Nidhi

Nidhi’s parents had been looking forward to her birthday all year. And she herself, more than on other years, had also been looking forward to her birthday.

They lived in Siliguri, a city which billed itself the gateway to the north east, in a tall high rise off the main thoroughfare of that city. As was typical of Indian high rises before the glasnost of the economic liberalisation of the 90s under Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, most people who lived in those buildings spoke the same language as Nidhi’s family and engaged in trade the same as Nidhi’s father. Most families around her had stay-at-home moms just like her own.

Nidhi was the second of three girls in her family. As such, she was her dad’s son by proxy. It fell on her to move almirahs or fix the clogged sink or make a run to the corner shop to grab some biscuits if they happened to receive unexpected visitors.

Her birthday this year fell a day after the end of meditation camp Nidhi was planning to attend.

This camp was extremely rigid in its rules of conduct for attendees which not only meant no intoxicants, no coffee, and complete abstinence but also a vow of total silence - of zero verbal and nonverbal communication bar a very limited set of allowed circumstances.

So, her friends had been put on notice to organise the right sort of birthday party birthday to undo the pious excesses of the meditation camp.

This was going to be her first birthday at home after turning 22 and starting her life as an adult. When she quit her job and moved back home, her parents put on a brave face but when they each woke up with a start in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep, they each wondered what was going to happen with her. This birthday was going to be a break from all this worry, a time for home baked cake and store bought ice cream and a single candle because the cake was too small and too dry to hold her actual age in candles.

Nidhi’s father met her at the camp so she wouldn’t have to travel alone in an intercity bus back home.

The bus ride home took four hours. Nidhi spent the hours looking through photos of the camp and responding to people asking how she was going to keep her meditation practice going.

She had little to say to her father and his questions were answered with a stilted formality born out of decades of learning to love her mother and respect her father. They both knew that her mother would ask the right questions and get the heartfelt answers. And they both hoped her mother would share enough information in both directions to minimise any large gaps in knowledge.

Her father spent the bus journey talking to the bus driver about the logistics of driving a bus across the hills on terrible, monsoon ravaged roads. They commiserated over the ineffective state government and corrupt police. They argued over the prospects of their local football team but everyone agreed that the new kid, Gunia, was going places.

The bus stopped about a 10 minute walk from their apartment. They made their way home silently.

As they walked through the gates, a trio of girls screamed, “Happy Birthday, Nidhi Didi!” Nidhi beamed and hugged each of the girls in turn and then touched the feet of their mother. The same process repeated itself a few more times - kids shouting their welcome and Nidhi touching their mother’s feet. A few women also got a hug because Nidhi was fond of them. They asked her about the camp and promised to take the details from her mother. They were all so very proud of her for finishing this difficult sit.

As the lift rose their apartment, Nidhi started planning her escape. She would bolt down a slice of her mom’s very dry cake and promise them answers for their questions about the camp but she had to get out to the outskirts of the city where her friends had rented a duplex for the night. There would be weed, cigarettes, and spicy street food. There would be lots of conversations deep into the night. She hoped but didn’t expect to see him at her birthday party. Her friends hated him more than her.