Chapter Six

Day Three: Sunrise at India Gate

By this time, you girls are probably annoyed with me for making you get up early each day but a sunrise is something that you shouldn’t take for granted. India Gate is the best place to view the sunrise in Delhi. Just once, for me, stand still and watch a new day beginning. Think of all the new days you have left, and reflect on how you will choose to spend them.

There was a folded note on the floor between the door and the bathroom. In her bleary still-waking-up state, Jezmeen spotted it but could not summon the energy to get out of bed to pick it up. “What is it?” she mumbled into the empty room. Then she caught a whiff of her putrid breath.

“Ah, shit,” she said, sinking back to bed. She rolled to her side and patted around for her phone to check the time. Now she could guess what the note said and who had written it. She had foggy recollections (she thought they were dreams) of being woken by knocking this morning, answering the door, and fabricating a very believable food-poisoning story. The “I can’t keep anything down” portion of the story was based on real events anyway. “I’ll join you guys later. I know how to get there,” she’d said with what she assumed was a confident smile. She now realized that one whiff of hangover fire had probably been enough to send her sisters scuttling down the hallway. She could bet anything that the note contained some chastisement on how poorly she had managed to impersonate a sober person.

An empty bottle of wine had rolled across the television console and remained precariously on its edge. Jezmeen appreciated that her dwindling bank account stretched much further here than in London. It made last night’s room-service orders seem sensible and almost thrifty. She had spotted a bottle shop on the way back from the market last night but it was dank and shadowy and when she approached, a line of men lifted their eyes to meet hers and she lost her nerve.

Years ago, she’d read a news article about an Indian politician encouraging beatings of women who drank in bars. In response, women all over the country sent pieces of pink underwear to the politician’s office and flooded his email in-box with images of the same. To this day, the politician’s name could not withstand an internet search without hundreds of pictures of lacy pink thongs popping up on the screen. Jezmeen had been thinking about this as she drank straight from the bottle and searched for images of herself last night, pleasure mixing with punishment. It probably explained why she had the oddest dreams of the Arowana fish wearing pink bikini bottoms.

Jezmeen sat up and let her head adjust. She didn’t remember finishing the whole bottle but the fog of this hangover was evidence enough. It was a slow and arduous walk to the door, where she picked up and unfolded the note:

We’re at India Gate. You can join us if you feel like it—Rajni and Shirina.

Not as bad as she expected, although she could practically hear Rajni’s self-importance in the straight edges and sharp points of her print.

It was close to noon. So she had missed the sunrise. Surely she could make it up somehow. There were sunrises every day. She could even go to India Gate now and it would be almost the same, wouldn’t it? There was no reason Mum’s letter had to be followed so exactly.

Jezmeen took a long shower, letting the steam clear her blocked sinuses. She stepped out feeling instantly better—hangover turnaround was a skill that many people underestimated. It enabled her to have a few too many once in a while and still wake up (albeit a little late for worship) and go about the rest of her day. “Some people call that functional alcoholism,” Mark had said to her once with a grin. That dimple-studded grin. He had gone from teasing her lightly to giving her a pointed look every time she poured another glass. She knew she had been drinking more since Mum’s death but didn’t everybody grieve in their own ways?

Jezmeen got dressed and stepped out of the hotel, descending into the mob of people, rickshaws, stray animals, shoe-shiners, students. A scooter honked behind her and as it passed, the driver leaned toward Jezmeen. “So sexy,” he hissed, like it was meant to insult her. “Fuck off,” she retorted, but the blare of engines and the shouts of street vendors drowned out her voice anyway. She wove her way through Karol Bagh market, her head tipped up as if just keeping it above water. Her eyes were trained on the mammoth bridge at the end of this street, where the Metro ran above the city, unobstructed by the mayhem on the ground.

Where were the women? Jezmeen wondered. It wasn’t her first time noticing that Delhi was a city of men, but walking alone made it all the more obvious. Men ran the textile shops, unspooling rivers of sari fabrics across the wide expanses of their counters. The jewelers held out delicate earrings between their thick, calloused fingers. Men clustered at the chai stand outside a small college building, clutching textbooks to their chests. They walked past and deliberately bumped shoulders or dipped their mouths to Jezmeen’s ears, sometimes singing lines from Hindi songs, sometimes muttering filth. Whenever Jezmeen did spot a woman, her face reflected the hardness that Jezmeen realized was in her own expression.

She was already a bit worn by the time she elbowed her way up to the Metro station. Traffic hollered and screeched below her but the noises rose up and followed her toward the platform. From the bridge, she had the best view of Hanuman, the Monkey God, a gigantic statue that towered over the link road and made miniatures of the buildings and trees below it. His hands came together at his chest and his tail curled to the top of his head. Jezmeen couldn’t stop staring but it was the sheer size of the statue rather than its spiritual meaning that captivated her. She wondered how long it took to build something of such scale, and if the builders had intended to make him loom over the city like this, the cars and bicycles skirting around below in a ring of disorder. She supposed it gave a reminder of how small she was, how insignificant, but walking along a crowded Delhi market street already gave her that message loud and clear.

