EX

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  Neel has reached the washbasin of the kitchen. He washes his face properly. Still he can’t forget the image of the chopped flesh pieces. He washes his face for few more minutes. And then puts his head directly under the tap. It relaxes him slightly.

  He takes out a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and gulps it down. Who could have killed Titiksha with such hatred? She didn’t have many friends or enemies. The only person she used to fight with was him. And whatever may be written on the dress, he hadn’t killed her. But then who did? Neel is thinking hard. Could it be the guy with whom Titiksha was going around? He must have killed her and has now pinned the murder on Neel? He has seen one such case in a crime show on television at his parents’ place where an illicit lover murdered his woman. In fact only he could have got the flat keys from Titiksha and dumped the pieces inside. How very convenient of him. But what went so wrong between them that he had to do this?

  I’ll find out who that guy is and kill him with my own hands after he confesses the reason for killing my beloved Titiksha. Enough of emotions now, Neel tells himself resolutely, it’s time for some action. He keeps the bottle back inside the refrigerator. He brings out his handkerchief from his pocket and ties it around his nose and mouth to negate the stink. He opens the wooden wardrobe under the kitchen sink and brings out three big plastic packets from it. He heads towards the washing machine. He stands right in front of it holding its lid. He closes his eyes and makes a mental count…1…2…3. And then opens the lid in a flash. He feels like throwing up but somehow doesn’t. He picks up the chopped pieces, and transfers it onto the three plastic packets, one at a time. Once done, he ties the packets well and takes them to the kitchen again. He empties the refrigerator and stuffs all the three packets inside it. He has seen this in a movie Titiksha had forcefully made him watch once. He never knew he would be enacting the same scene in real life. He remains still for a moment after closing the refrigerator’s door. Then he vomits his guts out. Sobs. Vomits again. Sobs again. Then he cleans it all up and puts the blood-stained clothes inside the washing machine.

  As he goes to the drawing room with two room fresheners in hand, he notices blood patches on the floor which he had missed earlier. Neel first mops all the patches from the floor, and then empties the two room-fresheners in the flat. Then he opens the windows, takes a bath, and sits down to think what he should do next.

  If Titiksha’s guy is trying to pin him as the murderer, then first he will have to track the guy down. And if the other guy is innocent, then he can at least give him a lead to whoever else could have done this. Though Neel thinks the first one is more probable. But how does he get to the other guy? Neel thinks hard and recalls why he came home from Mukundapur in the afternoon. He had to check the college website. The college where he met Titiksha for the first time, the same college the paper note in the cigarette packet led him to, in an indirect way.

  Soon Neel gets busy with his laptop and finally googles the college’s name: Neelkanth College of Engineering. There’s no link suggesting the college’s website. Neel ponders for a while and then goes to the AICTE website—the body which labels every engineering college of its worth. He searches the list carefully but there’s no mention of Neelkanth College. Neel shuts the laptop screen in disgust. How is it possible? He had been given a certificate from the college which he had later given to the bank as well during his appointment as an employee. Was that a bogus certificate? Was Neelkanth College a bogus college? In that case, even Titiksha’s certificate would be bogus. Is that why, maybe, Cintus Finance had expelled her, and she didn’t tell him anything out of embarrassment?

  Nothing makes any sense to Neel except that things are not right. There’s a major flaw somewhere which he now knows but can’t put his finger on to just yet. And that’s what frustrates him. He won’t let Titiksha’s killer rest in peace. But he can’t even share it with anyone that she is dead. That stage is gone. He should have done that the moment he saw the clothes, but how would he know that she had been stuffed inside the washing machine? Should he simply tell his parents? They will understand he is innocent. No, wait. Will they? What if they tell everything to Inspector Parimal Biswas and he comes to find the body in the refrigerator. What alibi does he have? He doesn’t even know the guy with whom Titiksha was in the mall’s washroom. But…Nivrita may identify him. Yes, she said she saw him. So should he call Nivrita?

