Chapter 15: Bure Sapne Aur Golem (Bad Dreams and a Golem)

The dreams started in May — the May that was Pune's cruelest month, the month when the pre-monsoon heat arrived and the arriving was not gradual but violent, the violence being: one day it was April (warm, tolerable, the evenings still pleasant) and the next day it was May (forty-one degrees, the air thick as daal, the city's trees wilting, the auto-rickshaw seats burning through clothes). The heat was the trigger. The heat that Ananya associated with — the heat of the years when Karan's control was at its worst, the worst being: the summer months when the children were on school holiday and the family was compressed into the flat and the compressing increased the contact and the contact increased the control and the control increased the damage.

The dream was always the same. Ananya was in the Koregaon Park flat — the flat that had been the marital flat, the flat she'd left two years ago. The flat was exactly as she remembered: the Italian marble flooring that Karan had insisted on (the insisting being the particular domestic tyranny of a man who expressed control through furniture — the furniture being chosen by Karan, arranged by Karan, the arrangement being the manifestation: this is my house, these are my things, you live here at my permission, the permission being the invisible lease that Ananya had signed by staying). In the dream, the flat was empty. Not empty of furniture — empty of light. The dark-empty that was not night but erasure, the erasure being: the light had been removed the way Karan had removed Ananya's confidence, incrementally, until the darkness was normal and the normal was the prison.

In the dream, there was a figure. Standing in the corridor between the bedroom and the living room — the corridor where Karan had stood, many times, blocking the way. The figure was not Karan. The figure was larger than Karan and less defined than Karan and the less-defined was the terror — the terror of the thing that was not a person but a shape, the shape being made of clay, the clay-shape that Jewish mythology called a golem and that Ananya's subconscious had borrowed (the borrowing being the mind's particular multiculturalism: the mind did not respect cultural boundaries when constructing nightmares, the mind took what it needed from wherever it found it).

The golem was Karan and not-Karan. The golem had Karan's posture (the particular lean — the lean-forward that was Karan's intimidation posture, the posture that said: I am taking up more space than I need because the space-taking is the dominance). But the golem's face was blank — blank clay, no features, the featurelessness being the particular horror of the abuser who had no face because the abuser was not a person but a system, the system being: the control was not Karan's personality but Karan's method, and the method could be performed by anyone, the anyone being the golem, the golem being the method made flesh.

Ananya woke at 3:17 AM. Sweating. The May heat in the Kothrud flat — the flat that had no air conditioning (the no-AC being the divorced woman's economy: the AC was at Karan's Koregaon Park flat, the AC being one of the things that the divorce had distributed to the person who could afford the electricity and the affording was Karan's and the not-affording was Ananya's). The ceiling fan spun at maximum — the maximum that produced the particular Indian ceiling-fan sound: the rhythmic whup-whup-whup that was the soundtrack of Indian insomnia, the insomnia that was managed not by medication but by the fan and by the particular Indian insomnia ritual: get up, drink water, stand at the window, look at the darkness, return to bed.

She stood at the window. The park below — dark, empty at 3 AM, the park that was benign in daylight and ominous at night, the ominousness being projection rather than reality, the projection being: when the inside is afraid, the outside becomes threatening.

She called the therapist the next morning. Dr. Meera Kulkarni — the therapist who had been Ananya's therapist for two years, the therapist who worked from a clinic in Baner and who charged ₹2,500 per session and whose ₹2,500 was the particular Indian middle-class negotiation with mental health: affordable enough to continue, expensive enough to take seriously, the taking-seriously being the patient's investment and the investment being: I am worth ₹2,500 per week and the worth was the belief and the belief was the treatment's prerequisite.

"The golem is back," Ananya said. On the phone. The phone-session that they'd adopted during COVID and maintained after — the maintaining being the pandemic's one gift to Indian therapy: the phone session, which removed the commute to Baner and the commute's particular anxiety (the anxiety of being seen entering a therapist's clinic, the being-seen being the stigma, the stigma that was India's particular contribution to mental health: we'll suffer privately rather than be seen seeking help publicly).

"Tell me about the dream," Dr. Kulkarni said. The voice that was — the therapist's voice was the particular Indian therapist voice: warm but clinical, the warm-clinical combination that said: I care about you but I am also analyzing you and the caring and the analyzing are the same thing.

Ananya described the dream. The empty flat. The clay figure. The blocked corridor. The featureless face.

"What do you think the golem represents?" The question that was the therapist's question — the question that the therapist already knew the answer to but that the answer needed to come from the patient because the patient's naming was the healing, the healing being: not the therapist's insight but the patient's articulation.

