‘Just wondering what I should do next?’ she said and heard the door bell.
‘That would be Neev. Can we continue this some other time?’ she said getting up.
‘Sure.’
‘Kaash Balloo Sehgal; why didn’t you come back to my life sooner?’
Kaash had at least ten answers to that, but he chose to say, ‘I don’t know. But listen…’ The voice first broke and then trailed off. Nishani glanced at her phone. The network always played games in the front portion of her apartment. She cut the line and opened the door simultaneously.
‘Super screwed-up shoot, but a super sexy mobile phone.’ Neev dangled a packet in front of her and stepped in. Her phone buzzed again. She picked it up closing the door. It was Kaash, but his voice was still broken.
Nishani quickly typed: network problem, shall call later. And sent it to him.
‘HTC latest! Good I stomped on the last one.’ Neev was the only one to smile. ‘Give me your phone, my back-up buddy. I need to transfer the music.’
‘Sure. I’ll take a quick shower.’
‘Okay.’
Neev followed Nishani inside the bedroom. As she locked herself in the bathroom, he sat down on the bed ripping the phone box. Soon he had activated his phone and was transferring the songs from Nishani’s phone to his via Bluetooth when a message popped up in Nishani’s phone. On a whim, he pressed it open. It read:
Yeah, okay. I was only saying I think you should tell Shahraan the truth. ASAP.
Neev frowned and read the message again. His frown deepened. He looked towards the bathroom. Nishani was taking a shower. What is Kaash talking about? His hands slowly pressed the reply button on the phone and he typed:
What’s the truth?
The reply was instant.
That you wanted his love from the day you knew he existed.
The one he was staying and sleeping with was the one who was screwing him, his former love, and her love as well. A fucking soap opera it was!
It was easy math considering the message. And an unimaginable, unacceptable one as well. If there were different categories of bitches, Neev wondered as his body shuddered subtly with anger, Nishani was a category in herself. The last month and a half were rigorous for Shahraan and Reva, for the producer as well as the director. How could she be so heartless? And the last few days had been hell for him…how could she indulge in something like this with a sane mind? Neev looked at his reflection in the mirror right opposite him on the wall. He saw a fool in it who thought he was staying with someone who understood him in difficult times. Little did he know the difficult times were a result of the same person’s twisted mind who wanted to break a married man’s household and force fit herself there.
He heard the bathroom door unlock. The anger inside him had initiated a demonic hunger which he knew would only be satisfied if he confronted Nishani the way she deserved. Neev got up with a locked jaw and approached her. She paused, looked at him curiously, and shrugged. The next instant, her cheeks registered a tight slap which turned her head sideways.
‘You house breaking, betraying piece of bitch shit. I can’t believe I never got your real motives.’
It was the first time a man had hit her. And it better be the last time, she thought, and in a flash held Neev’s shoulder and kneed him in the balls.
‘Oh my dear God.’ Neev cupped his groin and pressing his legs together, moved away with his eyes almost popping out.
‘If you are talking about the video leak, then yes, I did it. Use words with me and I shall answer you. Now when you can feel your balls again, get lost from my place.’ She walked off to the other room.
For some time, Neev remained still, absorbing his pain. After a few minutes, he went to the other room. Nishani was blow drying her hair. He dashed to her, held her robe, and slapped her a couple of times. Then pulling her by the hair, he dragged her to the main room. Logical thinking was a far cry for him. Nishani screamed abuses at him which only fuelled his desire to hurt her even more.
‘You asked for it. You’ll get it.’ He kicked her stomach a few times with all his force. Nishani whimpered, spat out blood, and then went superlative on her abuses. One kick hit her face and she started bleeding from her nose and lips. As Neev paused, trying to catch his breath, Nishani grabbed his legs and bit him on his calf. He screamed, releasing himself as a reflex. Nishani stood up. Her resilience surprised Neev.
‘I am not Reva Gupta, you dick head. I will tear you into two halves before I apologize to you.’ She limped, but reached him quicker than expected and punched him in the eyes.