Inside the station, the rush of people followed a slightly more ordered pace under the bright fluorescent lights. Central Secretariat station was only a few stops away, with a change.

A faded pink arrow on the sleek tiled floor indicated where the female-only carriage would line up with the platform. Jezmeen followed the arrow and found herself in the presence of a large group of women. It occurred to her that this was the first time since coming to India that she had seen so many women. A pair wearing kurti tops over stylish tight jeans were deep in conversation. Snippets of chatter filled the air.

“I mean, it’s selfish, don’t you think?”

“Not if she didn’t agree first, but these companies do that kind of thing.”

“She didn’t sign a contract or what?”

“They’re saying it’s void because she joined after the fact . . .”

Jezmeen’s gaze wandered over the other women standing alone. Many were staring at their mobile phones, their lips curling into small smiles as their messages appeared. A middle-aged lady wearing a sari dragged a shopping trolley behind her. Plastic bags poked out of the grilles. When the train arrived, she hauled her goods into it, shooting a weary look at the others who piled past her.

Being in the carriage was such a relief after the short walk to the station. Her memory drifted back to their first day in India, when Rajni warned her about the effect her revealing clothing would have. But why did the women have to be sequestered like this just because the men couldn’t control themselves?

The train glided into the next station and the doors slid open. Young women—students, Jezmeen thought—piled into the carriage and something changed in the atmosphere. Their voices trilled and they called out to each other. The other women looked up and shifted, some turning up the volume on their phones. Many of these new passengers were wearing matching T-shirts. Jezmeen struggled to read the print across their chests in the crowded carriage, but from eavesdropping, it seemed they were headed to India Gate too, for some sort of event.

A girl in a tight purple T-shirt and ears studded in tiny rings stepped back as the train jostled, her foot landing on Jezmeen’s. She tossed her head back and said, “Sorry,” and then her eyes lingered. There was a flash of recognition in them. She whispered to a friend standing next to her, who shot Jezmeen a glance as well. Jezmeen began to feel queasy—what if they knew her from the video? She could hear the snickers of those nasty boys from the temple. She pulled her sunglasses out of her bag and popped them on. Behind these wide tinted lenses, she was a little less recognizable.

When the train arrived at their destination, the T-shirted women poured out and the others who weren’t with them dispersed, hurrying along to their lives. This loosening of the crowd allowed Jezmeen to see what was written on their backs: WOMEN’S RIGHTS MARCH.

She could see the writing on their placards as well now: NO BODY DESERVES THIS and END RAPE CULTURE, SAVE OUR CULTURE.

The woman in the purple T-shirt turned to look at Jezmeen again. The corners of her lips turned up in a small smile. “Are you . . . Polly Mishra?”

Jezmeen nodded miserably before she realized that the girl had said the wrong name.

“I knew it!” The girl’s face brightened and she thumped her friend on the arm. “I told you it’s really her. Polly Mishra!”

Her friend grinned. “Oh shit,” she said. “Who got you?”

“Hmm?” Jezmeen asked.

“Was it Sunayana? She’s always pulling surprises like this. Last year, she got Priyanka Chopra to send a tweet about our Slut Shame Walk.”

Jezmeen shook her head. She wanted to tell them that they had the wrong person, that she was not Polly Mishra. But she hesitated for a moment, suspended in the fantasy of being somebody else for the day. (What was Polly Mishra doing right now? Whatever it was, she was certainly having an easier time than Jezmeen these days.) Then the girl in the purple T-shirt let out a hoot. Her noise attracted the attention of the other marchers. “Ladies, listen up,” she cried, linking arms with Jezmeen. “Polly Mishra is here, and she’s joining us for the march!”

A cheer went through the crowd. Jezmeen made sure to keep her sunglasses on. Bashfulness was the way to play this whole identity-stealing thing. There was too much attention on her otherwise, and somebody would out her. The tide of women carried her along to the station’s exit. The girl in the purple T-shirt introduced herself as Sneha. “I’m one of the organizers,” she explained. “This is Anjuli,” she said, nodding at the girl who was next to her. “She went to high school with the victim.”

“The victim?” Jezmeen asked.

Sneha looked at her. “Haven’t you been paying attention to the news?”

Sure, Jezmeen thought with shame. She’d been clicking obsessively on her own name and looking for any headlines, any blog posts or tweets that kept her relevant and afloat in the online world.

“No,” Jezmeen said. “But I’m almost afraid to ask.” It had to be another gang rape, she realized, something horrific enough to inspire this sort of turnout.

“A twenty-year-old was violently attacked by a man in a bazaar last week,” Anjuli said. “She was trying on clothes in the fitting room when he barged his way in. His brother and another shopkeeper held her down—” Anjuli had a delicate face and wide eyes that glistened with anger. Her voice choked on the last words.

