Ink And Chores

By Sakhi Dayanand Gundeti

Tenth-grade vacations were great after the first few days. Almost every morning, I woke up to play volleyball with my team. We'd finished school but were permitted to play. After our match ended that morning, I unlocked my bicycle and tucked my bag in its carrier. Pedaling on the empty Sunday morning roads, I parted ways with Sandhya at a traffic signal and reached home.

When I rang the bell, Gaurang opened the door.

"Aai and Baba are leaving for Nashik," he said, "Aaji is in a critical state in the ICU."

"What?! When did things get so bad?" I threw my bag on the brown leather sofa and scurried towards our parents' bedroom on the left.

"Ah, you came. Listen, don't order food from outside frequently, cook for yourself. We don't know how long it will be before we come back." Aai said, zipping her trolley.

"Will Aaji be okay?" I asked.

"Don't worry," Baba patted my back, "Your uncle said things haven't gotten out of hand yet. Let's hope for the best." He stepped out of the room, shouldering his black bag.

"Shouldn't we come with you?" I followed him with Aai's trolley.

"No, we'll be picking up Bhakti auntie and Gautam uncle on the way, so there won't be enough space in the car. We'll call you if needed." Baba said.

Gaurang and I waved as they drove out of the gate.

We waited for the elevator in the lobby. Hands on his thin waist, Gaurang peered at the floor number sign. He had worn a faded black Harry Potter t-shirt over grey pyjamas since the day before; it was his unwritten vacation rule to not bathe before noon. Once the elevator doors dinged open, Gaurang hopped in and pressed the '4' button.

"Aai must've prepared the lunch for us. We'll order Chinese food for dinner. What do you say?" I asked.

"Let's go out instead, we won't have to do the dishes then. The maid won't be coming for another two days. What timing!" Gaurang slapped his thigh.

"Okay, we'll go. Listen," I held out two fingers at him. "About Time or The Edge of Seventeen? I'm planning to watch one of them after dinner."

He grabbed both the fingers and grinned.

"Ah, choose." I frowned.

Whenever our parents left us alone, I hung out with my friends longer or watched movies past midnight. But I had to deal with Gaurang's nonsense too. The other time we were alone, he called over one of his friends to 'complete an urgent assignment'. They asked me to get whatever I needed for a few hours and then shut the bedroom door.

An hour later when I wanted a sanitary napkin from our bedroom, the boys were playing a game on their phones and there were no books lying around! Gaurang noticed the questions on my face and said, "We're taking a break." I'm pretty sure they'd been on a break since shutting the door while I slogged in the kitchen cooking our lunch.

Both of us had our vacations when Aai and Baba left for Nashik. There was no way he could've escaped with academic excuses. After a hearty lunch, Gaurang and I hung the washed clothes on the balcony clothesline, did the dishes and swept the house. So far, so good.

Later in the evening, Gaurang called me from the living room. I told him to come to our room. On our laptop, I was busy searching for the best coaching classes for medical entrance exams.

With reluctant slapping of his feet, he entered the room.

"I'm starving, let's go."

I looked at the wall clock. "It's nine already! Wait, I'll get ready."

I wore a white t-shirt over denim capri pants. It took a moment for me to close the zip. It was getting tighter every week. I clicked my tongue and grabbed my sling bag off the hook behind our bedroom door.

Gaurang stood in the corridor waiting for the elevator while I shut the inside door.

Gaurang

"How could you forget the keys?" I slapped my forehead.

"I don't know. I remember dropping them in my bag." Bhavika rummaged through her sling bag.

"Ah! Check once again else we'll have to call the locksmith."

Bhavika shook her head. "I think I forgot them."

Bad things happen precisely when you don't want them to happen. I called the locksmith to hear his excuses for having dinner and reaching late. I glanced at my wristwatch. The display showed 9:53 in neon digits. The contest I had participated in had a deadline of 10:30 PM. Procrastination punishes you when you least expect it. I should've completed my work on time and submitted it. If I didn't get inside the house before 10:30 pm, I'd lose my chance to submit the design I'd been working on for a month and lose half the pocket money I'd spent to enter the contest.

