The Way We Were

Interlude

(2022: PVR Mumbai Aisle G)

The theater lights came back to life, making the audience shield their eyes while it took a few seconds for them to adjust.

A man of twenty-seven looked around, seeing various couples he had discovered over the last dozen years or so, seated at corners enjoying the story of lives, hidden in plain sight. While he thought his parents should have kept him aware of the circumstances of his arrival into this world, it wasn't lost on him that, perhaps, they weren't ready to be parents back then.

He stretched and mulled over about his own journey which had brought him, today, to catch the first day first show of a movie he had heard whispers of for nearly six years now.

One of the couples he was looking at laughed loudly, making him turn and narrow his eyes. What more was there to it really? They were all happy. As he was supposed to be all those years, too.

His own companion squeezed his hand. "Aarav."

"I'm good."

"It's okay if you want to leave." The woman beside him, tall, brunette and sporting brown eyes same as her mother smiled at him. "I'll understand."

"No, Mathur." He sighed. "This might be the only way I'll have some form of closure."

"If you just asked them-" She tried to reason with him for the hundredth time, but was cut short yet again.

"What man asks that to a parent, Ananya? I'm not weak. I wasn't in the orphanage, I can't ever be."

"Once, just-"

"Hey, kids!"

The couple turned to see Lavanya Mathur gliding her way across the aisle to reach them.

"I thought that was you, Ananya." She narrowed her eyes at her daughter. "And what are you both doing here at this hour?"

"Aarav wanted catch the earliest show, Ma. You know how he is about movies."

"Well, I would suggest hiding beta. You know how your godfather is about this." Lavanya looked at the couple meaningfully.

"Uncle is... is here?" Ananya gulped visibly.

Aarav looked around for the man in question. In the half empty theater, he still could not locate the man who was supposedly his father.

Lavanya chuckled. "Aarav, you honestly think ASR didn't wear a disguise? You kids better hide from him. God knows what he'll do if he knows you've both skipped office."

"But why is he here?" Aarav asked. He had an inkling why. Aarav knew he must have got the movie bug from at least one parent.

"What do you mean? You're watching the man's biography!"

"But, doesn't he prefer private premeirs?"

"You know ASR, Aarav. Maybe someday, you'll meet Arnav." She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling in mischief. Knowing Ananya for years now, Aarav didn't have trouble figuring out that look. "Anyway, you guys better hide, I could see you both the moment the lights came on. I'll leave you two to your rest of this date. Don't do anything I wouldn't."

Ananya turned red. "My mother, ladies and gentlemen." She muttered as she heard receding footsteps.

"It's okay if you want to leave, I'll understand." Aarav said, tongue in cheek.

On getting a glare, he backed off.

"I think I'll get us some sodas."

"You do that."