Marry Me, Stranger

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  ‘I’m sorry if...’ Danny turned serious but his words were cut short by her.

  ‘We talk next when you come home tomorrow.’ And the line was cut with a giggle that soon turned in to a blush as she looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror right ahead of her. She could sense rain-laden clouds hovering above the sky of her heart. Will it rain true love finally?

  The next day was a Saturday and Rivanah promised herself that she would make it the best Saturday for the two of them. The first thing she did that morning was go to the parlour. Then she bought herself a new outfit from Zara after which she bought some vegetables, some chicken, and a few candles from Hyper City. Before she started cooking in the evening, she took out a condom from Ishita’s wardrobe and put it in her bag. Though her roommates would be home at night, Danny and she would use his place. While taking out the condom she noticed a strip of I-pills as well. She cut out one tablet and kept it with herself just in case. Once the cooking was done, she dolled herself up for Danny. She kept messaging him every hour to know his location but didn’t take his call to increase the sexual itch in him which was creating an ache in her privates as well. At around ten, the doorbell rang. Danny! Rivanah sprinted to the door with a naughty smile. When she opened the door, every ounce of naughtiness vanished from her face.

  ‘Mumma?’

  18

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Rivanah said rubbing her eyes hoping that she was dreaming. She was not.

  ‘Are you going to let us get in or not?’ Mrs Bannerjee said. A quick glance over her shoulder and Rivanah saw her father come out of the elevator with two heavy bags.

  ‘Sorry mumma,’ she said and gave her mother a hug. Then she moved aside to let her mother in the flat. As her father came to the door, she hugged him praying hard Danny didn’t turn up now. She quickly closed the door once her father stepped inside.

  ‘How is your health Mini?’ Mrs Bannerjee asked.

  ‘My health?’ Rivanah was confused.

  ‘Why else do you think we came here?’ Mr Bannerjee said keeping the bags on the floor.

  ‘One of your friends called us and said you were terribly sick and couldn’t even take our calls. Your baba took an urgent leave to come here.’

  ‘Why didn’t you guys call me?’

  ‘We were told you are too serious to take our calls. But you seem alright.’ Mr Bannerjee touched her forehead with his palm to check for fever. Then he noticed her dress and make-up and added, ‘In fact more than alright.’

  ‘One second,’ she said and rushed to grab her phone. She wanted to inform Danny not to come to her flat. But before she could call him, she noticed a message from an unknown number was waiting for her:

  Messing your life is easy.

  Rivanah immediately understood who this ‘friend’ of hers was and why exactly her parents had been summoned: to complicate the situation.

  ‘Which friend of mine called up?’ she asked.

  ‘Your roommate Ishita,’ Mr Bannerjee said.

  Rivanah didn’t dig further. She was sure it wasn’t Ishita. Must be some random girl the stranger had employed to call her parents up, she thought.

  ‘Anyway, what happened to you Mini? You know all along the flight I was praying to Baba Loknath. I was so tensed,’ said Mrs Bannerjee coming to her.

  ‘Food poisoning,’ Rivanah lied and added, ‘But now I’m perfectly fine.’

  ‘Thanks to Baba Loknath,’ her mother said and touched Rivanah’s forehead with her palm. ‘Joy Baba Loknath,’ she mumbled to herself.

  ‘When are you leaving?’ Rivanah asked. The longer they would stay, the more uncomfortable things would get.

  Both her parents gaped at her.

  ‘We are seeing you after so many months, Mini. You should ask us how the journey was, if we want to drink water or not, and here you are asking our return date instead? I don’t know what’s up with your generation. No sense of attachment at all,’ her mother complained and went to sit on the bed in the drawing room.

  ‘No mumma, it’s not that!’ Rivanah went to her, kissed her on the cheeks, and hugged her tight saying, ‘I was asking so that I could apply for leave. Actually an important project is going on in office so I need to inform them at the earliest to get a leave.’

  ‘Don’t tell your mother about office leaves. She won’t get it,’ her father added sitting down clumsily on one of the beanbags. ‘By the way why are you so dressed up?’

  ‘I was out with friends. Just came back.’

