by Jyoti Singh
‘Really, Sid?’ Offence was the best defence.
‘Yes, really, Niki.’ Sid sat down at the other end of the three-seater and poured the coffee. ‘Should we get started?’ he asked as if nothing had happened.
So this was how he was going to play it. The fight went out of Niki. She had spent the day on an emotional roller coaster and now she was exhausted. Sid was giving her a way out; she took it. Taking a deep breath, she picked up her cup and wiped all emotion from her face, ‘Let’s.’
Over coffee, Sid explained how he was using existing data from hospital databases to come up with an algorithm that would sift through currently unused information to check for symptoms, risk factors and test results to come up with a prognosis of a disease. He had started with cancer.
‘As you can see, the data is already there. All we have to do is ensure that we have not missed any of the variables.’ It was a side of Sid that Niki had not seen before—an idealist who dreamed of how he could solve a pressing problem. ‘The biggest challenge has been to show people it can be done and bring them on board. Hospitals are really cagey with their data…’ Niki looked at him with a mute gaze, trying to understand who he was. Sid the consummate professional, the intrepid investor, the passionate imagineer who saw the world in solutions to unexpressed problems… or the man who had just kissed her and pretended it had never happened? She was confused. It was only Sid who could make her feel this way—out of control, out of her body and possibly… out of her mind.
Sid waved his hand in front of her face and said, ‘Earth to Niki… hello!’
‘Sorry… it’s been a long day but I am listening.’ Niki jolted herself into paying attention.
Sid then explained how Niki could help him and they sat in easy camaraderie at his panel of computers working side by side. Swami brought a light dinner of soup and sandwiches at eight p.m. after which they continued to work. After nine, Niki began to wilt, yawning surreptitiously more than once.
‘It may be time to call it a day,’ she finally said as she stood up and stretched.
Her cat-like gesture caught Sid’s attention, as her body contours strained against the fabric of her light muslin tunic and pants. Niki felt the stirring of a physical response. She shook herself to channel her thoughts in a more suitable direction.
She gathered her things and made her way out. Swami discreetly handed her her helmet at the front door and Sid walked silently with her to her motorcycle. He held her hand as she reached to put on her helmet. ‘Thank you, Niki,’ he said as he pulled her into his arms.
The helmet fell as he bent to claim her lips. He deepened the kiss, his tongue inding its way around her mouth and mating with hers. Niki’s moan was audible in the quiet night. It was she who ended the kiss this time, stepping back to say huskily, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea, Sid, especially now that we’re working together…’
Sid didn’t argue. Niki’s motorcycle roared into the night. What a day!
Over the next few days, Sid and Niki developed a routine and rhythm for working together. The physical proximity was punctuated with gestures of affection, from a friendly touch on the arm to a ruffle of the hair and sometimes a light kiss on the head or cheek, but Sid deferred to Niki’s diktat by not kissing her again. It wasn’t easy. She was delectably tempting and Sid had to, on several occasions, walk out of the study on some pretext or the other to regroup his wandering mind. She, on the other hand, seemed to be gloriously unaware of Sid’s struggle. She chewed on her pen as she worked through a problem and had a tendency to shake her leg when she was getting impatient, prompting Sid on several occasions to put a hand on her knee to make her stop. Her stretches were the hardest to deal with. The lithe flexibility of her movements gave X-rated fodder for Sid’s imagination and dreams.
‘God, woman! You’ll be the death of me,’ he said in misplaced frustration one day while sitting on the chesterfield.
Niki turned white. ‘Don’t say that… don’t ever say that. Not even in jest. I mean it.’
Sid was surprised by her vehemence. ‘Come on, Niki, it’s just an expression.’
‘To you, maybe…’ Niki was adamant.
‘Care to explain?’ he asked, wondering what nerve he had touched this time.
‘I don’t know if I can… I have never spoken of this to anybody, not even Tanya.’ Niki seemed distraught.
