‘I will manage, don’t worry. I shall call you tonight,’ she said a little too dryly, and I had no other reason to prolong our conversation. We bid flat goodbyes and got on with our day.
I am sure she had a blast that day; mine too was quite eventful. I had thoughts of Adira, with men swooning all over her, exploding inside my skull. I spent my day amidst innumerable creepy, weird ideas that zoomed in and out of my head. Little did I know that when I thought that it was the world against my love, it was me who was against it. I was standing in my own way and was blinded by jealousy which had no reason to exist whatsoever.
After an uneasy day, walking into an empty house added to my miseries. I called my parents on my return from work. They had reached London safely and were gaga about the place. They had even made plans to settle there permanently, that too within one hour of their plane landing at the airport. That was the moment I figured out where my ‘air-castle-building genes’ came from. But their happy voices were the only good things that happened to me that evening. I enjoyed talking to them about their small adventure at the expense of my sister and brother-in-law. After a one-hour-long call, we bid our goodbyes, and I had my cold food that the tiffin wallah had dropped outside my door before I came back from work. Mummy had arranged for my food to be delivered two times a day via a tiffin service for the time she was not around. After having their meal that evening, I was not sure if I intended to keep the arrangement going. But that was a small issue—the main problem was that I was still waiting to hear from Adira. She did not call me back that evening, and demons were at work again with flashes of her with other men invading my dreams. I was in and out of sleep all night, checking my phone for a message or a phone call from her. Finally, at 2 a.m. when I hadn’t slept at all, I messaged her on WhatsApp:
Goodnight, I was waiting for your call.
It was delivered. A moment later two ticks appeared, but they did not turn blue. Waiting for her to read and respond to my text, I do not know when sleep took over my senses at last.
31 MARCH 2017
It was a Friday, and I was working from home on Fridays that month. I had forgotten to set the alarm on my phone as well as the alarm clock, which was the only object that had stayed in the same place on my bedside table for years. Waiting for Adira’s call last night, and tossing in the bed for hours, ensured that my eyes opened way past the usual time.
Thanks to our kaam-wali bai (maid), I was finally awake at 11 a.m. ‘Shit!’ I exclaimed as soon as I checked the wall clock in the drawing room. Our maid (Shanti) had been with us since I could remember. She was roughly my age; married with four kids, or maybe more. I knew about four of them. She used to come to our home to do the household chores with her mother when I was a kid. I never gave it a thought then, but now I realize how difficult her life must have been. While we cribbed and fought for toys and games which we believed were our birthrights in our childhood, she never had a real childhood. She was married off at an early age to a construction worker, and from what I knew from Mummy, she was now the sole breadwinner of her house. Although she was the maid, she had a set of our house keys with her, which she never bothered to bring along. Mummy trusted her way more than she trusted her own son. Shanti rang the bell only once on days when I was alone at home and waited patiently for me to answer the door. Unlike the other days, she had already rung the bell three times as she told me.
‘Bhaiya, are you not well? I had to ring the bell three times,’ she asked me as soon as she stepped in, embarrassing me further.
‘I overslept,’ I told her honestly, and she got on with the household chores. Leaving her to it, I dashed back into my bedroom to check my phone. No messages or phone calls from her—my anger turned into concern, and I dialled her number fearing the worst.
‘Hi, good morning,’ she greeted me, answering the call quickly.
‘Hi,’ I was thankful that she sounded okay, and within seconds of knowing that, my anger returned. ‘I was expecting a call from you last night after you got back home,’ I could not help telling her that I was not pleased.
‘I know, it just slipped my mind, and by the time I recalled that you must have been expecting my call, it was too late. It was 10 p.m. already,’ she explained.
10 p.m.! 10 p.m. was late? I was tossing in my bed till 2 a.m.! Like a pancake on a hot, well-greased pan, and she thought that 10 p.m. was late? I gasped in astonishment and wanted to say something, but she had a lot to talk about. So, I decided not to spoil the conversation.
‘I saw your message in the morning and thought you must have been sleeping. Acha, I wanted to tell you all about yesterday. We had so much fun. I also met some of my other schoolmates . . .’ she sounded happy, and I did not want to spoil her mood by bringing up the topic of other men in her life. She was on her way to work on the metro, and I was roaming around the house in my pyjamas—who else in the world had time if we did not!
We had a long chat about her friends and their work, my work, my friends and my family for about one hour when she said, ‘I think we should start talking a little about “us” as well,’ and giggled. Yes, we should, and I wanted to see her so badly. It had been ages!
‘Yes, and we should meet too,’ I chipped in.
‘I am sorry for cancelling our plans yesterday. Can we catch up today?’
Yes, yes—I was dying to hear these words all through your excited blabbering about your friends in the last many minutes.
‘Shall I pick you up after work?’ It was not too cold any more for a romantic bike ride to Connaught Place for a coffee date.
‘Are you sure? You will have to drive all the way here and then go back,’ she asked. It was indeed going to be a super-long drive to and fro for me. That was the moment when I realized that love is a little silly, apart from being all the other things that it is. We agreed to meet at 5 p.m. outside her office.
