She did not believe me. Of course she didn’t. Sanjana had one flaw, if you could call it that: she believed in the existence of consequences with religious seriousness.
I took a drink of water and said, “He is being annoying.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you are getting.”
She studied me, then looked away. “You can stay at my place tonight if you want.”
The offer annoyed me more than it should have. It implied need. It implied dependence. It implied that she could be generous without losing anything, which was the kind of moral superiority I found difficult to forgive.
“I have a room,” I said.
“You have a room with a man who is making you nervous.”
“I said he is annoying.”
“And I said you can stay with me.”
There it was: the stubbornness she used like a shield. It was very hard to hate someone who would rather inconvenience herself than watch you make a mess of your life.
I shook my head. “I can manage.”
“Of course you can,” she said, and there was no sarcasm in it, which made it worse.
We went back to Uttam Nagar in a shared auto because the metro had become crowded after the rain, and because autos in Delhi are the universe’s way of punishing people for having no money and too much pride. The roads were full of puddles reflecting broken neon signs, and every pothole sent a small hard jolt through my spine. Sanjana sat beside me in silence, one hand keeping the tote bag close, the other holding the plastic water bottle. Her face was calm, but I could tell she was thinking. She always thought before she spoke. It was one of her most infuriating qualities.
By the time we reached the lane, the evening had turned the walls into wet cement. The PG building looked even more tired than usual, its yellow paint peeling in strips, the iron gate half-open, the corridor light flickering. A smell of frying pakoras drifted from the tea stall at the corner. Someone upstairs was playing a sad song too loudly. Two girls in the opposite building stood on their balcony gossiping in the rain, their voices carrying through the humid air like small knives.
Bua Devi spotted us from her chair and raised one eyebrow. “Two girls, one auto. Either you are very good friends or very bad at budgeting.”
“Both,” I said.
She looked at me with the long, assessing stare she used when she wanted to make a point without wasting breath. “Delhi is a city that eats girls in installments. First the rent. Then the men. Then the body. Then the shame. Then it writes poetry about their resilience.”
Sanjana gave a small, tired laugh. I rolled my eyes.
“You are in a mood,” I said.
“I am always in a mood,” Bua Devi replied. “I am old.”
That evening, the electricity went out just after dinner. The fan died with a last, weak shudder. The room became thick with heat and the smell of damp clothes. Sanjana lit the small emergency lamp we kept on the shelf. It made the walls look more yellow and the corners more suspicious. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling while the medicine dragged me toward sleep.
From the other side of the room, Sanjana said, “Did you eat today?”
“I had coffee.”
“That is not food.”
“It is for people with ambition.”
“It is for people with ulcers.”
“Are you always this cheerful?”
“Only with you.”
I turned my head and saw her sitting cross-legged on her mattress, reading something on her phone with her glasses halfway down her nose. She looked absurdly composed for a person in a room that leaked at the edges.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked before I could stop myself.
She did not look up. “Because you asked.”
“That is not why.”
At last she raised her eyes. “Then maybe because you are still my friend, even when you are being unbearable.”
That should have made me feel tender. Instead it made me defensive. Tenderness is dangerous when you are still pretending to be invincible.
I said, “You are too soft.”
“And you are too proud,” she said.
We could have gone on like that all night. We often did. Our conversations had the shape of a quarrel and the temperature of loyalty. She was the only person in Delhi who could tell me I looked like hell and still make me feel seen instead of insulted.
The next day Monika turned up at the PG terrace with a paper cup of tea and an opinion large enough to occupy three chairs.
She had a way of entering a room as if she were announcing a manifesto. Hair tied back carelessly, kurta wrinkled, eyes sharp with the kind of certainty that made you want to either sleep with her or throw her off a roof. She had once told me, over bad coffee and worse company, that she was a feminist of the highest order, as if feminism were a rank in the army and she had earned a medal for surviving men. I had respected the confidence even as I despised the packaging.
She took one look at my face and said, “You look like a woman who has been negotiating with patriarchy and losing.”
I said, “You look like a woman who uses ten words where two would do.”
Sanjana, sitting beside me on a rusting plastic chair, let out a quiet sigh that meant she was already tired.
Monika ignored me and went on, “I am serious. These men own everything and then make women feel grateful for crumbs. It is all exploitation. Every bit of it.”
“That part is not wrong,” Sanjana said.
I glanced at her. She was not defending Monika. She just hated falsehood less than she hated slogans.
Monika seized on the agreement like a dog catching a shoe. “Exactly. So why are you both still making excuses for individual choices when the structure is rotten?”
“Because structure is not the whole story,” I said. “Some women use the structure. Some women survive it. Some women even win inside it.”
She gave me a hard look. “And some women get destroyed by it.”
“Yes,” I said. “That too. But not every woman wants to wait for a revolution in a blazer.”
Sanjana took her tea from Monika’s hand and said in her mildest voice, “Also, if you talk about women as if they are only victims, you make them smaller than they are. In our families, at least, daughters are still protected. Mothers still get fed first. Seats are still given. People still stand up when an older woman enters. It is not perfect, but it is not nothing.”
Monika laughed, sharp and unbelieving. “That is not feminism. That is sentimental nonsense dressed as culture.”
Sanjana did not flinch. “Maybe your version of feminism is too busy insulting everyone to notice the respect already built into everyday life.”