Spice and Smoke by Suleikha Snyder

Harsh a punch. He looked like someone had backed over him with a lorry. Not once, but thrice. “We’re on a dangerous road, yaar. A very, very dangerous road,” he’d warned Harsh…sounding so wise and arrogant at the same time…and yet it was clear he’d forgotten to step off the path himself. The traffic had mowed him down. Avinash Kumar had run him down.
    “ Sab tik tho hai? Are you okay, yaar ?” It was a stupid question. A hollow one. But it was better than gazing down at the screen of his mobile and acting as if nothing was askew.
    The only answer he was given was a laugh. Tired and beaten. Michael rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips, hunching his shoulders. It was not a model’s confident pose, daring a camera to find any imperfection.
    “You look like shit, man.”
    Michael glanced at the driver—Madan was a local; his English was restricted to “yes, sir” and “good morning”—before he made a reply. “You think I look bad? You should see the other bloke.”
    “I have.” Very soon, Avi and Michael would be matching pictures of misery. “This is eating at you like acid. It is killing you. Is it really so important to be noble? To stay away? Kya faidha? What is the point, yaar ? Why not just go to him and save the pain?”
    Michael’s laughter turned into a choked noise of anger. “It would certainly make things easier for you, wouldn’t it? It took you, what, ten years to say something to Trishna? Also, if I take Avi, then you have really had to do nothing. You just wait and catch her after the fall. The Mighty Harsh Mathur…you come out of all of this with your sainted reputation intact.”
    That was absurd. “Is that what you think? That I am waiting for you to take all the risks so I can be her hero?” What nonsense.
    “Oh, of course not.” The acid that was eating him now flowed from Michael’s tongue. “Trishna has loved you for ten years. I feel like I haven’t even known Avinash for ten minutes. But you are not taking the easy path, no. You would never, ever be that dishonest, would you? You would never look to everyone else to make your love story come true. Nahin. You’re content to suffer in silence until she is free to come to you on her own. You are such a good man, Harsh. Kitna mahaan admi. Such a king of self-denial.”
    If he were anyone else, Harsh would’ve hit him for such a horrible accusation. But he knew all too well where Michael was sitting. Right beside him on a road to Hell that they’d paved with their good intentions. “I think we are both ruling that kingdom. Saath saath. Together.”
    “So, what’s stopping you from going to Trishna?” Michael turned his own question back to him. “Is it really so important to be noble? Why not save yourself the pain?”
    Because he’d been stupidly noble for entirely too long already? Because it was a habit? Mathur the Monk, Mathur the Mighty…Mathur the Goddamn Martyr? He laughed, smothering the sound against his palm and rocking forward in his seat. Michael was right. At least in part. He had not intended to bide his time while Michael and Avinash played out their version of Dostana Part Two. But he had been a coward. For too long. It was time for Harsh to fight for the role he wanted more than any other: that of Trishna’s real-life leading man.
     
     
    The first few weeks of the shoot had flown by as expected. Lots of dialogue-heavy scenes between the men. One mournful love song picturization between her and Harsh—too mournful for comfort. A few more arguments between Avi and Michael. The resentment resulting from Avi’s bruised ego had made their scenes electric. Watching from the side, she had been amazed, believing fully that Varun, the bold Bihari revolutionary, and Mr. Austin, the East India Company man who longed to go back to England, hated each other. Varun’s village Hindi was thickly accented, and Austin looked so very, very British in his starched suits. When the cameras stopped