Jezmeen’s own eyes became hot with tears. After the bus gang rape in Delhi that made international headlines, she had followed the protests, the wave of feminism that swept across India—students marching, lighting candles, staging sit-ins. We’ve had enough, was the message from these teeming masses of bodies showing their support for the victim and their anger for the injustice. But the reporting afterward stoked her rage to a point where it burned out and she became disillusioned. The rapists’ lawyers had defended their clients by saying that the girl had enticed them by being out at night. A vocal counterprotest group insisted that not all men were rapists and that “rape culture” was a gross generalization. And there were more rapes. Either they were reported more, or they were happening more—the difference didn’t matter much to Jezmeen because they were still happening.

Fear struck Jezmeen’s chest as she thought about her own trip to the market with Shirina yesterday. “I’m with you,” Jezmeen said. “I’m here to give my support.” Anjuli nodded and took her hand.

They descended the station’s steps and emerged into the grimy summer atmosphere. Jezmeen squinted against the sunlight and followed the women toward India Gate. Its grand arc was triumphant against the blank, white canvas of cloudless sky. Visitors moved in small masses—the retiree Westerners with tall socks and bulky cameras hanging from their necks, the fresh-faced Indian couples grinning at their phones propped up on selfie sticks. Vendors wove between them, peddling balloons and cheap battery-operated helicopters and bubble wands.

“So I guess you’re in India anyway for some kind of publicity event?” Anjuli asked as they pushed against the burning heat toward the gate.

“I’m here on a holiday of sorts,” Jezmeen said.

“Alone?” Anjuli asked.

“With family,” Jezmeen said.

“For how long?” Anjuli asked.

“I’m only in Delhi till tomorrow morning, then we’re off to Amritsar,” Jezmeen said. “We’re visiting the Golden Temple.”

“It’s divine,” Anjuli said with a smile. “You go to a place like that and you wonder why the whole world can’t be a sanctuary. We’re obviously capable of peace, but only in designated sites.”

The women began to assemble as they arrived in the square’s center. It wasn’t clear where or how the protest would start, but Jezmeen had a feeling she’d know when it began. The tourists and other people seemed aware that something was about to happen. They dispersed with some curiosity and perhaps a little bit of fear? Jezmeen intended to stay back and watch but Anjuli grabbed her hand and with surprising force, pulled her into the center of the circle. A black duffel bag was resting at her feet. She pulled out a flat piece of wood that unfolded into a stand, giving her just enough height to be noticed. The stand gave her confidence. Jezmeen could see her shoulders squaring, her eyes shining. Sneha handed her a loudspeaker and it began.

“WHAT DID SHE DO?” Anjuli’s voice burst across the air. “SHE WAS JUST SHOPPING IN JANPATH MARKET FOR AN OUTFIT.”

Jezmeen surveyed the crowd—the other women were captivated. They nodded as Anjuli recited statistics of sexual harassment claims and gang rape incidents. She went backward in chronological order, from the present day to the 2012 bus gang rape that started these protests. “THESE ARE ONLY THE HIGHLIGHTED INCIDENTS,” she shouted. “THESE ARE ONLY THE REPORTED INCIDENTS. WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING, WHO KNOWS WHEN IT WILL STOP?”

A chant began among the women: “When will it stop?” Sneha led them, pumping her fist into the air. “When will it stop?” Jezmeen found herself saying the words too, her shouts blending with the collective chants so she could no longer hear herself, only this powerful united voice. She looked past the crowd, expecting to see people watching them, joining in, but disappointingly, India continued around them. The traffic crawled, the vendors courted customers, the tourists skirted the edges of the protest, some taking pictures, others maintaining a safe distance.

It was Sneha’s turn now. She stood up on the stand and started reciting statistics—875 women to 1,000 men in Haryana, she shouted. A girl waved a cardboard sign that said NO MORE FEMALE FETICIDE. Honor killings were still happening in rural parts of the country—two girls held a banner high: THERE’S NO HONOUR IN KILLING. The protest seemed to be for all manner of women’s rights in India, and there was so much to fight for. It felt a bit overwhelming, like India itself. Jezmeen felt queasy looking at a placard displaying the bruised and bloodied faces of two village women who had been sentenced to a beating by a tribal court, for adultery. Next to their faces were images of Hindu goddesses, their faces covered in bruises and cuts to make them look like battered women—RESPECT ALL WOMEN THE SAME WAY was scrawled across the top. The tall girl carrying the sign held it high so it could be seen beyond the crowd.

“And we have an international spokesperson here today. Polly Mishra, star of The Boathouse series in the UK, is here to tell us about how domestic violence against women must stop.”

All heads turned to Jezmeen. Sneha was beckoning her to the stand. The crowd parted slightly to let her through. Her heart quickened for some reason. She never got nervous before auditions or experienced stage fright—just a squeeze of anxiety, which she quelled with promises of a drink afterward. Just behave yourself, she told her gut, and there will be rewards. But she was nervous now. She realized that she hadn’t spoken as herself in a very long time.

The crowd was silent as Jezmeen took the loudspeaker. What could she say? There was a sea of expectant faces but they seemed to know everything already—Sneha had given them the statistics and they lived it every day, didn’t they? The teasing on the streets, the checking of their own outfits to see if they might be too arousing, the phone calls to their parents to let them know where they were, the clutching fear when they boarded a bus at night.

