Reva sighed wondering why this dreaded conversation had to come so soon.
‘Of course we are good friends,’ she intentionally feigned innocence.
‘I love you, Reva,’ said Vishal sounding serious.
‘I know.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you like Neev?’
He suddenly sounded like those brain-between-legs assholes she had met all her life in Delhi. ‘I don’t even know him, dude.’
‘I’m sorry. But don’t worry, I won’t force you because for that, I’ll have to be honest.’
‘Honest about what, Vishal?’ Reva’s interest was suddenly piqued.
Vishal stared silently at the floor for some time and then, covering his face with his hands, he started wailing like a child.
‘What’s the matter, Vishal?’
‘I’m a failure, Reva,’ he blabbered in between his short breaths. ‘I came to Mumbai to become an actor, but I still am nothing.’
‘But you are an AD for chrissake!’
‘I lied to you. I lied to everyone. I work the day shift at a call centre to sustain my life. I was an AD for a week, years back, but I simply couldn’t take the kind of shit treatment my director gave me. I complained. It became an argument and I was thrown out. With his connections, he made sure I was never entertained anywhere in the industry. I did try. I tried a lot, damn it! The people I sent you to were the ones who were struggling with me and now have become first AD, with famous directors by licking their asses. I couldn’t do that’.
Reva only sat still. A minute later, he rubbed his eyes saying, ‘Instead of outdoor shooting, I actually went to my hometown—Palakkad. Mom has tuberculosis so I have decided to shift there permanently. I can’t bear this lie of a life anymore.’ A few silent minutes later he asked, ‘Will you mind if I don’t meet you ever again?’
Reva didn’t reply. Vishal didn’t wait.
As she sat on the floor, Reva felt bad for Vishal because it could have easily been her story. Whatever good happened in her career till now was because of serendipity. Was it only serendipity that took one up amid the clouds? How many of those ‘by-chance’ events have been designed for her?
Wondering about Vishal again, she knew he loved her, but she only cared for him like a person cares for a new dress. She felt weak and cheap. With Amjad, she’d used love to secure the good roles in college plays and further understand the nuances of acting. With Vishal, she only had to churn out some decent contact in the industry and in exchange she made him believe she could be his. Reva sighed wondering why no one had come up with any anti-thought pill yet.
Amjad…Vishal…what will the name of her next level be?
REVA AND NEEV
Even little money, when one earns it for the first time, feels like one has made a difference somewhere in the whole celestial set up. Reva received her first payment after three months of the first telecast of the children’s game show. She gifted herself a mobile phone and took Neev out to dinner.
A total of three months had passed by since they became neighbours. And it was enough time for Reva to understand Neev was basically a kid who could one second inspire awe by stating something profound and the next second be fastidious for the silliest of reasons. If one day she saw him down with frustration about his incapability of earning a penny since his year-long arrival in Mumbai, then next week she also saw him borrow money from his father for a mobile phone. Once seeing Reva arguing with an auto driver who charged her extra money, he had pacified the situation by paying the auto driver from his pocket. A week later, Neev was at her doorstep for medicine since he had injured himself while fighting with a fellow passenger who had pushed him while boarding the local train. At times he was overprotective about her and sometimes he was awfully careless. Though Reva made other contacts during her shoots, everyone on the set remained too busy to show concern for anyone unless pushed by some personal need.
The game show somewhere had calmed Reva’s desperation for films since it gave her something secure to hold on to. Risk excites passion as much as security allows it to settle. Her plans had suddenly changed. She thought of continuing with television, allowing her bank account to gain weight till she got a chance in the movies. It was Neev, like Brahmins of the yore who used to show cattiness towards the lower castes, who refused to do television.
‘Have you seen the standards? Master shot—reaction shot—master shot; that’s it!’
‘I know. But how long do you want to last on your father’s money?’
‘Once I start earning, I’ll pay him back.’
‘That’s not the point, Neev.’
Television being the small screen was not the only issue Neev had. Since Reva had made her foray into television first, he wanted to do so in films. He was happy about her progress, but deep inside he was envious too. He had seen some of her episodes as a host and he knew she was good. Bloody good. And her consistency of being that good made him feel, in a way, insignificant to himself. A feeling he loathed.
Though Reva made him meet certain fellow actors, ADs, and line producers, he never followed up. He didn’t want to give Reva a chance to think that even an inch of his success was because of her. He didn’t hate her. Just that her good luck made his bad luck uncomfortable. The worse was he couldn’t ignore her. At nights when he felt alone and depressed, it was Reva who comforted him like a burning fireplace on a chilly winter night. She had become a forbidden necessity for him. The good thing was it was mutual. The bad thing—neither knew what to do with it since they were as much a curse for the other as they were a blessing.
In order to not beg from his father too often for his own comfort, Neev decided to take in a room partner and save on the rent. Reva was against it.
‘You anyway get frustrated once a fortnight. In case the person is not of your profession, you won’t be able to gel well. And if he is an actor, then your frustration might start happening once a week—if you know what I mean.’
‘Shut up!’
‘You know that’s true.’
