by Durjoy Datta
Her emotional blackmail knew no limits.
I learnt later that Paritosh was a drunkard and had nearly flunked out of school. He loved rock music, as it was hip to do so, drove like crazy and spat blood and bile after crazy night-outs. In short, a despicable, hateful person. And more so for me. He even had half a tattoo on his right hand, half a man, half the pain. Avantika and Paritosh wanted to have the same tattoo, but he had chickened out midway.
‘Is there nobody else? Shawar? He should be the one taking care of her, not me. She doesn’t even like me. I am dumb and ugly—her words, not mine.’
‘Shawar is the last person she would like to meet right now. I am picking you up in twenty minutes. You have to do this. Just this night. For me.’
She disconnected the call before I could put up a cogent argument. More than anything, I dreaded meeting Avantika again. I was not in a mood to deal with a heart that gives up at the sight of her and a rampaging tongue that flaps around wordlessly. It was already eleven thirty and I would have to convince Mom that an important assignment was pending which could not be done sitting at home. Moms always know when you are lying, just that they don’t always have proof backing their intuition. Like movie tickets that you forget to throw away. Or parking slips. Or greeting cards.
‘Bye, Mom,’ I said, finally deciding not to tuck in my shirt.
‘Bye-bye. Did they announce the results? The interview?’ Mom asked.
‘Yes. I wasn’t selected. Only five people got through,’ I said. At least fifty people did.
‘Never mind. Sit for others. Anyway these IT companies are biased against mechanical students,’ she said. I was perfect. I would never put a foot wrong. Her son could do nothing wrong. How could I tell her that I would not be allowed to sit for any other interviews?
I left.
‘Hi, guys!’ I greeted everybody as I entered Tanmay’s car.
The best part about his car was the tinted windows that not only did a world of good to Vernita and him, allowing them to fool around in the college parking without raising any eyebrows, they had also helped Shrey and me in our times of need.
‘So where are we headed?’ I asked, looking at Avantika, before she said anything and cast a spell on me.
She was looking no different that day … beautiful. Her eyes barely kept the flood of tears from running down the dried streaks on her cheeks. She was wearing an extremely depressing, dull-blue T-shirt and dark-blue jeans teamed with sneakers. Her social networking profile had pictures of her in spaghettis and skirts with junk jewellery hanging from every part of her, but those days were long gone.
She stared expressionlessly outside the window as if somebody had just sucked the soul out of her. A teardrop caressed her eye for a while, until it could no longer bear her grief and slid down her cheek slowly. The drop was so clear, so radiant, yet so full of crushing sadness. It hung from her cheekbone as if not wanting to leave it. Who would? What would, in this case? I caught the ill-fated tear just as it left her face. I held that tear in my hand.
‘Now, you may suffer from dehydration if you keep crying for long.’ Silly joke, I thought. She looked at me. Sadness never looked so heavenly. I wished she were sadder. Can I slap you for looking great?
‘Hi, Deb.’ She actually talked to me. It may have been out of sympathy. I was dumb and ugly, after all.
Somehow, seeing her cry made me feel more comfortable. I had found a chink in her otherwise flawless armour. I had always proved myself to be a good agony aunt. Many of my relationships were rebounds. No girl in her right senses would date me otherwise.
‘Hey, you don’t have to cry. Look on the bright side. When he comes out of prison, he can sign a book deal and become rich … and famous. Oops, he already is.’
‘Excuse me?’ she said, startled, and her eyebrows made a small hill. She was taken aback and I expected that. I had seen that expression a million times. It is always easier to talk and kid about relationships than actually brood over them and not talk at all. For this very reason, people around me said that I was insensitive whenever I used to make fun of break-ups. But who was to tell them that it was for their own good. Besides, I really was insensitive. I had not been through a break-up, so the whole sense or nonsense surrounding break-ups eluded me.
‘Excused. Why are you crying? And just think how proud your grandchildren will be, when they go about telling their friends, My grandma’s ex-boyfriend is one of the looniest criminals in Arkansas. Now that would be cool.’