“Your experience is more valuable than my words would be,” Jezmeen began. “You women do more battle just walking out your door in one day than I have to do in one year in London.” She shook her head. The words were not coming out the right way. It sounded a little bit like she was chastising them for not living in a place that was better for women.

The crowd seemed to shuffle with restlessness. Jezmeen could hear the car horns and vendors’ shouts in the distance. “When will it stop?” she asked. “When do we decide it’s enough? Do we keep shouting while the rest of India moves on? Do our words mean anything to all these people continuing their daily lives?” She made a great sweeping motion to include everyone. Now they were interested. From where Jezmeen was standing, she noticed a ripple of excitement, as visible as an electric current, traveling through the crowd. The women holding signs straightened their arms to pitch them higher. Anjuli smiled and nodded.

“We’re telling each other about the injustice, but we already know, don’t we? We’re living it,” Jezmeen said, her anger gathering momentum. “Tell them!”

Heads began to turn. The women who started on the outer edges of the crowd were suddenly at its forefront—it was like those dreaded primary school games where everybody lined up and the one at the back was announced the leader. “Tell them!” somebody shouted. “Tell them!” This became the resounding chant of the protest as the women turned their attention on the spectators. Tourists began to nervously put their cameras away and the clusters of people who had stopped in their tracks to watch the women were beginning to disperse. Only one group of onlookers remained rooted in place—men, very much like the ones that Jezmeen encountered on her walk to the station earlier. Scattered on the periphery of the protest, they were suddenly more visible than the rest of the crowd because of their stillness. She had not even noticed them when she and the women arrived, but of course, they were not organized. There was no counterprotest planned, but now that the women were turning toward them, they were afraid, and they found each other somehow.

First it was just a pair of men, who pointed at the women. A few more men joined in, jeering and calling out. They walked toward the crowd, chests puffed out, but their movements were slow and hesitant. The women outnumbered the men, and they knew it.

“Tell them!” one woman shouted, pumping her fist into the air. Jezmeen nodded and joined the chorus. The gaining momentum of this protest was exhilarating—her voice grew hoarse and her skin was slick with sweat but she didn’t want to stop fighting.

“Tell them!” The girl holding the bruised goddess sign threw her arms high into the air. The images caught the attention of the men. Suddenly they were walking faster and shouting louder. Jezmeen wasn’t afraid until she noticed more men coming in from other directions. One of them pointed right at the sign, his cheeks red with fury.

Jezmeen couldn’t understand the men’s words because there was no unity in their response—they hadn’t had time to prepare, after all. But later, she realized she was wrong. Of course they had time to prepare. For years now, women’s protests had been taking place at India Gate and on message boards online, at dinner tables and college campuses. The responses on these men’s faces, now full of rage that topped the fiery glares of the women, had been building up for years.

“Hey, everyone!” Jezmeen shouted. She wanted to call for the crowd to calm down but then it surged like a wave, carrying her along with it. She tripped on another woman’s leg and felt her blouse being grabbed, the fabric ripping loose. In the spaces between, she saw several men running up to the crowd, shouting—they were police officers. The angry mob of men didn’t run away. They shouted and pointed to the women, who shouted back. To Jezmeen’s shock, an officer raised his hand in a threat to hit one of the shouting girls. It was Anjuli, with bared teeth.

As the officers began working their way through the crowd, suddenly they were on top of Jezmeen. “Wait,” she said. “I’m a British citiz—” It was too late. The cops swooped in and led her away.

Oh my god. Oh my god.

Somebody was whispering those words. Jezmeen’s shoulder throbbed from the forceful way the policemen had pinned down her arms and clapped the handcuffs on, even though she hadn’t resisted. Her knees were trembling, and as the van jerked and lurched through the slow-flowing traffic, she felt her stomach churning. The van seemed filled beyond its capacity. Jezmeen could feel the humidity of other breaths all around her. The windows of the van were caged and crisscrossed with wires so Jezmeen had no sense of where they were, or how far they had gone from India Gate. Outside, it had been such a blindingly bright day, but this gauzy view threw the city into muted, frightening shadows.

Oh my god, oh my god.

If Jezmeen knew who was saying that, she’d try to assure her. You were exercising your right to free speech, there’s nothing wrong with that. The police came racing in because they wanted to keep the conflict from getting out of hand. The men who wanted to start a riot were probably arrested as well. She didn’t know if any of this was true, but she was too scared to consider the alternative.

A girl let out a loud, ragged sob when the van came to a final stop. Everybody heard it—Jezmeen sensed the heads turning, instinctively searching for the noise. The fear was palpable; without being able to see or know where exactly they were, they were terrified. They waited for a long time in the darkness of that van before the door rolled open and an officer barked at them to come out. Jezmeen struggled to scoot her way to the door, then crouch and negotiate the step without being able to grasp anything for balance. Once her feet touched the ground, she could feel the tremor in her knees. An officer called out and moments later, the black gates leading to the station yawned open.

The women were made to line up and then file into Tilak Marg Police Station, a low white-brick building that sat behind concrete barricades. Police officers in khaki uniforms and berets milled outside, their rifles slung casually across their waists. Jezmeen avoided eye contact with them, focusing instead on walking as steadily as possible.

