Kiyan’s eyes broadened with disbelief. Before he could say anything, the lights were switched off and a video started playing on the projector screen in front of everybody.
The Video of Kiyan and Tina
The screen is blank for some time, after which Kiyan is seen lying in bed in Kashti’s bedroom. He seems asleep. A woman comes into the frame. It’s Tina. She gets close to Kiyan and ties his hands to the bedpost with a chain. He doesn’t budge much. Then Tina slaps his cheeks softly, asking him to wake up. When Kiyan opens his eyes, he feels scared. He can’t move his hands because they are chained to the bed. He enquires about Kashti since she isn’t in the room. Tina’s gaze directs him to Anaysha lying on the floor. The frame is such that nobody else can be seen. Kiyan asks about Anaysha, and Tina says she is gone. He gets more scared and squirms.
‘What do you want? I knew you aren’t dead,’ Kiyan says.
‘Why did you use me as your creative experiment, Gulshan?’ Tina says.
‘What? Who is Gulshan?’
‘You don’t have to pretend any more. There’s nobody except you and me. You met me as Gulshan. You made me fall for you as Gulshan. You promised me marriage as Gulshan. You fucked me as Gulshan. And then you left me as Gulshan. But look at destiny, I finally found you as Kiyan.’
Kiyan is quiet now. He has stopped fidgeting.
‘How did you find me?’ he asks.
‘For a guy who is this cunning, that’s a stupid question. You are famous now, Kiyan Roy. Moreover, that’s besides the point. I want you to explain why you did what you did to me.’
Kiyan looks around, looking cornered. The he speaks.
‘I’d resigned from my job after my story idea was accepted by my publisher. I wanted to be an author.’
‘You had an idea,’ Tina says with cold intent in her voice. ‘But when you sat down to write, you knew you weren’t creative enough to write the character credibly. You needed it to happen to you in real life. And for that, you created a fake identity as Gulshan.’
Kiyan nodded and said, ‘You were my subject, Tina. I wanted to live the story I was writing to evoke real reactions and understand real complications.’
‘Live the story . . . like you always say in your interviews.’
‘Whatever I did to you, with you, told you and made you believe was because my character had to go through it. And the way you reacted to it in real life became the reaction of my character in my trilogy. But I never harmed you.’
‘Never harmed me? Really? You didn’t realize I was real, my love for you was real, my emotions were real? You came into my life, and like a fool, I fell for you. Then you disappeared just like that. Your readers think you are a recluse, but you tell me, are you really one?’
‘I chose not to be on social media till the books became a hit.’
‘Of course. After fame kissed you, even if I told the world what you did to me, nobody would have believed me. Everyone would have laughed at me and thought I was a pathetic bitch. People would have believed I was cooking up a bullshit story just to be a part of your fame.’
‘I didn’t mean any harm, Tina. It was just . . .’
‘You promised me marriage, damn it! Every time you slept with me, you promised me a future. Every time you devoured me in your filthy ways, you promised me togetherness. Every time you made me let go of a prospect chosen by my parents, you promised me your companionship. You fucked with my feelings because you wanted the real me to become your fictional character.’
‘I know I’m guilty of it all. I did mislead you, and that too consciously, but please understand it was all . . .’
‘Let me complete—research for you. I was a fucking guinea pig for you.’
Kiyan doesn’t say more. He notices Tina walk away, out of the room.
‘Tina, listen, Tina!’ he shouts. He sits in silence. After some time, he falls asleep again.
The screen goes dark.
32
Kiyan had safely concluded the appearance of Tina the previous night in Kashti’s bedroom had been a nightmare. Now he knew the truth. Every bit had been real. Just like he’d made it all look real for Tina. Kashti was involved, Tina was involved and Anaysha too. He glanced at her. She didn’t care to look at him. She held the mike in front of her and spoke on it, ‘Any questions? Please ask them one by one.’
‘What’s the name of the girl in the video?’ one person asked.