"How can you be so irresponsible?" I hung up on the locksmith and asked Bhavika.

"Whoa, the key guy is coming, right? What's the big deal?" She frowned and leaned back on a wall next to the elevator. "It's not like you have urgent work to do in the house."

I kept my mouth shut. Arguing wouldn't bring back the key. I bit my nails and stared at the elevator, hoping the door would open with the locksmith popping out. After what seemed like an hour but was only fifteen minutes, the locksmith stepped out of the elevator with a filthy cream bag in his hand. Bhavika was busy scrolling down her phone.

While the locksmith made another key, I walked to and fro in the corridor with hands on my waist. Bhavika grabbed my arm and whispered, "Why are you so restless? Do you want to use the washroom urgently?"

What was I to say? I nodded. Bhavika pursed her lips and let go of my arm. She told the locksmith to speed up. "He urgently wants to use the washroom," she added, as if he needed to know that. I smacked her head. She frowned and poked me in the ribs.

"Yes madam, it's almost done. Here," He showed us a crude steel key and inserted it in the keyhole. The door clinked open.

"Pay him, okay?" I thrust the door open and ran towards our bedroom. When I reached, Bhavika shut the main door and yelled behind me, "Where are you going? Our bedroom doesn't have a washroom."

I locked the bedroom door and grabbed my sketchbook. I rubbed my hands and then worked on the finishing touches of the design. After scanning it, I uploaded it on the website. On seeing that my submission was successful, I let out a sigh. My watch showed 10:27 PM.

"Why haven't you changed your clothes yet?" I opened the door and asked Bhavika. Her face shone in her phone's light.

"What have you been doing?" She tilted her head. "You said you wanted to use the washroom urgently."

I never said that.

I chuckled. "I actually wanted to sleep." I turned around and crawled on the bed.

"Why didn't you say so? You're acting so strange. Who runs away to sleep?" She hung her sling bag behind the door.

I shut my eyes. How long was this to go on? I needed to share this with Bhavika at least. People thought I liked drawing, but they didn't know the drawings were tattoo designs. If Aai and Baba got to know this, I'd be in great trouble.

Bhavika

Gaurang cooked instant noodles for breakfast. He wished me a good morning when I entered the kitchen to drink water. Unlike the day before, he seemed normal. He laughed often and had a good appetite, else he wouldn't have bothered to cook for us.

After eating the super spicy noodles(Gaurang used the entire spice mix packet!) I gulped down water and began working on the lunch. I wanted to finish all the household chores as soon as possible and tuck in my bed to start watching a web series Sandhya had suggested.

"Gaurang! Can you please wash the dal while I cut the vegetables?"

"Actually," He entered the kitchen, slapping his feet on the floor. "Karan's grandfather passed away just now. He called me. I'll visit him and get back, okay?"

"When will you come?" I washed the chopping board.

"I'll get back by lunch time, don't worry."

When I turned around, he was gone. So I had to dry the clothes and cook the lunch all by myself. Great.

Once I was done with everything, I sank into the sofa and scrolled through my social media. Karan's story caught my attention. It was a picture of a video game scoreboard.

The text on it read : "Broke our previous record. Time to create new history." With two golden stars next to it.

So, this guy was playing video games while his grandfather had barely reached the cemetery. When I zoomed into the picture, Karan's gaming partner's name glowed in a corner. It was Eagle_Star; it was Gaurang.

Gaurang

I hate lying but I had no option. Household chores suck the life out of you. I had to kill Karan's dead grandfather to sneak out of the house. As I'd promised, I reached home by lunchtime. Bhavika opened the door and plodded towards the sofa. Our living room with pistachio-colored walls looked pale orange with the sunlight struggling in through the drawn curtains.

Bhavika rested her head between her hands.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked her and shut the door behind me.

