Zach

Arjun has arranged Zach's flight & hotel, and a rental car for a week. He's supposed to be going to bring her back to L.A., where her mother can pester her about marrying the man she's chosen for her daughter. But all he can think about is seeing Meera again, seeing her alone in a city far enough away from her parents it might as well be the moon.

"Bring her home to us," Arjun pleas, "I've bought her a ticket home, to return with you." He speaks of Meera as though Zach could just go and collect her like some lost package. Arjun is a brilliant man, but he doesn't know his own children, not any of them, not even himself, the 'son of his heart'. Zach has lived under the man's wing for years & he never saw what his daughter could do to him just by walking in the room. Having a ticket in hand for her to fly 'home' ensures that she won't come.

Arjun is paying for the flight & hotel, and Zach accepts that readily enough, but he draws the line when his mentor offers him 1,000 simoleons cash for 'expenses'. "You know I can afford my own trip to Denver, Arjun," he says with a laugh, "I'm letting you pay for the travel because this is a family matter, but I can't take your cash like that." The guilt weighs on Zach, he's never liked having to hide how he feels about Meera, being a trusted friend & treated like family, while secretly...well, he hasn't done much more than kiss the girl, his conscience and her youth have prevented any serious physical intimacy. But just the fact that he thinks about it makes Zach feel unworthy of Arjun's trust & respect.

Arjun insists, and presses, though Zach refuses several times, he finally has to take it, or he won't be allowed out of the house. Zach won't spend the money of course, and will find some way to give it back.

Meera's bedroom, on the second floor has it's only entrance facing an exterior balcony, almost like a separate apartment. The room used to belong to her oldest brother, Vijay. Vijay ran off and married Violet, and Meera was given this room when her brother Ram married Lakshmi and they took over the second floor rooms that are connected to the main house. Both of Arjun & Ambika's children who lived in this room ended up running off with Violet, as though the strange architecture, this one room split off the central hearth, made the occupant feel cast off, until they finally flew away. Zach visits the room now: Arjun doesn't know it, but Zach has a key. Meera had every reason to trust Zach, he's not the kind to be sneaking into a girl's bedroom at night while she sleeps. She has an image of the God Krishna, with Radha, his lover & his soul. What would Meera think when she looked at this image of the amorous god? Zach wonders. Krishna had to leave Radha behind when it came time to fulfill his destiny, and never saw her again. Meera now has stepped forward to meet her destiny, and if that future includes him, he won't know until he asks her.

Meera didn't take much when she left, her room looks like it always did, like she left everything behind. Maybe it is best that she start a new life for herself, break completely with her past. He'd like to think she could come back, get her own place & job, be a real person, separate from her family, without being broken from them. And he & she could have a normal, open relationship...he'd like for that to happen, but it would require some kind of divine intervention. Ambika has made up her mind about who Meera is going to marry. Zach looks at Meera's books, wondering if she misses them. He picks up a book of poetry, the 16th century poet Meera, for whom Meera was named, saddened that she left it behind.

He sits to read, but opening the book he finds he's completely lost his ability to transliterate the Devanagari script, he hasn't practiced his Sanskrit in so long, he can no longer read it. There in the margins are his pencilled translations, and her gentle corrections. Such poetry to be reading with a teenage girl, he can hear her voice as he reads 'She moves, in him unmoved, loses only herself', she always read to him with such passion, it made the words come alive for him, so much so that he cannot read the translations she helped him with without feeling her presence in every word. Zach closes the book & gets up. This room has a lot of memories for him: if Meera chooses to leave them behind, then he will have to leave them behind as well. He takes the book of poetry when he leaves: he will bring this memento of the times they spent together to her. If she misses him at all, like he misses her, then perhaps it will bring her some comfort.

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