“CALL NOW IF YOU WANT ME BACK. I HAVE FIVE MINUTES BEFORE MY DJ GIG STARTS. IF YOU DON’T CALL BACK IN FIVE YOUR CHANCE IS OVER.”
It’s the text message Ambiga has been waiting for. Two weeks and three days. For two weeks and three days, she’s spun this possibility around her sludge-filled mind until it produced glorious pictures of her nightclub wedding, her in short tight black, him in black, both with creative eyeliner marks here and there on their faces. Whatever you do, Ambiga, her colleague Bapsi counselled, don’t take back a person who takes away your peace.
Ambiga doesn’t want peace. She knows she’s supposed to want it. Every podcast she listens to, every well-meaning wellbeing Instagram post tells her she should want it because that’s the path to freedom, love, joy and all that crap. Did anybody ever stop to consider a person may not actually want any of that?
“It’s an insult, frankly,” she says to the cactus he gave her. She’s not interested in putting on pants but according to most people, pants are important. They have to be zipped, buttoned and they’re meant to make a person look decent, even a person like Ambiga who hasn’t washed her hair in two weeks and three days, rejected because she wasn’t cool enough, not able to handle the “real life of clubbing, of the digital world today, Ambi. You’re too tight. Let go and let it all happen.” She felt foolish that the DJ guy who chose to take her on as his girlfriend had to advise her, school her in the ways of the young.
She looks around her bedroom. Skirts and shorts form piles across the room like cute little multicoloured islands; her panties are freer, loosely scattered from lavender tile to lavender tile, also unwashed for two weeks and three days.
“CALL NOW IF YOU WANT ME BACK. I HAVE FIVE MINUTES BEFORE MY DJ GIG STARTS. IF YOU DON’T CALL BACK IN FIVE, YOUR CHANCE IS OVER.”
How many minutes does she have left? Three, three and a half minutes?
What would any sane person choose? Peace or the feeling of being the luckiest woman on the planet?
“It’s an insult, frankly,” she mutters to the plant next to the cactus, left behind by the boy, its species unknown to her,“ for me to be forced to want peace when there’s crazy shit spinning around making me want to vom my gastric juices out, who in this cursed country’s going to think about peace?” She glares at her ex-boyfriend’s photograph glaring back at her from her phone screen. He’s looking out of yellow translucent John Lennon glasses. Gandhi specs, he called them. Refused to associate himself with Lennon. Not interested in colonisers, do you know how much music they stole from the world and presented as their own, do you know they were masters at cultural appropriation? No, she didn’t know. He was teaching her so much.
She picks up a pair of sunbird yellow cotton pants, bought on a whim during one of their Sunday mall excursions. He’d said it fitted her like skin fits the animal it belongs to. She didn’t understand what he’d meant, thought he was being cryptic as usual. That was why she liked him. Who doesn’t want a bit of mystery in life? Life on its own is as boring as the dark brown slacks she wore to work. The least one can do is populate it with people donning handlebar moustaches and bright nylon clothes. “It’s for the good of the country being dressed like this,” he chuckled over greasy Texas Chicken chicken. “Mainstream is the new cool,” he continued, educating her. He bit into a breadcrumbed drumstick and offered her a piece of maroon-stained flesh with his teeth. No thank you, she wanted to say but she knew it would sound prudish. She fished the meat from between his teeth with her first and second fingers. She manufactured a carefree laugh. He winked. He was pleased with her. She felt everything was good and right in this world. She couldn’t believe her luck. The guy who spun records at the sexiest nightclub in town was sitting opposite her, offering her fried chicken with his teeth. He must have thought she had something special to give him. Her permed dyed-blonde hair? Her open, generous ear? Her hard, dark clitoris?
If she picks up her phone now and calls him, she’ll have to construct a story for Bapsi. When the breakup happened, the first person Ambiga called was Bapsi. And then Bapsi came over, opened her arms out and let Ambiga cry into her armpits. Bapsi fed her warm homemade rice porridge, stroked her hair, blew breath on her forehead, sang nursery rhymes lying next to her in bed, played motivational talks on portable speakers she brought from home, and informed their boss Ambiga was down with a life-threatening illness for which a medical certificate was on its way. Bapsi found a software to forge documents and successfully, professionally, created a three week MC for Ambiga D/O Rajaratnam. You are the daughter of Rajaratnam, Bapsi said when she showed Ambiga the fruits of her care, you mustn’t forget where you come from and what your worth is, understand? Men come and go, and yes it’s true your father is also a man, but he’s the original man and you shouldn’t give yourself up for anyone less than the man your father would have wanted for you, understand? But more importantly, you’re the daughter of your mother, and ultimately, you’re a woman who belongs to herself. Don’t sacrifice yourself for men who won’t know how to even begin understanding the meaning of sacrifice, understand? And that DJ fella certainly isn’t the one who will understand big important things like sacrifice and value and respect, especially self-respect. That idiot put up a drunken video of you, for god’s sake, and thirty thousand people laughed at you flailing about on the dance floor saying you wanted your Mummy, you wanted your Mummy. Do you know how hard I worked to block that video and make sure it never reached our boss?