I was parked outside her office at 4.30 p.m. sharp. It was all so new for me. Not the love—I was in love with her for so long that it did not feel new at all; it was more like a part of who I was. Arriving on time or early was new for me. I was known to be the last person to arrive anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes this talent of mine reached new heights when I completely forgot that I was supposed to be somewhere; it happened rarely, but it did happen. Those were the occasions when I would get a phone call from a friend asking me where I was while I was in the shower or in bed, or worse still, asleep.
So, being on time and waiting for someone was an exciting feeling that day too. I parked my bike under the shade of a tree where I could see the exit door of her office. It was a windy day, and the sun had been out for only a few minutes. I wore my favourite black-and-red jacket, which acted as a shield against the wind. I was not sure if Adira was carrying a coat or a jacket with her that day, so I’d taken another jacket with me for her, just in case she needed it. Considerate? Me? No, I was not willing to part with my own clothes to keep her warm. I was more selfish than polite.
She stepped out of her office dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. I had guessed right. As expected, there was no warm clothing in sight. She waved goodbye to her friends and walked towards me, beaming with happiness. Her tresses were all over her face, and she kept adjusting them as she crossed the road with the chilly wind blowing from every direction. She looked adorable.
‘Hi, bike?’ she asked me, concerned.
‘Don’t like it?’ I asked her, knowing that she was worried about the cold weather.
‘Isn’t it a bit cold for a bike ride? Where are we going?’
I had not told her yet that I had planned a long ride.
‘CP,’ I told her, and grinned.
‘I might die before we enter Delhi on this bike,’ she managed to say with her teeth chattering.
I took her away her worries and magically offered her a thick grey jacket. ‘For me?’ she asked, taking it from my hand and wearing it.
My jacket was two sizes too big for her, and she looked a
s if her face were lost somewhere in the fur at the collar. She gave an impression of a child in their father’s jacket, and I could not contain my laughter at the sight of her.
‘What?’ she asked, knowing why I was laughing and joining in. With the jacket on, Adira was all set to brace the cold weather, and I could not stop beaming at my forward planning. She hopped on the back of my bike, kept her hands on my shoulders, and off we went. This time, her bag remained on her shoulder.
With the cold breeze returning, the streets were more or less deserted. People prefer to stay in when the weather turns cold. There was hardly any traffic and fewer honking cars. We chatted all the way to the coffee shop. In no time, we had reached Barista in Connaught Place.
The place was quite the opposite of what we had experienced on the roads. It was filled with people, mainly couples in love, who needed a warm, cosy space and had somewhat less money in their pockets. All the tables were booked. People were queuing up at the counter to buy coffee. The ones that had managed to secure a table had empty cups and glasses resting on their tables but didn’t make space for the new customers. No one wanted to leave the warm coffee shop and face the windy weather outside.
‘We will not get a table here,’ Adira declared, and I agreed with her, ‘Let’s check somewhere else,’ she suggested.
We kept on hopping from one coffee shop to another, but the scene inside remained the same.
‘Let’s go to my house, I shall make some chai for both of us.’ Her plan sounded more promising than any of the staff’s suggestions. They had told us to linger for some time and wait for people to disperse and give up their comfortable seats for us. I understood their problem as well as those who were not willing to move out and face the chilly weather.
‘Are you sure?’ I looked at her tired face. Her small nose had turned a deep pink due to the cold wind. She had tucked her hands under her armpits for warmth. I too had lost all my energy in the cold weather. Even the flame in her eyes could not keep me warm enough to bear the cold without a hot beverage. I knew that Adira had slogged for eight hours already at work, and now all that ping-pong from one coffee shop to another had drained her even more. I didn’t want to bother her more by forcing her to make chai at her home, but I did not want her to get more tired either. Apart from all that, my main worry was that I had never been alone with a girl, in her house, in my entire life. I was worried about my reaction, or rather the lack of it.
‘Yes, I am sure,’ she replied, rubbing the back of her neck. She was definitely exhausted, so I gave in. Honestly, I did not trust myself, and under no circumstances could I ask her to trust me either. I didn’t want to do something stupid and hurt our relationship, which gave me all the more reason to be sceptical.
We reached her building and parked the bike in the guest parking zone. She led the way as we took the elevator and reached the tenth floor. She fished out her house keys, switched on the first two lights and welcomed me in with a hand gesture. ‘Home sweet home,’ she said smiling.
‘I know, I have been here before,’ I reminded her, tapping the forefinger of my right hand on my temple.
‘Ya, I know, but I have made a few changes since the last time you were here,’ she said, raising her eyebrows, and added, ‘feel free to look around while I make two cups of chai for us.’ The house was pleasantly warm, and I felt an instant rush of blood in my body once she closed the door behind us and busied herself in the kitchen.
I took a leisurely tour of her house and noticed that she had added some really tiny details to her home—a few candles, decorative plants, strings of LED lights, clocks, pots, pictures of her with her mother and other stuff that most guys hardly care about. She had transformed one of the bedrooms into a mandir and had lit up many lights in it. By the time I came back to the living area, she had turned the heating on and jackets were no longer necessary.