  ‘You are looking pretty but I think you have lost weight,’ said her mother kissing her on her cheeks.

  ‘Oh mumma,I told you I have joined the gym.’

  Her mother caressed her daughter’s forehead lovingly.

  ‘Don’t you have proper chairs, Mini? This is so...’ Mr Bannerjee was finding it difficult to sit on the beanbag.

  ‘I’ll get some water for you,’ Rivanah said and went to the kitchen. The doorbell rang. And she face palmed. Informing Danny escaped her because of the stranger’s message. Before she could move out, her father had opened the door. Rivanah stood frozen by the kitchen door hoping it wasn’t Danny.

  ‘Yes?’ Mr Bannerjee said looking at Danny.

  ‘Is Rivanah here?’

  ‘Who are you?’ Mr Bannerjee asked as if he was the investigative officer of an important case.

  ‘I’m her boyfriend,’ Danny said.

  Rivanah could have collapsed in the kitchen itself. It’s a dream, it’s a dream. Please someone wake me up, she told herself. She heard her father call her name out. She went outside and smiled uncertainly at her father first and then at Danny.

  ‘Hi Danny! Meet my parents,’ she said.

  ‘Danny?’ Her father looked at his daughter once and then at the guy. He was still the investigative officer.

  ‘Hello uncle. Hello aunty.’

  Mr Bannerjee only nodded his head acknowledging the greeting while Mrs Bannerjee gave him a warm smile.

  ‘One second,’ Rivanah said and went to her wardrobe in the drawing room itself.

  ‘What do you do Danny?’ Mr Bannerjee asked.

  ‘I’m a model and an actor, uncle.’

  ‘Model and an actor?’ Mr Bannerjee frowned as if Danny had said he was an alien.

  Rivanah came back quickly with a key and gave it to Danny.

  ‘Here, we’ll talk later,’ she said. Danny took the keys and left. Rivanah closed the door behind.

  ‘He lives here?’ her father asked.

  ‘Let me bring your water baba,’ she said.

  ‘Answer me first Mini.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s his full name?’

  ‘Danny Abraham.’

  Her parents exchanged a worrisome look as if they had just discovered their daughter had been infected with a deadly virus.

  ‘Where is Ekansh?’ her mother asked. ‘He was such a good guy. Though Danny looks better than him.’

  ‘One minute,’ her father cut short her mother. ‘Is it true that he is your boyfriend?’

  Rivanah was quiet.

  ‘Answer me young lady—where is Ekansh?’ Her father’s voice was strict.

  It took Rivanah a few minutes to tell them under what circumstances Ekansh and she had broken up. She went and embraced her mother who had tears in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know why bad things happen to my daughter,’ she said and kept crying.

  ‘It’s okay mumma. Things like these happen. They are beyond our control. Plus it’s not like Ekansh and I were married,’ she said. Her mother caressed her daughter’s face.

  ‘But why Danny?’ her father interrupted.

  ‘Why not baba?’

  ‘Firstly he is not from our religion and secondly he is a model and an actor.’

  ‘So? Like I’m a software engineer, he is an actor.’

  ‘You can’t trust actors Mini.’ Mr Bannerjee took his seat on the beanbag again and said, ‘Even his arms are waxed. It looks so strange. Also, I remember a guy
like him had destroyed a girl’s life once.’

  ‘Which guy? Which girl?’ Rivanah was confused.

  ‘I saw it in Crime Patrol.’

  ‘Baba, please! Danny is a good boy. We love each other.’

  ‘Where’s your room? I need to take rest,’ her father said sulking further.

  Rivanah looked at her mother who gave her an assuring look. Her parents stayed on for two more days. On one of the days, Rivanah managed to take them out for Mumbai darshan and on the second day the mother and daughter went out for shopping in Colaba causeway. Mr Bannerjee stayed back in her flat snooping around her daughter’s wardrobe. The kind of dresses and accessories he saw told him that it was time to accept that times have changed, that a daughter no longer needed a different protocol to live her life than a son. He was surprised to see a bottle of Black Dog in her wardrobe. He took it up with her when she came back with her mother in the evening.