  Neel’s phone buzzes and he shrieks out in shock. It is Nivrita calling. Neel presses the green button and puts the phone against his ear.

  ‘Neel, where have you been all day? We have to hurry up now with the story. I want to get it published this year. Do you get that?’

  As Neel’s heart beats chugs back to normal, he wonders how come whenever he thinks of Nivrita either her message pops up, or a call, or at times she herself turns up. Who the hell is she…the devil?

  FROM NEEL’S MANUSCRIPT

  13

  Neel and I had still not kissed. I had kissed him once on the cheeks, but that was more of a peck and it happened so quickly that it seemed like it didn’t happen at all.

  From the time Avni told me about their make-out session, a fear of sorts had engulfed me. I understood why it was important to look good. Earlier I was arrogant enough to perceive external beauty as something unimportant probably because I didn’t have it. What I was curious to ask Avni, but certainly I couldn’t, was who initiated the make-out sessions? Neel or her? It couldn’t be Avni all the time. Then why hadn’t Neel ever kissed me till now or even talked to me about making out? Whether I would agree to it or not is a different issue, but he could have at least asked me. Did Neel not find me attractive enough? A 16-year-old fat girl who wears old fashioned clothes like an aunty; would she be attractive to any guy? They say if you don’t like yourself, nobody else will. I actually started hating myself. Was it because Neel didn’t try to make-out with me? Was it because I thought he never would because of my looks? Was it because he was in love with the concept that he didn’t belong to Avni anymore and I was only the means for him to materialize the concept? Was I just an option he could hold onto to stay away from Avni? I had never had so many questions troubling me ever in the past. It could have also been that the people around me talked so much about sex and making-out that I was unnecessarily hyping these things in my mind when they actually didn’t mean much in a relationship. I really hoped that was the case. I loved Neel, he loved me—it should have been the end of the story.

  Growing up with an uncompromising loneliness nested within me, I had developed a block against physical proximity. On one hand I was worrying about why Neel hadn’t shown any physical inclination towards me, and on the other, I wondered about what I would have done if he actually proposed a make-out session. I had never been hugged properly by my parents. Skin to skin touch gave me the creeps. Had I not been charged with humiliation, I wouldn’t have pecked Neel either. All these queries were making life miserable for me. I lost my focus on my studies, and for the first time got below average marks in Physics and Mathematics in a unit test.

  Neel had fought with his parents and now used to travel to and fro from school on his own. I loved the fact that materialistic pleasures weren’t important for him. We had few extra classes one day, and by the time school got over, it was late in the evening. The sky was roaring with thunder since afternoon and it was unbelievably dark. Neel and I took a cycle-rickshaw to the bus stop. We were struggling to hold onto his guitar in the cycle-rickshaw, and trying to protect it from getting wet. Neel wanted to practice after school but the rain was playing a spoilsport.

  The moment we got down from the cycle-rickshaw at the bus stop, it started raining heavily. We thought we would reach our homes before the onslaught started but we were wrong. I had an umbrella. But Neel didn’t.

  ‘You go ahead. I will wait till it stops raining and then go home.’

  ‘Are you mad? It may be several hours before the rain stops. Plus we have a test tomorrow.’
<
br />   ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

  In a split second, I took a daring decision.

  ‘Come to my place. We can study together till the rain stops. Then you can leave.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course!’ Honestly, I was shit scared of Bijoya’s mami’s reaction, but I still didn’t back track on my decision. That’s how great love stories are made—Yo-didun’s words reverberated within me—when you dare to do something unexpected and unprecedented. Neel and my love story had to be a great one.

  As we walked from the bus stop to my mama’s place, roughly five-minutes walk, it turned out to the longest walk I had ever encountered. I had opened the umbrella but I didn’t know how exactly to get Neel under it. To begin with, he did come under it, and held it above our heads while I held onto the guitar. But I guess he realized I wasn’t comfortable and thus he stayed a tad away from me, thereby getting soaked in the rain. By the time we reached home, he was partially wet.