‘You were my tissue paper all through, an ass wipe.’
For a moment, Neev thought she had blinded him. He shrieked and ran to the bathroom, but in between came Nishani’s foot and he fell on the floor. For a spectator, it resembled a dog fight—two beings with no brains, no emotions.
Even before Neev could get up, Nishani got hold of a nearby glass flower vase and threw it right at him.
‘You’ll rot. I’ll make you pay, Nishani Rai,’ said Neev looking at his blood smeared palms. His whole face was bleeding. Finally, Neev panicked. He couldn’t afford to get his face bandaged. It was his bread and butter. Unlike Nishani, he was a sane guy who had higher laurels to achieve in the industry, Neev thought, and crawled to the bathroom. Seeing his damaged face in the mirror, he wanted to cry.
‘What the fuck is this?’ The pain which had taken care of his incorrigible anger for some time gave up. The anger was back, and with a vengeance this time. He ran out of the bathroom. Nishani was on the hall floor, rubbing away blood and tears together from her cheeks. Her flesh was burning in places.
‘Listen Neev, let’s not…’ She couldn’t control as he once again dragged her by her hair and took her to the bathroom.
‘Let’s see what you did to me?’ He made her stand up right next to him and made her see his cut-up face.
‘You turned me into shit. And now it’s your turn.’ He crashed her face on the mirror. It developed cracks, but not more than what she had in her face now.
‘Tell me you are sorry, I’ll spare you. Tell me!’ Neev held her by her hair. She was on the verge of a total collapse. But somehow she managed to whisper, ‘Suck. My. Dick. A-hole.’
That was it. What happened next happened so quick that Neev thought it almost never happened. But for Nishani, it happened so slowly that she thought that’s what has been happening all her life. Neev had grabbed her robe by her chest, picked her inches from the ground, and pushed her onto the bathroom walls.
‘You’ll have to say you are sorry. There’s. No. Respite.’
The cloth hook on the wall pierced her neck and back deep. She immediately spurted out blood onto his face. Neev held her in that pose and pressed her hard against the wall. He could hear certain bones break. The sharp hook cracked into some of the bones and made way into her spine. Neev relaxed only when he realized Nishani wasn’t reacting anymore. As he let go of her, she remained hooked on the wall for a few seconds and then collapsed on the floor.
Lifeless.
It was an unprecedented mental zone for Arunodaye. The news made him lock himself in a room without food or light for twenty hours straight. For someone who always believed in one’s will and determination, for the first time he’d willingly resigned to fate: this film won’t happen anymore. Period. Not in the next few years. Period. His hard work, time, and creativity all would go to the gutters because of some imbecile, love-sick people. He had been working on the script for half a decade now. And now it won’t happen. Just like that! He knew he was being selfish thinking about his own work at this point of time instead of inquiring what happened to Nishani and Neev, but wasn’t this entire fiasco a result of someone’s selfishness?
The financers were already clawing the producers’ back to recover the signing amount from the lead actors and director, knowing even after securing the signing amount, they would still supper a net loss of eleven crores, minimum.
Almost overnight, some of the billboards across the city where Neev was seen recommending a tea brand twenty-four hours back was either taken off, scratched, or painted black. The producers of the reality show featuring Neev as the host decided to push the launch date by a month and numb the promotions. The ones who were desirous of taking Nishani in their next television venture were already on the lookout for someone else, but the magazines zeroed in on Nishani. Sympathy has the same sale quotient as sex.
The incident forced the media, on the other hand, to salivate like Pavlov’s dog. Nishani Rai’s hospitalization wasn’t that big a deal, but coupled with it her love for Shahraan Ali Bakshi, as disclosed by Neev, and the violence to which both Nishani and Neev succumbed, was what sensational primetime news items were made of. Out of the two top news channels, one was busy telling its audience, in the presence of one of the country’s top psychologist, the psychological aspects that could have pushed Neev Dixit to commit such a heinous act. After all, it was a love quadrangle for the media: Shahraan was married to Reva, Nishani was in love with Shahraan and jealous of Reva, while Neev was in love with Nishani, though both Reva and Neev were once passionately in love. No one cared for the absolute truth, but they were bull headed about their own versions of the truth, as if witnessing the incident with their personal prejudice was eligibility enough for them to make a sport out of it.