‘Tina Awasthi,’ Anaysha responded.
‘Mr Roy, you know that Tina can charge you with IPC section 375 (4) for fake promise of marriage, leading to sexual indulgence?’ asked another.
Yes I know, Kiyan thought but didn’t answer.
‘Did you think twice before getting into a real relationship with Tina for fiction’s sake?’
All I thought was that it was the perfect plan. No harm, nothing to prove.
‘Do you think it is a disease, or you are ready to do it again for your next book?’
I now know there won’t be a next book.
‘The girl—Tina—said in the video that you did filthy sexual things. What were those? Are you a sex maniac? Are all the details in the erotic trilogy you wrote?’
‘Excuse me, I need to go to the washroom,’ Kiyan said and stood up without answering any questions.
‘He will be back in two minutes. Please hold on to your questions,’ Anaysha said. She too excused herself and followed him out of the boardroom.
‘You exposed me,’ Kiyan said. Anaysha looked at him for some time quietly and then said, ‘You killed us.’
‘It was all because of my story. I was never cheating on you.’
‘Tell that to your conscience, but don’t give me bullshit. I would have still given you the benefit of doubt if you hadn’t fallen for Kashti’s advances.’
‘Kashti isn’t her real name, is it? It is your pen name for your blog.’
‘About which you never cared to know.’
‘Who is Kashti? How are Kashti and Tina linked to you?’
Anaysha smirked and said, ‘You know Kiyan, after I came to know about this abhorrent dark side of yours, I kept asking myself why. Why would you do it when you loved me, when I loved you? But to this day, I have never been able to think of a satisfactory answer. And that’s the worst thing you did to me. You left me with a question that shall forever haunt me. I too shall do the same to you. I hope I have damaged you the same way and to the same extent you damaged me. I shall not answer any of your questions. Your punishment is you will go through your life trying to guess the answers to them. And feel terrible about yourself, every day. Like I have for the past year.’
‘Anaysha . . .’ he pleaded.
‘Sshh.’ She put her finger on his lips and said, ‘The journalists are waiting for you. Be a good boy for once and be back in the boardroom soon. I’m leaving. From here. From your life. From whatever we built together. Don’t try to look for Tina or Kashti or me. We don’t exist for you. If you try to dig up information on us, we will resurface and press charges against you. And you know where you will land up then. My advice, just disappear the way you did as Gulshan.’
‘Kashti isn’t underage, right? She doesn’t even study in NCR International School.’
‘Didn’t you hear me? I’m not saying anything. Keep guessing. Just stay away from us. I hope you get that, mister bestselling author.’
Anaysha walked off. She stopped, turned and came back to him to say, ‘I don’t hate you, Kiyan. I hate myself for loving someone who turned out to be dark—black after I gave my everything to him, assuming him to be as pure and white as anyone should be, can be, ought to be. Kashti will have vacated the flat by now. So you can go and move your stuff and then simply get lost.’ Anaysha’s eyes were shining with tears, but she wasn’t crying. She turned around and left.
Kiyan pushed open the washroom door and went inside. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and screamed out helplessly, punching the mirror, shattering it into thousands of pieces. More than
a reflection had been broken. Once and for all.
Anaysha’s Novel
Dear Reader
I wrote the manuscript of Black Suits You as the events were happening. Parts of it were a result of our (Kashti’s and mine) proactiveness and planning, and certain portions happened as we reacted to the situation at hand. I didn’t tell Kiyan everything because that was his punishment, just like he punished me with a question—why did he do all of what he did? If you really want to torment someone emotionally, I’ve realized, leave him or her with a question. Kiyan did that to me when he wronged Tina. I did it to him in return.
I know I could’ve ended my novel with you (the reader) knowing what Kiyan knows. Limited information. The rest you could have deduced, but then I realized, sometimes the readers have the right to know a little more than what the character knows. I think ours is one such story, more so because I have been to you throughout the book what Kiyan has been to me in real life—an unreliable narrator. Of course, our intentions were different.
