“Hey, hi…” he said in a very cheerful voice and shook my hand. “Tell me how can I help you?”
“I’m Arjun Kulkarni,” I said hoping he would remember his conversation with my dad.
“Oh yes, Arjun... how are you, buddy?” he said and whistled out to a guy and gestured him to get the keys. “Number one,” he yelled, “How’s Arvind?”
“He’s fine,” I said.
“It’s the best room I have here. You are going to love it,” he said as he walked us across the white sand to our tent.
“I’m really thankful to you for letting us in on such a short...”
He cut me short.
“Oh skip the formalities, buddy. Your dad and I are school time gotis,” he said handing me the card to the room. “Just have fun, I’ll be happy,” he smiled.
“Thanks.” Shashank said.
Anyway, boys, let me wrap a few things up then we’ll have dinner together?”
“Sure, thanks,” I said.
“Here, take these.” He pulled a cigarette box full of joints from his pocket and handed it to me. “Have fun,” he winked at me and left.
The ‘tent’ was a twenty by twenty room with wooden flooring. A huge round bed big enough for five people and covered by drapes suspended from the ceiling occupied the centre. A jacuzzi in the bath with its windows facing the beach lent a view of bare bodied girls. It was paradise for single horny boys. Raghu and Shashank jumped in the tub to warm their bodies. I lit a joint and strolled on the beach, the wind blowing my hair and my feet sinking in the warm white sand. A couple of bikini-clad girls smiled at me. Later I said to them in my mind, for now it was the mind blowing view of the sunset. For the first time in months since my break-up, my mind was blank. I sat there feeling the warm breeze and looking at the sun go down. I took a long drag and held the smoke. A smile grew on my face as the marijuana began to kick in. You don’t need anyone to make you happy, I told myself.
At 10.30 in the night, I was woken up by persistent knocks on the door. I sleepwalked up to the door and opened it. It was the hotel attendant who had come to tell us that dinner was served. Raghu and Shashank had disappeared so I got ready and left to meet the stud. Awesome was waiting for me in the restaurant.
“Come, have a seat.”
He got up and hugged me. The happy smile and the slight sway in the walk highlighted the effects of the pot that he smelled of. “Where are Raghu and Shashank?”
“Don’t know, maybe they went to the city.”
“Okay, what will you drink?”
“Beer’s fine.”
The attendant standing beside him rushed to fetch it.
“Uncle, thanks again for squeezing a room out for us. I know how hard it must have been,” I said almost mumbling the word ‘uncle’.
“Are you kidding me. I’m so happy you guys are here.” The waiter came back with my beer. “I would have vacated the entire property for you boys.”
Two hours, a delicious dinner and nine beers later, the conversation steered to girls.
“I hear someone broke you heart.”
A wave of shock cruised through my blood stream when my mind registered what he said.
“Ho… how did you know?” I asked.
“Arvind told me,” he said calmly as he took a sip of his single malt on the rocks.
“Dad?”
The wave of shock hit me with twice the force this time.
“What the fuck!” It came out louder than I wanted it to.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s none of my business,” he said.
“Oh no… I didn’t mean to, I just, it’s just...” my mind struggled to fish out suitable words out of the riot that had broken out inside my head,
“How did dad come to know? Does that mean mom knew too? Who would tell them? Devika? Shashank? Raghu? Why would they tell them? Shit, shit shit.”
“It’s just painful, isn’t it? I know,” he paused and lit a joint. “Its been thirty years since I got my heart broken,” he said and pulled in a long drag.
“But no matter how much time passes, the pain and the helplessness remains,” he said as the smoke escaped out of his nose and mouth.
“I’m sorry. what happened?” I asked.
“It all began with her smile. Lata and her family were our tenants. I would go to collect the rent, and every time I went, a smile waited for me. I wanted to see more of her so I began to follow her to her college. I would wait outside for the whole day so that I could follow her back home. Eventually following her graduated to walking with her and the smile developed into holding hands. Life with her was bliss. We were seeing each other for three years,” he said as he emptied the contents of his glass.
