Part-Time Devdaas...

by Rugved Mondkar

  “So quit your job and go stay with him.”

  “Both of us have slogged our asses off to get where we are today, so giving up on either one of our careers is seriously stupid. We tried breaking up, but that didn’t work. We kept getting back to each other every time we tried, but this open relationship thing worked for us.”

  “Ya, but doesn’t it bother you?”

  “At first it did bother us both, but now we’ve gotten used to it. If we had an option, we would have taken it but there isn’t any, and sex with different people doesn’t lessen our affection for each other. We are as much in love as any other couple. It’s just sex that we outsource.” She shrugged.

  “Plus, it’s not as if we’ll be like this forever. For now, we are happy with this. We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it.

  “Honestly, it’s too much to process.”

  “There is nothing to process... it’s just sex.”

  “Hmmm... Who was the guy anyway?”

  “Management trainee.”

  “Looked pretty gay.”

  “I know. Aneesh said the same thing.”

  “When did Aneesh meet him?”

  “Ahh...”

  She blew out air and took a dramatic pause. “Well, we have a ritual. Before and when we do it, we send each other snaps of the person...”

  “Are you guys for real?” She took a bow. I laughed.

  “Family is supposed to welcome the guests and not otherwise.” Radhika said standing in my way placing her right hand on the door. The baby in her left arm blocked the other side.

  “Sorry, I got traffucked,” I smiled.

  “Language... please... around the kid at least?” she said and handed me ‘The Niece’ and dragged me deeper into the dense forest of the guests.

  Good food was one of the many perks of coming back to Radhika’s house. Not that I couldn’t take care of my sinner stomach but years of diligently standing besides ‘The Mother’ while she cooked brushed off some serious culinary skills on “The Sister”. So the buffet that was laid graced such a variety of dishes that the watering mouths could fill enough buckets to bathe the whole of Los Angeles. The occasion was the sixth month birthday of the eight pound piece of flesh – my niece Kiara. The name was a bit wannabe for me, plus naming your kid after a cartoon character was supremely lame, but Radhika had fought off my disapproval and went ahead with the name.

  As I roved my eyes around the party, I found nothing interesting. I looked at the decorated house, bunny shaped cake, delicious smelling buffet, enthusiastic neighbours, their riotous kids, desi relatives of Viren attempting an accent, lame birthday party games. Everything but what I was looking for – alcohol. Food, soft drinks and confectioneries weren’t exactly my definition of a party. If it wasn’t for the tutu-wearing baby Kiara, I would have made a run for it.

  “What beta, you are not taking anything only? Your mother will think we derived you of food here?” Deprived, Kamal Aunty, Radhika’s mother-in-law meant, “Take, take, how will you get allergy (energy)?”

  “Yes I am. I am, wait I’ll help you with the gravy,” I smilingly said.

  “Oh, no no beta, I am a vegetable (vegetarian).”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know.” I can speak Marathi too, Kamal Aunty, I thought of adding.

  “By the way, beta I’m sorry the girl break your hard (heart).” What!! My sister’s mother-in-law also knew about my devastation over a three-year-old break-up!

  “But you don’t worry, you are so young, I will find you a suitable groom (bride) here in Amreeka. And that too with a green card.” She winked at me as she left.

  I suddenly felt like all the eyes in the room shifted their focus on me, staring at me sympathetically. Had I become that guy who needs help to lead a normal life? I thought I was doing good with the moving on in life. I probably needed to exhibit my happy emotions a bit more openly.

  Smile fool, smile. I told myself.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Radhika asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are smiling.”

  “So, is that a problem?”

  “No. Looks like you are faking it.”

  “Oh god! You need to stop dissecting every little thing...”

  “Tell me when you are done pretending everything is alright.”

  “Everything is fine!”

  “You probably think no one notices, but you’ve changed, Poncho...”

  “Ya, because you can’t be the same person all your life.”

  “I didn’t mean it in a good way.”

  “What is wrong with you all of a sudden?”

  “Because the person that I’ve been with in past one year is not the brother I grew up with. It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to me about what happened with Hrida, but you need to talk to her and get a closure. You think I don’t know why you came here? Running away from Mom, Dad and everyone who loves you is not going to bring you peace. Arjun, throwing tantrums is not going to bring her back.”

  “Tantrums? Are you seriously kidding me?”

  “Speak to her and sort your life when you go back, Arjun. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Speak about what, Didi? I broke up with her. I am not going back to her. It’s the one thing I’ve promised her and I’m keeping my promise. Mom was right. I had to accept we were not meant to be together and I finally have. Don’t worry, I’m fine...” I lied, but the last part of my argument finally scored Radhika’s silence. when in an argument, quotes of people your opponent worships always help you win.

