Someone Like You (3 page)

‘Where are we going now?’ I ask Simran as the auto zips through the afternoon traffic. Simran turns a deaf ear to my questions and instead complains about how we should have taken the metro instead. Beads of sweat dampen our brows and streak down our cheeks.

‘We are going shopping,’ she finally answers me, when I repeat the question the fifth time.

‘But I have clothes,’ I mutter in protest.

‘I don’t think so, Niharika. What you have is junk. You’re going to college this year. And I want my sister to be the hottest girl on campus. All the guys will love you.’

‘I can live without that happening,’ I say, but she ignores me and continues, deep in her own thoughts.

‘Though … I don’t want you to fall for the wrong guy. You’re too naïve.’

‘At least I will let you know if I fall for someone there,’ I say and hope she gets the snide remark.

‘I was about to tell you, but you are such a drama queen. I thought you might tell mom,’ she says. ‘And you know how mom reacts.’

Yes, I know how Mom reacts but that can’t be her reason. I would never rat her out to our Mom and she knows that.

‘I would have told Mom?’ I ask.

‘Actually … I wasn’t sure myself.’

I can understand. Viraat, in the few minutes I spent with him, seemed like a really warm and a nice guy. But standing next to my near-perfect sister and her friends, he stuck out like a sore thumb. He was barely five nine, had terrible skin and was not the fittest of guys I have seen. He was far from perfect. The first time I saw both of them together, his hands holding hers, I was shocked and disappointed. Not because my sister had hidden it from me, but because I had always thought she would date someone much better-looking.

‘Did you like Viraat?’ she asks softly.

‘He is sweet, Simran.’

She pauses a little and says, ‘I know what you’re thinking. You think that he is not good-looking or physically attractive. I know that. But he loves me, Niharika.’ The look on her face confuses me. Her lips quiver like a little child and she is blushing like a school girl who is in love for the first time.

‘I think he is okay,’ I say, not knowing what to say.

‘He is more than okay; he is amazing. He makes me feel so special and wanted. Niharika, finally I feel like I am into something real, something that is beyond just holding hands and spending time together. I love him for everything he says and the way he treats me. He is such a nice person that it’s almost unreal. When I first heard about his feelings for me, I was almost disturbed that he even thought that he had a chance to date me. But he was persistently so sweet to me, that I couldn’t help it. My friends still don’t understand it, but I am so freaking obsessed with him. I am embarrassed by how much I love him and I am surprised by how much he loves me. I don’t care what people think, I just love him truly and completely,’ she says with tears in her eyes.

I hold her hand and she comes forward and hugs me. It seems like she had been waiting to say what she just did but she didn’t find anyone to pour her heart out to.

‘I am so happy for you,’ I say and find tears in my eyes too.

‘You know what—I hope every day that you find someone like Viraat too. Someone who treats you the way you should be treated. And that’s why we need some new clothes for you,’ she says and asks the auto driver to pull up.

Finally, after an hour and half of sweating profusely in the back of the autorickshaw and cursing the weather and the driver in equal measure, we have reached Saket—the southern part of Delhi—where a few new malls have come up. We walk in and are relieved as the conditioned air hits our faces.

‘Gosh, it’s so hot out there. I need something to drink,’ I declare and look around.

‘Come, let’s sit here,’ Simran says and points to a Barista inside the mall. It’s a Saturday and the mall is crowded to the brim with people of all ages and sizes flocking to every outlet inside it. The waiter tells us that there is a fifteen-minute waiting time, but Simran charms him into giving us a table before anyone else. She then finds some magazines and asks me to go through them.

‘Are you serious? You want me to read this?’ I protest.

‘Of course! You have a problem?’ Simran asks.

‘This is … uh … I don’t … I don’t read all this,’ I say, pointing to the cover page of one of the magazines, which has a picture of a semi-nude, super-thin, glossy-looking actress and says
‘The No. 1 Sex Move He Craves—Dare To Do It. You Won’t Regret It!’