‘You can tell me, Niki.’ Sid put his hand on hers and squeezed. Niki looked at it with conflicted, tormented eyes. He could see her struggle.
‘Maybe it’s time I got this off my chest… God alone knows why I’m telling you, though…’ Niki seemed to have resigned herself to a confession. Sid was intrigued. This was the first time Niki was sharing something with him. He felt strangely privileged.
‘Promise me you will never tell Tanya or even judge me for this,’ she said. There was a tremor in her voice.
‘You have my solemn promise.’ Sid squeezed her hand again.
Niki took a deep breath and asked, ‘Do you know how my parents died?’
‘Only that it was a car accident… I’m sorry.’ He felt as if he had stepped on a grave.
‘I was in the car, Sid. I was arguing with them…’ She touched the silver line on her arm absently.
‘Is that how you got those scars?’ he asked.
‘Yes…’ This conversation gave Sid new insight into Niki.
‘You cannot hold yourself responsible, Niki…’
‘How would you know? What if I was, Sid? What if I was the cause of their deaths?’ she countered.
‘It was an accident…’ Sid tried to use logic to quell Niki’s obvious agony.
She looked befuddled as she said, ‘Why am I even telling you this?’ It was a rhetorical question.
Sid wanted to take away her guilt and pain. He broke his pact with Niki and took her in his arms. She was quiet and still.
‘Niki?’ he said and she looked up at him with tortured eyes. It was his undoing. He placed light kisses on her forehead, her cheeks before he found her mouth. She didn’t resist him. His hand moved along the side of her waist to rest below her breast. He could feel the pounding of her heart through the light cotton of her plaid buttoned shirt. Sid tried to school his wayward body but it had a new master. He felt Niki’s hands move up his chest and responded by cupping the back of her head to deepen the kiss. He leaned into Niki until she lay under him on the chesterfield, her legs parting involuntarily to accommodate him between them. Her hands moved along his back, pressing him to her in an untutored need to get closer while her hips rose to meet his. A primordial rhythm took over. Their movements carried the quiet desperation of the unfulfilled need to connect at a deeper level but Sid could not bring himself to cross that line—not when Niki was vulnerable. He tucked his head between her head and shoulders and stilled his body. They were both flushed and breathing heavily. Niki opened her eyes and Sid saw how quickly they went from bemusement to horror. She pushed him away and stood up.
‘Oh, my God!’ was all she could say and, before Sid could gather himself, Niki had shot out of the study, the house and was riding her motorcycle away from his villa like a bat out of hell.
Sid was flummoxed. He understood that what had happened was against Niki’s diktat but it had been an organic development. He had responded to her unspoken need to be comforted but had not bargained for things to go as far as they had. He cursed his inability to keep his passion in check around her. Even so, his rational mind could not fathom why on earth she had run away like that. Especially after she had shared what was obviously a deep secret with him.
Despite everything that had happened, Niki remained an enigma to him. The moment he felt he finally understood what she was about, she surprised him. Sid felt confused and he didn’t like it. So he did what he knew best—he took action.
He looked around to see that she had left her handbag and laptop. He gathered her things. Swami quietly handed over her helmet. Sid put it all together in his car and drove
to Niki’s flat.
‘You forgot your things,’ he said when she opened the door.
‘Oh!’ was all she said as she let him in. Her eyes were puffy and red. She had been crying.
Sid put what he was carrying down on her dining table. Keeping his distance, he asked, ‘What was that about, Niki?’
‘I can’t explain.’ Niki shifted her weight from one foot to the other. They both remained standing.
‘I’m sorry that I crossed a line,’ Sid offered.
‘You don’t have to be… it takes two,’ she replied.
‘Then what is the problem?’ He really wanted to know.
‘What is it about you that makes me say and do things I never would with anybody else?’ Niki’s exasperation was directed at herself.
‘You mean falling in laps, walking into people and tossing coffee trays?’ Sid tried to lighten the mood.