The second news channel had set up a large panel of people from across the industry, relationship counsellors, and human rights people, and was trying to give a little bit of everything to its viewers. None of the channels had been able to hammer, or even get close to, the core of the matter, for whatever they knew came from the police and the latter knew what Kaash had told them.
When Nishani didn’t reply to his calls or messages, out of an inauspicious hunch, Kaash landed up at her place. He had to break himself in. Inside, he saw an injured Neev sitting up against the bathroom wall—stone cold—his entire body shuddering as he chanted ‘I didn’t do it’ to himself, while Nishani was lying in a pool of blood; unfazed. The ambulance was called first and then the police.
Neev, in a state of mental shock, initially told the police he’d killed Nishani out of rage for no fault of hers. Then, post twenty-four hours, he turned hostile in a lawyer’s presence, stating it was Nishani who had tried to screw Shahraan and Reva’s relationship since she loved the former quite possessively and in the process, risked his own position in the industry which had enraged him to the hilt. This was how the love quadrangle leaked out to the media. He told them how a heated argument, followed by a bout of violence, resulted in Nishani’s comatose state. The problem was that the accused—Neev—was the only eyewitness while the victim was in coma since her arrival in the hospital. On the third day, Neev once again retracted, this time admitting whatever happened, happened in cold blood.
The police were confused. The media was aroused. The public was interested. And more importantly, everybody who forever craved for their superstars’ one glimpse, didn’t really care about how the unannounced crisis was going to affect them; the ones who were in the epicentre of it all, right from the beginning of this end.
BOOK THREE: 2013
WHISPERS OF A SIN
While doing her make-up for a public appearance later in the evening…
REVA SPEAKS.
A driver is judged by his affinity for accidents. Sure, I have been involved in accidents. So what? Why do I have to live within the limitation of the adjective others choose for me?
When I lived with Neev, I was only aware of the miniscule emotional windows in me. Being with Neev, I thought I would be able to peep out of those windows, but it didn’t happen. On the contrary, Shahraan’s presence so easily made me look out through those unframed windows of feelings and onto such titanic vistas of personal choices that I finally realized it’s possible to be in love with two people at one time: the one who makes you aware of yourself and the one who takes you beyond that awareness into something that’s indescribable. Maybe some people have only one person doing that for them, but in my case, my love for Shahraan starts where my longing for Neev ends. And where my obsession with Shahraan ceases, my possessiveness for Neev begins. I never understood true love. Is it snatching away one’s own life from oneself? If a lifelong emotional monogamy towards someone is the only criteria for judging true love, then I’ll never understand it.
Morality is not the moral of my story. I’ll rather be honest than be morally correct. I can’t be both. Maybe the world shall judge my honest choices as selfish. But if it’s a choice, it’s always selfish.
I don’t know what to say about the disturbance Nishani created between Shahraan and me. All I know is that it’s because of those disturbances I could iron out the wrinkled relationship between Shahraan and me. Sometimes, a war is necessary to sustain peace. Likewise, sometimes love needs to be questioned to make it look neat. As for me, I’ll go on like I always have. There are things which destroy us, and yet we find ourselves drawn to them. Life is one such self-destructive addiction for me. And you know why I’ve decided to deliver my baby? It’s because…
I love Shahraan.
While doing Pranayam in a prison cell alone…
NEEV THINKS
Anger makes me act on the worst solution before I realize the best one. I could have simply let Shahraan know about Nishani’s intentions. But my anger thought otherwise. It’s high time I stop being its bitch.