  ‘Have you started drinking Mini?’ he said displaying the bottle of Black Dog in his hand as if it was a prized discovery of his.

  ‘This is Ishita’s. The girl who called you up, remember?’

  ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

  They did meet Asha a day before but Ishita had not turned up for three days straight. She had told her before that she was going to Goa with a couple of guys.

  ‘She has gone home. Actually she had bought it for her father but forgot to take it with her,’ Rivanah lied with an expertise that impressed her own self.

  ‘But why your wardrobe?’

  ‘There’s no my or her wardrobe baba. We share things. She isn’t just a roommate now but a friend too.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Mr Bannerjee wasn’t convinced.

  That night her mother insisted she invite Danny over for dinner.

  ‘If they talk more, your baba will get to know him better and things will ease out. I like Danny. He looks so much like Uttam Kumar,’ her mother said with a grin.

  ‘Every good looking guy looks like Uttam Kumar to you. Uttam Kumar never had muscles mumma. Say Salman Khan,’ Rivanah pointed out.

  ‘Oyi holo!’

  Rivanah kissed her mother hard on the cheeks and Whatsapped Danny to come over for dinner.

  He pressed the doorbell right on time. The dinner lasted for a good twenty minutes and every minute of it was a disaster as far as bonding between Danny and Mr Bannerjee went. For every question that Mr Bannerjee threw at Danny, he gave her an honest answer. That only made the matter worse.

  ‘What do your parents do?’ Mr Bannerjee asked.

  ‘My father is a chef in Hong Kong. And my mother is an investment banker in New York.’

  ‘That’s nice. But how do they manage with such a long distance between them? It must be difficult.’

  ‘Not really. They live with their respective partners,’ Danny quipped. Mr Bannerjee choked on his food. Rivanah gave him a glass of water that he drank in one go.

  ‘Are you the only child?’

  ‘No. We are five brothers. The eldest one is absconding and I really don’t know why. I haven’t seen him since a decade now. The second one is at a rehab centre in the US for drug abuse. The third works in a hotel in Dubai while the fourth has become a lama and stays in Tibet. I’m the youngest,’ he said.

  That was the last time Mr Bannerjee spoke to Danny. Mrs Bannerjee on the other hand asked him about all her favourite film stars and whether he had been to Dilip Kumar’s or Amitabh Bachchan’s or her all time crush Dharmendra’s bungalows.

  ‘Mumma,’ Rivanah said, ‘Danny is still struggling to get a break. How can he go to the bungalows of these legends just like that?’

  ‘But I have seen Emraan Hashmi up close, aunty,’ Danny added with pride.

  ‘Who?’ Mrs Bannerjee looked for help at Rivanah.

  ‘Serial kisser,’ Mr Bannerjee replied and excused himself. He was done with the dinner. He didn’t talk much with his daughter after Danny left.

  The next day Rivanah dropped them off at the airport.

  ‘Whatever you do, think about the repercussions. Marriage is a serious thing.’ It was all her father told her. She gave him a warm hug and said, ‘Don’t worry baba. I won’t do anything that will put you to shame. And Danny and I haven’t discussed marriage yet.’

  ‘Just like Ekansh and you had not discussed it either,’ her father said. He glanced at her mother and added, ‘That’s why our generation was better. We married and discussed other possibilities. And today youngsters live all the other possibilities and break-up even before discussing marriage.’

  Rivanah shot her mother a helpless look.

  ‘If only Danny was Danny Ganguly or Danny Mukherjee or...’ mother lamented. When her parents went inside the airport, Rivanah relaxed for the first time in three days. The first thing she did was text the stranger.

  What do you want from me? She was pissed off at him for having called her parents to her place and putting her relationship with Danny under constraint.

  Be free next Saturday. The kids are waiting, the stranger replied.

  For how long do I need to do that before you delete that clip of mine? she asked.

  You will continue with it till the time it doesn’t become your habit. And don’t worry about the clip. If you lend me your ears, I shall lend you peace, the stranger responded.

  19

  The following Saturday Rivanah went to the slum pocket in Dahisar east along with Danny. He didn’t understand why exactly she was doing what she was doing.