She looked up with swollen eyes. Had she been crying? Did she know I sneaked out on purpose? Oh, shit.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." I sank onto the sofa, next to her.

After a moment, she let out a sigh and showed me her phone.

"Who is this?" I read a mean comment on Bhavika's photo she'd posted the day before. Someone called 'skullheaded_77' said she was fat despite being a volleyball player and said some more nonsense after that. I can't say that.

"He's a friend's friend."

"Have you reported it?"

She nodded.

"Why do I have to tolerate this? My body is naturally plump, what can I do?" she sobbed.

"Hey," I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. "Don't take him seriously. He's dumb. Look at his profile name." I pointed to the screen. "Every human being has a skull, you idiot."

Bhavika smiled weakly.

"Listen, people will say all sorts of things about your body, but you need to ignore them. People call me a skeleton or say I'd blow away during a storm because I'm skinnier than most people. Do I let that affect me? No, right?"

I couldn't tell her I just know how to hide my emotions better. Bhavika nodded and wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.

"People have a problem if you're fat; they have a problem if you're skinny. That's the way things are. You need to stay strong. You didn't cry when your leg got fractured and you couldn't play volleyball for two months and now you're crying over some idiot's comment? You know you are stronger than this." I rubbed her back.

"Thanks," She patted my thigh. "You can be quite mature at times, can't you?" She smiled. My little lady was back to normal. She sat in silence for a while rubbing her eyes.

"Gaurang, when you can act responsibly, why don't you do it every time?"

"Huh?"

She showed me her phone again. It was Karan's story. That idiot.

"I'm sorry," I began, embarrassed after that responsible-elder-brother-speech. "All these months while you were preparing for the board exams, I helped out Aai in the kitchen and did other chores. The boredom was killing me. I wanted to stay away from all that as much as possible."

"You helped Aai?"

"Obviously."

"Cutting a carrot or a potato twice a week or drying half of the clothes doesn't count as help. I did more. Always."

"But--"

"Do you ever feel guilty when you don't do a household chore? I do. As if it were my sole responsibility. Aai and Baba never discriminated between us but when it came to chores, they weren't any better than conservative parents."

"I did as much as I could. I don't like doing those things--"

"I don't like household chores either but I have to do them. Sometimes you need to do things you don't like, Gaurang. For others, you need to. Have you ever thought why I'm a better cook despite being younger than you?"

When was the last time she'd bubbled with such anger? The nostrils of her smooth nose twitched.

"Don't worry, I'll...help you more from now onwards. Calm down." I rubbed her back again. She nodded.

Bhavika wiped her cheeks and after a moment said, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped that way. It's just that these thoughts have been hovering in my mind for a while now. The last time Aai and Baba left us alone, you did the same thing, didn't you?"

"No. We did work for a while... before playing. I'm sorry, okay? Won't happen again, I promise."

Aai never really encouraged me to help her out in the kitchen like she encouraged Bhavika. Naturally, I wasn't inclined towards cooking. Had our involvement been equal right from our childhood, I probably wouldn't have had to see her flushed face that day. Maybe I could try to fix things now, bit by bit.

Bhavika gulped down water from a bottle and shut its cap. "By the way, I showed your drawing to Sandhya. She loved it and said it would look great as a back tattoo."

Wait, what?

I frowned and said, "How...why did you show it to her? And what about tattoos, what did she say?"

"You didn't keep your sketchbook inside the cupboard before sleeping. I took a picture of the drawing and sent it to her. She said it looked like a tattoo because of the intricate abstract patterns and vibrant colours."

Hiding things after this would've been in vain. What if she told Aai and Baba? But I couldn't keep it inside me anymore.

I let out a sigh and said, "It is a tattoo design."

Bhavika pouted slightly and frowned, "What do you mean?"

"All my drawings are tattoo designs. It's a bit difficult to imagine them as tattoos since they are essentially drawings. I don't know how Sandhya imagined it to be a tattoo. Maybe I've done a good job."