"Karan." The obvious answer. The answer that was correct and incomplete.

"And what else?"

"Mera darr." My fear. "The fear that — the fear that even though I've left, even though the divorce is done, even though I'm building something new — the fear that the control is still inside me. That I've left the controller but the control stayed. That the golem is not Karan but the Karan-inside-me — the voice that says tum kuch nahi ho, and the voice doesn't need Karan to say it anymore because I've internalized it and the internalized voice is the golem and the golem doesn't die when you leave the house because the golem lives inside the person, not inside the house."

Silence. The therapist's silence — the particular silence that said: yes. The yes that was not spoken because the spoken-yes would have been validation and validation was not the goal — the goal was the patient's own recognition and the recognition had occurred and the occurring was the progress.

"So what does the golem need?" Dr. Kulkarni asked.

"To be named. And once named — to be faced."

"And how do you face it?"

Ananya thought. The thinking being: the real thinking, not the corporate-thinking that produced strategies and memos, but the personal-thinking that produced truth. The truth that arrived after a pause.

"By being Netta. By being the person that the golem says doesn't exist. The golem says tum kuch nahi ho. Netta says: I run a job club that has placed thirty-one people. I have a community kitchen that feeds two hundred people on Thursdays. I have a teenager who calls me didi and a chef who is my neighbour and a Premchand scholar who sits on a bench and a woman who used to hate me and now makes resumes beside me. I am not nothing. The golem is wrong."

"Write that down," Dr. Kulkarni said. "Write it and put it where you'll see it."

Ananya wrote it. On a Post-it note — the yellow Post-it, the corporate-supply that she still had stacks of from the office (the office-supplies being the last material connection to the corporate life: the Post-its, the pens, the paperclips that lived in a drawer and that the living-in-a-drawer was the corporate afterlife, the afterlife of objects that had served one purpose and were waiting for the next). She wrote: "Main kuch hoon. Golem galat hai." I am something. The golem is wrong.

She stuck it on the bathroom mirror. The mirror where she had first said "Hi, main Netta hoon." The mirror that was becoming the wall of the new life — the Post-it next to the reflection, the reflection being: the woman who was something, and the Post-it being: the proof.

The golem came back. Three more times in May. Each time, Ananya woke, drank water, stood at the window, and then — instead of the insomnia-ritual, the new ritual: she went to the bathroom, read the Post-it, said "Main kuch hoon" to the mirror, and returned to bed. The returning being: the choosing. The choosing to go back to sleep and to trust that the golem would shrink and that the shrinking was the therapy's work and the community's work and Netta's work and the work was ongoing and the ongoing was the life.

By June, the golem's visits reduced to once a week. By July, once a month. By August — the monsoon August, the August when Pune's rain was so heavy that it washed the roads and the air and the particular psychological residue that the summer had deposited — the golem stopped. Not forever (the not-forever being the honest assessment: golems did not die, golems went dormant, and the dormancy was the best that survivors of control could expect and the expecting was the realism and the realism was the health).

The monsoon washed the heat away. The heat that had been the trigger. Ananya sat on the balcony, in the rain, drinking chai — the monsoon-chai that was ginger-heavy because monsoon required ginger, the ginger being the monsoon's medicine, the medicine that Pune's mothers had prescribed for generations ("baarish mein adrak khao" — eat ginger in the rain — the instruction that was both medical advice and cultural identity, the identity being: I am Maharashtrian, I drink ginger chai in the monsoon, the drinking being the belonging).

The rain was warm. The warm-rain that was the Mumbai-Pune monsoon's particular gift — rain that was not cold but body-temperature, rain that you could stand in without shivering, rain that was the sky crying with relief after the May-June heat and the relief being shared, the sharing being: when the rain fell, everyone was relieved, the everyone being the city and the people and the trees and the particular Pune landscape that turned green overnight and the green was the forgiveness and the forgiveness was the monsoon's annual act of grace.

She texted Sahil: "Baarish ho rahi hai. Chai pi rahe ho?"

It's raining. Are you drinking chai?

Sahil: "Haan. Ginger wali. Tum?"

Yes. Ginger. You?

"Same."

The exchange being — the exchange was the intimacy. The small-intimacy that couples-in-formation shared: the simultaneous experience of weather, the weather being the bridge between separate lives, the bridge that said: we are in different places but under the same rain and the same-rain is the connection.

The golem was dormant. The rain was falling. The chai was ginger. The connection was growing.