‘I do. And that’s why I’m moving in with a girl. Girls know how to manage boys.’ It was supposed to be a joke. But the mention of it made Reva’s heart beat faster. She had no clue why. Was she possessive about him? Were they really that close to owe each other a heart break if the other went around with someone else? The answer turned her face red in parts.
‘Which girl?’ She didn’t want him to answer.
‘Reva Gupta.’ Neev’s face read amusement. ‘If she doesn’t have a problem.’ He still thought they were stretching a joke. But during the silence that followed, he thought she would slap him hard for this.
‘She anyway lives with you more than she stays with herself,’ Reva’s statement revealing more than it hid. And Neev immediately knew it wasn’t a joke anymore—their companionship.
‘One, the bedroom is mine. The drawing room is yours. A girl needs a more enclosed space to live. Two, we won’t bring any of our friends here; neither separate nor mutual. Three, if one drinks, the other has to drink; the same drink, the same amount, so that neither takes advantage of the other. Four, no porn here. Five, I may add other rules with time,’ said Reva after Neev asked if she has anything to say about their living together.
They initially presumed Reva’s landlord might have a problem with their decision since Neev was suppose to shift to her place. But the landlord only had two things to tell them: rent should come on time and no complaints anytime. Both were okay with it. When the other residents started visiting them on silliest of excuses only to know if they were married, Reva considered pasting a statutory warning on the main door stating: ‘We are NOT married. Visit at your own risk.’ With time, people lost interest in the forbidden space they thought constituted their live-in relationship.
On the other side, not only was the house rent shared, but the mundane household chores were also divided to their relief. Neev used the money he saved to joi
n kick-boxing and salsa classes the following month. He realized he had to do something during the day apart from waiting impatiently for his dream to come true on its own. On weekends, they used to watch three back to back films, sponsored by Reva, and discuss its nuances while Sunday was their official booze day when they recorded their drunk selves on Reva’s newly-purchased digital camera.
One night when they were drunk, their prattle took a sexual turn.
‘I swear I have never seen a real girl naked in front of me. What about you?’ Neev was fighting hard to stay in his senses.
‘What would I see a naked girl for?’ burst out Reva. She was laughing at every spoken sentence.
‘I don’t know when I’ll see one.’
Reva looked at him and stood up. She was laughing and stripping simultaneously. And soon she was naked except for her underwear.
‘There you go. Happy?’
For a moment Neev only kept staring at her and then he collapsed on the floor; asleep. The next morning, Reva deleted the video even before Neev was awake. She was embarrassed, but thankfully he didn’t remember much of the night. It nevertheless made her introspect: what was their relationship? Were they in love? Why was she living with him if it wasn’t love? If wanting to be near someone was love, she definitely was in love with Neev. If love was about sharing the defining side of one to the other without being afraid of any judgment, she was again in love with him. But if love was about living a life together, then she was clueless. Sometimes, Neev’s presence bored her. She didn’t take him for granted but often he left her with no choice. It was scary. She never confessed it to him in case he felt hurt. But she had started nurturing a feeling that she wouldn’t mind another guy. The reason was not to have a fling outside what she shared with Neev but to erase the boredom she felt while with Neev. Being with someone else, she believed, would make her miss him. And her connection with him would forever remain young. Or was it the philanderer inside her giving excuses? Deciding on one concrete choice seemed complex, but then Reva Gupta was always a paragon of complexity.
Almost three years had passed since Reva’s arrival in Mumbai. The game show had ended six months back and her producer, Akhil Nath, had already started the pre-production for his next project. She could have taken up another serial in the meantime, but she’d saved enough for her to take it easy till Akhil started his next. Meanwhile, the kind of roles she was offered in film auditions had a screen time of three to ten minutes maximum. After being a bit of a known face in television, she wanted more meat in her roles and preferred patience to desperation. Though there were instances of production assistants and some ADs indirectly offering her a short cut which went via someone’s bedroom. But that, at best, was the last resort. If at all!
Neev, meanwhile, had joined his Salsa teacher as an assistant. It didn’t leave him time to chalk out a plan for his numb film career, even though it did give him a constant earning. And girls. The Salsa class had all kinds of insanely hot girls as students. A few asked Neev out directly while some waited for him to take the first step after dropping enough hints. By the fifteen months of his role as a dance assistant, he had dated close to eleven girls. Nobody was interested in any prolonged affair. Since life was short, they wanted to keep the affairs shorter. It triggered a polygamous instinct in Neev which he never knew existed. Though he wasn’t in any declared relationship with Reva, yet there was a sharp guilt lurking in the shadow of his lust for others. Reva could tell there was a presence of a third person in the flat whenever she was back from work: two coffee mugs in the kitchen sink, one plate but two forks to wash, Neev’s crumbled mattress and once a used condom in the dustbin as well. She never complained, hoping he would at least have the courage to inform her himself he was done with her. She didn’t want to behave like some love-struck teenage doll. If a girl makes a guy realize he has the capacity to disturb her in any way, he will then stop at nothing.
One evening, Neev came home with Ahana. They were busy undressing in the drawing room when they heard Reva speak aloud from outside, ‘Hey dear, I came early. Not feeling well today.’ Seconds later she was in the drawing room. Disgust engulfed her.