Don’t kill it. Don’t be over-smart. She already hates you. Chill. Focus.
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘When did you break up?’
‘It’s been more than two years. February 2005.’ She turned towards the window. We were whizzing past Punjabi Bagh. A string of flyovers on the Ring Road had made the drive red-light free. These flyovers, metros, high-capacity buses made Delhi much more commutable. No longer were the sexier parts of Delhi alienated. Despite the progress, women were still being raped and thrown off moving vehicles on these flyovers.
‘Two years? And you are still crazy about him? Look at Vernita; Tanmay is lucky that she is still with him after six months. I think you don’t realize that you can get any guy. You just have to point a finger and he will come running after you.’
I couldn’t believe I was speaking so much. I think it all came out because of the state that she was in; she wasn’t as fatal as she had been the other day. Or I think I was overexcited. A part of me felt like I would pass out.
‘I don’t need anybody else.’
‘You didn’t need a cell phone before you started using it. Start using me and you will feel my need,’ I said.
You can’t be flirting with her. You are a poor, dumb and ugly guy.
‘I think people who flirt in the first meeting itself are insincere about their feelings,’ she said. Quite obviously, I was being unnecessarily oversmart.
‘Technically, this is our second meeting. And those who don’t flirt and stay shut on their first meeting, you find them dumb. Don’t you? As for the ugly part, I won’t say anything because I am ugly. I will not contest that,’ I said as I winked at Vernita.
‘I can’t believe you told him that, bitch. And you’re not ugly,’ Avantika said as she pinched Vernita.
I was happy and my heart wagged like a cute puppy who’s just found the girl who owns it. I had just made the most beautiful girl on earth smile in her saddest moment. She looked ravishing.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Vernita answered as she looked at me and ground her teeth.
‘I didn’t mean that. Seriously,’ Avantika said apologetically and touched me on my forearm. I felt … something.
‘Oh! Then what did you mean?’ I asked as I leaned into her and fainted. Almost. Why did I have to look her straight in the eye?
‘I mean. You have to admit. You were acting so dumb that day. You were just average.’ She had more authority in her voice than my English teachers after they had spotted a didn’t went in an essay.
‘You could have said that instead. I was so hurt. I couldn’t sleep for days, you cruel hag,’ I said.
‘I told her that you were okay. But Vernita wouldn’t take it. She wanted me to say that you were dumb. You know how she is,’ she said, wiping off her tears.
Wasn’t I great? I had just made a girl whose most loved person was going to be dead in a few days, smile. Well not dead, but it sounded more dramatic that way.
‘Yes, I know,’ I said.
‘Anyway, what are you accusing me of? Even you didn’t find me attractive. Or rather, you found me dumb. What do you have to say to that, Mr Roy?’ she said.
Didn’t that sound straight out of a sex scene from a badly written racy novel? Mr Roy … will you marry me, Mr Roy? Will you take out the garbage? Will you … Focus! Focus, Deb, focus.
‘Oh that? That was because I knew you wouldn’t have kind words for me, so why should I?’
Vernita had been a bitch. But what
she had said was actually helping me blow the ice away. I was just plain lucky.
‘Okay. So? What were the real words? What did you really think about me?’ she asked.
‘You were just about average. Nothing great.’
And we all burst out laughing at the pretty average joke, but any joke under those circumstances worked. I felt like a god. A little later, we reached the complex which housed the nightclub we were supposed to go to that night.
‘You guys go in, I have to attend this call,’ I said as we stepped onto the escalator leading to Hype. It was Smriti.
I waited for Avantika to go past the huge bouncers with bulging striated muscles and through the huge red doors before I answered the phone. She had been off the partying circuit for a year but everyone seemed to know her—the bouncers nodded, the manager had something funny to tell her, and no cover charges. Avantika often scared the shit out of me. She had been the kind of person who made school hell. The guys whom I could never be, and their girls, whom I could never get, both hated me. Avantika was one of them.
