Project Heart - Chapter 34: Chapter 34

"I should've listened to you, Niri. None of this would've happened if I'd just listened to you."
Niribili stroked Junak's hair as he lay sprawled on the bed with his head on her lap. Banhi sat on the other end of the bed, going through the day's shoots on her laptop. "I can't believe he came out to his parents," Niribili said.
"Me neither," Junak muttered. Wasn't it just two weeks ago that Dikhou had struggled to accept it himself? To imagine him standing in front of his family and... and his mother was so scary! God, the amount of courage it must've taken! Junak could not even tell Dikhou how proud he was, how, at that moment, all Junak wanted to do was run up to him and pull him into a hug.
"He really likes you, you know," Niribili said softly.
Junak played with the hem of his cardigan. "Weren't you the one who had disapproved?"
"That was then, and this is now." Niribili put her hand over Junak's, making him look at her. "He really likes you, Jun."
He sucked in a deep breath and rolled away from Niribili to lie on his stomach. "It's too late now."
"Why?" Banhi asked, closing the laptop. "Why'd you push him away?"
A part of Junak was irritated that they were poking at his still-bleeding wound, but it was shadowed by the part of him that was glad they were there for him. "What do you mean, why? You heard the villagers that day. Well, not you, but Niri gave you the gist, didn't she? I – Dikhou shouldn't be seen with me."
"But he said he's out–"
"To his family," Junak interrupted Banhi. "That's very different from all the shitty people in the village."
"Jun." Niribili's voice was inhumanly calming. He buried his face on the bed. "I know you're scared."
He wanted to scoff. She had no idea what it was like to stand atop that rock, facing death behind him and something even worse, perhaps, in front of him. She did not understand. None of them did.
We don't want filth like you in our village, those guys had said and all the villagers shared the sentiment.
Junak thought he was done being scared of homophobes, but he had been stupid. He had let the flash and glitter of the cities blind him to what was real.
To the very dark, grey reality where people, the people Dikhou lived with, could hurt him.
Junak wouldn't let it happen. He wouldn't be able to live if anything happened to Dikhou.
"Do you want to know what I think?" Niribili asked.
Yes. No. He nodded.
"You should talk to him. Honestly. Tell him your concerns."
"He wouldn't understand."
"How do you know that? Do you trust him so little?"
"It's not about trust. It's..."
"It is about trust, Jun. You can't make this decision on your own, not like this, not when it's hurting both of you and especially not when this is about him. You're trying to protect him, I get it, but you also need to trust him to know what's good for him."
Junak did not say anything. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Dikhou and the miserable expression he wore when Junak pushed him away.
It hurt. A lot.
But it was infinite times better than putting Dikhou in harm's way.
"I don't know what to do," Junak breathed, thinking he'd feel better if he admitted it. He did not. "I don't know what to do!"
Banhi lied down on the bed beside him and rested an arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry everything's so shit, Jun."
Yeah. That about summed everything up.
The days trickled by, sometimes like water, sometimes like honey. Whenever Junak was not shooting, he was at the hospital. When he was doing neither, his mind strayed to Dikhou and adamantly stayed there with him.
Dikhou did not approach him again. He almost vanished from Junak's life and, in some wild moments, Junak wondered if Dikhou was even real in the first place. What they had, in those few days when everything was good, was certainly too perfect to be real.
Junak was losing his mind.
That was his first thought when, one day before his grandfather's scheduled discharge from the hospital, a car pulled into their front lawn and Junak's mother stepped down from the driver's seat.
"Am I hallucinating?" he whispered from where he stood on the porch.
Next to him, his grandmother whispered, "Oh my god."
"Ma!" Puhor whipped past Junak and ran into the lawn to greet her.
She smiled through lips that were coloured a bold shade of orange. She was wearing a gorgeous mekhela sador with a high-collared blouse that perfectly complimented her short bob cut hair. She was carrying two large polythene bags in both hands which she promptly handed over to her son.
"What are you doing here?" Puhor asked, grinning from ear to ear.
Instead of answering, she patted his shoulder and made her way towards the house.
"Jun, is that your mom?" Banhi gasped, coming to stand beside him. "She's like... hot."
Junak was in too much shock to respond.
His mother greeted her mother-in-law first, bending to touch her feet.
The old woman was at a loss of words, her expression of disbelief mirroring Junak's. "Anima, you... I... it's so good to see you here!"
The younger woman smiled at her, and then turned to Junak. "You look like you've seen a ghost, honey," she joked.
He wanted to be angry; last he had seen her was a year ago, before he left for America. But in that moment, he found himself being reduced to a small boy with a bruised knee who just wanted his mother to run her fingers through his hair.
He took a step closer and threw himself into his mother's arms.
It was after one whole hour of eating welcome snacks, making acquaintances with everyone in the house and having a long chat with Grandma about health and work, etc, that Junak and his mother finally got to speak privately. Well, he did not want to talk to her privately but she led him away and he had no choice but to go along.
Her nose wrinkled immediately when she stepped into Junak's room. "You live in this mess?"