“CALL NOW IF YOU WANT ME BACK. I HAVE FIVE MINUTES BEFORE MY DJ GIG STARTS. IF YOU DON’T CALL BACK IN FIVE YOUR CHANCE IS OVER.”
No but Bapsi, you don’t understand, life without him means daily commuter rides to a fluorescent-lit office in town, off-white blinds to keep sunlight out of the workers’ eyes and lives, and spreadsheets and microwaved dhal curry stinking up the entire third floor, and that would be it. That would literally and very un-metaphorically be it. That would be what I would be forced to call life. When he came into my life on a dancefloor in town, do you know what happened, Bapsi? Do you know what actually happened?
Life! Life! Life! OMG! Life!
Couldn’t you see it in my eyes, Bapsi? Couldn’t you hear it in my voice? Didn’t you smell my sweat reeking of rose petals and jasmine?
The man is a fucking God in the club scene, Bapsi!
Club scene? Club scene? Ambiga, wake up for god’s sake, you’re thirty-five years old this June!
You wouldn’t understand, Bapsi, you’re a boring married woman with three boring children, a boring husband and a boring job and you’re perfectly happy about it. You have no aspirations beyond paying bills and preventing leaks in your roof.
Bapsi stopped talking to her. She left Ambiga alone (and came back when the boy left).
But Ambiga didn’t care about hostility in the workplace. Life was very much outside of a dull office building. Life existed inside the wild adventures of a DJ influencer who stooped to pick her up and include her in his life.
She always knew of course she was never cool enough for him. She was thankful. So damn grateful she whispered thank you thank you thank you every morning into her pillow and she brought her string of thank yous to him when they met for dates and she professed she knew how bloody thankful she had to be because he chose her especially when everybody around them knew she was out of place and they didn’t bother to hide it. They told him he was wasting his time with a plain-looking matron. There were hundreds of comments on social media to confirm for her what she already knew.
He was too great for her.
She could have let him go then. She should have, maybe. She wanted him, and she wanted peace. That was her problem.
So, one day, to save herself, to give her the bloody peace she felt entitled to, she suggested, “Let’s go private, as an experiment. Just you and me. No posts, no reels. Can we go away somewhere, just us two? It’s kind of hard for me, you know. All those comments, they make me feel bad. I’ve been feeling low lately, you know? It’s hard to feel good about myself when so many people are saying so many bad things and I know I’m the luckiest woman because so many women would kill to be me right now but it’s not easy, you know? I feel the pressure. I just want to be with you. I don’t want a whole community following us wherever we go.”
He suggested breaking up.
What was she thinking? Ingratitude pushed her to desire peace. What was she expecting from an Instagram influencer? 100k followers. 10k views for stories, minimum. 30k likes on average for posts. And she wanted him to go private? You’re fucking kidding me, he sniggered, ripping open a Gardenia vanilla cream bun. He stuffed the bread into his mouth and stuck out his tongue, coated with spit-drenched half-chewed bun. “You’re a puny, puny girl with a puny, puny mind. What are you so scared of huh, little girl? What freaks you out so much you gotta put me behind bars?” He left her screaming and crying on the bedroom floor, like a proper 1990s music video, maybe a Celine Dion fiasco. She felt stupid and frightened and devastated and yes, slightly insane. She was angry, panicked. She chipped a tooth from too much teeth-grinding. Her voice became hoarse from begging him to stay. He looked down at her—literally—and smirked. His bright orange nylon trousers glowed in the dimness of her bedroom. “This is too much, Ambi. I’m currently really resisting making a reel out of this. At least one hundred thousand views. At least.” She desperately wanted him to stop, and for her to stop, for them to return to peace. Unfortunately, the more she wanted peace, the more she found herself shrieking at him to stay and cherish what they had, why throw it all away for views and likes, but that only made him laugh more and threaten to turn her pain into public entertainment. “Think about it, Ambi, you’ll become famous. And the best part is you’ll actually be helping people. Do you know how many women want their madness validated? Because the bottom line is women are bitches. And they behave like bitches. Bitches want to control everything. That’s why it’s so damn hard to find a cool girl. You know? Just some chick who’s really actually cool like deep down cool and doesn’t give a shit about who her boy is looking at and what her boy is doing and how he’s living his life because the cool girl understands what it means to be free.”