‘This is not funny, Sid,’ Niki looked truly distressed.
‘Then why don’t you just tell me what it is?’ Sid asked.
‘Isn’t one secret enough for today? Must I tell you everything?’ Niki looked close to tears.
‘No, you don’t have to, but honestly, what am I supposed to think? One moment, we are having the most intense encounter one can have with clothes on and the next you are gone like I…’
Niki interrupted him mid-sentence. ‘It isn’t you; don’t you get it? It’s me…’
‘What do you mean, Niki?’ Sid was like a dog with a bone. He couldn’t let go, even though he could see how uncomfortable she was. What was this other secret she was holding on to?
‘I am twenty-nine years old, Sid; it’s embarrassing.’ Niki wouldn’t look him in the eye.
The penny dropped. ‘Are you saying…?’ Sid left the question open-ended.
She took a deep breath and said, ‘I have never been with a man before…’
It was Sid’s turn to say, ‘Oh!’ He was at a loss for words. This beautiful, complicated creature that stood before him never failed to amaze.
‘But…’ he added.
‘No… never…’ she replied before he could ask.
Sid was having trouble processing this new information.
Niki shifted her weight again. He could sense she was ill at ease.
‘It’s all right, Niki…’ He was placating.
There was awkwardness in the room, as neither knew what to say or do next. Sid took control and put the ball firmly in her court. ‘How would you like to play this, Niki?’
‘I don’t know yet… Could we, for now, pretend that this conversation never happened?’ she said.
It would be hard but Sid was just glad that she had not mentioned the earlier part of the evening.
‘Deal,’ he said and made to leave. ‘So, see you tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
They left it at that. Sid hesitated over his nightly text then decided not to change things on account of what had happened. Niki replied and that was enough for him.
The next day, when Niki came over, Sid focused on the work but was careful not to make any gestures of affection if he could help it. She was skittish around him and could not keep still. They danced around each other all evening. Sid found it hard to concentrate and they didn’t make the hoped for progress.
‘Looks like we will have to continue working on this after the trek as well,’ he said.
Niki looked surprised. ‘Trek?’
‘Don’t tell me you have forgotten… We leave on Friday by the night train. I have got all the information for you right here,’ he said as he handed over a plastic folder.
Niki looked at it as if it would explode. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea after…?’ She left the question incomplete.
‘Of course, Niki… It will be a good break and maybe the change in geography and the physical challenge will make all of this seem less important than it does now,’ he replied.
Sid didn’t want Niki to reconsider. He wanted the trek to take her out of her context and give her an opportunity to see things differently. It wasn’t as if they would be alone. In Sid’s mind, being around different people in an unknown environment would be a good experience for both of them, especially since they had packed a lot into their brief association. They had moved fairly quickly from strangers to familiars. Along the way, they had learnt things about each other that even some of their closest friends didn’t know. Sid was curious about what would happen next. With Niki, that was always an unknown. He liked the uncertainty.
Chapter Seven
Niki hated packing. This concept of twenty-five litres of stuff in a duffel bag and another lot to put in a backpack was just too complicated. Especially since the folder Sid had given her had all these instructions and lists, which were completely alien to her. She had no reason to complain because Sid had already sent a lot of what was on those lists with the equipment, just as he had promised. It was deciding what to take and what to leave behind that was confounding her.
As she struggled to decide, she wondered why she had accepted the invitation for the trek at all. Equipment and clothes aside, there was the whole aspect of spending unlimited time with Sid, even if it was in the company of his friend and the visiting students. They had never really spent time together outside the context of work or the city. This would be a whole new ball game. What on earth had she been thinking? The customary smack to the forehead didn’t help in these circumstances… she had tried. Several times, in fact.