Junak took an armful of clothes off the bed and dumped them on the chair. He then proceeded to climb up on the bed and sit on the far end, near the wall. For added protection, he picked up his laptop and laid it open on his lap.
"So..." His mother casually picked up a t-shirt off the chair and started folding it. "How have you been?"
He shrugged, feeling like a kid all over again.
She grinned as if she was thinking the same. "Puhor told me you're... upset."
Of course, that fucking snitch! It was stupid that Junak had almost grown to like him over these past few days. "I'm fine."
She nodded. She kept aside the folded t-shirt and picked up his unicorn hoodie. "I love this." She beamed.
Junak did not say anything. He felt... weird. He watched as his mother folded the rest of his clothes into a neat pile and then sat on the bed facing him. "Are you mad at me, Junak?"
Yes, was his immediate answer. Mad and upset and feeling incredibly let down.
But he did not say anything because this... this was uncharted territory. He wanted to be angry at her, and he had all the reasons to be too, but this was his mother. His mother! The mother he was so proud of whenever they had to talk about their parents' occupation in school, the mother who always brought him souvenirs from whichever place she flew to, the mother who would ask him what toys he wanted instead of assuming it to be a car or a gun.
The flood of memories was almost jarring. Where had these memories been, he wondered, when he spent countless hours cursing his parents for abandoning him?
He shook his head. "I just miss you."
"I miss you too." She reached out to touch his knee. "You never call."
That did it.
He jerked away and the laptop fell off his lap and onto the bed. "I never call?" His voice shook.
His mother looked surprised at his reaction.
A lump formed at his throat and he felt the increasingly familiar burn of tears. He jabbed his knuckles into his eyes. "You're just like Puhor."
"What?"
"You're just like everybody else. It's always my fault, right? Everything is always my fault!"
"Hey, hey, hey..." She tried reaching for him but he backed away against the wall. "I didn't say that."
She did. She did, she did, she did.
"I just mean..." She sighed and threw up her hands in defeat. "You've just been so distant lately. Ever since you graduated school. I.. I thought it was a teenage-thing but..." She sighed again. "Have I done anything to upset you?"
Great. Nice. He would have to spell it out to her and become the bad guy. He gritted his teeth and said, "You shouldn't have come here."
His mother looked like she had been slapped. Her expression crumbled and she whipped her face away. "Wow. Okay. Thanks." She sniffed and touched a hand to her face.
With dawning horror, Junak realised his mother was crying. Because of him.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
He could never do anything right.
She abruptly rose to her feet and panic gripped Junak's heart. "Ma. I... I'm sorry. I – I didn't..."
She stood with her back to him and he could see flecks of grey in her neatly kept hair. "You know, this is not the first time someone's wanted me out of this house, so it's okay. Don't worry about it."
The anger, the regret, the sorrow and the confusion all meshed together into silence. And a hollow plea of, "Ma..."
She straightened her shoulders. "Your grandparents don't like me, Junak. Every time I'm here they remind me what an incompetent daughter-in-law I am. So a, I'm not particularly thrilled to be here, you know? And b, it's delightful to hear my own son telling me I'm a terrible mother."
Too many things were being shoved into his brain all at once but he latched onto one of them and said, "No, Ma. I – I – I didn't say that. I – I don't think that."
"But you do, don't you?" She turned to him then, and it was a sight he would never be able to forget: her face was twisted in pain, her eyes were red with tears that smudged her kajal. "Puhor told me. That you think we don't love you."
The absolute hatred for his brother was overwhelmed by his tremendous guilt. He did think that, yes, but he never wanted his parents to know of it. It was his little secret he carried around in the deepest corners of his heart, a secret he would never admit to anyone.
Now, hearing it on his mother's lips, he felt shamefully exposed.
"I don't understand, Junak." She collapsed on the bed, heavy and tired. "What did we do wrong? Did we not give you everything? We've never judged, never interfered. We gave you independence the likes of which my colleagues' kids are hankering for." She sighed and slowly shook her head. "The kind that I would've killed for."
Junak stayed silent.
His mother leaned back on one arm and used the other to wipe her face on her sador. "I was six when I first saw an airplane, and all I'd wanted since then was to fly one. I was lucky in the sense that my parents wanted to educate their daughter but unlucky in the sense that they did not want their daughter to be too educated, you know, because men don't like smarter wives. So whatever, they forbid me from studying and certainly would not fund my pilot training." She looked away, out of the window. "I was seventeen when my parents died. When I turned eighteen, I demanded my share of the inheritance from my brothers and used that to fund my studies.
"Your other grandparents, the ones who live here, they hate your father. Because he's spirited. Because he's not as academically gifted as his siblings."
The conversation Junak had with his grandfather many weeks ago returned to him. "K-Koka told me. He – he said he... regrets it."
"Did he?" His mother turned to catch his gaze. "And did he mention which part he regrets exactly? The part where he publicly humiliated Niyor for years? The part where he threatened to cut Niyor off his inheritance? The part where he refused to bless our marriage, and by virtue, your birth?"
Junak gaped at her.
"Yes. I thought he'd omit some of that." She scoffed. "Did he also tell you the sad, pitiful tales of how Niyor has abandoned him? Because he does that a lot."
