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laurange · #1 (**permalink**) 08-10-2019, 10:06 PM

One of the ~~worst~~ best parts of being a desi child is the fact that your parents rarely ever respect boundaries, not even once you've gotten your own place with your best friend, or have a child of your own. In fact, sometimes they insist that you give them the key - and you do, because your mother makes fantastic food and occasionally stocks the fridge for you - but you never quite expect it to backfire on you in the most spectacular way possible.

Three years ago, Amrita Sandhu had been on an undercover mission in Muggle Birmingham, where she met one Mohan Dayal while strengthening her cover as Usharani Iyer at a local pub that just happened to be doing a trivia night. One-night-stand quickly spiralled into a whirlwind romance, and when Amrita eventually returned to London, it felt as through she had left part of her soul behind.

So she began writing. She wrote letters, and then sealed them, and hid them carelessly in a desk drawer. She wrote one a week after she got home, when she felt miserable and lonely and every time she saw a couple on the street she wanted to throw up. The next ones when she realised that most scents were making her nauseous, when she found out she was pregnant, when Jasmine turned one, when Jasmine began to babble and obsessively ask WHY and she knew that it hadn't been her genes there.

There had to be at least eight letters in there - she'd really tried to save it for when the hurt was unbearable - and they were GONE. She'd asked Altair if he'd seen them, but no such luck. It was a while before she thought to ask Mummyji, who glibly responded with "I'd sent them to the post office, since you'd clearly been procrastinating."

The panic only died down after a few days, once Amrita had reassured herself that surely he'd moved house in the last few years and the letters would be sent right back to her within the next few days. Surely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gulping Plimpy Prompt

9. Someone reads your character’s journal about their crushes or finds letters that were never meant to be sent. What happens when the secrets are found out and it feels like their life is over? Or is this the beginning of good things instead? Especially if one of those crushes just happens to drop by...

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C H A R A C T E R S
:: this is a closed RP; please contact laurange if you're interested in joining us! ::

Amrita Sandhu (laurange)
Mohan Dayal (Kimothy)

Kimothy · 08-11-2019, 08:45 AM

Anyone who had known Mohan Dayal in the past almost thirty years of his life would certainly be aware that he had never changed his home address. Ever. He was comfortable living with his parents, within the walls of his comfort zone. As much as his amma was protective of him since day zero, it was one thing she and Aadesh wanted for Mo to change by the time he reached his third decade. It was quite the pressure and news for someone who had never been allowed to go to magic school or even live in a dormitory with kids his age roughly twenty years ago. It could have came with a warning, but desi parents just don't really do that apparently.

The stack of eight outdated (kind of silly, don't you think?) letters had landed on his lap while he had been filling in the boxes of a newspaper's crossword puzzle one morning. Mo did not know of anyone named 'Amrita Sandhu' and that was saying something because he had such a short list of friends. If she had been a fan of his nani, it wouldn't have been a surprise that anyone would try to send letters to her through any of Anuja's family members. Sometimes the super fans were a bit bonkers. However, the letters were sent to his address and labelled for him. Mohan Dayal.

Apparently, reading through the letters in order had been a one-way ticket to a headache. He had saved them for some other time when he has free of his shift at the stadium. Mohan had only gotten to them the afternoon before a day-off. He had laughed at the first letter, the contents were about how this lady was confessing to him about her loneliness without him. The next letter was about her feeling nauseous and possibly taking a vom somewhere. Mohan's nose wrinkled at that one, being reminded of the countless times he'd had to clean the stadium loos of such body fluids.

It took three letters out of eight for him to nope his way to bed. He had... a daughter? With some lady he knows nothing about? Did she even exist? It wouldn't even be the first time. It also smelled like a scam. That, my dudes, is quite an obsession. It had even bothered him in his sleep, appearing to him in a dream like some stork had delivered a child to his front door à la 1941-Dumbo.

Taking the three opened letters with him, Mohan traced the return address and apparated to the nearest alley so he could have a talk with the lady. He looked down at the address again as he made his way to the house's porch, to cross check. "Brave dude, Mohan Dayal, confronting his fan girl," he muttered to himself before wiping a bit of sweat off his forehead and ringing the doorbell.

