I Will Blossom Anyway

Chapter 1

Bengal has always been ruled by goddesses.

According to Hindu mythology, the all-forgiving Goddess Durga, pure of heart, became ensnared in a losing battle against a demon who was set to destroy all of humankind.

When Goddess Durga stopped to look around the battlefield, she found nothing but death and destruction. She became frenzied with fury, at her own weakness against the demon, at the futility of this battle.

That was when Kali appeared. Durga’s other form, her dark alter ego. Kali emerged right out of Durga’s forehead wielding a sword, wearing nothing but a sari made of a tiger’s skin.

Kali was invincible. By the end of the battle, she had not only defeated the demon but had a garland of men’s skulls around her neck. She was on the warpath now, and in her anger couldn’t distinguish between good and evil anymore. So enraged was she that she wanted everyone and everything dead.

So, while Durga gets her own ten-day celebration, we worship Kali in Bengal too, with hibiscus flowers and offerings of sweets. Durga is worshipped for the victory of good over evil, while Kali is worshipped for her strength. My parents named me Durga, perhaps in the hope that I might embody the Goddess’s virtues of integrity and goodness. But I yearned to feel the full force of Kali, for her to make my toes tingle, straining to be let out.

My mind seems predisposed to expect decay too, the way Kali did. For instance, in autumn, all I notice is how leaves are so exhausted with life that they give up and fall to the ground. That animals begin to panic; gathering their food, hiding it, preparing to hibernate. The seasonal lattes are only a distraction; the hollowness of winter is forever looming in my background. I’ve always been an overthinker, allowing the possibility of complications to dampen my mood. I stopped getting manicures because I’d worry about chips and lifting from the moment I walked out of the nail salon. I’d spend all of Sunday feeling gloomy, anxious about sleeping through the Monday morning alarm. I found it impossible to enjoy the changing colors of autumn, or the relief of the crisp air after a muggy summer, only agonizing over a dark winter ahead.

For my walk in the park that autumn evening, I was bundled up, cursing the wind. My body hadn’t adjusted to the sudden drop in temperature. I was freezing in a lemon yellow scarf, a black beret the color of my hair, and a big coat that engulfed me. Autumn isn’t for people like me, who are unsettled by change. Today, as I soldiered on through the park, I could sense Kali stirring. I was here with a purpose.

I wouldn’t have wandered outside at this time for no reason, when the sun was disappearing fast, shooting neon jazz hands from behind a veil of clouds. I longed to be home, safe in my comfort zone, pining for Jacob from afar.

Besides, the sun would set soon and I carried the primal ancestral fear of darkness everywhere with me. Even in bed with all the lights turned off, in the absence of a sentry guarding the cave, I required a source of light to lull me to sleep. This was a good excuse for why I scrolled through my phone until my eyelids drooped. A light on my bedside table would’ve been an easy solution, but I found comfort in dreaming about the twenty second cat video I’d watched last. A satisfactory way to end the day.

At the park, I noticed my boots were speckled with mud from stepping over puddles, and I stopped to retrieve a baby wipe from the pack I always carried in my bag. While I was bent over, giving the smooth leather a clean, my phone chimed in my coat. It was Joy.

Sorry. I’m late. Be there in a few ticks.

Joy was my flatmate, and best friend. The woman I shared my pizzas and hot-water bottle with. I trusted her to not use my razor in the shower, and to cancel Friday night plans if I didn’t feel like going out. In her, I’d found my ride or die.

She was one of those millennial unicorns who forgot to check her phone, didn’t post on social media anymore, and didn’t feel the need to wear a watch. She rarely knew what day of the week it was. It wasn’t that she was an irresponsible person, not like some other people we knew—Maeve, Joy’s childhood friend and on-and-off flame, for instance, was the poster child for Millennials Who Never Learned to Adult.