‘Grow up!’ Simran laughs at the look on my face and says, ‘Here—read these. Just skip the relationships segment and concentrate on fashion. Observe and learn.’

She pushes some magazines—ranging from
Cosmopolitan
,
Verve
,
Marie Claire
and
Bazaar
to some whose names I cannot even pronounce—towards me. She points out hairstyles, colour
combinations, and options for shoes, and I stare at them all, mouth agape. The girls in the magazines are pretty and their clothes are even prettier. The kind of clothes Simran wears. Even today, she is in a yellow summer dress that ends at her knees and she looks beautiful in it. But these are also the kind of clothes I do
not
wear. I want to, but I’m afraid I would end up looking stupid in them.

‘But Simran, I can’t wear all this,’ I say and dig into the chocolate pastry we had ordered. If there is one thing that I have come to love in Delhi, it’s the food. It’s amazing and no matter where you go, something awfully delicious will find its way to your mouth.

‘Yes, you can wear all this,’ Simran insists. ‘See, most of the clothes here are for models and really skinny people. You are skinny and you can look prettier than these models here. For now, we will buy you something toned down and once you’re used to it, we will buy the more outrageous and outlandish clothes. But yes, we do have to get you a dress.’

‘I am not sure.’

‘You’re never sure. Screw the pastry, let’s go to a salon now,’ she says and pays the bill. The charmed waiter makes sure the card is swiped and the slip is signed swiftly. We leave Barista and my heart aches for the unfinished pastry—a little piece of heaven—that I had been forced to leave behind.

As she drags me out from the coffee shop and onto the escalator, I ask, ‘Why a salon?’

‘When you look into the mirror in a beautiful dress, more often than not, you’re looking at your face and not the dress. Yes, the dress matters, but the face matters more. We need to get you tidied up. And trust me—cleaning eighteen years of dirt takes time.’

My protests that it will not help my cause are turned down. Simran is absolutely confident and very persuasive, as
usual. On the third floor of the mall, there is an upmarket salon where we are going to spend the next three hours. I don’t get what she says to the person—equipped with a belt that has twenty different types of clips and scissors hanging from it—but I can make out a few words.

Desperately needs a wash … cut it in layers … make the eyes pop out … blow dry … re-do eyebrows … hideous … nails … clean up … beautiful … ugly …

The details of what happened inside the salon are painful to recall now. My face is sore and warm and it pains near the eyebrows and the nose. I don’t know as yet whether it’s worth it, but every time I pass a mirror it’s like a different person stares back at me. My eyebrows look like they have been hand-sketched, my complexion looks at least three shades fairer and my hair is now tangled into a beautiful mess with keratin and hair wax. I can smell how good I smell.

I look
beautiful
! This is the first time I am using that word for myself.

‘See? You love yourself, now, don’t you?’ Simran asks, catching me lingering around a mirror for a little too long.

‘But didn’t you say I didn’t need to do all this?’ I ask her. ‘That I was comfortable in my own skin and I didn’t need make-up.’

‘Yes, I said that, but don’t you like yourself better now?’ she asks with a smirk, and puts her arms around me from behind. I look at our reflections in the mirror and I have tiny tears at the corners of my eyes.

‘Simran,’ I say, ‘we look like sisters.’ I smile and look up at her, like a child needing assurance. ‘I look nice?’

‘Yes, you do. But to look like sisters, we need to get you out of your rotten jeans and show off a little bit of your legs.’

‘I have never worn anything like that. Or like what you’re wearing,’ I say, as I turn red in the face thinking of what it
would feel like to slip into a dress. Though, I have to admit I am also a little excited thinking of it.

‘Do you hate me for taking you to the salon?’

‘No, not at all,’ I say and look into the mirror again. My heart starts to beat faster again; it feels like my first real moment of loving myself. My hair looks fabulous and I can’t take my eyes off it.

‘Then, trust me. It will be good,’ she says and drags me behind her.

