So, while my work life sucked and I was the one who was blamed for all the pending work at the office, I was content and looked forward to each sunrise; to getting into the metro and calling her to hear all about what she had to tell me that day. I also realized that I was a great listener, for most of our conversations were her sweet chitter-chatter and my dull verbal nods and laughter. I was so embarrassed to not be contributing enough to the discussions that I asked her more than a few times if she was getting bored talking to me, more than once a day at least. I think at that point all she needed was a listening ear, some empathy, and assurance that all will be fine soon and she need not pressurize herself so much. ‘You are doing great,’ was all she longed to hear from people, but people seldom show empathy.
Her mother had her own demons to fight and didn’t notice that her child suffered silently beside her. Days were filled with lovely messages, long phone calls and midnight chats for the two of us. Finally, my work was not the most critical part of my life.
Before being in the nameless relationship that Adira and I had, I always wondered what people in love talked about, and how they managed to have so many conversations, one after the other, all day, every day with each other. It is quite evident that after a certain point they would run out of topics to talk about, wouldn’t they?
If you wonder the same, then all I can tell you is to wait. Just wait until you are smitten by someone. Wait until you are bitten by the love bug. It crawls into your head and creates a space that you never knew existed. All of a sudden, your brain thinks of the things you want to know about her: small things, more substantial items, things that matter to her and also the ones that don’t. You want to know everything. Like I never knew she loved morning walks. I never woke up early enough to catch her going out for a walk early in the morning and coming back to the house without anyone knowing while she stayed with Nani. None of my friends knew that either, I am sure of it.
I did not know how much she loved soft, romantic music, especially old Bollywood numbers—exactly like me. But unlike me, she had quite a melodious voice and hummed along beautifully. I was banned from singing at home, or a warning was issued by my parents in the public interest. She, however, sang whenever she was happy, or when she knew that I was upset over something. She sang when she was on a call with me, and also when she cooked. She loved cooking food, especially when she was stressed. How well did she know how to cook? It was for me to know in the next few months. When I initially detested Samba and was too scared to even touch him but slowly had become quite fond of my pug buddy, she told me that she had a pet dog when she was a child. That dog was her first friend, but her mother hated dogs because of all the mess they made. ‘I want to get a dog as soon as I move out alone,’ she told me casually at the end of that conversation, and I knew I had to get one for her.
We were so alike in many ways and yet so different in others. I had studied in the same school with the same set of friends all my life, while she changed schools eight times before she finally settled in the one where she befriended Tamanna.
So, the topics just kept sprouting from nowhere, but there were also a few times when both of us ran out of things to talk about. Killing the silence with a question, ‘So, what else?’ that lingered in the air for a while until one of us revisited one of our previous conversations and we laughed over it. Sometimes, just hearing her voice was enough to keep the conversation going, and the sound of her laughter was like heroin for me; I was under her spell.
In fact, both of us were in the phase where it is all so good that you pinch yourself a few times a day to see if it is real and not a dream. All was golden around us, and for those weeks, and many more weeks that followed, we only needed each other. I had been pressing her to come back, and she had started giving a few interviews. She was worried about her mother being alone but knew that both of them had to move on.
Finally, one Monday, she called me early in the morning. It was a set pattern for us—texts in the morning while I was at home, and then I used to call her when I boarded the metro. I was sitting with my parents, enjoying my morning tea when her number flashed on my phone screen. I excused myself and answered her call in the balcony. ‘Hi. Good morning,’ I said, not hiding my surprise.
‘I got the job,’ she told me chirpily, giggling like a child. Placements for an IT giant were happening at a place near her mother’s house in Chandigarh. They were hiring communication experts for their company. Adira had been an English language student at college, which made it easier for her to get the job.
‘Awesome!’ I exclaimed, and found my mother standing behind me. She had followed me like a cat to the balcony. Avoiding her eyes, I told Adira I would call her back as soon as I could. She was going to be upset with me for not talking more, and I knew it. But handling her mood, which by then I knew how to change in ten minutes, was more doable than managing the hundreds of questions my mother would have asked me had she sniffed anything like love in the balcony.
Nani already had a PG that year which meant that Adira was to live somewhere else. She had to come to Delhi a week later, and we started looking for a house for her. Three days was all it took to finalize a home in Noida, near her new office—a flat her mother had suggested she stay in.
18 MARCH 2017
Early that morning, I picked up Adira from the New Delhi metro station in my father’s car, and we headed to her new home in Noida. I was seeing her after so many days which had changed the texture of our relationship and brought new feelings for us. I was nervous as well as anxious before the meeting, but seeing her took all my nervousness away and filled me with anticipation and hope.
We stuffed the boot of the black Swift with her numerous bags and began our journey. The weather was starting to warm up, and with the windowpanes down, warm wind blew on our faces. Memories of the little time that we spent together at Piyush’s wedding surfaced in my head and soon found their way into our conversation. The one-hour drive came to a halt at Sector 60, Noida. Adira’s mother had found her an apartment in a beautiful high-rise building. The house belonged to her mother’s friend who lived in Mumbai and needed someone to live there so that it was not misused by the notorious goons around.