  ‘It is part of an office project of mine,’ Rivanah said. She knew if she told Danny about the circumstances that pushed her to visit the place, she would have to tell him about the stranger. If she told him about the stranger, she would have to tell him about the clip. With the clip Prateek would come into the context. If Prateek came in, so would Ekansh because it was after the break-up that she started going out with Prateek. She would have to do a lot of explaining which she wasn’t ready to do. After Ekansh she didn’t feel it was right to be an open book in front of one’s partner. A personal space was always necessary, it didn’t matter how much you love someone. Moreover Rivanah and Danny were only in the February of their relationship.

  ‘What is the project called?’ Danny asked.

  ‘It’s called share-your-good-luck. Since I was born to well off parents who could sponsor my education, now I need to impart that good luck to ten kids and help them learn to write their names in English.’

  Danny looked at her admiringly and said, ‘Wow! You don’t stop to impress me girl.’

  Rivanah gave him a hug. They soon reached the place and the first thing they noticed was that it wasn’t exactly a proper slum but a single line of twelve-thirteen shanties. As she stood clueless about her next action, a kid came running up to her and said in Hindi with a heavy Marathi accent, ‘Are you Rivanah tai?’ He was wearing a fresh white shirt and a pair of blue half-pants.

  Rivanah exchanged a furtive glance with Danny and said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please come with me,’ The kid said and turned to walk on.

  ‘The kids know about you?’ Danny said perplexed.

  ‘So it seems,’ Rivanah said and followed the kid to a nearby place—a square piece of sheltered space that looked like a godown. On one side a heap of watermelons were kept while on the other side, a few kids were sitting with folded legs; six girls and four boys wearing the same outfit as the kid who brought them there. A smile appeared on their faces seeing Rivanah. The boy who brought her went ahead and sat down beside the other kids. A moment later, Danny too went and sat behind the kids folding his legs just like them. There was a hush-hush laughter. For Rivanah, it was the first time that she was going to teach. All her life she had been taught things. Being on the other side of the line, she felt different in an intriguing and powerful way. As she went and stood in front of the students, she noticed there was a blackboard beside her. All eyes were on her. All the kids seemed to come from below poverty line. The only thing that stood out in their ap
pearance was their brand new uniform. It was while looking at the dress of one of the students that she noticed the emblem for the first time. She gestured that particular kid to come up to her. The girl stood up and went to Rivanah. On her shirt’s pocket, she could see a smiley was stitched in a way as if it was an emblem. At the centre of it was stitched: Mini’s Magic 10. A faint smile touched her face reading it.

  ‘What’s your name?’ She asked the kid.

  ‘Divya,’ The girl said.

  ‘How old are you?’

  Divya started counting on her fingers and then said ‘Nine’ in Hindi. Rivanah tapped her cheek lovingly and asked her to go and sit.

  It was the first day so Rivanah hadn’t come prepared with anything. She asked the kids their names and asked them a few general questions to test their IQ. They were sharp kids; she concluded. That’s when she felt nice to be a part of the stranger’s ‘share your good luck’ endeavour. A little time on her part wouldn’t really take much from her life but it would, she now knew, give a lot to the kids in the long run. It was one of those rare moments where she felt she was doing something worthwhile. She arranged for the kids to have chocolates from a nearby shop and told them that from next Saturday she would start teaching them properly. Their smile told her that they liked her.

  ‘I didn’t know you were so good with kids,’ Danny said while returning to their place.

  ‘Even I didn’t know myself,’ she said.

  ‘Sitting in the class,’ Danny said, ‘I had a feeling that if we all are committed to small things like this, only then can a big and positive change happen.’

  Rivanah couldn’t agree more.

  ‘What after these kids learn to write their names?’ Danny asked.

  Rivanah looked at him but realized she had no answer. The stranger must have a plan after that, she thought, and sent him a message right then.

  What after the kids learn to write their names?

  It was when Danny was paying the autorickshaw fare that the reply came:

  They will start going to a government school. That’s my way of sharing the good luck I was born with.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Danny asked as the auto left.