“One day her father found out about us and he decided to marry her off to a Tamilian IIT engineer. I was simply rejected for being a rich, non-Tamilian arts graduate. I tried hard to convince him but in vain. What surprised me was she said nothing and instead she quietly married the engineer,” he took a gulp of the whiskey directly from the bottle.
“The picture of her marriage still makes me scream my heart out, but what’s the point. For years after that, my dad tried to get me married. Every girl more beautiful and wealthier than the previous one, but my heart belonged to the dusky Tamilian girl who now belonged to someone else,” he dabbed the tears that had filled his eyes.
“Did you ever meet her again?” I asked.
He smiled, “When life decides to play dirty, it does cruel things to you. I met her ten years back. She was here with her husband and son for a vacation. The pain resurfaced again. Her smile, her warmth, her eyes – nothing had changed. I could clearly tell from those eyes that the love for me still lived in her heart, but as I said, what’s the point.”
“Since then, she comes here every three years or so. I make her jealous by hugging and kissing younger firang girls,” he giggled.
“But when I look at her, I realise I have missed out on a whole chapter called marriage. I gave up on life after she left, but she moved on. She is a wife and a mother who takes care of her family. I’m still the same twenty-four-year- old she left. Honestly, I’m very happy with my life right now, but sometimes when the crowd goes back home, and the villas and beaches are empty, I feel the need to hold on to someone.” For the first time since I met him, I saw an aging man with a broken heart.
“When you are young and heartbroken, you easily decide that you’ll live alone all your life. Trust me it doesn’t feel good to be alone at my age, so... take your time to heal your heart, but someday, when love knocks on your door, open it!” He said as he got up from his chair.
“Okay? now enough of the storytelling. You go to sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and walked away into the darkness of the silent white sand beach.
I sat between the dancing fairy lights hung all over the resort feeling the cool breeze and listening to sounds of the sea. What Awesome said made perfect sense, but at that moment, I just wanted to be alone.
Give yourself some time, you’ll survive, I told myself.
The new year’s eve party at Trinity was a glamorous affair. Awesome had converted the whole resort into a dance floor; six DJs that he flew down from Amsterdam created euphoria with their music while skimpily dressed sexy models serving alcohol at bar counters located at every hundred feet made sure people got drunk. A huge digital clock showed the time. Awesome kept a watch on his party with the security head from the gallery built beside the DJs’ console. Either it was the party or there was something about Goa that made otherwise shy girls go wild smooching and hugging random strangers when it hit midnight. The boys and I were dancing with one such group of girls.
After three hours of dancing, we took the girls to our room for a joint session which ultimately ended up in six bodies sexually romping in pairs of two. Shashank took the huge bed with his Delhi girl, Raghu took the smaller spare bed with the Delhi girl’s US return friend, and I took the couch with a little plump
Firang friend, of the friend, of the Delhi girl. As horny teenagers we had wished for an orgy, but I never thought it would actually ever happen, at least after meeting Hrida. A while later, I realised that the firang tongue wagging inside my mouth had disappeared and I opened my eyes to see the girl kissing Raghu. I almost puked at the thought of the same tongue slobbering our mouths at the same time. Swaying and swinging, I left the room.
An hour later, Shashank and Raghu found me on the beach.
“Come hither my love, let my lips kiss you,” Raghu said as he fell on me trying to hold my face. Shashank jumped on us and we began to laugh.
“Do you realise we kind of kissed each other?” I said grimacing.
“But why the fuck would you guys kiss the same girl?” Shashank said as he got up.
“Because I don’t like copulating with dead bodies,” Raghu yapped. “Bloody dork started snoring half-way man,” he said while we guffawed. “Anyway this moron was going nowhere beyond first base, so I jumped in.”