Show yourself, Amrita Sandhu, whoever you are.

laurange · 08-11-2019, 06:15 PM

Oh, Amrita could write entire essays about the joys of having Desi parents - especially how they went from you're never leaving the house to WHY DO YOU NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE with no warning. But Mo knew that, probably, since she probably brought it up way back, approximately one kid ago.

The buzzer rang, and Amrita knew immediately that it was not her mother, solely from the fact that her mother never rang the doorbell. She'd just use her key. And then yell at Amrita for not having put away the laundry she'd been folding while Jasmine napped, and then quit folding and went to take a shower instead. Said laundry still needed to finish being folded, but she'd always been shoddy at housekeeping spells. Offensive and defensive magic had always been more up her alley.

Hereditary trait, probably.

What was also a hereditary trait was jumpiness - and while it made for excellent battle reflexes out in the field, it made life difficult for the mother of a jumpy three-year-old who was jolted out of her nap. Great. Now she'd be cranky for the rest of the evening and refuse to go to sleep despite being more tired than usual. So after a quick pit stop by the nursery on her way to the door, made her way to throw some colourful words at whichever Mormon had decided to grace her doorstep this fine day.

The door swung violently open. She took a deep breath, as one does before going off on a tired, and then kind of just held it when she realised exactly who it was at her door.

Uh.

Yeah, she was just not going to breathe for the foreseeable future. Merlin and Morgana, she needed to sit down.

Kimothy · 08-11-2019, 07:17 PM

He did. Mo certainly did. He had hung to every word Usharani Iyer told him. He had believed her. From the random bits of trivia they'd shared during that one trivia night, to their conversation on how Desi parents were at either extremes of a spectrum and never in between, and eventually to their never ending stories of her experiences working for V&A museum to acquire materials from antique fairs.

Two truths and a lie. Guess which one was the bluff.

Mo was quietly skimming the contents of the third letter, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and as a result of a headache, as he waited for someone to open the front door. What did she mean by child? How could he have had a child with a woman whose name he didn't recognize? And even if he did have a child, that wasn't something Mo would forget. The dots weren't connecting in his head right now. It felt like being shot by ten simultaneous Confundus Charms.

Hearing footsteps approaching, Mo's attention was back to stuffing the letter back into its envelope. "Good day, I was hoping to speak to Amri—" He had been reading the sender's name on the envelope before he looked up at whoever had quite violently opened the front door for him. His eyebrows furrowed even more, as if that were possible. He squinted at the woman standing in front of him for a good 0.8 seconds before they widened in shock. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to greet her as Usharani? Who is Usharani Iyer, anyway? And why was Amrita Sandhu, whoever she was, so obsessed with him? He wanted answers. Mo stood there with nothing but his wand tucked in his same old dragon-hide hip holster and three outdated letters on his left hand.

This wasn't making any sense.

Until it somewhat made sense.

There were only two people to blame for this fate. "What the hell, Lauren and Kimothy?"

laurange · 08-12-2019, 11:23 PM

It had to be a good moment before Amrita Sandhu regained the presence of mind to stop gaping at the man like a fish. If it wasn't for the weight of a three-year-old on her hip, she'd be sure that she'd been transported in time to when she was Usha Iyer, artefact aquisitionist for the V&A Museum.

Eyes would then narrow as he cursed a Lauren and Kimothy, and then she would turn to her child to whisper in German, "I have no idea who they are, I think he's crazy." before she would turn back to the person at her doorstep.

And then she would take a deep, deep breath before stepping away from the door. "Would you like some chai?"

She would be needing some chai if they were going to have this discussion.

Kimothy · 08-13-2019, 11:02 AM

He would deal with a Lauren and Kimothy later. There were other things Mo had to process. Quite a lot of things. Maybe if he could just sit down for a moment to make sense out of all this no matter how headache-inducing this was

He recognized the German too, though he understood nothing. Mo was busy looking at the woman—Usharani Iyer or Amrita Sandhu or Merlin's beard, perhaps another scam he shouldn't be surprised of—and then at the child. Back to the woman again, and then back at the child.

