Chapter 3: Tanvi

Day three of the Mohit Bhardwaj Occupation, and I had to admit: he was clean.

Not clean in the way men usually claimed to be clean, which meant "I don't leave visible food on the counter" while ignoring the hair in the drain and the toothpaste splatter on the mirror and the specific trail of destruction that the male species left through any domestic space like a monsoon through a kachcha road. Mohit was: actually clean. The bathroom after his 6:30 slot was drier than when he entered it. The kitchen counters were wiped. His dishes were washed, dried, and put away — not left in the rack to "air dry," which was code for "I'll deal with it tomorrow," which was code for "never."

He had also, true to his word, called Vikram sir. The meeting was Tuesday. Four days away. Four days in which I needed to compile my training plans, my match records, my philosophy of coaching statement — the document that the Sports Academy board required, the document that was supposed to capture in two thousand words why Tanvi Kapoor should be trusted with the development of Kasauli's junior kabaddi programme, a document I had been rewriting since: June.

The problem with the document was: me. I was good at coaching. I was good at reading players, at understanding the kabaddi raid — the way a raider's body moved, the weight shifts, the ankle turns, the specific biomechanics of a successful raid that I had learned not from textbooks but from playing, from the years at Panjab University where I had been the women's team captain before my body decided that competitive sport and inflammatory bowel syndrome were: incompatible. I could coach. I could not: write about coaching. The words came out either too technical (the board would glaze over) or too passionate (the board would think I was: unhinged) or too honest ("I want this job because kabaddi saved my life during the years when my body was trying to kill me, and if you don't give me this position I will probably spiral into a depression that will make the IBS worse, which will make the depression worse, which is a feedback loop that I have been managing since I was seventeen and that coaching is the only thing that breaks").

Too honest was: probably not what the board wanted.

I was at The Chai Loft. My shift — the morning one, 6 AM to 1 PM, the shift that started with Kavita Aunty's pre-opening prep and ended with the lunch rush tapering off. The café was mine in a way that the flat was mine — not owned, but: inhabited. I had been working here since I was nineteen, first as a part-time helper during college breaks, then full-time when I moved back to Kasauli after university, then as the de facto manager when Kavita Aunty's knees started protesting the stairs to the loft level and she needed someone who could: run.

The Chai Loft was Kasauli's anchor. Not the tourist cafés on Mall Road with their overpriced maggi and Instagram-optimised views. The Chai Loft was on the lower road, Cart Road, tucked between the old post office and the pharmacy where Mohit's flat was currently drowning. The building was colonial — stone walls, wood beams, the specific architecture of a Kasauli building that had survived since the British decided this hill station was ideal for: consumption patients and weekend officers who needed to escape the plains heat.

The café occupied the ground floor. Stone floor, always cool. A long wooden counter — sal wood, because everything structural in Himachal was: sal — behind which the espresso machine reigned. Tables: eight on the ground floor, four in the loft, the loft accessible by a spiral iron staircase that Kavita Aunty had installed in 2019 and that creaked in a way that announced every customer's ascent like a doorbell. The walls: lined with bookshelves. Not decorative books — real books. Kavita Aunty's collection. Hindi literature, English novels, Urdu poetry, the complete works of Premchand alongside Agatha Christie alongside Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The café smelled of: books and coffee and the cinnamon that Kavita Aunty put in everything during autumn.

My sister Priti arrived at noon. Priti — younger by two years, married since last year to Karan, who played defence for the Himachal Pradesh state cricket team and who treated Priti like she was: the only person in every room he entered. Priti had worked at The Chai Loft before the wedding. Now she came in occasionally, more out of loyalty than need, because Karan's cricket salary meant she could focus on her music — the sitar, which she played with the specific intensity of a woman who had found her instrument and would not be separated from it.

"How's the cohabitation?" Priti asked, settling onto a stool at the counter. She ordered her usual — a turmeric latte, the golden milk that Kavita Aunty made with coconut milk and fresh haldi from the Solan market, the drink that Priti claimed was "medicinal" and that I suspected she ordered because it was: yellow, and Priti liked yellow things.

"He's clean," I admitted.

"Mohit Bhardwaj is clean?"

"Shockingly."

"What else?"

"He remembers the protocol. The food protocol. He asked me which cutting board was the gluten-free one. He: asked."

Priti looked at me. The look that sisters share — the look that contains eighteen years of shared experience and the specific telepathy of siblings who grew up in the same house and know each other's facial expressions the way musicians know their scales. The look said: you're surprised that he cares about you.

"He's always cared," Priti said.

"He's always annoyed me."

"Same thing, with boys. Especially that boy."

"Don't."

"I'm just saying—"

"Don't."

"Fine. How's the coaching document?"

"Terrible. I've rewritten it eleven times. It either sounds like a Wikipedia article or a therapy session."

"Let Mohit help."

"Absolutely not."

"He's good with words. He writes the mascot routines. He wrote that speech for Papa's retirement — the one that made everyone cry."

"He made everyone cry because he told the story about Papa falling into the ravine during a trek and being rescued by a: goat."

"It was a compelling narrative! The goat was a hero."

"The goat was a goat, Priti."

"A heroic goat. My point is: Mohit can write. And you need: a writer. And he's living in your flat. Free labour."

The suggestion was: irritating. Irritating because it was: correct. Mohit could write. He had a way with words that I would never admit to his face — the way he told stories at gatherings, the way he narrated the mascot routines with a comedic timing that made the kabaddi crowds laugh even when the team was losing, which was: often. The Kasauli Wildcats were not a strong team. They were a team that had a mascot who could do backflips and a crowd that came for the: entertainment.

"I'll think about it," I said. Which, in sister-language, meant: yes, probably, but I need to pretend I came to this decision independently.