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Two months from now, Veda would be performing in Delhi, in front of the Prime Minister of the country no less. Granted it was a group performance but she was Draupadi in the retelling of the Mahabharata so she had what most would consider a lead role.
She rummaged through the fridge a bit more and found an apple that had seen better days. She bit into it as she wandered back to her room, passing a few of the staff who lived in and hence, were there most of the day.
Her second shower of the day, this time a hot one, was a lot shorter. She dried and dressed in a simple kurta with tights, her dance practice uniform, and braided her long hair. Giving her face a courtesy swipe of moisturizer and sunscreen, she left it bare of makeup. No point in it if she was just going to sweat it all off soon.
Her phone rang again and she glanced over at it. Restlessness clawed at her and she decided to ignore the call. She didn’t have the energy for anyone. She felt all peopled out for the moment. The disparaging run in with Agastya hadn’t helped either. She’d recharge today and then get back to being social.
She hauled her dance bag over one shoulder, picked up her car keys and headed out, leaving her phone behind.
“Muthu Anna,” she called out as she walked through the empty hallway, her footsteps echoing against the long space.
He didn’t respond. She hunted through the house, finally finding him in the second living room on the first floor. He was dusting a shelf of curios.
“Anna, I’m going for dance practice. Will you tell Amma?”
He nodded, smiling, the wide smile making the wrinkles in his face deepen and almost making his eyes disappear.
“I’ll be home by nine,” she told him before heading out.
She’d barely made it to the front door when Amma walked through it, laden down with shopping bags.
“I bought you a very pretty yellow kurta,” she said without preamble. “Want to see?”
Veda smiled, leaning down to kiss her mother’s cheek. “I thought you went to a sreemandham.”
“That was in the morning. Whole day I’m not going to do ritual drama.”
Her mother was not a fan of anything she called ‘ritual drama.’ Dhanvantri Gadde or Dhanu as she liked to be called was honestly meant to be on that ‘Bollywood wife television show.’
Instead, she was stuck here in the Gadde family of Hyderabad, a fact she deeply resented and didn’t bother to cover up. She loved her family, but she also felt suffocated by their expectations of her. A dichotomy that made for some wild swings in her behaviour towards all of them.
“Come, see what I bought,” she said now, pulling at Veda’s hand.
“I can’t Amma, I have dance practice. I’ll look at it when I get back.”
“Okay.” Losing interest in her eldest daughter, Dhanu walked away, a maid carrying the shopping bags and following behind her.
“Bye!” Veda called out to her mother’s departing back. Her mother didn’t bother answering.
Shaking her head at her own idiotic and endless attempts to get her family to focus on her for more than a second, Veda shouldered the front door open and walked out into the falling dusk. She was almost to the five-car garage at the end of the driveway when Muthu Anna’s raised voice had her halting.
He ran towards her, his stumbling, shuffling gait making her anxious. She moved towards him so he didn’t exert himself too much.
“What happened?” she asked in Telugu.
In response, he held her phone out to her.
“What happened?” she asked again, confused, slowly taking the phone from him.
“Ram Babu is calling for you. Urgent,” he huffed, bending at the waist to rest his hands on his knees.
“Anna sit,” Veda said gently, leading him to one of the stone benches that lined their driveway and the lawns beyond.
Muthu Anna shook his head. “Ram Babu said urgent. You call.”
She glanced at her phone display. Six calls from her brother. Foreboding filled her, deep and disturbing.
She dialed her brother. He picked up on the first ring.