"Then why didn't you say so? Everybody assumes you like drawing. You never clarify--"

"Because I can't. Aai and Baba won't like it. They won't accept it."

"Why won't they? You aren't doing anything shameful or illegal."

Let the eagle out of the bag!

"When we first moved into this house, our neighbor was a huge guy with strong biceps. Baba and I first met him in the elevator. There was an eagle looking sideways on his left bicep. In the background, a deep blue sky had white stars, and shooting stars with pinkish purple tails behind them. I had never seen anything like it before. I almost tapped on a star. He smiled and asked me if I liked it. I grinned and nodded. He told me it was a tattoo. Once we came out of the elevator, Baba muttered how 'some people ruin their bodies with such things'. I knew then that tattoos aren't normally acceptable. Other people had them. But you can't crush the spirit of a seven-year old boy with such thoughts. I started drawing on my hands and feet. I drew bigger designs: snakes, dragons, skulls, abstract stuff. Aai would shout at me for drawing on my body. So I started drawing on paper instead. You were young and stupid, so you never really paid attention to what was happening."

"I was young but not stupid," Bhavika chuckled and hit my arm. "So you don't draw on your body anymore?"

"I do, but only on my thighs and then I make sure not to wear shorts for a while. See?" I pulled up my track pants and showed her a dragon design on my thigh.

"Ooh! This is so cool."

"Aai and Baba always thought I was fascinated with drawing, not tattoos. They thought tattoos were a mere distraction. So they were kind of relieved when I stopped drawing on my body and used paper instead."

"But you'll have to tell them at some point, right? You can't hide this forever."

"I know. That's why I'm trying to prove my credibility. The design you sent to Sandhya? It was a submission for a contest. It's deadline was 10:30 PM yesterday."

"Is that why you were in such a hurry to get inside the house?"

I grinned. "Yes."

Bhavika laughed. "Wow, I never thought you'd be obsessed with tattoos, of all things."

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. Talking about tattoos to Bhavika was weird. It was like walking in a new pair of shoes; it'd take time for me to get used to it.

Bhavika

It's strange how we assume we know the people around us, yet don't know them well enough. I wanted to shout at the top of my voice that my brother was a tattoo genius but if I did that, he'd have fractured my leg.

The next day, I found Gaurang chopping potatoes for lunch.

"Are these small enough?" he pointed at the pieces.

I gave him a thumbs up. My phone blared in our bedroom. It was Aai.

"Hello, Aai. How's Aaji?"

"She's stable now and will be discharged soon. We're leaving today, hopefully, we'll reach by evening but that depends on the traffic. Let's see."

"Oh, nice. By the way, Aai, Gaurang makes..."

What on earth was I doing?

"Makes what?"

"Uh...makes good noodles. They were spicy but it's okay to have them once in a while. It was fun."

Aai asked me about what we'd eaten for other meals, told us to pay the maintenance bill and then hung up. Oh, how I would've regretted blurting it out!

I entered the kitchen and tapped on Gaurang's shoulder.

"Hey, should we have some secret code between us to remind me of your tattoo thing? I was about to spill it out to Aai."

Gaurang raised his eyebrows, stirring the potatoes in the spices with a steel spoon.

"Just remind yourself of how bad another leg fracture would feel like." He grinned.

"Haw! You should stop playing those violent games. But seriously, there's a pretty good chance I might spill it out."

"Taste this." Gaurang picked out a hot potato piece and placed it on my palm. "I'll blink hard at you or clap loudly once if you say something, okay?"

"Okay. This needs more salt." I chewed at the surprisingly well cooked piece. "But what if you aren't around?"

Gaurang sprinkled some salt and stirred the potatoes. "Like I said, remind yourself of the fracture."

I hit him on the arm and sat on the opposite counter with my legs crossed, laughing. A sense of relief washed over me, but an inkling of worry gnawed at the back of my mind. How long would we help each other out before things got back to the way they were? Permanent and drastic changes didn't happen in real life; I'd watched enough movies to know that.

By Sakhi Dayanand Gundeti