Smriti never called when she was back home, in Meerut, during the holidays. So it had to be important, and as expected, I was greeted by a frantic voice.
‘What happened? I can’t hear you properly,’ I responded to her illegible whispers.
‘Mom is in the other room. There is something very important I had to tell you. I told them about you. About us.’
‘Told them what?’ I shouted, like moms do on trunk calls.
‘ABOUT YOU! I told them about you!’
‘And? What did you say?’ I asked. The last thing you would want involved in a flingish relationship were parents. I freaked out.
‘I told them the truth. I love you. I told them we were serious and it is long term,’ she said.
‘Are you nuts? Why did you have to tell them? Are you out of your mind? What did you say? What did they say? Man, shit, shit, shit, shit. This is horrible!’
‘What’s wrong with you? You told me that you want it to be long term. So I told them. That’s it. Why are you acting up?’
‘What did they say? What the fuck do they want right now? Why did you have to tell them? I had said you don’t have to tell them anything right now!’
‘I was feeling guilty, Deb. I can’t keep lying to them any more.’
‘What the hell, Smriti! You didn’t tell them when you slept with me. Didn’t you feel guilty then? Shit, man. This is horrible. What did they say?’
‘They want to meet you … and your parents. It was tough, but I convinced them, Deb. They are angry, but they still want to meet you,’ she said what sounded quite like a death sentence to me.
‘Have you lost it? Why do they need to talk to me?’
‘… to talk about us. My dad is extremely angry with us and what we have. But I told them I loved you and he agreed to meet your parents. It will be all right,’ she said meekly.
‘What the fuck? About us? Meet my parents? And it will be all right? My parents will burn me at the stake, damn it. They won’t tolerate another inter-caste relationship after the one Sonali almost brought home.’ I thanked god I hadn’t told my parents about the interview. That, along with the news of this affair, would have made things stuffy at my place.
‘What am I supposed to do, Deb? I can’t do anything. I am doomed either way.’
‘I don’t know. It’s all your fault. Why did you have to act smart and fucking tell them? We could have done that later. I told you so many times not to talk about us to anyone. What got into you?’
‘Is it my fault?’
‘Yes, it’s your fault. It’s because of you we are in this mess now. You are …’
‘It’s always my fault. Isn’t it? I came after you, didn’t I?’ she broke down and I hated it. I couldn’t bear to see her cry … ever. I didn’t love her, but hearing her cry now pained me. It also meant she would keep the phone down, not pick up my calls and bitch about how uncaring I was to others. Not acceptable.
‘Okay, now don’t cry. Your mom will wake up. We will see what we can do. Just tell me what you told your dad. Exact words.’
‘They didn’t let me speak. They just wanted to meet your parents. I just said that we love each other and you have no problems with our getting married in the future.’
‘Okay, go to sleep now. When are they coming to Delhi, if they are?’
‘Next week.’
‘Okay, sleep now. Goodnight. Love you.’
‘Love you, too.’
I cut the line. I was glad she hadn’t asked where I was. Not that I would have told her the truth anyway. She hated Vernita and didn’t trust me with her. Especially when she knew that I wasn’t the most trustworthy of guys.
A million thoughts started running through my mind. I was twenty-one and some old man was coming to meet my dad and propose a match. This was my worst nightmare. Deep inside, I knew it would be a lot worse than my worst nightmare. They would accuse me of ruining their daughter’s life et cetera, et cetera. Ideally, I would have spent the night sweating it out and thinking about the worst worst-case scenarios, but Avantika was waiting, and I was dying to see her again.
I decided I would deny all allegations of an affair. I made up my mind to tell them that we were just friends and it was Smriti who went crazy after me. I was innocent.
‘Hey! What’s up?’ I shouted as the pungent smell of alcohol and smoke wafted inside my nostrils. Hype was a decent place, never too crowded and was open until early morning. It catered to the not-so-affluent but still chic crowd, so it happened to be a good hangout place on a budget.