Under normal circumstances, he would have found children cute. Not that the child wasn't cute. She was. A cute three-year-old. Just. You know.

He looked back down at the letters in his hands, the third one on top as his brown eyes skimmed its contents. His hands were possibly (definitely) sweating and his left pointer finger was tapping against the bottom envelope as he reread the letter. Baby. Child. Three years ago. His head was feeling light.

"I honestly don't know how I should address you, but yes please." Mo didn't care that he had just been offered tea by a stranger. But she wasn't a total stranger at all. The woman looked like Usharani Iyer, who probably wasn't Usharani Iyer, but a few things were falling into place and he still needed the answers he came here to look for from Usharani Iyer. Or Amrita Sandhu. Literally anyone who could brief him about what was happening. Mo quite awkwardly let himself into the woman's house.

laurange · 08-14-2019, 10:24 AM

If Amrita could read minds, she'd be very insulted on behalf of her baby that he had doubts - albeit understandable doubts - that Jasmine was the cutest baby in all of creation. And while they were both extremely pretty ladies, she wasn't sure they'd quite deserved to be looked at with such bafflement. Though then again, maybe they had.

She was not equipped for this, not in the slightest bit. She'd kinda given up on all hope of Jasmine ever meeting her biological father when she had decided not to tell the man he had a baby.

Her head was pulsing and only chai could cure this. "Amrita," she said, her face looking somewhere between sheepish and grimacing. At the very least, he deserved the truth, especially after he'd come all this way.

"And this is Jasmine," she said, bouncing the toddler on her hip. "Say hi, Schatz."

And that was the story of how Jasmine Sandhu first interacted with her biological father, with a sleepy wave. Not entirely the story of how Amrita had constructed the only real romantic relationship of her life on a lie, but a story nonetheless.

In fact, forget the chai. She wanted to curl under the covers and pretend that life wasn't a thing. But no. She was fast approaching 30 and needed to at least pretend to be an adult who could take responsibility for the things ~~and people~~ that she did, so she would just... put the kettle on.

Kimothy · 08-14-2019, 03:54 PM

"Amrita," he repeated. Neither of them were equipped for this situation anyway. They had clearly been ignoring the erumpent in the room for years, him unknowingly. Mo had not expected to meet again the woman he'd spent months back in 2096 forgetting in the most awkward and uncomfortable way possible. What once made the contents of the letter funny to him no longer seemed like a laughable matter.

It was crazy to think that he was meeting the child whom he was bewildered about from the letters. Jasmine. A kind of tea. A princess from the Muggle company named Disney. A shrub from the family Oleaceae of the kingdom Plantae. Also otherwise known as Jessamine. The sleepy wave was quite a sight to behold. Mo had never been around babies so much except for his nieces and nephews. "It is Mo's pleasure to meet you, Jasmine." He paused briefly. "That's me. I'm Mo." Your....erm. He wasn't going to say anything until it was officially declared. There was still a very slim chance of this entire letter business being a scam. He can wait.

But Mo? Well.

Mo was going to casually take a seat on the nearest chair or couch. Yes. Way to go, Mohan Dayal. This was going just fine so far.

laurange · 08-17-2019, 08:51 PM

She nodded as he said her name back, raising a hand and pinching her nose sheepishly. She was fully aware of how foolish she looked, of how fully childish and deceiving she seemed. She wished for an answer, or an excuse. One which would make her look less like a whole mess - alas, none could be found. A whole mess was one former Ucilena. Some may call her a moron.

Seeing Jasmine (sleepy beyond belief and below average frequency on responses) address her biological dad was a whole doozy and she needed a brew of chai hereupon. In a jiffy. Like, now. "So. Chai."

And made a beeline into her cookery so she could panic in a wholly socially passable way. OH. Before she disremembered - "With masala?"

Masala chai calmed all panics, in her (brief) experience.

