing what my Maa saw.

‘I wish you could see how much you are loved, Ashray. By her, by Rishi, by me.’ I held my breath at her accidental admittance to feeling for me what I felt for her.

‘You love me?’ I asked, when I probably shouldn’t have, but I needed to draw from her strength; needed to know that I wasn’t once again becoming attached to someone who would toss me aside.

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’ She smiled sadly, not letting go of my shoulders, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. ‘But for now, we need to focus on ourselves don’t you think? On learning to love what is inside us, the good and the bad, before we love anyone else.’

I nodded, knowing that what she said was true and accepting that if I just let her be, let myself be, that one day we may have our chance. She gave my shoulders a squeeze as a new wave of sadness washed over me.

‘I don’t know how to honour her,’ I said quietly.

‘That’s easy,’ she said and smiled as she referenced the phrase I used a few days earlier, ‘you live your life in the way you promised her you would.’

‘Where’s your phone,’ I asked her, suddenly noticing that she was not holding it.

‘Someone wise once told me I needed to be present and detach myself from the noise it creates,’ she said with a wink as we walked out of the bathroom. ‘Hell of a place you have here.’

‘Give you the tour?’

She laughed, linking her arm in mine. ‘Go on.’

I led her to the living room, and then to the balcony where Maa was going to plant her chillies, telling her about all my plans for the place. Watching her eyes shine with excitement. The Mumbai skyline in the background. My future, in the foreground.

36. RISHI

36

RISHI

Ashray was all the parts of me I fought to control.