Garima and Shruti had started getting dark circles and they, too, had gone the Silverman way, or perhaps we should say, the Sumita way, and used dollops of foundation to hide it. Saurav and Abhijeet had stopped taking showers to get that extra sleep time. Alcohol was a strict no-no.
There was a constant look of sadness and depression on their faces from the lack of sleep and the stress that came with it. It was withering them away and they began questioning if they could go on like this. The fun Sundays were over, and they now spent the weekends sleeping in their respective flats, dreading the next week.
Saurav had thought of resigning more than once, but Garima had begged him not to. She would be alone in the department and that was the last thing she wanted. Dinesh was giving them a hard time, but more than that, she hated the way he looked at her and Shruti.
‘Go to the cafeteria and sleep. Give me your password and I will complete it,’ Garima said that day. Saurav had been dozing off in the office and was behind schedule.
‘What if Dinesh—?’
‘I will manage,’ she cut him off.
Saurav nodded and walked away in a daze, without realizing the enormity of the favour she had just extended to him. Saurav had been pushed into working out by the other three and that meant another hour of sleep gone. He was sceptical at first, but the others insisted, and he joined the gym in the office. It was torturous, but he lost six pounds in the first week itself, and started to look thinner, and fitted into trousers better, and hence continued going to the gym.
Saurav walked to the couch like a hungry couch-chomping zombie and fell asleep in a matter in seconds. Two hours later, at around three in the morning, Garima went to the cafeteria and woke him up from his slumber, and told him that his work was done. He couldn’t thank her more.
While leaving office, they took the way that went through the parking lot, for Saurav always kept an eye out for new cars that kept adding to the burgeoning SF parking. Garima was waiting at the EXIT gate, while Saurav went around the cars in eights to get a full view.
It had been five minutes when Garima looked back to see no sign of him. He must have crouched to have a look at some customized alloy wheels, she thought. Saurav was a big fan of huge, thick alloy wheels, even when they didn’t go with the rest of the car.
She waited for another two minutes, after which she got a little worried and called him up. His phone was unreachable, and she headed for the parking lot. She walked inside the lanes of the dimly lit parking lot, lined with dark cars all along. She was scared now. The darkness was eerie. A light flickered and her heart skipped a beat. It was dead silent, and the clacking of her heels echoed in the parking lot. She was sweating at the brow as she passed a few more cars and saw no sign of anyone there. She took out her cell phone. No network.
Garima contemplated running out of there but she feared something had happened to Saurav. She kept walking, taking measured steps and looking everywhere, clutching her handbag close to her body. She felt somebody looking at her from the darkness. Somebody following her. All the time. She stopped more than once to look around, only to hear shifting steps and the sound of her heels on the floor. She walked into the darkness, further away from the exit. Her steps got smaller. Her breath heavier. Slowly, darkness engulfed her. She reached out for her cell phone again, as she felt an urge to run.
Just as she crossed a black Tavera SUV, she heard feet shifting across the floor behind her. All of a sudden, she felt hands crushing against her stomach and face and pulling her down. She blacked out as the hand gripped her face tightly and pulled her behind the car. The man pinned her to the ground.
She kept struggling and kicking. Her head banged against the door of the SUV, as she kept swinging her head wildly at Saurav, who had blood in his eyes.
‘What? What? What the …’ she shouted, still half-struggling while her face was covered with Saurav’s hand.
‘Let me explain. I am trying to rape you. Stay down and it will be over.’ Her eyes were teary and shouted a why at him. She had frozen. Her eyes were now bloodshot and quivering. He came close to her ear and she closed her eyes as tears came down.
‘I can’t believe you fell for that!’ he whispered out loud and smiled at her.
He let her loose.
She cried out and rained blows on him while he ducked and swayed out of her reach. He muffled her again.
‘YOU FAT BASTARD!’ she shouted under his hand.
‘Stop it. Stop it. They will know we are here. I will let you go if you don’t shout.’
‘WHO? LEAVE ME!’
‘Just shut up, okay?’ Saurav said.
She bobbed her head vigorously and he left her. She whispered, ‘You will pay for this. You could have killed me, for heaven’s sake.’ She punched him. ‘And why are we hiding like this? And who are they?’ she whispered.
‘You will see.’
A familiar face entered the car park from the lobby, and looked around for a car. He checked the keys in his hand and the number plates of the cars. He walked on, passing the car they were standing behind. He kept inspecting the cars till he stopped near an off-white Honda Captiva. The door was open. He looked around and entered the car. And banged the door shut.
The face was Rajat Thapar’s.
‘Why isn’t he driving?’ Garima said in a hushed tone.
‘Because it is not his car, dumbo. He drives an Audi, not a Honda Captiva.’
‘What?’
‘Shut up.’
Saurav held her hand as they crept up to the car next to the white SUV. It wasn’t the best view they could have got but Garima could make out what Saurav wanted to show her. She could recognize her hair anywhere.
‘What the …’ Garima almost said out loud. ‘That girl is Chandni? What the hell is she doing with Thapar? What the hell is going on here?’
‘How am I supposed to know? It seems like this is her idea of concentrating on her career. She’s such a bitch!’
‘Shit.’
‘Were you following her?’
‘No comments,’ he whispered. ‘I thought she was a lesbian and had come here for Kiran. I thought that was the reason she snubbed me.’
‘Kiran?’ she asked, with eyes so wide, one could have grabbed her contacts out of them.