Kimothy · 08-19-2019, 01:49 PM

The way her name rolled off his tongue was strange. The man had spent the previous evening chuckling at how completely absurd the entire situation was. An Amrita Sandhu, whom he did not know, pouring her heart out about him in letters addressed to him. There was still a part of him, suppressed inside and masked by his general confusion, still associating him to Usharani Iyer. And he, too, was ignoring an ache so feeble that it was almost effortless to pretend it wasn't there, but was definitely present.

"Chai," he found himself repeating Amrita's words with a nod. The man clearly still had no idea how to react appropriately. How does one react appropriately in such a mind-boggling condition?

He was also about to dive into his thoughts when he caught Amrita's question. The man blinked for a second, to internally collect himself. "Superb." Masala chai reminded him of his nani. He was quite the grandmother's boy, but surely Amrita slash Usharani already knew that.

And shortly after that, he delved back into thinking while waiting for the tea, and wondered if anything he knew about the woman he once loved was real. The self-proclaimed trivia king knew so much obscure knowledge that he couldn't tell the difference between who the woman in front of him really is, and who the woman he met years ago was. Some boss-level existential crisis he was currently having.

laurange · 08-22-2019, 01:47 PM

Well this was just teariffic. The water had boiled and Amrita portioned out a cup of it for Jasmine's cocoa before proceeding with the masala and the tea leaves, with the exact proportions that her own Bibiji had taught her. Masala chai was something both their grandmothers had given them, something calming, something to remind them of home. And for Amrita, brewing tea usually took enough time for her to calm herself down before she had to encounter a thing, but sadly that was not the case teaday.

Hot cocoa (in a no-spill cup for Jasmine) and tea (for the two adults pointeadly avoiding the subject) prepared, they were leviteated onto a tray, which followed obediently behind Amrita as she made her way back into the living room.

She set Jasmine down and gave her the cup of hot cocoa, pressing a kiss to the top of the toddler's head and whispering something indestinct into her ear before reaching for the mug reading "this is a creativi-teacup" and handing to him. Only once his hands closed around the mug, did she take a seat opposite him, crossing her legs on the chair as she always did.

"I'm sure you have questeans," she said, trying to lighten the mood with a pun, and then wincing when it fell flat. She was sure he did have questions - ironic, considering he was always the guy with all the answers - and she wouldn't blame him if he was outraged and had a few things to yell either.

Actually, maybe she should put Jasmine in her room for a bit so she didn't have to hear this go bad. Wow, A+ parenting, Amrita.

Kimothy · 08-23-2019, 02:45 PM

Mo had tried to divert his attention to things around him. He glance around for any presence of childhood photographs, for university diplomas, for any kind of displays to busy and save himself from an existential crisis. The letters were still in his hands and, while that would have been some form of distraction, he knew better than to skim through their contents again.

It was only until Amrita and Jasmine came back to join him that he placed the letters on top of the table closest to him. The aromatic scent of the tea quickly filled his nose—a mixture of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, among other spices—instantly warming him on the inside. A reminder of home, with his nani, was quite enough to lessen his nerves. "Tea-nk you," Mo muttered as he accepted the cup of chai, unable to contain the pun. He'd rather not have what seemed to be a heavy conversation with such an awkward vibe hanging in the air. The pun on the mug did not go unnoticed too, which elicited the tiniest of smiles from the man.

Puns. He could live with those.

Mo did have all the questions, or questeans as Amrita had phrased it. The thing, though, was that he had no idea where to start. Unable to organize his mess of a headspace, he took a quick sip from his cup of tea. Probably a bad idea considering it was still rather hot, but he tried his best to keep a straight face. It wasn't the best straight face in the world of pretending to be fine. "What's...what's going on? The letters...?" His questions were all thanks to the letters. Mo was so used to having the answers. He felt he was internally ticking like a broken engine.

laurange · 09-03-2019, 04:59 PM

Amrita could only smile at his punny quip. A watery smile, weaker than poorly brewed tea, but a smile nonetheless. How could she even address the man who hadn't even known her name until fifteen minutes ago? What could she possibly say? How could she even think about explaining herself?

"They were never meant to be sent," was, at last, the response. Amrita looked into her mug in a desperate effort not to make eye contact, and took a sip of tea once the steam started irritating her eyes. Scalding hot tea, but that was the least of her worries. She never did think before she jumped, nor blow on her tea before she drank it.