Oh my god, oh my god.

Who was saying that? Jezmeen understood the sentiment: she felt as if somebody had pressed pause on her day while she was addressing the crowd less than an hour ago, and hit play on a nightmare instead. Had any of the women expected this?

In the station, things moved quickly. All the women lined up at the front desk and gave their names and details to an officer who recorded them by hand in a logbook. They were asked to surrender their possessions—purses, phones, and jewelry—in large Ziploc bags which were passed down from the front of the line. Jezmeen got to the front of the line before she had to give up her phone. “Am I able to call my consulate?” she asked. Even her voice sounded foreign to her here. “I’m a British citizen.”

The officer looked up. He had thick eyebrows and a mustache that nearly covered his top lip. “Name?” he asked.

“Jezmeen Shergill,” she said, her voice more level than she felt inside. She heard a ripple of murmurs from the women behind her as they realized she wasn’t Polly Mishra.

“Quiet,” the officer called over Jezmeen’s shoulder. “Your passport?”

“I don’t have it,” she said. “It’s back in my hotel. I’ve got a picture of it on my phone, though.”

Static and muffled commands burst from the transistor radio on the officer’s desk. He picked up his walkie-talkie and muttered something back. “Could I just use my phone for a minute? I could get the picture from there.”

The officer nodded and returned to his call. Jezmeen took out her phone and went straight to her contacts list. Rajni. She sent her a text in all caps:

“RAJ I’M IN JAIL NOT A JOKE SEND HELP PLEASE. TILAK MARG POLICE STATION. CALL CONSULATE.”

She pressed send and shot a look at the officer. He waved her over to one side and called up the next woman in line. Jezmeen found her passport page in an email she had sent to herself when she was applying for her Indian visa. She showed it to the officer, who took a long time scrutinizing the page and recording all the details before asking for the rest of her possessions to be placed in the Ziploc bag. Then he called out to another officer, who said, “Come with me.”

Entering the hallway, Jezmeen felt the tremor in her legs again. Only when the officer told her to hurry up did she realize she was walking in tiny steps, as if afraid of what might be around the corner. Oh my god, oh my god. The officer showed her to a small room with a flat wooden bench. There were six more women in this room—all of the girls who had been in line before Jezmeen, and more to come. How would they possibly fit them all in here?

“You want to go to the toilet, you have to call for one of the female officers to bring you,” he said, perhaps noticing the way that Jezmeen was shifting her feet. She didn’t have to go to the toilet, though; she was trying to keep her legs from going numb with fear. “Do you know how long—” She didn’t get to finish her question before the officer turned his back and walked away.

Oh my god, oh my god.

Jezmeen realized that the voice was hers.

Once Shirina entered the air-conditioned café, she never wanted to leave. She was slightly embarrassed at how poorly she had taken to the heat this morning, to the sun beating down on her face and the sweat making her hair stick in curlicues to the back of her neck. She had been the one to suggest heading to the nearest shopping mall after their morning of watching the sunrise at India Gate. They didn’t even make it far enough to get to the mall, stopping the driver once they spotted this café in a strip of upscale boutiques and restaurants of Khan Market.

“I want the most iced drink they have,” Rajni said, staring at the menu. “In fact, I’d pay just to have a tall cup of ice to rub on my forehead.”

Shirina ordered a crushed-ice fruit drink and found a pair of plush armchairs by the window. Again, as she sank into the seat, she was so relieved to be sitting that she thought she might never rise again. She closed her eyes and saw patterns of light dancing around in the darkness.

At India Gate, she and Rajni had walked quietly among the early-bird tourists to find the best spot to catch the sun. They batted away the young boys who tried to sell them flimsy plastic toys and selfie sticks, and the ice-cream vendor who rattled off a list of flavors from a lopsided cart. Behind him stood the grand war memorial with the names of fallen soldiers inscribed into sandstone. There was an air of solemnity to the place, even as the city had already begun to stir. Mum had been right about the sunrise here being spectacular—the shifting hues of pink and orange, the wings of black kites swiftly crossing that canvas of changing light, the shimmering sun emerging triumphant despite the haze of the city. Shirina had thought of this item on the itinerary as Mum’s simplest and easiest request but as she watched the day begin, she couldn’t help thinking about Mum’s last moments. Had she written this letter knowing that she would die before the sun came up the next day?

The coffee machine whirred behind the counter nearby. It was normal to feel depleted by the heat; in a way, the sun was a good thing—it gave Shirina an excuse to return to her air-conditioned hotel room, sink beneath the cool sheets, and do nothing for the rest of the day.

Rajni returned and set down her iced coffee on the table. Beads of condensation speckled the plastic cup and dripped onto the table’s surface, forming a perfect ring. She took a sip from her straw and sighed, shutting her eyes. She looked the perfect picture of peace until she voiced her thoughts:

“I wonder what the hell Jezmeen is up to.”