“Oh fuck you, I just gave her up for you,” I said.
“My girl knew her stuff man… pure pleasure,” Shashank boasted.
“Seriously speaking, I don’t think I’ll be ever able to sleep with anybody else,” I said. “I keep seeing her every time I’m making out.”
“Poncho, lose the cheesy crap, man, its freaking me out now,” Raghu said slurring.
“I love her, man!”
“It’s been around three months now, and she is gone.” The last part of Raghu’s sentence hit me bitterly, but I stayed quiet.
“You are not the only guy who has been in love and has got his heart broken,” Shashank said.
“Ah, this coming from you a guy who simply broke a girl’s heart just because you ‘thought’ you were incompatible.”
“Oh come on, don’t you lecture me over Neha now.”
“You just deserted her without trying. Very convenient; you’ll be cursed.”
“Cursed?? Arjun, what is wrong with you man! You seriously need to go see a shrink, there is nothing like a curse. Hrida is gone, and she is never coming back. She is probably dating somebody already or preparing to get married,” Raghu’s words were slitting my heart.
“Stop it!” I yelled.
“Why? What’s bothering you? You claim to be so much in love with her, but within three months, even you have started making out with random girls. Why won’t she be doing it? Can’t you see that she has forgotten you?”
“You know what, it is probably because of this blunt attitude of yours you couldn’t find anyone good to be with. You are an asshole, so obviously, you attract the same kind of girls.”
As soon as I completed my sentence, Raghu landed a mighty punch on my left cheek, knocking me on the ground. I clutched the sand and got up in rage, but gave up the thought of hitting back the instant I realised whom I was about to hit.
“Just go fuck yourself, loser!” he screamed at me.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You two are dead for me,” I screamed dabbing my bleeding lip with my sleeve. “I curse the day I met you two.”
“Poncho, enough is enough!” Shashank ordered.
“Fuck you!” I said and left the beach, with Raghu still yelling and abusing me. Three hours later, I was on the flight back to Mumbai. The new year had started, and I had lost some more people I loved. But at that moment, I really didn’t care.
The day you admit yourself as an engineering student, you solemnly sign on the warrant of persecution and agree that you’ll, without any objection, allow your mind and soul to be sodomised by the atrocious demands and treatments bestowed upon you by the professors, who feel righteous to vent their personal and professional vexations by bullying you at every possible opportunity. There are students who bear the blisters with smiles and mirthfully show it off. But since I was thrown into this black hole with my hands and legs chained to a tetra pod, my mouth occasionally blared out my frustrations at the professors.
One such incident cost me the afternoon of 31 December and I was holed up in the cementing lab that resembled a rat-infested cave. I could see orgasmic pleasure beaming from our professor Miss Mary Mathews’ face when she asked me to rewrite the whole semester’s experiments.
Ms Mathews looked like the ugly step sister of Cinderella. A round, grey-coloured face, her oil soaked hair tied with a rubber band while a moustache similar to that of a boy going through puberty adorned her upper lip. She had a manly voice and spoke flawless English with a heavy South Indian accent.
Whenever my phone vibrated, she looked up from her files and raised an eyebrow which almost touched her hairline. It was five in the evening and Raghu had been calling me for the past four hours. I pushed the phone in my pocket to avoid anymore stinking looks from Ms Mathews and got back to wasting ink and paper. An hour later, the phone began vibrating again; after a few minutes of enjoying the vibration in my pocket, I pulled the phone out. Seventeen missed calls! All of them from Hrida. I felt a sudden rush of blood in my body. I simply stuffed all my files in my sack and ran out of the lab, leaving Ms Mathews screaming behind me.
I started my bike and throttled it out of college. At a safe distance away from the college and Miss Mathews, I stopped and dialled Hrida’s number. My heart began to pound.
“Hi...” she said.
“Hi... you called?” I asked adjusting the rearview mirror to see my face.
“Yes...” her voice filled with controlled eagerness.