"I was undercover when we met, and I-" her voice cracked, but she took a breath and steeled herself. She would not cry. "I knew I had to leave you for your own safety. For mine too. Lots of people want me dead, y'know." So he wouldn't really be an exception if he did. She'd be a little sad about it, though. If he offed her. Or wanted to.

"I wrote them to give myself some kind of false closure, it was a stress-release thing. And then, last week, my mother let herself in and found them and figured that I'd been procrastinating -- no idea where she'd get that idea -- and sent them for me to the post office. I was mad, and then I hoped that you'd moved, or that you would look at them, laugh, and throw them away."

Whatever it was, him being here was not on her list of likely scenarios, and she didn't quite know how to feel about that just yet. Could they start over? She'd like a re-do, in which she never wrote those letters. Or in which she'd burned them. Or vanished them. Or something.

Kimothy · 09-15-2019, 07:19 PM

His attempt to keep himself busy by looking around proved to be futile. Mo could not not glance at Amrita, anticipating her words and watching her every move. He was also subconsciously trying to see if he could pick up some of her mannerisms again (whether those were truly hers or simply another part of her act was for a different day) but his mind was elsewhere. How could it not when his day took an unexpected turn, playing with his emotions and digging up his repressed past from three years ago?

Especially when she began explaining herself.

"Get a grip, Mo," he told himself as he gently rubbed his hand on his forehead. Was that a headache? It certainly was not. It could be. Mo looked at her, deadpan for a moment, as he processed Amrita's words but then it only lasted for those brief seconds because even when he tried to pull himself together, he was nothing but an emotional ~~big boy~~ man. Even Amrita would know that. He'd been honest about it, even when he was currently undecided if he was okay with trusting her again. That one, he knew, would take time. And of course he hadn't moved. She would've known that too, but perhaps one tends to convince their self of false things when it meant comfort. It was understandable.

He was overwhelmed. There were so much revelations to sort out and so many emotions stacking up, he could almost feel weight on his chest. That was when his emotions got him. That was when he wiped a tear or two away with his palm. "And?" Mo said, never been thankful his voice didn't crack when it usually did. But not today even when he could feel lumps forming in his throat. "What am I supposed to do now? This...." He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "This isn't something I could pretend didn't happen and then laugh about while getting drunk in another trivia night, Ush—Amrita." He very well could, but everyone knows he'd just end up in tears again after a chuckle here and there. Unideal. He was known as a cool guy at pubs, not some whimpering man-child.

"I could have lived my entire life without knowing I had a daughter." Mo had not meant to burst out like that, but he was in his feelings. He'd never forgive himself for turning his back on his child.

laurange · 10-06-2019, 09:44 PM

Amrita's mannerisms were not entirely different, although she was now significantly more nervous than they were at any point of their relationship before this. Her hands flitted from tugging at her hair, to rubbing absently at the mug, to fidgeting with the hem of her blouse. Her eyes flitted from Mo to Jasmine to her mug to her hands and back.

She wished that he would just say something, that he would say anything, so she would know how to act.

Are we not drawn onward to new era? rang through her head, bouncing against the walls of her skull and leaving echos. The longest palindrome she knew. The only palindrome other than racecar that had stuck itself in her head, and it was because he had told it to her.

"You were supposed to go your whole life not knowing," she said, barely even waiting for him to finish his sentence. "I was fine. I -- I had it handled. She has a dad in her life. You don't have to be here. I'm not making you stay. I never asked you to parent her."

Her eyes burned with tears. "I loved you. Sometimes I think I'm better, and then it comes back like a tsunami. So I write to cope, and then I put them away, thinking maybe someday I'll read them again and laugh. Someday, when Jasmine is bigger, and when I don't wonder every day how I'm going to make it another day."

She was still for a long time after that, looking pensively at her mug before finding her voice once more. "If you want to forget, I know people who can help," she said. "Obliviators. You can forget Jasmine, you can forget Usha and you can forget me."

Merlin knew she would want to.

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