Chapter 8: Jo Dushman Nahi Tha (The Nemesis That Wasn't)

The woman's name was Payal Mehra, and Ananya had spent six years hating her professionally — the particular Indian corporate hatred that expressed itself not through confrontation but through the silent warfare of CC'd emails and strategically-timed meeting invitations and the specific cruelty of replying-all to a message that should have been private.

Payal was Head of Marketing at Grover & Mehta. Had been, until the restructuring claimed her too — Payal's role also transitioning to Bangalore, Payal's twenty years also assigned a number, the number being her package, the package being the price. The difference was: Payal had not gone quietly. Payal had gone loudly. Payal had replied to Mahesh's company-wide email with a reply-all that said, in essence, "This is how you treat twenty years of service?" and the reply-all had circulated through Pune's corporate network with the velocity of gossip — which was faster than light, faster than email, the velocity being the particular speed at which Indian corporate communities processed scandal.

Ananya found out about Payal at the community kitchen. Not because Payal came to eat — Payal was not at the eating stage. Payal was at the furious stage. Payal was at the stage where the redundancy had not yet become grief, where the redundancy was still rage, and the rage needed a target and the target was Mahesh and since Mahesh was unavailable (Mahesh having retreated behind a wall of corporate communications and legal advisors), the rage needed a secondary target and the secondary target became: the system.

Payal showed up at St. Thomas's Church on a Thursday. Not to volunteer. Not to eat. To yell. Specifically, to yell at Ananya — Ananya whose job club Payal had heard about through the particular grapevine that connected Pune's newly-unemployed, the grapevine being: someone told someone who told someone, and the telling had distorted the facts in the way that telling always did, and the distortion was: Ananya was running a charity, Ananya was helping poor people, Ananya had become Mother Teresa, the becoming being the narrative that Payal found intolerable because the intolerability was: Ananya had found purpose in the redundancy and Payal had found only rage and the contrast was the insult.

"Toh tu yahan charity kar rahi hai?" Payal's voice — sharp, the sharpness being the voice of a woman who had spent twenty years in marketing and whose voice was her instrument. Standing in the doorway of the church's back room, arms crossed, designer kurti still immaculate (the immaculate being the armour — Payal would not allow the redundancy to make her look redundant). "Jab se nikali gayi tab se Mother Teresa ban gayi?"

So you're doing charity here? Became Mother Teresa the moment you got fired?

Kiara, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a donated laptop balanced on her knees, looked up. The look that was the teenager's assessment: is this person a threat? The assessment took one second. Result: threat, but interesting.

Ananya did not respond immediately. She was standing behind the folding table with the register — the school notebook, open to the day's page, sixteen names listed. She closed the notebook. The closing being the gesture that said: I am giving you my attention, the attention being the thing that angry people needed more than answers.

"Baitho, Payal. Chai peeti ho?" Sit down. Do you drink chai?

"Chai nahi chahiye mujhe!" The words cracked in the small room like a slap. "Mujhe samajhna hai ki tu kaise itni calm hai! Humein ek saath nikaala gaya. Ek saath! Aur tu yahan dal parosi rahi hai jaise kuch hua hi nahi!"

I don't want chai! I need to understand how you're so calm! We were fired together. Together! And you're here serving dal like nothing happened!

The room went quiet. The quiet of eight job club attendees who were sitting in folding chairs with borrowed phones and printouts of resume templates and who were, suddenly, witnessing a private confrontation between two corporate women in a church back room in Hadapsar. The quiet that was the Indian audience's response to confrontation — not intervening, not leaving, absorbing, the absorbing being the watching that was also the participating.

Nikhil appeared in the doorway. The appearing being the cook's instinct — the instinct that registered disturbance the way a thermometer registered temperature, the registering being automatic. He held a wooden ladle (the ladle being the accessory that Nikhil carried everywhere in the kitchen and that the carrying was not conscious but habitual, the ladle being Nikhil's extension, the way other people carried phones). He looked at Ananya. The look that said: do you need help? Ananya shook her head. The shake that said: I've got this.

"Payal," Ananya said. Her voice — the voice that was steady (therapy-steady, antidepressant-steady, the pharmaceutical architecture holding). "Main calm nahi hoon. Main sirf alag tarike se toot rahi hoon."

I'm not calm. I'm just breaking differently.

The sentence landed. The landing being: Payal's arms uncrossed. The uncrossing that was the body's response to an unexpected truth — the body opens when the mind recognises honesty, the recognising being involuntary, the involuntary being the proof that honesty works even when anger doesn't want it to.

"Alag tarike se?" Payal's voice — quieter now. Differently?