“Why?”
“How are you?”
“I’m good...” I said resting my elbows on the fuel tank my face still visible in the mirror.
“I called to tell you that I’m done.”
“Done with what?”
“Done with being pissed at you.”
“Hmm...” I saw a smile grow into grin in the mirror. “I love you,” I said after controlling myself for a while.
“Thank you,” she said. Who the hell on this planet replies to an I love you with a thank you? But she had scared me enough in the past eleven days, so I kept my trap shut.
“When can we meet?” I asked.
“What’s your plan for tonight?”
“We are going to this party at Yeoor hills.” I said. “I wasn’t planning on taking anyone, so I’m still a stag.”
“Well now you are not… I’m coming with you,” she commanded. “But I have to be back by one, max.”
“You will, I promise. Be ready by nine, I’ll pick you up.”
“OK, bye. And hey, thank you again,” she hung up.
Yeoor hills was a part of a national park which the people of our city used as a makeshift hill station. So having any party there was illegal. But as I said, in our country, no one cares, hence everything can be managed. The money provided by our parents wasn’t ever enough to pay for our vices, so managing events and arranging parties were the easiest ways of making a quick buck. Raghu and a common friend of ours had arranged this party. Good music, good food, lots of girls, lots of booze – back then, it was the definition of a kickass party. But that day, none of it mattered. All I cared about was that the girl I loved was with me, smiling her heart out and dancing freely. She was happy. I began the new year smiling, dancing, and laughing with my friends and Hrida beside me.
Fifteen minutes after twelve, we left the party to keep up with Hrida’s deadline. Riding down through the dark forest roads, I heard three wows and two oohs from her before I was finally asked to stop. She squeaked with joy and ran to the peepal tree which had hundreds of fireflies flying around it. It looked like it was decorated with white rice bulb string lights used during Diwali. I switched off the headlight and there was total darkness around us. The only source of light was fireflies shining on the tree. Hrida stood there mesmerized. In a few minutes, she returned and swiftly hopped onto the bike.
There was this happy silence for a while till we rode down the hill.
“I had fun today,” she said looking at me in the mirror. I could cl
early see the love in her eyes as she smiled.
“Me too,” I smiled back, there was again a moment of silence with both of us looking at each other.
“Didn’t it scare you back there in the dark?” I asked as I hit the highway.
“No, besides why would I be scared when you were with me?” she winked at me.
“Do you really have to go home right now?” I asked trying to push my luck.
“I’ve promised mom so she’ll be waiting. I haven’t been out for so long before,” she said. “But we still have ten minutes.”
“I love you.” I said. She just blushed. “And I’m sorry for saying those mean things.”
“Did you seriously think that this through-the-mirror-apology of yours will be accepted?” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, what do you want me do?” I stopped the bike a hundred metres away from her building gate.
“Scratch your head a little and get back to me with something creative,” she said and got off the bike.
“I really thought I had lost you,” I confessed.
“Don’t worry, you never will,” she said patting my head like a dog. “Can I leave, please?”
“Please stay for a while!” I said pouting.
“I don’t want to go, but it’s past one.” I knew she really meant it when she said that.
“Fine.” I said as she extended her hand towards me. Not knowing whether to kiss it, squeeze it or pull her close to me, I held it for a few seconds before she left. I stood there and watched her go. She turned back a couple of times before disappearing into the gate.
The smile, the glint in her eyes, the spring in her walk, the blush on her face – all of it was for me… because of me. Finally, for the first time in my life, the girl I was in love with loved me back. It had been just over two months that I had met this girl and I barely knew anything about her. She was yet to confess her love for me. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life but I decided that I was going to marry her. I lay down in my bed with thoughts of Hrida whirling in my mind. I went through everything she said to me, reliving every moment I spent with her that evening. I finally decided to write her a letter asking her to forgive me. I rushed to my computer and typed out a letter.
Part-Time Devdaas... Page 6