She glances at her phone. Her five minutes are probably up. She can’t even put her pants on. Why would she think she’d have the energy or the confidence to phone and win him back? She hasn’t brushed her teeth in so long she traces thick layers of a lotion-like substance with her tongue. She catches sight of herself in the dressing room mirror. Her face is covered in her own natural grease. Purple crescent moon shadows sit beneath her eyes. She looks monstrous.
In Bapsi’s daily morning call, she’d told Ambiga not to worry, everything is working itself out, and to please take care while she’s away on a work trip, she’ll be back tomorrow, 12pm on the dot. I’ll swing by, Ambiga, you can count on it, okay? Make sure you’re eating the food I send through Food-In-Your-Hood, and that you’re taking regular showers and sleeping properly, okay? I feel bad for having to leave you like this but I couldn’t get a replacement at work but I have faith in you, you are so much stronger than you think.
Ambiga won’t be able to video call him, she looks too terrible to be seen, but she can voice call him at least. She opens her mouth and says hello, to test the quality and tone of her voice. Slight croakiness. She doesn’t sound cool or sexy. She should try again. She utters his name. Tears start to form. Is she even ready to contact him? A text message would be fine but he’d asked her to call and if she texts back she’d have gone against his conditions and that might be the end of it. She’d have lost her chance. He was being kind, really benevolent, going out of his way to give her one more opportunity. And he was about to do a gig. He was thinking of her.
He was thinking of her!
She sees the scenario, the entire space of the nightclub, brimming with life, lights, pulse, rhythm, raw energy, and him. Giant headphones on, cool as fuck, eyes on him, and he thought about her.
Why the hell has she been hesitating? What the hell is she waiting for?
He wants her back!
And when Bapsi calls or arrives at her doorstep, Ambiga will tell her, “Listen, Bapsi, thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I really appreciate it but we all have different values, you know? You think peace is something important. Your reason for hating the boy I love is that he takes away my peace. But did you ever consider that I might not want peace and that the last time I wanted peace I was punished with this shitty breakup? And did this shitty breakup give me peace? No, no, my friend. It gave me the opposite. So, I’ve decided not to choose peace and I’ve decided instead to go with gratitude. Gratitude! I am full of gratitude that I am the lucky lady he has chosen. When we’re not grateful for the things life gives us, how can we be happy? Bapsi, you’re not the only one with wisdom here, okay? I’m telling you now that if you’re not grateful for opportunities in life, you’ll be miserable and you’ll want to go and mess with other people’s misery and don’t get me wrong, Bapsi, I know you have a good heart and you really helped me while I was down but don’t you think the reason why you stretched yourself so far to save me was because you yourself are so miserable and your life is as grey as the pigeons outside our office building? Peace is so overrated, Bapsi. You should try to get some colour in your life. Get yourself some neon pink pants.”
Ambiga smiles. Her voice sounds stunning, clear, inspired.
She’s ready for him. And she has Bapsi to thank.
She grabs her phone, dials his number and waits. He picks up after three rings. “Thirty seconds late and you think I should be excited?” He laughs. Music booms in the background.
“I’m sorry, I had some technical difficulties.”
“You’re always having technical difficulties.” His voice is full of laughter.
“Can we talk? I’m interested in your proposition.”
“Didn’t you hear me? You’re thirty seconds late. My proposition was only for people who kept to the rules of the proposition. Too bad. You missed your chance.”
For a moment, Ambiga wants to start pleading but she remembers what happened the last time she begged for him to stay, for her to be given a space in his heart. Her chest grows hot. Heat fills her face, her throat, her entire body. She’ll combust soon, she’s sure of it. She knows she didn’t fulfil his proposition, she made a mistake, she failed again. She doesn’t deserve another shot. She doesn’t deserve people who sparkle in nightclubs. Her arrogance brought her here.
It’s better to give up on the unreachable, and what was so wrong with peace anyway? Is this the point at which a normal person would want to fill herself with it? Is it bad that she still doesn’t believe peace is a proper valid thing to want?
Peace means the ending of DJs and the blanking out of strobe lights.
No, peace is a thief.
Peace is a stripper.
Peace is a corrupter of fun.
Peace is the desperation Ambiga feels now rising from the pit of her stomach to the centre of her chest and it’s screaming, “You’re an entitled prick of a boy and you deserve to choke on the sweat of all the people in your pathetic little nightclub and one of these days, the blinking lights are going to blind you so badly you’ll wish you had a father who actually loved you because all I’m getting from you right now is the vibe of a boy who is so lost in life he has to parade himself in front of people to feel the love he is desperate to get from his father but never will.”
Ambiga clicks out of the call. She falls back on her bed, shuts her eyes and senses for the first time in her life what may be defined as peace rising like a warm gentle ocean wave through her belly. Scrambling after peace is overrated. Why the hell didn’t Bapsi tell her the damn thing has always been here?