‘Are we having a threesome?’ asked Ahana. Reva dashed to her room. Neev got up and quickly donned his clothes when he saw a harried looking Reva marching towards the main door. It was the insult wrapped in the shock she got seeing him with a girl that angered her.
‘Reva listen, please, where are you going?’
‘None of your fucking business.’
Reva went straight to a pub and drank till she threw up. But still the anger remained. When she saw a young guy glancing at her from a corner, the anger uncorked a bottle of sexual rage within her. Ten minutes later, she was getting her brains fucked out in the male washroom as if by destroying her purity for Neev she was punishing him after all. This was necessary, she coaxed her after-casual-sex guilt, to keep her from drowning into the lake of sorrow that an attachment often throws one into. Now Neev and she were equal in terms of betrayal; no heartache. She knew she had destroyed something within her in the washroom. But then what else is love’s business if not to destroy what you thought you would own all your life?
She came home at three.
‘Where the hell have you been? I have been calling your number for the last seven hours,’ asked an enraged Neev.
‘I was getting fucked just like you,’ she laughed with a sense of Pyrrhic victory.
‘You are such a whore.’
‘Trust me, you are no better, you man whore!’
Enraged, Neev impulsively slapped her. Her jaw dropped in disbelief. She pushed him in and, sitting by his mattress, started sobbing.
‘We are not in a relationship that I need to justify my acts,’ he said, knowing well enough he was bullshitting himself.
‘Then why did you stop in the evening? You should have continued fucking her. Don’t tell me you felt ashamed!’
‘I thought you’ll be hurt.’
‘Hurt? Me? How?’
‘How? Then why did you react in this stupid manner?’
‘Really? Stupid?’ She hurled her mobile phone towards him. He ducked and it crashed on the wall.
‘You are an asshole,’ she declared.
‘And you decided to stay with me. Now what does that make you?’
Reva stood up, went to him, caught his hair hard and standing on her toes, took his lip between her teeth and bit down hard.
‘If you still don’t get why I chose to stay with you, then keep fucking that bitch. And every other bitch in the world,’ said Reva and locked herself in the bedroom.
One hour later, Neev picked up her phone which had crashed on the wall and assembled the pieces to realize it was still working. He placed it at the bedroom’s doorstep along with his stereo playing Whitney Houston’s ‘I’ll Always Love You’ and left after a knock. A minute later, the bedroom door opened and the phone was taken in.
I am sorry. Neev’s message read.
This never happened. Reva replied almost instantly.
Are we in love with each other?
If we are, we are.
Okay.
A minute later Neev messaged again.
Did you really get fucked tonight?
No. Reva lied. Thanks.
Why do you ask?
I knew my girl isn’t a bitch.
Reva didn’t reply but realized men refer to a different dictionary when a woman does things they take pride in doing.
The next morning, Neev saw Reva take out a pain-relief ointment from the first-aid box kept atop the refrigerator and move in to her room. He followed her and noticed she was trying to apply it on her neck but wasn’t able to do so. When he knocked, Reva reacted with a silent glance. It emboldened him to come up and sit behind her.
The whole flat was consumed in a haunting silence. Without a word, she gave the ointment to him. He took it and started massaging her neck, alternating between slow and hard presses on her muscles. She
tugged her top down her shoulders slightly. The next moment, it was torn from behind. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra was now a shared secret. What followed was an intense love-making ordeal, where their naked bodies seemed like instruments that made the amorous sounds within them distinct. They had heard the cliché—love happens once in life, but devouring each other under the morning sunlight taught them the opposite that life happens once in love. In that instant moment, they understood what they were and what all they could never be. They stopped around lunch time. The silence after seemed relaxing, for it wasn’t concrete, wasn’t direct. Both were ready to say ‘I love you too’ but neither wanted to say ‘I love you’ first.
In the evening, Neev had his Salsa class. Reva got up, took a shower, ate and was about to open her purse for her eyeliner, when she came across a slip of paper. Only a mobile phone number was written on one side. Reva crumbled it and threw it in the dustbin. Seconds later she picked it up, happy she didn’t tear it. Meanwhile, the moment Neev stepped inside the Salsa class, he went straight to Ahana and gave her a tight hug.
Being in a more clear relationship, with time, made them verbalize their opinions on whatever the other did. Good, bad, or ugly was mood and security dependent. If she wore a mini skirt or a hot pant, he would inform her that her legs looked too fleshy. If he had a deodorant which was mesmerizing, Reva would never recommend it to him. If red suited Reva, Neev intentionally asked her to wear green feigning better appreciation. If Neev looked the best with his long curly hair, she made it a point he got it straightened. The entire pretentious attitude was because they never wanted to lose the other to someone else. As if agreeing to be in a relationship had suddenly given them the right to put their emotional canines on their individuality. They didn’t trust the other because they saw the other through the spectacle of their own flaw. They were possessive, protective about the other, but at the same time craved for some space for themselves. Neev’s insecurity reached an all-time high when he pasted a picture of his face on a small, topless poster of Shahraan by Reva’s bed.
How About a Sin Tonight? Page 9