Catching up
The night the charge sheet was filed, Radha and Shyla went out for dinner. Not to celebrate, both were too experienced for that, too aware of how long the trial would take, how many appeals there would be, but because they had earned a meal that was not eaten at a desk.
They found a small South Indian restaurant near Lajpat Nagar that served filter coffee in steel tumblers and made a bisi bele bath that tasted, Shyla said, pretty much as good as her mother’s. They sat in a corner booth and they talked. Really talked, for the first time, not about the case, but catching up on the twenty years between their dream pact and really achieving it.
“Tell me about your life, Radha,” Shyla said.
“Tell me about AIIMS, and everything else. We have so much to catch up on.” Radha said.
So they did. They talked about the terror of the first competitive examination, the loneliness of hostel life in a city where nobody spoke your language, the moment you realised you had become something that the girl on the BTS bus with the student pass had only dreamed of being.
“I thought about you when I cracked the UPSC,” Radha said. “I wanted to tell you. I actually wrote you a letter. Then I didn’t know where to send it to.”
“I thought about you when I did my first independent post-mortem,” Shyla said. “I thought, Radha would have so many questions right now.”
“I would have.” Radha wrapped both hands around her steel tumbler. “Did your parents come around? About forensics, I mean. After medicine, about the CBI work?”
Shyla was quiet for a moment.
“They worried, always. Appa took years to stop saying ‘a girl in a morgue’ like it was a tragedy. But they let me choose. Eventually.” She smiled. “Amma understood first. She said the dead need advocates too. And Appa is a cardiologist. Once I explained the forensic pathology of cardiac events to him in detail, he became rather invested.”
Radha laughed. ‘And yours?’, asked Shyla.
“Appa cried at my passing-out parade,” Radha said. “Which I will never let him forget. He still calls investigation work ‘not suitable for women’ sometimes, but then he calls me to discuss his old cases. I think he is proud. He just cannot bring himself to say it in those exact words.”
“Our parents,” Shyla said, “pushed us in every direction except the one we actually we wanted to go in. And then we reached there anyway!”
“Yup, we are here,” Radha said.
They ordered a second filter coffee each. The restaurant was emptying. Outside, Delhi’s traffic had reduced to a late-night murmur.
“Neither of us knew the other was in Delhi,” Shyla said. “We were in the same city.”
“Invisible to each other,” Radha agreed. “Until a murder case made us visible.”
“Rajiv Mehta would be horrified to know he facilitated a friendship reunion.”
“Good,” Radha said firmly. And then, after a pause, more softly, “I missed you. I want you to know that. I thought of you often.”
“Me too,” Shyla said simply. “Me too. Now that we know we are both in Delhi, we should catch up regularly. I’m really so happy to see you, Radha.”