Junak did not say anything but his mother got the answer she wanted.
"He did, didn't he? See, here's what I don't understand. He has three other children, right, who live abroad and barely call, let alone visit? So why is Niyor's name always dragged in as the bad son? Why am I the bad daughter-in-law for putting my career first when your aunts are actually encouraged to do the same?"
Junak stared at his mother, connecting her words to the bigger picture. It did not sound right, but at the same time... it did?
"Whatever." His mother waved a hand. "I'm not here to badmouth your grandfather. What I was actually trying to say was..." She sighed. "This parenting thing doesn't come with an instruction manual and your father and I didn't have the best role models to learn from. But we tried our best to not make the mistakes they did. I... we love you, Junak. We've only wanted the best for you."
"I know... I... I know." Junak wasn't sure what he was doing but the words lodged in his chest demanded an escape. And it was now or never. "I'm grateful for everything, Ma, but... it... it gets so lonely sometimes. I – I wished we had s-stuff like family meals... or discussed things about school and – and your jobs. I wished you'd embarrass me in front of my friends. I – I wished we did those stupid things like – like talking about feelings and g-going on vacations and stuff. I wish I knew you, Ma. Like, I don't even know which political party you support."
He grimaced at the last bit while his mother chuckled and said, "Really?"
Junak pouted. "I'm just saying."
She smiled at him and cocked her head to the side. "So you're the sentimental one in the family, huh? Should've figured with your inclination towards the arts. Which I'm very proud of, by the way."
"You don't even know what I do!" he blurted before he could help himself.
"Don't be silly, of course I do. I've seen all your films. I show them to my colleagues as well. That's how I found out one of my co-pilots was homophobic. And pretty much a fascist too. That was... a bumpy flight."
Junak was back to gaping at her, this time flickers of happiness mingling with his disbelief. "You – you – you've seen my films?"
She nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And heard the songs too. They were too explicit to share with my colleagues, though."
He could not believe his ears.
"Why do you look so shocked?"
"Because..." They never attended his school events or praised him for his works. He decided to go ahead and say it out loud.
His mother smiled. "I've seen your school shows, Junak. Yes, we could not attend – these schools are not accommodating of working parents, they never give enough notice – but I have seen the recordings. I always email your school to send them to me. I loved you as an inanimate tree in your sixth grade play; I thought your acting still was top-notch."
The laugh leaving Junak's lips was entirely involuntary.
"And we do praise you. Maybe not in exact words, but... you're pursuing a really expensive course, Junak. Is that not approval enough?"
She extended her hand, and hesitantly, Junak took it. Her nails had small daisy prints on them.
"I wish I'd known, honey, that you wanted those things like family meals and vacations. It honestly never crossed our minds because... well, I'll stop with the excuses." She pursed her lips in what Junak recognised as his standard puppy face. "I'm sorry. Will you give your father and me another chance? I would love to embarrass you in front of your friends and discuss India's party politics with you."
Junak laughed and cried and nodded all at the same time. His mother cooed and pulled him into her arms.
"And don't hate Puhor," she said, stroking his hair the way he had wanted her to every time he hit rock bottom. "He only wants to help you."
"I know. I still hate him."
His mother chuckled.
"He's dating his professor, by the way."
She pulled away from Junak, her eyes wide. "He what?"
Nice! Junak would at least have his revenge now. Though, it did not turn out to be much because his mother just looked surprised for a minute, then nodded. Any other Indian mother would've freaked.
Speaking of Indian mothers and freaking out, she just told him she had watched his films and heard his songs. That definitely meant...
"Ma."
"Hmm?"
"So..." He nervously twisted his sleeve, which was so silly because of course his mother already knew. "You know that I'm...?"
She raised a brow in confusion.
"You know? Not straight?"
She laughed. "Of course. Though your father and I would've preferred to hear it from you instead of finding out through the internet."
Junak gulped. "And you're not...?"
His mother crossed her arms and feigned a challenging look. "Go on, ask me if I'm homophobic. I dare you."
Goddamnit, how had Junak ever forgotten how absolutely cool his mother was?
"Sorry..."
She ruffled his hair. "On that note. Is Dikhou the same Dikhou who lives next door? Luit's son?"
Abort! Abort! "What? Why? I – we're not dating."
His mother looked thoroughly amused. "I never said you were."
Fuck.
"But now I'm more curious than ever." She leaned forward with her elbow on her knee. "Tell me."
Junak pouted. "There's nothing to tell."
She raised a brow.
"Well, it's... it's complicated."
"More complicated than dating your professor?"
Yeah... Junak was not equipped to make that comparison. He changed gears. "How – what – how did you even – did Puhor tell you about Dikhou?"
"No."
Junak narrowed his eyes at his mother.
"He called me."
"What?"
"Dikhou called me."
Junak nearly fell off the bed. "What?"
She nodded. "He called your father to tell him about your grandfather. And he called me to tell me about you."
"Wait, what? He called you? And Papa?"
"Oh yes, I forgot to mention; your father is here too. I dropped him at the hospital before coming here."
"Wait. What?"