I never wanted to become an author or write a book. I was happy blogging stuff about relationships every now and then, which increased when Kiyan told me he wanted to become a full-time author. Since I had nobody to discuss my thoughts with as Kiyan grew more distant, I started blogging my experiences and observations in semi-fictional form, and titled it ‘A Girl’s Diary’, using the pen name ‘Kashti’.
The story actually began when one day I received a comment on my blog. I was jubilant because I never thought anyone would care to comment. But this person told me she had read all of my posts and was a fan. My blog posts about relationships had helped her with her depression. Let’s call her Kashti, because I won’t give you her real name. It is the same girl who later seduced Kiyan because I’d asked her to. I’ll get to that in a minute. So Kashti commented on my blog, I responded and soon came to know she was suffering from depression because of some relationship shit. I helped her come out of it over several telephone calls and also a few meetings. After all, she was my first ‘fan’. We kept in touch off and on till I stopped blogging, because I was so affected by Kiyan’s indifference and his preoccupation with his debut novel. I understood what he was going through, but I couldn’t control my emotions. To my surprise, I discovered a website—mixednuts.net—where depressed people chat and, in a way, help each other. It was there that I started chatting with a person called Tina Awasthi. She kept telling me about a guy who had tricked her, making her emotionally invested in a relationship and then disappearing one fine day. I thought it was one of those con-man crimes. But I was surprised to know she wasn’t looted of any money, property or belongings. The guy came, made her believe he was in love with her, led her to think they had a future together, had all kinds of kinky sex with her and then suddenly, disappeared one day. A couple of months later, when Kashti and I were supposed to meet, I invited Tina too as we had become friendly by then. Two women can gel way more deeply over grief than men can. My jaw dropped open when Tina showed me Gulshan’s picture. The guy who had tricked her was my long-term boyfriend, Kiyan. Had we not met, I would have gone on to live a lie, totally convinced it was the truth. That Kiyan was one of those rare loyal men left.
Nobody talks about moral crime. What’s the punishment for such a crime? What happens when someone toys with your emotions for a long time and then leaves you because he or she is not interested any more, or worse still, keeps you by their side and takes you for granted since they are so used to you. Tina and I were the victims of such a crime. Kiyan misled her, and at the same time, he took me and my love for granted. The times when he told me he was out for research were the times when he was having all the kinky sex he wrote about in his erotica trilogy. All of it for a story? And not only that, he was also manipulative with Tina. How can people take emotional investment as a joke? The first casualty of an emotional investment is time. And time is life. Where was the Kiyan whom I had met at the ATM, who was so genuine and so in love with me that nothing could tempt him? Do people change with time or does time reveal their true nature? This is the guy for whom I fought with my family, for whom I compromised my career so that he could do what he wanted to, for whom I curbed my interests and spending, for whom . . . I think it is always a long list when you start thinking about what you have done to protect a relationship and realize your partner made a mockery of that protection without batting an eyelid. The ruins of our relationship will tell him how much I hated him, but it will always tell me how much I loved him. The question I kept asking myself since Tina told me about Kiyan was—what was my fault? What did I do wrong? I only felt the right emotions for the wrong guy. How do I undo that? I broke down as a person. The same girl—Kashti—who I had helped overcome depression helped me, along with Tina, who could mostly only empathize with me. Sometimes, love remains even after the relationship ends. But I realized that the love that wasn’t appreciated, and was slapped and mocked has the potential to turn dangerous and merciless. That love demands an action. That love pushes you for closure. That love convinces you your partner deserves your wrath. That’s what happened. I wanted to hurt Kiyan the way he hurt me. Kiyan kept telling me he lived his story. I too wanted to live this revenge. I wanted to feel every second of it even if it meant it would burn me, humiliate me or destroy my other relationships. Else, I wouldn’t have been able to execute this elaborate plan.