Shirina had no doubt that Jezmeen had found her own way to occupy her time today. She didn’t want to return to the subject of Jezmeen’s truancy again. All the way in the taxi, Rajni had fumed. “What is wrong with her?” she had asked, not looking for a response.

“Let’s just forget about it,” Shirina said. For different reasons, she had been annoyed with Jezmeen as well. She really should know better than to drink like that. It’s disrespectful, she’d said to Rajni, but she was over it now—the heat had compressed her anger into something small and manageable. This morning, Jezmeen’s bloodshot eyes and the stench of stale wine on her breath had reminded Shirina of what her mother-in-law must have seen when she opened the door that night and found her slouched against the taxi driver. She was angry at Jezmeen for making the same mistake over and over again. Surely one time was enough? It was for Shirina.

There was a tapping sound on the glass window. Shirina turned to see a man dressed in slacks which were frayed at the hems and a dress shirt missing buttons. His skin was caked in soot. She met his eyes, two gray, watery pools, and turned away. Within moments, a barista hurried out to the pavement to shoo him away. Shirina watched him slowly shuffle to another shop entrance, where a security guard held his palm up in a stern rejection. If he kept on wandering like this, trying his luck, he’d surely reach a place of some charity—a Sikh temple perhaps.

“Do you think they eventually get shooed away from the gurdwara if they keep showing up, day after day?” Shirina asked.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to be,” Rajni replied, watching the man as well. “But I haven’t noticed many beggars at the temple, even though the city’s teeming with them.”

Inside and outside. The boundary between the temple and the rest of the world—and what was permissible in both spaces—had become a bit clearer to Shirina today. Yesterday, still under the fog of jet lag and fatigue, she hadn’t noticed so much that people were kinder and gentler within the temple walls, more considerate under God’s supervision. They fell into line and waited patiently for their food. They greeted each other with respectful nods. It was at India Gate this morning that she noticed all of these structures dissolving into the chaos of Delhi. Men roamed in hungry packs and whispered “hello” in a way that made it sound like a threat. She and Rajni had held their bags in front of them, aware of how vulnerable they were to being snatched.

Shirina sipped her cool drink and watched well-heeled customers lining up at the counter, repeating their orders over the hissing milk steamer. There was a young couple sitting at the next table. Shirina knew they were newlyweds because the woman’s forearm was nearly completely covered in glittering red bangles. Shirina wondered how she navigated Delhi’s wobbling paths in those spiked heels and then realized that she probably never walked anywhere in them. Outside the café, where the begging man had been standing before, now there was a clear view of the car park and its rows of big, expensive cars.

The couple must have noticed Shirina staring—they stared back, and Shirina felt her face flushing with embarrassment. It wasn’t her first time being caught looking at other couples; she often watched other men and women together and wondered if they were doing something that she and Sehaj should be doing. It was probably an arranged marriage thing, even though she and Sehaj had gotten to know each other online before setting the wedding date. There was some insecurity with wondering how to behave spontaneously. Is this what couples do? she wondered all the time, using other people as reference points. At one point, she became quite addicted to reruns of American sitcoms that featured meddling in-laws. She was relieved to make light of the petty arguments and the disparaging remarks about the daughter-in-law’s cooking. In recent months, whenever Mother enticed her, Shirina was able to smile along to the laugh track that played in her mind.

Shirina looked away and took another long sip of her drink. The shock of the ice made her head throb. “New bride,” Rajni said, nodding at the woman. “I never wore mine.”

“Why not?” Shirina asked.

“They don’t really go with a blazer and a pencil skirt.”

The bangles were incongruous with the woman’s slick denim jeans and tight black tank top, but people here would understand that she was announcing her status as a new bride, rather than overaccessorizing. People here would understand. Shirina felt relief at that thought. It would be nice, not explaining her culture. “I wore mine,” she said. “All twenty-one days.” Each time somebody on the train or in the supermarket gave her a curious look for wearing such ornate jewelry with her everyday clothes, she wished they knew she had a reason for doing so.

Rajni looked surprised. “Really?” She didn’t ask why, but Shirina heard it anyway. She could practically see the question mark hanging in the air. It was the same when she told her sisters that she’d arranged her own marriage through a matrimonial website. Why? They itched to ask. How would she have explained wanting a new beginning—a definition of “family” that was wholesome and content—without insulting them? She didn’t really think she’d find what she was looking for so quickly, but once she registered and created her profile, she saw that there were abundant opportunities to become somebody new. From London to Bangkok to Nairobi to Wellington, there was the thrill of clicking on each potential husband, and the excitement of knowing that she was shaping her own fate. The thrill returned to her every time she saw her bangles.

“I was sad to take them off,” Shirina said. “I could have worn them for much longer.”

“Mum was not pleased that I didn’t wear mine,” Rajni said. “She was also annoyed that my mehndi faded so quickly, because that’s supposed to be bad luck.”

Shirina knew that superstition well from all the online discussions. If your mehndi faded quickly, you would have a cruel mother-in-law. Modern brides joked about it and posted pictures of their stained hands on the arranged marriage forum. “Very accurate—the woman can’t stand my cooking,” one woman posted, with a picture of her faded hands. Lemon, Sugar, and Water! was the title of that thread, inspired by the mixture that brides sprinkled on their hands to keep their mehndi color strong.

