Chapter 5: Art and Aftermath

My roommate Meera couldn’t believe I’d broken up with Rohan, no matter what I said.

She burst in, nearly tripping over her slippers, Bournvita sloshing dangerously close to the rim. She chased after me to ask,

“What if he comes back and begs you to get back together?”

She flopped onto my bed, nearly spilling her drink, eyes wide with concern.

“If you really broke up, are you sure you… you won’t get so sad you do something stupid?”

She leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper, “Promise me you won’t do anything silly, okay? You’re so calm now, it’s kind of scary…”

Yeah, why am I so calm about breaking up with Rohan? Even I didn’t expect it. Didn’t I always think I couldn’t live without him?

For him, didn’t I bet everything—even changed my major?

Her words echoed in my head, but the tears refused to come. I remembered all the compromises I made, all the ways I tried to fit into his world. And still, here I was—calm, almost numb.

I’m an art student. I’ve been painting for over ten years.

I remember my father proudly showing off my charcoal sketches to relatives at family get-togethers, telling everyone, ‘Hamari beti toh artist banegi!’

The boys around me are mostly fellow art students—artsy, free-spirited, a little moody.

They’d have ink-stained fingers, wild hair, always debating about Picasso or Raja Ravi Varma. Sometimes they’d sketch in the canteen, passing around parathas and ideas.

So to me, Rohan was like a brand-new tube of paint, a colour I’d never seen before.

He was sharp, practical, so different from the dreamers I knew. When he entered a room, everyone looked. When he spoke, people listened. I was drawn in, helplessly.

In art, there’s rarely a right answer. But in Rohan’s world, everything has a solution.

And one is one, two is two.

He’d say, “Life isn’t abstract, Ananya. It’s just maths.” I’d laugh, but sometimes I wondered if he was right.

The answer to the girlfriend question also had only one solution.

This person needed to go to grad school at IIT Delhi with him, needed to work in Gurgaon with him.

But IIT Delhi doesn’t have an art department.

He didn’t care. For him, compromise was just a word, not a burden.

To go to IIT Delhi for grad school with Rohan, I had to change my major.

I ignored my teachers and classmates, put down my paintbrush, gave up the chance to study abroad, and spent all day in the library cramming subjects I hated.

My fingers itched for charcoal and acrylics, but I forced myself to study statistics, coding, things that felt like an alien language.

A friend asked me, “Don’t you like painting? You can even give that up for a guy?”

My cheeks had burned with shame. I’d stammered a half-lie, “I’m just trying something new, yaar.” But we both knew why.

Rationally, he was right.

But I’m an art student—I’m not always rational.

My muddled brain just wanted to be with Rohan.

For him, I could do anything.

Meera scolded me more than once for being love-brained, said I’d been kicked in the head by a donkey, cursed that I’d never wake up in this life.

She’d say, “Pyaar mein pagal ho gayi hai tu!” and throw a pillow at me. Sometimes I’d laugh it off. Sometimes I’d just cry alone at night.

But when did I wake up? I thought back carefully. Maybe it was just one day, just one moment, when I was suddenly struck and realised everything.