‘Are you sure you want to stay alone here?’ I asked her again, and frustration replaced her happy smile.
‘Why do you keep on asking this question all the time?’ she replied a bit angrily. ‘Tenth floor,’ she added as we stepped into the unmanned lift.
‘Because, had it been a safe place your mother’s friend would not have been so concerned about it being unoccupied,’ I told her for the umpteenth time, and saw a faint smile appear at the corners of her lips.
‘I am not a child. Moreover, I now want to live as an adult, alone; not in some PG where there are people to feed you and tell you when to come and when to go out of the house,’ she said, as if I were the one who could not see the obvious.
‘Also, I don’t think boys can stay over at PGs,’ she said as she tilted her head and gave me a knowing smile. Is she talking about me? Or someone else? Does she want me to stay over with her?
Things were happening a little too fast, not that I was complaining. Had they happened at the pace I wanted them to, we would be fifty before our first kiss!
We were greeted by an elderly couple as we got out at the tenth floor who looked at us shamelessly from top to toe to form their opinions about us; without even being aware of our first names. That is what the world is like nowadays—judging everyone and anyone you meet, see or hear about. No one knows anything about the people around them, yet we all have our opinions.
‘Hold on,’ Adira instructed me, and started looking for the keys to the apartment in her handbag. It was a large tote—I know that now; she made me aware of a few different kinds of handbags. Totes were her favourite as she could carry all that she needed and also stuff all that she might need once in her life into the bag. It took her nearly ten minutes to fish out the keys which were on
a large keychain with a yellow, smiling minion attached to it.
‘You took so much time to take this out?’ I said jokingly, and from that moment on, the day nose-dived like an airplane which had lost both its wings and the pilot had been knocked unconscious. She did not appreciate my joke.
We entered the well-lit place, and I put her bags in the living area. The apartment was well-furnished. It had three bedrooms, one living area and a well-maintained kitchen. I took a stroll through the house and complimented the place. Adira refused to acknowledge any of my attempts to soothe her hurt ego. I was not at fault as she did take way too long to find the keys that were attached to an object nearly as big as a rabbit. Yet, I made as many efforts as I could to lighten her mood. She started responding in monosyllables after a while. That gave me a little confidence, and I decided to bridge the physical gap between us.
Desperate? Who, me? No, I was way beyond desperate!
I started brushing her hands with mine and softly touching her arms at every opportunity as we cleaned the house and made it liveable.
It took us a little more than a couple of hours to brush off the small cobwebs and dust the furniture. ‘What about lunch?’ she asked, crashing on the sofa after everything was done.
‘We can go out for lunch, and we can get some kitchen essentials on our way back,’ I suggested.
‘Great,’ she replied, and got up to face me. The same fluttering feeling which I had experienced the first time I had seen her invaded my senses.
I looked at her; she was so close to me, and her face somehow looked softer. Her expression was warm, and so were my ears with the flow of blood into my head. I took the liberty to hold her hand and squeeze it. She gave me a smile, and I knew that it was the moment for us—the moment when we were supposed to kiss; to say the least.
My stupid phone gave out a loud, shrill scream, which shattered my dreams into many pieces. ‘I am sorry,’ I said, struggling to take it out of my pocket. ‘It is my mother,’ I looked at her apologetically, and she took a step back.
‘It’s okay,’ I could see her injured expression.
‘Hello,’ I answered the call and walked towards her balcony where the sun shone, leaving her in the room and expecting her to be waiting for me. When I returned after the call, she was still there but the moment had passed.
‘There is a good Chinese place nearby,’ she told me, looking up from her phone and smiling.
‘Let’s eat,’ I agreed with her, and abruptly looked away, hoping that she didn’t see in my eyes the thoughts that had been running in my head earlier, while secretly also hoping that she did.
I picked up my car keys, and she picked up her tote before we locked the house and made our way to the elevator.
‘It was my mother. My sister has not been keeping very well, and my mother might have to go to be with her, in London,’ I tried to explain the reason for the phone call, and she told me that she understood.
‘Thank you for all your help today,’ she said simply, as the elevator descended to the ground floor. She took a step in my direction and stood facing me, as close as the space permitted us to be to each other. This time no phone calls came our way, and we had our first kiss, in the moving elevator, with security cameras on us. Sometimes, the place does not matter, even when it should.
We came out of the lift like culprits and giggled as we reached our car, where I told her that I loved her, and for the first time, I heard her say those three magical words to me, ‘You are silly!’
She said this whenever I told her that I loved her.
It was her version of I love you too.
30 MARCH 2017
Despite almost being in the same city, Adira and I could not meet again after the day she arrived. She had joined her office almost immediately and had found new friends. I knew that she was not very happy with my absence because I was the one who had convinced her to leave her mother alone in Chandigarh. Having convinced her to leave her family, I became busy with mine, leaving her alone. Honestly, things at home were beyond my control, and no matter how much I wanted to see her again and be in her company, I could not.