“My mehndi stayed dark for a really long time,” Shirina said. She couldn’t help feeling a bit proud. She didn’t even have to use the lemon mixture.

“There are millions of these little sayings about your fate as a married woman,” Rajni said. “I remember all this confusion over which foot I used to step into the house first, because it would determine the course of my relationship with my husband. First I stepped in with my right foot and half the room cried out that I was supposed to use my left. I switched to the left foot and the other half of the room said it was wrong.”

“What happens if you use the wrong foot?”

Rajni shrugged. “Who knows? It’s just one of those superstitions that doesn’t mean anything. The happiness of a marriage isn’t dictated by such arbitrary things. You would know. It’s work.”

Since Shirina got engaged, she noticed that Rajni liked giving her marriage advice. It was one thing they finally had in common, and in Jezmeen’s absence, they were free to discuss their husbands without making her feel left out. Sometimes she opened her emails to find links to articles recommended by Rajni in her in-box: “10 Things That Married Couples Should Say to Each Other and Secrets to a Happy Marriage—Advice from Three Couples Married over 50 Years.” Shirina usually skimmed them, then waited an appropriate amount of time so it would seem like she had paid close attention, and then replied, “This is great!” or “Loved this—so true!”

“Believe me,” Rajni continued. “When you’ve been married as long as I have, you’ll understand. Do you remember that article I sent you about crazy things that couples can do to keep their marriage alive?”

“Yeah,” Shirina said. “I think I stopped reading after wife-swapping came up.”

“That was one of the suggestions?” Rajni asked.

“Don’t you read the articles you send me?”

“I read the first couple of tips. One of them was ‘Don’t talk to each other for forty-eight hours.’ A vow of silence, so you can appreciate each other without conversation.”

“How did that work for you?”

“I heard every other sound, and it drove me bananas. Kabir’s breathing, his phone pinging with notifications. I think we were only four hours into the silence thing when I told him I’d had enough.”

Shirina forced a smile. She was all too familiar with the feeling of being encased in silence in her marriage. Four hours? Try four days.

“Well, I’m relieved that you weren’t suggesting that Sehaj and I become swingers,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be so quick to dismiss those wife-swapping parties,” Rajni said.

Shirina raised an eyebrow. Schoolteacher Rajni and accountant Kabir, a pair of swingers? She almost began to laugh at the thought, then she noticed Rajni peering over her drink, looking a bit offended. “Sorry,” Shirina said. “I knew there were parties like that in the Indian community in London, I just didn’t really . . .”

“You didn’t believe they were for real? Me neither,” Rajni said. “Until I was invited to one.”

“Really? When? By whom?” Shirina couldn’t contain her surprise. At the next table, the couple looked up sharply. She ducked out of their view.

“A friend,” Rajni said. “Meenakshi—remember her from my wedding? Oh, you wouldn’t, of course. You were so young. We’re still good friends. Her younger daughter was born about two weeks after Anil. They used to have playdates together.” Rajni looked wistful. “I thought Anil and Sahiba would make a fine couple one day.”

“There’s still a chance,” Shirina said. Rajni cleared her throat. “Hmm, yes,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. “Anyway, Meenakshi was the one who told me about these holiday houses that Punjabi families book together over the summer. It all looks very innocent but in the evening, when the kids are all tucked away in bed, there’s an agreement between the adults to exchange partners.”

It sounded very organized. Shirina wondered if there was a roster involved, or if everyone was just agreeable to moving from person to person like playing a game of musical chairs. “Were you ever tempted?” Shirina asked. “To see what it was like?”

Rajni shuddered. “I couldn’t imagine switching partners so casually and then going back to my husband after that. Surely the aftermath would be awkward? Not to mention seeing those other people in daylight again.”

“I would think so,” Shirina said.

“Meenakshi said it did wonders for her sex life, though. I listened to her stories. They were pretty wild.” Rajni smiled. “I’ll admit, it made me a bit curious, because things had . . . stagnated a bit.”

“That’s pretty normal, though, isn’t it?” Shirina asked. She was careful to sound casual.

“They say a sexless marriage is when you have it less than five times in a year,” Rajni said. “We had it more times than that.”

Six? Ten? Rajni wasn’t going to give an exact number, of course, but Shirina could also picture her discovering the minimum number on a therapist’s web page and aiming to surpass it to break the threshold and be safe.

“Sexless marriage,” Shirina said. “You’re basically roommates, then.” She measured the incredulity in her tone. This is not something that would happen to me.

“It’s easy to go awhile without it,” Rajni said. “You’re young newlyweds now, so it seems impossible, but life does get in the way. Plus we’d been trying for another child for years and it seemed like all the fun had gone out of it.”

“What did Kabir think of the suggestion?”

“He wasn’t keen,” Rajni said. “Neither was I. Meenakshi didn’t mention it again. I think she was a little embarrassed afterward. I suppose she was quite convinced that I’d say yes. But you wouldn’t believe who brought it up again.”

“Who?” Shirina asked.