I can’t explain it to you, but in simple words, I wanted to take in so much pain that this pain was numbed. Hence, the chosen humiliation of hearing my boyfriend fuck another girl and the shame in front of family during the engagement. I knew Kiyan wouldn’t make it to the engagement. In fact it was me who made sure he didn’t come because I wanted to live the humiliation. I wanted it to invade my system. In hindsight, I feel it was better to live that humiliation than believe in the fake love Kiyan would have shown me. It was better than tolerating his sleeping around with the excuse of ‘living his story’. All I knew was one thing—I couldn’t go on with life knowing Kiyan was living a false one right beside me, pretending he had never hurt me. He would have never told me about Tina or any other girl who would have come into his life. Infidelity, falling out of love or boredom in a relationship is one thing, but making a straight-faced joke of your partner’s willingness to believe in a relationship is something that is simply unpardonable, unforgettable. It was that humiliation that gave the emotional push I needed to get over my oh-what-can-I-do attitude in order to damage him.
Kashti and Tina supported me fully in this. In the last few days, every time Kiyan woke up chained, it was because we were cleverly sedating his food. He slept like a log, and we could do whatever we wanted. It was necessary for us to convince Kiyan it was a dream in which he was conversing with a dead Tina, else he would never have ever accepted the truth, and we needed that confession to prove our case. In fact, proving Tina was dead was also important, otherwise Kiyan would have got to her and screwed up our plan, which was simple—push Kiyan to the level where he himself would confess to all his lies. We didn’t want to put him in prison. We wanted to snatch away his most prized possession. For Tina and me, our most prized possession was our trust in Kiyan. For him, it was his new-found fame. It is gone now. It will die out further in the next six months when this book comes out, as promised by Natasha. What does a publisher need? A good story and an author whose profile will convince them the book will sell well. I’ve given Natasha both.
I know moving on may take time, maybe I’ll continue to be into him for some time. At the same time I also know I’m not going to act weak over Kiyan any more. I’ll never act weak over any one again. That’s the greatest lesson Kiyan has taught me. Each one of us lives a projected truth. So, if you think you know your partner, think again.
Epilogue
Six months later
Mumbai, Sofitel Hotel
BKC, Room 303
The book launch of Black Suits You went better than expected. Anaysha was nervous, but she handled the questions well. This
was the first time in the history of Indian publishing that one author had written about how another author had written his novel, and its consequences. The publisher’s marketing team had done a good job of getting the incident enough attention and media coverage. In fact, a debate had been initiated about the ethics of artists. Who decides the limit one can go to for a story, or is it all, in the end, an excuse to submit to a primal instinct?
Sitting through the book launch, Anaysha had realized that life had its own weird way of adding purpose to the journey. Anaysha had never aspired to be an author. Now she was one. Though she hadn’t resigned from her job, Natasha had already started to probe her for the next book. Also, her newfound minor success had led to major changes in her relationship with her parents. They were prepared to wait till she was ready for marriage.
After the launch, Anaysha was back in her hotel room. It was time for the actual celebration. Somebody knocked at the door. Anaysha was quick to open it. She hugged the girl standing there.
‘Wait a minute, Di. You will spoil the cake. And it’s my birthday cake,’ the girl said. Anaysha broke the hug and noticed she was carrying a blueberry cheesecake with a candle atop it. The candle was shaped in a ‘21’.
‘I’m tired of being seventeen. It’s time to act my real age,’ she said. Anaysha gave her a wide smile. They took a couple of selfies with the cake, and then the other girl blew the candle, cut the cake and forced one piece into Anaysha’s mouth, while Anaysha did the same to her. They laughed out loud together. The birthday girl was about to feed Anaysha another piece when she realized Anaysha was crying. The girl turned quiet.
‘I understand. Just relax, okay,’ she said, caressing Anaysha’s back.
‘It has been some months since the press conference. I know Kiyan won’t dare to reconnect with me or you. But the scar he gave me has become a filter with which I see the world,’ Anaysha said.
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