‘Whose call was it?’ Vernita shouted back.
‘Smriti.’
‘Anything worth knowing?’ Tanmay asked.
‘Nope. It looks like it’s going to be a long night,’ I remarked as I looked around to see sagging, wobbly breasts and flabby thighs on the dance floor. The younger crowd had decided to stay away that night and we were younger than the average age in that club by at least five years.
‘Yes, I guess so,’ Vernita said. That was a consolation. Except me, the other three could set the floor on fire within seconds. So, knowing that they wouldn’t dance tonight saved me from the embarrassment I invariably faced in nightclubs. Plus, I would get more time to stare wordlessly at Avantika.
‘Drinks?’ Vernita asked.
‘No,’ we all echoed.
Vernita was the only one who drank. Tanmay and Avantika were associated with the Spirit of Living, which forbade them to drink. And I never felt like drinking. Ever. The taste just never appealed to me and my highly developed taste buds couldn’t take the torture. I had come to despise people who drank. I was often called a wimp for not drinking. I somehow always thought it was the other way around. It was always easy to say yes … especially when it was being forced upon you by a bunch of bullies and their giggling bitches. My school days were torturous and I have never been able to move past the memories.
‘You don’t drink?’ Avantika asked. I had heard quite a bit about her wild parties before the Spirit of Living consumed her and her lifestyle changed on its head. The tattoos on her body bore testament to her old life.
‘No. What’s so surprising … that I don’t drink? Even Tanmay doesn’t.’
‘No. But he has his reasons. Guruji forbids people from drinking and we understand why.’
‘I have my own reasons.’
‘And they would be?’ she asked as she rested her chin on her knuckles and leant forward. I don’t know whether that is what she intended to do, but I was aroused. My heart rate picked up, my knees started to shake and I was seeing things in double.
‘I don’t relish the taste. It’s just so … ugh.’
‘It is not about the taste. You can’t be such a wuss about it. It is about the feeling. It’s about the high,’ she said. Words from a veteran, I thought.
‘I can do without that feeling or that high. I have seen too many people puke and regret they got drunk the night before. I d
on’t think I need to subject myself to that.’
‘People would call you boring. Unadventurous. Not open to experiments.’
‘I get my high from other things. Trust me. There are better things to experience.’
‘Oh! Now that is interesting … and probably a lie.’ She rocked back and adjusted a fringe, spiking my heart with her loveliness. She added after a pause, ‘Tell me one thing that gives you a better high than alcohol?’
‘Umm, sex?’
‘Who would have sex with you?’ she said and everyone at the table laughed.
‘I would agree with that. I am pretty undesirable,’ I said and they laughed again.
‘Aw! That’s sweet,’ Avantika purred and touched my cheek. Mental note to self: never wash that cheek.
‘Don’t underestimate him,’ Vernita butted in. ‘He is very popular with my girlfriends.’ It was a lie, but I didn’t mind her projecting me as she did. None of Vernita’s friends liked me and, clearly, I wasn’t getting laid. Vernita continued, ‘But the not-drinking part, I still think you are just a wimp and a loser. You guys want anything?’
‘Sweet lime,’ Avantika said and continued, ‘and Deb, I liked that. It takes courage to refuse.’
I love you, too. Can I hold your hand? I don’t drink.
‘You are a wimp, too,’ Vernita butted in.
‘Shut up, Vernita. You need to drink because you’re boring when you’re not drunk,’ Avantika said.
‘Hahaha! Whatever. Never mind. Deb?’
‘Some more of your catfight and a cold coffee,’ I added. She cringed at the thought of having a cold coffee in a club. I could tell she was missing Viru and Yogi. They would have got the whole bar to the table.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Tanmay said as he put his arm around Vernita.
‘Don’t go, I will get them for you,’ Avantika said as she started typing out something on her cell phone. Within the next few seconds, I saw the manager rushing towards the bar. The order was on our table in a flash. Avantika was a privileged customer there.