Joy paid our bills, scrubbed the baseboards, remembered to lock the flat at night, kept herself sufficiently hydrated. However, she forgot all her friends’ birthdays and was never on time for work—a small price to pay.

Being Jacob’s sister was also a particular kind of problem, given the change in our circumstances. My relationship with Jacob, the big love of my life, had ended after two years of bliss. But since his sister had become so inextricably bound to me, there was no hope for him ever disentangling from my life. Something we would both have to learn to live with. I didn’t know how to, yet. How to not see Jacob when I saw Joy. How to not notice the way she threw the tea towel over her shoulder while emptying the dishwasher, exactly the way her brother did.

In Joy’s last-minute absence, I considered leaving the park. My nerves were getting the better of me. I wasn’t comfortable with the voice rattling inside my head. It may all boil down to having grown up in a large family, sharing my room with a sister, and not having much opportunity for a silent thought.

India is noisy in general, but it wasn’t just the blaring horns and the electric sound of life outside. Somebody was always shouting inside my home too. My mother spent a lot of time barking orders from the kitchen or on the phone with old relatives who were hard of hearing. My father had the news perpetually turned on, which synthesized with cricket updates on the radio my brother was glued to. My sisters quarreled incessantly, with one another or with our mother. While my grandmother scolded the maid for not cleaning under the cupboards. If I had an inner voice, it had remained muffled since my birth.

My first night in the overpriced flat I’d found in Cork two years ago was also my first night away from my family. I’d got a promotion at work and been offered a transfer to their offices in Ireland. I’d jumped at the opportunity to move away, to finally find that voice I’d missed hearing all my life.

Joy and I hadn’t met yet. I didn’t have a flatmate at first. While I was desperate for company from the moment I walked into my new abode, dragging my bags behind me, I didn’t meet her until later.

Alone in my new home, I’d turned on all the lights and sat on the couch with my legs crossed, listening for a voice, any sound.

I could hear the fridge whirring and the sporadic sound of an engine outside. For years I’d wanted this—the freedom, the absence of the overbearingly loud intrusion of my family. I thought I’d find some peace with the continents and large bodies of water between us, but the voice in my head, which appeared suddenly, was whispery and alien. It was telling me I was alone, that there were purple monsters under the bed, and they liked nibbling on feet. That the branch thumping my windowpane was actually the severed arm of a hairy ghoul, and it would continue tapping until I opened the window and allowed it to come in and suck my soul.

My life had changed so drastically in these two years though, that I didn’t recognize that subdued woman anymore. The woman who’d arrived here as a girl, really. Who didn’t know how to live alone.

I made my way around the park slowly, stepping to the side for every runner who passed me by. Six o’clock was a popular fitness slot for the office-going types. They were in high-vis tops and shorts, squeaky sneakers, a podcast in their ears, braving the cutting cold for their daily dose of adrenaline. I felt a moment’s anxiety for having consumed nothing but a donut for lunch. This I quickly suffocated by reminding myself that I’d leave the running to my thirties. What were my twenties for, if not to skip breakfasts and make up for it with fried dough and pistachio cream?

You made me come here and now I’m by myself.

I typed a quick text to Joy, then made my way toward the pebbled bank of the river that ran alongside the park. It wasn’t the best idea because the wind, which was stronger here, blew straight into my face with its icy claws. I was sure my cheeks would bleed.

After I was done fussing with the scarf and looping it tighter around my neck, I saw a man throwing a stick into the river. He was making a big show of it. He bent far back into the shape of a croissant and then whipped the stick into the water, whistling urgently. My eyes were drawn to his mouth, a nice mouth, and when he looked over and smiled at me, it was surprising how vastly it took over his entire face.

The splash of a dog hurling itself into the water interrupted my staring, gave me something to look at other than at him. The dog paddled toward the stick, drifting with the strong current, and I worried that it mightn’t be able to make it back safely. I’d watched videos of dogs paddling in swimming pools, but I had no idea of their prowess in a gusty river at high tide.