  To my surprise Yo-didun opened the door. One look at us and she knew who the boy was. Neel touched her feet and she hugged him tightly with a cute smile.

  ‘Where is Bijoya mami?’

  ‘She has gone to her friend’s place. Your cousins are upstairs.’

  I relaxed. Coincidences like these make life beautiful, I thought, and both Neel and I went to my room, the one I shared with Yo-didun. But she didn’t come to the room. ‘I have to watch my TV serial,’ she said.

  True to her name, she was a rockstar granny.

  Neel eyed my room properly keeping down his guitar by the door. Obviously it was nothing compared to his bedroom, but he didn’t let it show. And why should I hide or fake something in order to gain something as genuine as Neel’s love? What I was, I was! I gave Neel a towel and asked him to dry his hair while I went to the kitchen to make tea for the three of us; Neel, Yo-didun, and myself.

  Minutes later when I came back to the room, Neel was still fidgeting with the towel with a messed up hairdo. He looked funny in a cute way. I laughed keeping the teacups on the dressing table.

  ‘You rich kids. Don’t you do anything on your own?’ I said teasingly and went ahead to snatch the towel from him and rubbed it on his hair in order to dry them properly. In one instance the towel fell not only over his head but also over mine. Our heads were under the towel at the same time. We giggled at each other. I looked at him once and then looked down. I didn’t want him to understand my feelings at that point of time. The worst part was I was sure he did understand them. I knew what was about to happen but I didn’t back up. I stood my ground. His lips slowly came near mine and rubbed against it. It wasn’t a proper kiss but that friction seemed to wake me up to a myriad of realizations. The most significant of those realizations being that I belonged to Neel. The moment was too emotionally vibrant for me to withstand it for long. I soon removed the towel, and took a few back steps to move away from Neel.

  ‘You are the best thing that has ever happened to me,’ he said without moving an inch.

  I looked at him with tears in my eyes. They weren’t happy tears. They were tears of doubt. Did he say the same thing to Avni too? Wish I had the audacity to ask him that then and there.

  ‘What happened?’

  Am I better than Avni? I wanted to ask but said, ‘I love you Neel.’

  ‘I love you too Titiksha,’ he reciprocated softly but he sounded very sure.

  As I closed my eyes for a trice, the tears which were hanging on my eyelids fell freely onto my cheeks.

  ‘But why are you crying?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I still couldn’t tell him I was shamelessly comparing myself to Avni. When Neel was a stranger, I couldn’t tell him certain things. When he came close—very close—then too there remained certain things which I couldn’t share with him. Maybe everything is not meant to be shared.

  ‘Do you trust me, Titiksha?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then your trust on me will be my strength to fight all temptations.’

  That sounded like an assurance. It helped me calm down.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said and headed towards the washroom.

  Once I was back, we studied together till the rain stopped. Yo-didun made us some hot and delicious pyaaji as well. Only when he was gone that I realized he had forgotten his guitar at my place.

  14

  The brief kiss sorted a lot of things in my mind. I felt more confident about Neel and myself. He had become this language I was learning every day, knowing well that I would never be able to unlearn it. No relationship can be unlearnt. But you can always start learning another language. And it’s up to the aura of the new language how it can compel one to forget the old language. I wanted to be that new language for Neel. And probably I already was.

  Neel also opened up a new world for me which I wasn’t much upbeat about, but being in love with him I had to pretend I was. He invited me finally to one of his band sessions. It happened in this huge garage which belonged to one of Neel’s friend’s, Hemant. He studied in a different school and had a band of his own. There was a third band also in the garage that night, but I didn’t know who they were or which school they belonged to. Hemant’s father was an IAS officer who was out of station for some work along with his mother. All he had was Pandeyji who was his assistant, bank, and partner-in-crime.

  There were cartons of Budweiser beer for everyone. I tasted beer for the first time. I thought it tasted like horse piss though some other girls said that it was their favourite. Neel was busy setting up his band. He had purchased a new guitar for himself and asked me to keep the old one which he had forgotten at my place with me. He said I could play it whenever I missed him even though I didn’t know how to play a guitar.