I have come to understand that a relationship is like a relentless fuck after which the semen of experience stays with us, resulting in the baby of prejudice. And if you analyze it, we only create prejudices for ourselves through someone else. A relationship is an excuse. Good, bad; it depends. In fact, love is a progressive way to realize how regressive it is. When I was with Nishani, I was what she wanted me to be. But with Reva, I was what I always wanted to be. If you get someone with whom you are yourself, you should stick with that person. If I had not strayed, Reva wouldn’t have accepted Shahraan’s proposal. Guilt would have stopped her. I know Reva. Only guilt can stop her. I don’t know if she ever loved me. What is love anyway? A grown up’s indifference and a child’s ignorance. Being with Nishani, my negativities instigated by Reva’s closeness with Shahraan were getting negated, hence I thought I loved Nishani. Even though she didn’t love me. We were each other’s best arrangement. Arrangements are always temporary; love isn’t.
I’ll have to work on myself since it’s me who is the root cause of all the shit in my life. If not Nishani, then my anger would have made me do something heinous to someone at some point of time.
I’m not only guilty of killing Nishani, but also for Reva and my relationship. If she left me for Shahraan, it was because I prepared her for it. And for this emotional homicide, my only deserving punishment will be…
I’ll always love Reva.
Atop the water tank of his apartment, sitting alongside Aravali, burning all the ‘Dear Nish’ letters one by one in the fire…
KAASH WONDERS
When all your life you claim something as yours, and then something as stupid as death challenges the claim, what do you do? Cry? Smile? Ignore? Shrug? Go mad? Complain? Avenge? She was lying brain dead. I only kissed her lips and moved out. She’d initiated our first kiss, I did the last one. Chapter closed, not the story.
Aravali takes the last letter from me and reads it aloud while I time travel.
Dear Nish
I saw a nightmare. I saw you were floating in the air by a sea shore.
I was trying to wake you up, but in vain. I even tried to bring you down to the earth, but again in vain. I screamed for help, and all I saw was different avatars of me—from age seven to ten to fourteen to eighteen—come running towards me. All of us sobbed as you kept floating in the air. Dead. It disturbed me so much that I’m now afraid of death, Nish. A relationship goes deeper within us than we can ever judge, feel, and perceive. And love is only the tip of that depth. Last night’s nightmare made me
aware of the rest of it. And I inferred if I lose you some day, then I better have an option else I’ll lose myself forever. I’ll need the option for my own selfish reason of existence. I am not an emotional altruist, Nish. Probably that’s why I would be able to love you forever only if there’s someone else by my side. That’s the way it has been. If you can’t forgive me, then please do punish me by forgetting me. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if that first kiss of ours had not defined me. If I ever lose you, I’ll be scared all my life…of life.
I snatch the letter and burn it. Aravali turns my face towards her. In her eyes, I see an option. The option. I hope she doesn’t see any obligation in my eyes. I embrace her and digging my face deep in her bosom, I start sobbing. Probably she will understand I’m only trying to empty my core, and what better place than a woman’s bosom. After a while I look up at her. And kiss her on the lips. It’s finally time to let go. She breaks the kiss for a moment and looks at me. Her tears never felt so special.
I love you, Aravali.
Sitting inside one of the private suits of a flight to Paris, he remembers he had given Nishani an opportunity so that he could wash his soul off the accident but…
SHAHRAAN CONFESSES
Absence. Our whole life is about absence of something or someone in some degree or form. So much so that it makes you die every day.
In a way, Nishani and I have gone through the same things. The difference being she had me in person to aim all her angst against and I didn’t have that luxury. Life took away her father. Death took away Mehfil. Nishani should have told me about her intentions. I would have allowed her to kill me. No qualms. And that too would have been for my own selfish reason. Now, I only have one question for her: was I worth it? We all should ask this when we confront something which we think has the ability to affect us in an irreversible way: is it worth it?
I didn’t move on after Mehfil. Was it worth it? I eventually decided to give love a try, accepted Reva. Was it worth it? Now, I am again staring at something which may affect me: should I share the rest of my life with Reva, forgetting whatever happened, or should I move on the way I did after Mehfil went away and before Reva came into my life? Is it worth it? Or should I simply pretend nothing—absolutely nothing—happened? Perhaps, pretense is the best emotional underwear.
How About a Sin Tonight? Page 25