"Tu chilla rahi hai. Main dal parosi rahi hoon. Dono toot rahe hain, Payal. Bas awaaz alag hai."

You're screaming. I'm serving dal. We're both breaking. The sound is just different.

Silence. Four seconds. In those four seconds, the room rearranged itself — not physically but emotionally, the rearranging being: the confrontation had become a conversation, the conversation had become a confession, and the confession was the hinge.

Payal sat down. In one of the folding chairs. The folding chair that creaked under her weight (not because of the weight but because the chairs were donated and old and the creaking was the chair's biography: this chair had been sat in by hundreds of people who could not afford better chairs and the not-affording was the chair's purpose). She sat and she said:

"Meri beti bol rahi hai ki mujhe therapy leni chahiye. Main bol rahi hoon ki therapy first-world luxury hai. Kya lagta hai tujhe?"

My daughter says I should get therapy. I say therapy is a first-world luxury. What do you think?

"Main therapy le rahi hoon," Ananya said. Simply. No shame in the delivery — the no-shame being the particular achievement of the post-stigma Indian woman, the woman who had decided that mental health was not a Western import but a human necessity and that the necessity did not require justification. "Do saal se. Antidepressants bhi."

I've been in therapy for two years. Antidepressants too.

The room's silence shifted. The shifting from awkward-silence to respectful-silence, the respectful being: Ananya had disclosed the thing that Indian women were not supposed to disclose (the therapy, the medication, the admission that the breaking required professional help, the professional-help being the thing that Indian families called "weakness" and that the calling-weakness was the barrier and the barrier was the reason that Indian women suffered privately when they could heal publicly).

Kiara said, from the floor: "Didi, therapy achhi cheez hai. Meri school counsellor ne bola tha."

Sister, therapy is a good thing. My school counsellor told me.

The statement from an eighteen-year-old homeless girl, delivered with the casual authority of someone who had accessed mental health support through the only channel available to her (the school counsellor — the under-funded, over-burdened school counsellor who was also the Hindi teacher and who gave therapy the way Indian schools gave sex education: reluctantly, briefly, with the door open). The statement that was: validation from the most unexpected source.

Payal looked at Kiara. Looked at Ananya. Looked at Nikhil in the doorway with his ladle. Looked at the eight people in folding chairs with their resume printouts. Looked at the room that smelled of dal and chalk and the particular institutional warmth that church rooms possessed — the warmth that was not the warmth of heating but the warmth of purpose, the purpose accumulated over years of AA meetings and self-help groups and blood donation camps and now a job club.

"Theek hai," Payal said. The "theek hai" that was the Indian capitulation — not defeat but acceptance, the acceptance being the door opening. "Mujhe bhi kuch karna hai. Yahan pe kya kar sakti hoon?"

Fine. I need to do something too. What can I do here?

Ananya handed her the register. "Logon ki list hai. Resume banana hai, interview practice karni hai. Tu marketing expert hai — tu logon ko sikhaa sakti hai ki apne aap ko kaise becho."

Here's the list of people. Resumes to write, interview practice to do. You're a marketing expert — you can teach people how to sell themselves.

Payal took the notebook. Held it. The holding being the moment — the moment that Ananya had experienced six Thursdays ago when she'd first held the ladle: the weight of the new thing, the new thing being simultaneously too small (a school notebook) and too large (a life's redirection). Payal opened it. Read the names. Sixteen names. Sixteen people who needed what Payal had: the ability to package a human being for the market.

"Kal se?" Payal asked. Starting tomorrow?

"Thursday se," Ananya said. "Hum Thursday ko milte hain."

Thursdays. We meet Thursdays.

Payal nodded. Stood. Smoothed her kurti — the smoothing being the reassembly of the armour, the armour that had cracked for fifteen minutes and that was now being repaired because the repairing was necessary for the walk back to the car, the car that would take Payal back to her Aundh apartment where she would sit alone and process the fact that she had come to yell and left with a volunteer position and the processing would take the rest of the evening and three glasses of Sula rosé.

At the door, she turned. "Ananya."

"Hmm?"

"Sorry. For the yelling."

"Chilla ke achha laga?" Did the yelling feel good?

A pause. Then: "Haan. Bahut." Yes. Very much.

"Toh theek hai. Thursday ko aur chilla lena. Lekin pehle resume bana dena."

Then it's fine. Yell more on Thursday. But make the resumes first.

Payal laughed. The laugh that was — the laugh was relief. The relief of a woman who had been carrying the rage alone and who had, in a church back room in Hadapsar that smelled of dal, found that the alone had ended.