  Later that night after hers truly, whiskey, failed to create the magic, I went back to my old friend in need, weed. It was a year since I had gotten baked so the first hit felt like I was shot by a shot gun. I had almost forgotten how it felt. I stood there with my back pinned to the wall, listening to my own heartbeat. Radhika was right, I was pretending, but I knew no other way to move on. I thought plugging the memories and lying to myself would eventually ease things. In the past one year, film school had kept me so busy that I had no time to even feel the pain of my bursting bladder, let alone the pain of her not being around. But now with the course in its final phase, time had made itself available for me. And with time came the plans for the future, and her absence in the future took me back to the past. Right from the moment that she had walked out of the cafe that night, I had an intuition that she’d come back after her anger subsided. The counting of time changed from hours to days to months to years now, she never came back. I never made peace with the fact that she was actually gone. I couldn’t digest the fact that she didn’t want to be with me. As time passed, the bitterness inside me grew. My immature pretentious pursuit of Devdaas-like self destruction only led me to an empty life.

  “Chutiya banaya khud ko...” I grunted and pulled my hair. Then, as if to steal the thunder of my grunting, the sliding door of the balcony opened with a thundering noise and spooked me. I dropped the joint in fright as she stared at me.

  “Bloody criminal!” Gay yelled.

  “Gay... I was just... I’m sorry...” I said flustered. The lit joint lying on the floor was still breathing smoke into the air. I lifted my feet to stamp it to death.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Gay screamed again.

  “I-I...” It was so fucking tough to respond to her that words barely made it out of my mouth.

  “It’s a crime to waste a joint...” she pushed me aside and leaned to rescue it, “Do you know how hard it is to get weed these days?” she said and coughed her lungs out as soon as she took a drag.

  “Where did you get it? This stuff is good...”

  She coughed again, “Really good...”

  “Leo got it for me...” I said.

  Gay looked at me with a disheartened face as I flicked the joint out of the balcony.

  “I have more.”

  “My herooooo...” she fluttered her eyelashes.

  “That goes in there... and... umm... then a fold... and ca..re..fu..ll
y... roll... and...” I jutted my tongue out to tape the joint. “Yum... here you go, milady. Your joint, lean and mean...” I said while Bob Marley sang Ganja Gun in the background.

  Silence swept the living room as she sparked the spliff and took consecutive drags while I preyed on passive buzz.

  “What... brought... the need... of weed on... you?” she said pausing abruptly, “Is she back... in here.” She knocked her index finger on my forehead.

  “Ahh! the famous ‘she’ of my life, yes she is back.” I rested my head on the couch and tapped on her hand for a drag.

  “No!” she snapped, “I’m not sharing.”

  “Cruel bitch!”

  “What do I say, the praises don’t stop.”

  “I give up,” I said and got up to roll again.

  “I need something sweet, can you fetch me the gummy bears? Please?” I fetched her the box and sat back on the couch.

  “Ganja ganja...” she sang along with Marley.

  “Three years four months and nineteen days...” I said interrupting her. “That’s how long it has been since I broke up with her...”

  “I sense an ‘and’ coming.”

  “And I have been waiting for her to come back all that while...”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am a chut...”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay!”

  “I wasted eleven years behind a girl for this shitty loneliness.”

  “No one forced you, right?”

  “That’s what makes me the fool that I am.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know, I can count at least seven girls who I could have been happily with had I not been hung up on her.”

  “Did you count me? Because that would make it eight.”

  “No, I didn’t. Wait a minute, are you saying...”

  “Eww no... it was in the past that I waited for you.”

  “You did? How long?”

  “Five years.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Yes, what the fuck...” she said and took a drag.

  “So... I kinda know how you feel...” she continued.

  “Shit Gay, I… I had no idea...”

  “Hmm... Gummy bears?” I grabbed a handful from the box. ‘Leave the purple ones, they are mine.”

  “I’m really sorry Gay,” I said and hugged her.

  “It’s okay,” she said patting my back, “Let me go to sleep now.” She got off the couch and walked to her room.

  “I seriously wish I knew. I would have done something.”

  “Well you could now...” she said stopping at the door of her bedroom.

  “As in?”

  “As in if you want we can... you know...”

  “You mean...?” I said widening my eyes.

  “Ya I mean.” She shrugged. “Unless you are still saving yourself for some princess charming.”

  “No...”

  “No?”

  “I mean no, I am not saving myself for anyone but... no...”

  “Okay, no problem. Good night.” She disappeared behind the door.

  I went to my room and crashed on the bed. I tossed and turned under the quilt, but the mind refused to shut down. I got out of the bed and went to Gayatri’s room.

  Your days of being a chut are over, I told myself before I knocked on her door.

  “Gay?” I knocked again.

  “The door’s open,” she said.

  “How do I have to pose for the photograph for Aneesh?” I asked impishly. She smiled.

  “That we’ll think of in the morning. Now come to bed,” she ordered.

  I closed the door and followed the order.

  I was seven years late but I was happy that I was finally graduating. The convocation ceremony at Los Angeles Film Academy was a rather unconventional one. Ten films cumulatively made by ninety students from acting, directing, producing, editing and other faculties were screened to a packed auditorium. Then based on the average of their popular votes, the films were rated on ten. The highest scoring film would be sent to the festivals at the school’s expense. Though my film wasn’t going to any festival, it ranked number three. It had been long since I had done anything to make myself proud. I wished Mom and Dad were there. I wished she was there. Ever since I dropped out of engineering, these three people desperately wanted to see me graduate, and now when I finally did, they weren’t around. But Radhika made up for their absence. She along with her whole family applauded as I walked up the stage to collect my degree.