Then I strolled into the kitchen. ‘You have a mandir now. It looks great.’
‘Thanks, but there is a lot more than just the mandir that is new. For instance, this jar is new,’ she told me, pointing towards a jar which was filled with assorted grains and sat on the kitchen island. I had not noticed it, and honestly did not understand what it was or why it was being mentioned.
‘Okay,’ I said, inspecting it to please her as she poured our chai into big coffee mugs.
‘Do you want something to go with it?’ she asked me, opening the top drawer for me to see what was available to eat and choose something. My crazy eyes, however, followed the hem of her T-shirt which lifted up and exposed a bit of her waist. She caught me in this shameful and lecherous act and quickly repositioned her arm.
‘No, nothing,’ I was too embarrassed to look in her direction.
Quietly, I followed her into the living area, and we sat with our tea in our hands, looking at the view outside from her high-rise building as we quietly sipped the chai. I do not remember much when it comes to the taste of our chai that evening, but I can tell you that Adira makes the worst chai anyone could possibly make. Even Rohit makes better chai than her. That evening, after all the tiredness and then after being caught ogling her waist, anything felt bearable, even ‘that’ chai. I do not recall giving her any wrong reviews on her chai-making skills that evening.
Five minutes of deadly silence later, Adira asked me about my family—my sister to be specific. I told her that both my parents and my sister were in good spirits, and a normal conversation about routine stuff followed.
‘Were you angry with me yesterday? You sounded like you were,’ she asked me, and I decided not to lie.
‘I was, but then I realized that I cannot just bind you to me. You have a life, and we had made no plans to meet . . .’ That was the moment when she took away the empty cup from my hand and our fingers brushed, making me forget all the words and sounds my mother had once taught me as a child.
After all the anxiety and anger that had built up in me last night, the sudden closeness and affection made me lose my mind. Thankfully, Adira had missed me too, as she told me later. She let me hold her hand and bring her closer to me to hug her. I felt her scent, The One by D&G. The same smell fill my senses and her warmth light up my spirit. I wanted to kiss her more than ever. I slid my hand around her waist and pulled her towards me. She put her arms around me, and soon she was running her fingers through my hair. I couldn’t wait any longer and held her face as we looked into each other’s eyes. The next moment we were passionately kissing each other, our eyes closed as we only felt each other. We were in a world of our own where nothing remained but the two us. I pulled her even closer and held her more tightly. She did the same as we continued to kiss. And then suddenly my phone rang. It was in my pocket, and the noise was unbearable.
We broke our embrace, and I struggled to pull the phone out and silence it. The call was from an unknown number, so I disconnected it without a second thought and held her again. However, the caller had decided to spoil our moments of togetherness, and the phone rang again. ‘It is an unknown number,’ I said, flashing the screen at her and hiding my frustration.
‘Let me see,’ Adira said quite unexpectedly.
‘It is my mom,’ she told me with her eyes wide open and rushed to check her phone. I disconnected the call. This time I was scared of answering it. Adira rushed back into the living room. Her face was pale. ‘She has not called me. Why is she calling you? Where did she get your number from? She doesn’t even know about you yet!’
‘Are you sure it is your mother’s phone number?’ I asked her, and started reading it aloud, ‘nine seven one seven . . .’
‘. . . Eight one eight’ she completed the number for me. ‘Yes, I know it is her, but why is she calling you? And where did she get your number?’ she repeated. I was worried too. Why was she calling me? And how on earth did she get my number!
‘Call her back,’ Adira commanded.
‘And tell her what?’ I asked in a loud voice.
‘Tell her nothing, just ask her wh
o she is and why has she been calling . . .’ Before Adira could say anything more, the phone rang again.
‘What if she is outside and she knows we are together?’ I was worried about being caught with Adira when we were alone for the very first time, that too by her mother, even though I wasn’t doing anything much with her daughter.
She sprang towards the door and peered outside to check just in case her mother was indeed out there, which she wasn’t. Adira then called the security room to check if she had had another guest that evening, her mother. She was not there!
‘Call her back and see what happens,’ she told me one more time after she was quite sure that her mother was undoubtedly not nearby.
I did not want to look like a coward, so I called her mother back, half hoping that she was now too busy to answer my call. Luck is hardly ever in my favour, and her mother answered the call before the first ring could be completed.
‘Hello,’ she said in a calm voice. There was no anger, hatred or threat in her tone, yet I felt all three coming my way from her in an inexplicable way.
‘Hello,’ I muttered meekly, and waited for her to say something.
‘Yes?’ she surprised me with a question, hinting that she was not aware of the reason why I had called her. It puzzled me, and I looked at Adira for help. She looked at me, wondering what was going on. She could not hear her mother on the other end, but she knew that I was losing confidence with every passing minute.
‘I am returning your call; there was a missed call,’ she said.
‘Actually . . . I got . . . I got a call from this number. Your number,’ I replied as my heart pounded.
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