  With Neel busy with his band pals, I was feeling like the odd-one-out in the crowd. I couldn’t relate to anything or anybody there. There were youngsters like me who were not even eighteen but were doing grown-up stuff. They were drinking, I saw a few couples smooching in the open in one corner, ‘smoke-kissing’—as in a boy and girl would take a puff each from a cigarette and then release it inside the other’s mouth simultaneously. I didn’t know why or how they could get pleasure in doing such weird stuff. And yet standing there I behaved as if I did like it all. The same thing I did at school too.

  There was this invisible ‘dress-code’, I realized, which one had to adhere to in case one wanted to remain in any social group. One had to belong to a certain group. Standing out was sacrilege. Rebelling was considered arrogance, and as gutter stuff. I always felt an ineffable pressure to choose like my fellow classmates, talk like them, and behave like them even if I wanted to show them my middle finger most of the times. There was no room for individuality. The choice was simple: either you become part of a group and participate in whatever they do, compromising on your personal beliefs and tastes, or live a lonely life, a life of a social outcast. If I wouldn’t have drunk beer that night, I too would have been termed a TGIF. There was this group of Avni-lovers who were always on the lookout for an opportunity to tag me a TGIF and humiliate me further in front of everyone all the time. Till then I had foiled all their attempts successfully. But I remained alert.

  Standing amid the garage band get-together, with a beer can in my hand, my eyes were looking for Neel. The next instant a guy came forward, and called for everyone’s attention by clapping his hands.

  ‘Hey there, listen up. The lead guitarist of Paintbrush, our own Neel, is in a serious relationship for the last six months or so he says.’ There were whistles and loud cheers from the crowd. ‘But he is yet to make-out with her! Not even a kiss!’ There was pin-drop silence. I didn’t know what the guy was trying to say. He raised his voice again looking at Neel, ‘Who is the girl dude?’ All eyes were on Neel now. I understood why he was hesitating. He didn’t want to drag me into this shit. I loved him for that. I chose to step-in myself.

  ‘I am,’ I said aloud and all the eyes shifted their focus to me. The guy stared at me f
or some time and then said, ‘I don’t blame Neel for not making-out with you.’

  There was an outburst of laughter from all corners of the room. I couldn’t stand it. I felt someone had stripped me bare in public. The way they were looking at me told me that I didn’t have the right to be in love with a handsome boy like Neel. Before I could do something, I saw Neel punch the guy hard. The others, instead of stopping the fight, were cheering them to hit each other harder. I let go of the beer can and ran to the spot. I had never seen Neel so violent before. And even though I hated what he was doing to the guy, I knew he was right to stand up for his girl.

  I somehow managed to pull Neel out of the fight. The others booed as I did so.

  I pulled him by his hand and said, ‘Let’s get out of here Neel.’ He complied. By the time we were out of the garage, everyone in the crowd was chanting: ‘They are The Great Indian Fattu couple!’

  After moving out of the garage, Neel and I stood by a lamp post which had a fused bulb unlike the other lamp posts in the street. I could see blood dripping from his eyebrow. I took out my handkerchief and tried to rub it off, but he withdrew. He was quiet and looked intense. I didn’t know why he wasn’t talking to me since I wasn’t at fault. Or was he rueing over the fact that we indeed never made out or because he, Mr Popular, indeed deserved a better looking girlfriend? Suddenly I felt more insulted standing there beside Neel than I did inside the garage when people were laughing at us.

  ‘What was the need to tell them about what we have done or not done?’ I blurted out. It came out a bit rudely than I would have liked it to.

  Neel kept looking at me. I had never seen him give me that look. It was so full of contempt, anger, and everything I never associated Neel with.

  His car came and stood in front of us. He simply went inside it and sped away immediately. No words, no gestures. He didn’t even care to ask me how I would go back to my place. Few minutes later, I found a taxi to take me home.