As she sneaked her travel-size bottle of perfume into one of the pockets of her backpack, Niki couldn’t help smiling at her preparation for unexpected proximity with Sid. Since the first time they had met, the encounters had increased in intensity until that evening when she had told him about her parents and, subsequently, her virginity. She had still not worked out why she had felt the need to share her deepest secrets with Sid. There was just some inexplicable urge to come clean, to have him see her as she really was – a mass of confusion and contradiction… Something about him made her trust him to accept her, warts and all. She didn’t experience this sense of safety with anyone, not even Tanya. It was probably because he was an outsider… or even maybe he’d been there when she was ready to tell. She had analysed her sudden confessions to death but had failed to come up with any satisfactory answers. All she had realised was that she needed to be careful around Sid. He managed to inveigle her into saying and doing things that were better left unsaid and undone. Around him, Niki lost all semblance of balance, logic and reasoning—she was all emotion and senses.
After that evening, Sid had been guarded, walking on eggshells around her, always careful not to make any gestures that could be misconstrued as anything other than an easy familiarity. Niki was loath to admit that she actually missed his kisses and touch. That evening had woken up a part of her sensuality she had not known existed. In all her life, this was the closest she had come to losing control over her libido. If Sid had not stopped, she would have gone much further than they had that evening. Just the thought scared her. How was she to know that Sid was the right man? Hell, she was a twenty-first-century woman with Victorian notions of only giving herself to a man she loved enough to marry! There was something seriously wrong with her.
Friday evening came soon enough and Niki had no more time to ruminate on the wisdom of her decision. Sid usurped her good sense in a whirlwind of activity. Venky drove them to the station. The night train was utilitarian but it only constituted the first leg of a long journey into the foothills of the Himalayas. In a flurry of introductions, Niki was hard pressed to remember all the names so she stayed with Jude and Sid. Jude was all Sid had promised he would be—an itinerant traveller at heart who was really passionate about the hidden geography of India.
‘Pay attention to the little nuggets of information he shares,’ Sid whispered conspiratorially into Niki’s ear during the journey. ‘You will never find them in any travel or guidebooks.’
Niki acknowledged the tip with a smi
le. It was the only private moment they shared through the overnight train ride and long drive in cramped quarters with children of the digital age. Their communal isolation accentuated by headphones. Memorable moments viewed through a lens and defined by the screen of their smartphone. Niki could not help thinking that they were missing out on the real thing—the topography had a beauty and majesty that could only be captured by the naked eye and filed away in human memory.
As civilisation faded, it took with it the cares and worries of city life. When they finally arrived in Kasol, Niki breathed in the rarefied air and felt like a new person. Sid was right… again!
Kasol, a village on the banks of the glacial river Parvati in Himachal Pradesh, a state in northern India, was a hidden gem at a height of 1640 metres above sea level. Recently discovered by backpackers, it retained an old world charm of a village that had let the world in as a base camp for treks into the Himalayas. Jude had organised an overnight stay at one of the many resorts that had sprouted to cater to the increasing throngs of people who came to enjoy its scenic valley, untouched hills and isolation. Paradoxically, in doing so they made these very attractions redundant, a fact that was not lost on Niki.
The quaint resort was a collection of cottages nestled in a deodar forest, named after defining towns and villages of the state. Jude explained that the décor reflected characteristics of the lifestyles of these different locales so that the guests could enjoy the many flavours of Himachal.
‘What are those?’ Niki asked, pointing to the strange architecture of some of the cottages. Built on large stone pillars, the wooden structure capped the top, looking like something out of a fairy tale. One could almost see Rapunzel dropping her hair from the balcony and asking her Prince to climb up to be with her. There was collective admiration from others in the group. ‘Wow!’ ‘Awesome.’ ‘Wicked!’
‘Those are styled after machans, platforms used for hunting in the old days. But the more interesting fact is that all the cottages, including these, have been built in the ancient local Kathkunia style of dry stacking of stone and wood without cement. The inner walls are plastered with mud to retain the rustic charm. Totally eco-friendly…’ Jude was quick to use the teaching moment.