Chapter 2: Morning Sun and Shame
The morning heat was already a physical weight, pressing down on the balcony of their Bandra apartment. It smelled of hot concrete, blooming raat-ki-rani from the pot below, and coconut oil from Suhana’s skin.
Baba Jaan sat in the wrought-iron chair, the Mid-day newspaper a rustling shield. He pretended to read about political scandals, but his attention was a frayed thread, pulled taut toward the sun-drenched lounge chair. Suhana lay stretched out like a cat, all long limbs and deliberate relaxation. Her cherry-red crop top was a shock against the beige canvas, ending a reckless inch above the waistband of her denim shorts. The golden skin of her midriff and lower back was exposed to the relentless sun.
“Baba.”
He grunted, not looking up.
“Baba, sun. Sunscreen. Laga do na meri back pe.”
He finally lowered the paper. His granddaughter was peering at him over her shoulder, one eye squinted against the light. She held a tube of white lotion in her outstretched hand, waving it slightly. Her expression was pure, practiced innocence. The same look she’d worn when she’d poured his chai last week, the dupatta slipping, Mr. Sharma nearly choking on his biscuit.
“Hahn? Kya?” he played for time, his Urdu-poet’s mind scrambling for a dignified escape. “Aap khud laga lo. Main newspaper parh raha hoon.”
“Arre, I can’t reach the middle properly. I’ll get streaks. You want your favorite granddaughter to look like a zebra?” She pouted, the effect both ridiculous and disarming. “It’ll take two minutes. Please?”
He sighed, a long, theatrical sound he knew she saw right through. He set the paper down, the pages immediately curling in the humidity. He took the tube. It was warm from her hand.
He stood over her. The scent of her—sweet perfume and salt—mixed with the city smells. The skin of her back was smooth, a landscape of delicate shoulder blades and the faint dip of her spine. He squeezed a cold, glutinous blob onto his fingertips, the clinical smell of aloe and chemicals cutting through the air.
His touch was stiff, tentative. He spread the lotion in quick, broad strokes, his coarse old poet’s fingers against her youth.
“A little lower, Baba,” she murmured, her voice muffled by her folded arms.
His hand stilled. The hem of the crop top was a definitive border. Below it, the waistband of her shorts began. And between them, a band of bare skin. He felt a familiar, frustrating cocktail of emotions—a grandfather’s protective love, a old man’s bewildered shame at his own hesitation, and the sharp, cultural instinct that screamed this was not done.
“Suhana,” he said, his voice tighter than he intended.
“What? It’s just skin. It needs sunscreen too, or I’ll burn.” She wriggled slightly, an invitation and a challenge. “Don’t be such a buddhu.”
The insult, delivered with affectionate teasing, broke the tension. He huffed, applying the lotion to the exposed strip with two swift, efficient swipes. His fingertips brushed the top elastic of her shorts. He withdrew his hand as if shocked.
“There. Done. Ab chain se baitho.”
She rolled onto her side, propping her head up, a satisfied smile playing on her lips. She took the tube back, their fingers brushing. “See? That wasn’t so world-ending, was it?”
He collapsed back into his chair, grabbing the newspaper like a lifeline. “My world does not end so easily, baccha. But your Nani would have had my beard for a pillow if she saw this.”
“Nani was smart. She knew sunscreen prevents cancer.” Suhana sat up, cross-legged, and began applying lotion to her own arms and legs with a leisurely grace he found utterly maddening. “Besides, it’s 2024, Baba Jaan. Not the Mughal era.”
“In the Mughal era, they had enough sense to wear clothes,” he muttered, but there was no heat in it. He was watching her, this dazzling, confusing creature he had helped raise. The same little girl who’d sat on his knee to hear poetry now deliberately sunbathed in a garment he considered a handkerchief. The chai incident flashed in his mind—Mr. Sharma’s wide, scandalized eyes, the sharp thrill of subversion he’d seen flash in Suhana’s own. This was another performance, and he was both audience and unwilling prop.
“Mr. Sharma is coming over later,” Baba Jaan said, changing the subject. “For lunch.”
Suhana’s grin turned wicked. “Oh good. Should I wear my new backless kurti? The one with the mirror work? Or maybe just a towel?”
“Suhana.”
“Kidding! Mostly.” She finished with the sunscreen and lay back down, closing her eyes against the sun. “I’ll be the picture of modesty. Promise.”
He didn’t believe her for a second. He picked up the paper again, but the words blurred. He was remembering the feel of her warm skin under his fingers, the daring of her, the fearless way she inhabited a world that had changed so much from his own. It filled him with a terrible, aching pride and a deep, unsettling fear—not for her morals, but for the harshness of a world that might not understand her boldness. He wanted to shield her. He also knew she would never let him.
The silence stretched, comfortable now, filled only with the distant, constant hum of traffic from Carter Road and the buzz of a bee in the flowers.
Inside, the landline phone rang, sharp and insistent, shattering the humid peace. It was probably Mrs. Bhatia from downstairs, complaining about their AC drip again.
Suhana didn’t move. “You get it, na, Baba? I’m sun-synthesizing.”
He groaned, pushing himself up, his joints protesting. As he walked toward the sliding glass door, he glanced back at her. She lay perfectly still, a modern-day odalisque bathing in the Mumbai sun, a small, victorious smile touching her lips. She had won this round, as she always did, and they both knew it.
The phone kept ringing. He shuffled inside, the cool dark of the apartment swallowing him, leaving her alone in the bright, defiant light.