She takes me to shop after shop, brand after brand, not asking me to try on anything. I am thankful for that but I am sure she will start doing that soon. Meanwhile, I start to bombard her with questions about whether my complex hairstyle will stay as it is when I wake up tomorrow. About how frequently I will have to visit the salon. And what I will have to say when I go to one. Slowly and steadily, I start spending more time in front of every mirror that we pass by. As we flit from shop to shop, I notice more than a few eyes on me … on us. It feels nice. Simran, occasionally, bends over and whispers, ‘
He was looking at you
.’

And I begin to think to myself, ‘Yes, he should.’

Finally, we reach a
Forever 21
showroom that Simran has been talking about all morning. The clothes are inexpensive and very trendy, just like what I am
not
used to wearing. Simran frantically starts picking up tops, skirts and everything she can get hold of and dumps them on my shoulder. Occasionally, she shrieks, ‘We
HAVE
to get this!’ and everyone starts staring at us. I pick up a few things too, but Simran doesn’t approve of them.

A little later, with a pile of clothes on my arms and shoulders, we head to the changing room and I ask Simran to stand right in front of my door. I don’t want to scamper across the entire floor of the shop to look for her in a silly dress.

I try on a pink and blue floral dress that ends just above my knees. I wear it and stare at myself in the mirror. My cheeks flush and I start to blush as I look at myself. I feel … I can’t describe how I feel. It’s like I am born again as a different person, in a matter of four painful hours. It’s an amazing feeling. I leave the changing room, my head in a whirl and look at Simran, ‘How’s it?’

‘You know what, Niharika? I am almost jealous. My sister is the only girl in the whole of Delhi, who is prettier than me,’ she comes and hugs me.

I don’t know why but I have tears in my eyes. I don’t remember the last time I was as happy as I am now. As we hug, I see other girls look at us. They don’t look pleased, and Simran whispers in my ears, ‘I’m proud of you. You’re going to make
so
many girls jealous of you.’

I can already see that happening. I know now what blind people feel like when they first open their eyes to a new world, or a crippled person when he or she walks for the first time. I spend hours changing into every dress, every skirt, and every top Simran has chosen for me and keep staring at myself in the mirrors from every angle. I feel a little silly, but today is the first day when I don’t hate the physical form I have been given. For the first time in my life, I can say that—I feel
blessed.

We leave the shop and try out some other clothes and buy what we like. Simran even shoots a few appreciative glances at the clothes I choose. The last stop is the shoe store where she makes me try everything. The clothes were easier to pick and I was getting a hang of it but choosing shoes is tough. Simran almost shouts at me when I picked up a
supposedly
hideous pair of red shoes.

Also, trying out clothes is easy, while shoes are actually painful. Especially since Simran doesn’t let me put on anything that has heels less than three inches high. She makes me
wear stilettoes with outrageously tall and thin heels and makes me walk around in them all around the store. On one occasion, I almost fall and end up making a fool of myself. But when I look at her, she doesn’t seem embarrassed by the way some people turn to stare at us. She just helps me regain my balance and flings the stupid pumps away. And that’s why I love my sister.

‘I think we are done,’ Simran says an hour later and pays the bill. It’s already eight in the evening and every part of my body is hurting. I can go on for another seven lives shopping, but I am sure we are out of cash by now. We have already spent all our savings from our pocket money, and Simran hasn’t got a single article of anything for herself. I have the biggest smile on my face and she notices it. It’s not just about how she made me feel about myself, it is also about how she made me feel about
us
. I finally feel like I can stand next to her and not wallow in self-pity. I owe it all to her and she knows that. I don’t think we have hugged or laughed or smiled as much as we did today.

Truly, sisters are your best friends ever. And also—shopping, of course.

Just as we cross a shop that has t-shirts with little slogans on them, I stop Simran and ask her if I can get another t-shirt. She disapproves of the colour but still lets me buy it.

The t-shirt says in big, white, bold letters,
‘I LOVE ME’.