The day after Adira came to Delhi, my mother got a worrying phone call from my sister who was in London and expecting a baby. She was bedridden, unable to do most of her work on her own as she had a complicated pregnancy, and had no one to help her there. After many days of contemplation and numerous consultations with almost all our relatives, my parents decided to go to the UK and support her as that was the need of the hour. Dad took a sabbatical from work and Mummy got on with preparations.
My next two weekends were spent sorting out their travel documents and shopping with my parents—for them, for my sister and for the tiny baby who was yet to arrive on the planet. Adira and I managed to be in touch with each other over the phone. We had long conversations about our days each morning and evening as our office timings were similar, but I felt bad that I could not give her the time she deserved. I knew that I had to give her more of my time, and felt like a culprit every time she suggested a meeting, and I gave an excuse for why it was not feasible to meet her.
Finally, on Thursday 30 March, my parents took an early morning flight to London. My mother was in tears as she was concerned about my well-being once I was alone. I assured her that I was a grown-up and could look after myself. In fact, at that time I really wanted them to go so I could be alone for some days; I wanted to be an adult. ‘Relax, Mummy,’ I hugged her at the point beyond which they were to travel alone.
‘Eat on time, and do not overwork,’ she said as she hugged me tight, wiping away her tears. And a couple of minutes later, off they went.
The first thing that I did once they were out of sight was to text my sister informing her of their departure. She would see it when she woke up in London. As soon as I was out of the airport, the reality sank in—for the first time in my life, I was going to live alone in my own house for the next six months. To be honest, the thought was not very comforting. It was 7.30 a.m., the time when Adira had usually boarded her morning metro to her office. I called her but she didn’t pick up, which disappointed me a little. Later I got a text saying that she was busy and would call back in a while.
That day, as I was so close to work already, I decided to take the car and ditch the metro for a change. I planned to catch up with Adira after work, and then drop her back home for an unplanned dinner date. As I drove to work that morning, I kept an eye on my phone, hoping for a call or text from her. I reached work and rechecked my phone. Nothing. This concerned me, and I decided to make a call to see if all was okay at her end.
I dialled her number, and she answered the call after a few rings. She sounded chirpy and her usual happy self. Phew! I was worried that she was furious with me as I had cancelled a meeting with her just last night. It was a party invite with her office colleagues, and as I knew no one apart from her, I had skipped it. I had thought she might not even answer my calls. I told her about my plans for the two of us that evening—a dinner date after work. ‘I can pick you up from your office,’ I suggested. I was really excited about finally spending some time alone with her without having to worry about pending work back home, but she poured ice-cold water on my excitement with her response.
She declined with a simple ‘I can’t today, I am sorry. I have made some plans already.’
Is she punishing me?
‘Oh, okay,’ I could manage nothing more as I was not expecting the conversation to go in that direction. Way too confident of yourself all the time, my own mind was making fun of the soup I was in. I wondered what she had planned. I always struggled to find the words to ask her in a way that didn’t annoy her with my interference in her life, or make her feel that I was one of those men who could not see their girl hang out with men, which I was, to be honest.
There is soft music playing in the background. She is definitely not taking the metro to work today. She is in a car. Yes, I can hear some honking. She is definitely in
a car, or maybe a cab as she didn’t have a car of her own. She is probably in a friend’s car; perhaps that friend is giving her a lift in her car, or his. A male friend, a man—shut up! My mind was wandering off again.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to ask her any questions. She went on to explain on her own, after an awfully long silence while my brain was still working on the question.
‘I am with an old friend from school,’ she told me, as if she could read my mind, which was borderline creepy, to say the least. ‘We have planned to catch up after work for a movie and dinner tonight. As you and I had no plans, I promised,’ her innocent voice made me feel so petty, but only for a moment. She never mentioned her friend’s gender. And she never even once said that she would cancel her plans for me when she should have offered. Not that I would have stopped her from going. Or maybe I would have, but she did not know that. She should have provided at least told me the name of this ‘old friend from school’ . . .
‘Give her some space; she will have male friends who are not her boyfriends. Not all men are in love with the same girl you love,’ this is the advice I would have given my younger self. I know better now. You might be thinking this, but it is easier said than done—especially when the girl in question is so pretty. I could feel my nerves panicking, and my heart was pounding.
‘Ya, I know, I wanted to surprise you,’ I tried to add some romance to my impromptu plan, hoping she would cancel her other appointment and join me for dinner instead. But I also knew that I was wrong in hoping to persuade her to cancel her plans so I quickly added, ‘I can pick you up from the party and drop you home. Like that, we will get to meet at least.’ I felt my voice almost cracking up, sounding feeble at the end, to say the least. I knew very well that she had patiently waited for me to fulfil my personal commitments, and now was my time to trust her. But insecurity doesn’t listen to all the valid points in an argument; it doesn’t bother to analyse the situation. It just throws the door open, walks in and conquers your thoughts—just the way it happened that morning with me.
Something I Never Told You Page 13