  “Mom would have been so happy...” Radhika whispered into my ears as she hugged me.

  “I know.” I said as she kissed me.

  “I saw your name in the picture, beta, what proud I felt I tell you.” Kamal Aunty said and kissed my forehead. I touched her feet.

  “Sir, can I please get an autograph?” Viren said holding a paper and a pen. I grinned and signed. “You know years from now this will sell for a million dollars,” he said to Radhika holding the paper. I hugged him.

  “Beta, this is Bhoomi. You remember our neighbour Mrs Gandhi. She is her daughter,” Kamal Aunty said.

  “Hi...” Bhoomi said extending her hand.

  “Hi...” I shook her hand with a confused look.

  “When I told her mother about you, she invested (insisted) to take Bhoomi to meet you. She is big fan of films.”

  I smiled.

  “I told you I’ll find you a beautiful groom (bride),” she said rather non-discreetly, pushing both of us in a conscious silence.

  “I loved your film,” Bhoomi said after musing for a while.

  “I’m glad you did.”

  A message from Gayatri tinged on my phone.

  “Sorry kid, running late, got stuck at work... see you in six minutes.” and one sad, one happy smiley, her message read.

  “It’s okay, just make sure you kiss me when you meet.” and a straight face, I replied.

  “I’m sorry...” I said to Bhoomi.

  “Oh no it’s alright...”

  “So what do you do?”

  “I help my father with his grocery store. We are the biggest Indian place in Artesia.”

  “That’s great...” It was extremely important that I went through this matchmaking meeting flawlessly, because I knew everyone from Radhika to Viren to his mother, even the baby, were closely observing me from a distance. Even though it was Radhika’s mother-in-law who had introduced me to the girl, Radhika was the real mastermind behind the meeting. I, however, had my own agenda of proving to Radhika that I was normal and the after-effects of the break-up on me had worn off.

  “Hi baby, I’m so sorry I missed it,” Gayatri said and pecked me on my lips. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said kissing after ever sorry.

  “I wish you were there, honey,” I kissed her back, in full public view.

  “Sheee...Honey?”

  “Just play along,” I whispered.

  “Bhoomi, this my girlfriend, Gayatri.” Her face flushed.

  “Hi...” she said.

  “Poncho?” Radhika entered the scene. I knew she had been watching me, I mentally fist-pumped.

  “Didi... meet Gayatri. She and I are...”

  “Radhikaaaaa... I finally get to meet you,” Gay jumped on Radhika and hugged her before I could complete my sentence.

  Poor Bhoomi. She stood there dumbfounded.

  “Gay, this is Viren bhai, my brother-in-law,” I said.

  “I’ve heard so much about you guys, Poncho keeps talking about you guys all the time. Where is Kiara?”

  “He never told us about you?” Radhika said, “Wonder why that is?” She turned to me; I smiled sheepishly. Even though Gay was doing a great job, it was Radhika we were pitted against, so it wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Really?” Gay said, “You and me will have to talk later at home, understand?”

  “Yes.” I pretended to be scared, “And here comes the baby.”

  “Aww she is so c
ute, can I please kiss her?” Gay asked Radhika.

  Kamal Aunty looked on a bit disappointed.

  “Sorry, Aunty, I should have told you about Gayatri.”

  “Oh come on, beta if you are happy it doesn’t mind (matter),” Kamal Aunty said.

  “Gayatri, she is Kamal Aunty, Radhika’s mother-in-law.” Gay promptly touched her feet.

  “Oh no need, beta.” Gay smiled. “What do you do, beta?”

  “I work for Technocom. They provide cellular service.”

  “Oh nice... and where are your parents from?”

  “Mumbai...”

  “Poncho, what time is your flight tomorrow?” Radhika asked.

  “Two o’clock I guess, not sure I’ll have to check,” I said.

  “Let me know, is your packing done? else I’ll come to help in the morning.”

  “It’s done. Gayatri took care of it, I’ll see you at the airport directly.”

  “Cool. Let’s leave,” she told Viren.

  “Why aren’t you guys waiting for the party?” I asked.

  “It’s late. I better rush back home before the baby gets cranky,” Radhika said, “It was nice meeting you, Gayatri. Come home sometime. Even if Poncho is gone, we are here.”

  “Oh sure, I’ll come,” Gay said.

  “Take care baby, I’m proud of you.” Radhika hugged me.

  “I love you,” I said.

  After all of them left, I exhaled in relief.

  “What did you just make me do back there?” Gayatri asked.

  “Save my ass from getting married to a grocery store owner’s daughter.”

  “Whatt?”

  “Run run run, we’ll be late for the party,” I said and pulled her with me.

  “Get a room, you guys!” Leo’s drunken voice yelled in my ears from three inches away, while drunk me and drunk Gayatri chomped on each other’s lips on the dance floor. I pushed him away as soon as he handed me my drink.

  “I’ve never done this before, you know,” I said taking a break from kissing her.