“Mum,” Rajni said.

“No,” Shirina said firmly. “Now you’re just making things up.”

“I wish. I’m serious. Mum told me to look into it.”

“How would Mum even know about these things?”

“That was my first question too,” Rajni said. “It turned out that she only had a vague idea of what went on, but somebody had told her that there were parties in East London that married couples credited for spicing up their love lives.”

“She didn’t know what they actually did?” Shirina asked.

“Not really,” Rajni said. “Sometimes I wonder if she thought it was a big prayer circle. All these couples just sitting around and wishing for the spark to reignite.”

Shirina laughed at the image. There was a contemplative look on Rajni’s face. “We quarreled over it,” she recalled.

“You and Kabir?”

“Me and Mum. I was annoyed with her for suggesting that we needed help. I had only confided that we weren’t having much sex anymore because she wouldn’t stop pestering me about having another child. Another son, I should say. Mum had this recipe for some vile concoction of fenugreek tea mixed with soaked dates and herbs. She swore by it, and even said I was more likely to conceive a boy that way. Obviously it didn’t quite work for her.”

“Really?” Shirina asked. Rajni raised her eyes to hers, so she quickly followed up with, “How did the argument end, then? Did Mum just give up talking about it?”

“It took her a while. I decided to focus on my career to take my mind off it all, but when I told her I was going for a principal-track position, she said, ‘Your family isn’t complete yet. Don’t wait too long or there will be a big gap between Anil and his sibling,’ like I wasn’t aware of how weird it was to be an adult and have a younger sister in primary school.”

Rajni’s face was flushed, as if she was still in the throes of the argument. It was strange seeing her so worked up about Mum, when that was usually Jezmeen’s department. Shirina could only remember Jezmeen’s constant fights with Mum—everything had to be challenged, from curfews to what subjects she took in school to how much she wanted to spend at the hair salon. Shirina always situated herself at the periphery of those memories because that was how it was—Shirina at the edge of the room, keeping her distance from conflict, Shirina finding something else to do so she wouldn’t get embroiled in a battle of wills between Jezmeen and Mum or Jezmeen and Rajni. The fact of her existence always made her guilty. Mum and Dad had wanted a boy. Shirina had been their last-ditch attempt at having a son. This, Shirina knew because Mum had told her. “We didn’t need another girl, but God decides these things.” In Mum’s voice, the unmistakable sadness at God’s plans for her family.

“So how did things get better, then? With you and Kabir?” Shirina asked.

“They just sort of picked back up again once we stopped trying so hard. The doctor told us there wouldn’t be any more children and it more or less lifted the pressure.”

“Mum never really talked to me about sex,” Shirina said. It seemed that by the time Shirina became a teenager, Mum had run out of steam. It was as if she had loaded all her advice onto the eldest and hoped it would trickle down somehow. Some things worked in this way—Shirina didn’t have to question issues like curfews and the proper ways to dress and talk; the examples were laid out for her in what Rajni did to please Mum and what Jezmeen did to rebel. The only time Mum alluded to sex was to tell Shirina that she should have children sooner rather than later. “Have sons,” she’d said, perhaps knowing what Shirina’s mother-in-law was like.

“It was the first time she was really open with me,” Rajni said. “I was surprised but I also didn’t want to continue the conversation much further. She started going into that whole yarn about ‘keeping your husband interested, otherwise you’ll lose him,’ and it put me off the conversation totally. It’s not all up to us, is it? I had a job and a son to raise and here’s Mum telling me I have to be a sex goddess as well, or I’d risk my husband leaving me. It was so old-fashioned.”

Shirina felt a familiar urge to defend Mum’s values. She had done the same whenever she and Lauren from work discussed their personal lives. “My mother-in-law thinks I should grow my hair out a bit more,” Shirina once told her. The response was a raised eyebrow. “Do you want to grow your hair out?” Lauren had asked. “Of course I want to grow it out as well,” Shirina had replied. Lauren did not look convinced. There were many conversations like this, Lauren’s tone growing more exasperated and patronizing. Shirina decided not to tell Lauren she was quitting until she handed in her notice and word got around. “Is she making you quit?” Lauren asked, cornering Shirina in the break room. Her voice was full of concern but Shirina didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t need to be rescued. She had written the resignation letter herself, providing no explanations because the Laurens of the world would never understand.

“Do you think Mum would have had an easier time if she had sons?” Shirina asked. “Do you think she would have been happier?”

The question seemed to pain Rajni. She looked out the window and didn’t answer Shirina’s question.

Silence fell between them and the roar of the coffee grinder filled the gap. Shirina wondered if she should offer up some detail of her own married life to complete the exchange, but what could she share? She and Sehaj hadn’t touched each other in a while but their circumstances were complicated, not that there was any need to talk about her married life with anybody, even her sisters. Especially her sisters.

Rajni looked as if she was about to say something when she suddenly jolted a bit in her seat and looked into her bag. She put her coffee down and picked up her phone. A moment passed and then she gasped and showed Shirina her screen. Before Shirina could read the message, Rajni said: “It’s Jezmeen. She’s been arrested.”