WHEN FATE BRINGS YOU HOME

CHAPTER 15

I had bought an indoor plant for my lab the day I started my practice here. A Dracaena Reflexa. It's commonly called the Song of India, more of a reason to choose it from the nursery. The yellow striped plant brightened my lab along with it's gloomy residents. By residents I mean the living things in the same room, which includes me and my bacterial pets. It may also include others who come in to our small world without permission - lizards, flies and currently, Shaurya Harshenn.

"Are you talking to yourself, Tara?"

I was in between my daily ritual of reciting ten nice things to the plant when I was suddenly interrupted. It's a habit I created after watching a movie when I was a kid, where the female lead gives the male lead a plant to take care of before leaving and asks him to say ten nice things to it everyday for the plant to grow big and healthy. And it works. The list of my nice things changes almost everyday depending upon my mood. Chocolate and coffee have reserved seats though. I tried to plant an apple tree in my native home in Kerala, telling it nice things and hoping it would grow like it did with other plants but that one time it didn't. I was ten and stupid back then. Little did I know apples preferred a cold environment.

Today's nice things are - chill breeze, latte, the bicycle kids I met today while walking to the university, the smell of a book I took from the library this morning, the new song released by 5 seconds of summer, truffle cake piece I bought from the canteen, the smell of aldehyde mixed with the fragrance of rose, 7A.M - the time when my parents video call me, tree tops blocking the blue sky, yesterday's bus ride.

"Nope."

I turned to face him totally pretending nothing had happened. He did not hear me sweet talking to a plant and especially did not hear the last point of the list. Nope. Not at all.

"Ah. Well, then."

He shifted his attention away from me. Why do I feel like I'm being attacked with my own weapon? A smile appeared on his face and I know exactly what he's going to say.

"Next time you do it, I'll make sure to record it." He waved his phone at me "For proof."

"Hey, that's my line."

"Suits the ambience, doesn't it?"

It suits perfectly. I am surprised he didn't record it as soon as he caught me. Did he even hear me?

"But I didn't lie like you did."

"You weren't talking to yourself then?"

His eyes drifted from me to the sunbathing green leaves near the window.

"No."

He scanned me as a whole, from head to toe.

"Were you talking to the plant?"

I want to deny it so bad but it is very much evident that I was. I don't have my ear pods to make an excuse of being on a call. I was literally kneeling down to talk to Draca, it's the name of the plant by the way.

"It's called sound therapy."

"Sound therapy experiments are done by fixing speakers around the pot and playing music. All I heard were some unrelated gibberish."

Oh, so he did hear me. Heat filled my face with anger. How dare he call my preferences gibberish?

"Those are not gibberish. I say ten nice things to it everyday." I snapped at him.

"Nice things?"

"Yeah, they help them grow bigger, faster and healthier."

He considered it for a moment before breaking into a wide smirk. Dimples, please show yourself. They did not waver at my request.