‘She is in there too, in the car! I crossed the car and saw Kiran and Chandni in the car. I waited for them to make out with each other, but they fucking didn’t. That’s when I thought maybe something more is up. Now I know, they are here for Thapar.’
‘You are not doing that,’ Garima said as soon as Saurav fished out his cell phone.
‘Yes, I am.’ He pushed her back and crept a few steps further till he reached the back windshield of the car. He kept low and raised his hand till the cell phone screen showed all three of them.
What they saw, and what we saw later on video is something we would never forget. From the inside pocket of his jacket, Thapar fetched a small envelope with a grainy white powder, and dropped it on the pull-out tray, and cut lines on it with his credit card, and the three of them snorted two lines of what looked like cocaine. The three of them shook their heads like they were jolted with electricity.
Thapar ran his fingers though the girl’s hair as he kissed her. He started to assault Chandni’s neck as his hands slipped down to her shirt. He unbuttoned it slowly and took it off. He pushed the lever and the seat flattened to a bed. The girl climbed onto Thapar, pulled her skirt up a little, unhooked her bra and it came off. It was stripped off by Kiran. Kiran was a year senior to Chandni. While Thapar and Chandni kissed, Kiran had unzipped Thapar’s pants and slipped it off. Kiran got naked and helped Chandni to get out of the skirt she wore. They both started working on Thapar as if he had taken a dip in a chocolate fountain and was delectable, while Thapar egged them and grabbed them now and then. Chandni had possibly the most gifted rack in Silverman and Thapar made the most of it. Thapar took turns with them, moaning like a boar, as the car shook and fogged up. Soon, t
here were too many arms, and too many legs, to make any sense of what was happening. Spent, they lay there, Thapar and the two girls, naked and kissing.
Saurav had got up in between to see what was happening, and he sat down again, his mouth frothing, and cursed himself for being a loser and Chandni for being a slut.
Saurav and Garima rushed out of the parking lot as soon as Garima heard the door lock of the car click.
‘Can you believe it?’ she clutched his hand and asked. They were still panting and Saurav was on his knees trying to catch his breath.
‘Chandni. That bitch. Concentrate on career? I told you then, it is all bullshit. SHE IS SUCH A SLUT!’
‘Did that really happen?’
‘It did. Man!’ Saurav was now laughing.
‘I mean how? How? And why? What on earth was that? Why would anyone do that? And Kiran? She is a year senior to us, right?’
‘I am as clueless as you are.’
‘Show me the video,’ she grabbed his cell phone.
Within the first few minutes, she handed it back to him, and told him that it was disgusting and she couldn’t watch it.
‘Did you see them? Bloody nymphets. That bitch, Chandni,’ Saurav said.
‘What? The way I see it, it is Thapar. These girls wouldn’t have offered themselves. Bloody pervert, he would have asked for it. And you, chauvinist pig.’
‘Whatever. Thapar is such a lucky bastard!’ he exclaimed and started seeing the video again.
‘Is there anything we can do about it?’
‘Hmmm … I don’t think so. Not at the risk of screwing our careers and the girls’ lives.’
‘I never thought I would ever see something like this,’ she said and held her head.
‘Me too.’
‘Chandni? She came here with us.’ She shook her head. ‘This is so unfair and sick. And we will do nothing about this? Isn’t this sexual harassment or something?’
‘It will be a huge police case and stuff. And you wouldn’t want to get involved. Plus, what if it’s consensual?’ Saurav wondered.
Garima started to shiver and stagger. Her eyes were rolling and it looked like she would faint.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I am fine. It’s just that … nothing.’
Saurav helped her into the cab.
‘Are you going to be okay? Or do I—?’ Saurav asked.
‘I am fine,’ she said.
‘Oh, and by the way, there is something that I think you should know. The car they were making out in, the Honda Captiva? It’s Dinesh’s car,’ Saurav said.
Garima buried her head in her palms and the cab drove off.
Garima got down from her cab and walked up to her apartment. She was tired and her head was still spinning. The joke that Saurav played on her in the parking lot brought back the most painful of her memories. The helplessness of the girls in the car, the groping of Saurav, and she didn’t feel too nice. Garima thought of Shruti, who was helpless and poor and impressionable, and could be driven by a lecherous boss to do what those girls were doing. She called her, but Shruti didn’t pick up her phone.
Her phone beeped.
Goodnight. Sleep well. Abhijeet.
Nervous and restless, she called up Abhijeet. She had just started narrating the parking lot incident, when Abhijeet told her that Saurav had already told him. She was crying, and Abhijeet asked her to go to sleep but she told him she wouldn’t get any sleep that night.
She was on the phone for an hour, silently sobbing while Abhijeet patiently kept holding on the other side. It was one of those nights when the thoughts of those two days of her life clouded her mind and she felt she would never be herself again. A little later, she told a shocked Abhijeet about how she was molested, and Abhijeet, furious and full of questions, took a cab and reached her place in an hour.
The minute she saw Abhijeet standing at the doorstep, his eyebrows making a small hill on his forehead and his fists clenched, she felt calmer. They hugged and she counted seconds uptil which she could keep resting her face on his chest and it wouldn’t be awkward. She felt safe.
‘Will you have something?’ Garima asked him.
‘Have you had anything?’ he looked at her and asked. She smiled and shook her head.
‘Never mind. I will make you something good to eat.’
‘You can cook?’
‘Of course I can cook. I used to cook a lot in my college days,’ he said, his face contorted as if he felt insulted.
‘So what are you making for me today, chef?’
‘It is a very easy thing to make. But it tastes like heaven,’ he said as he rummaged through her kitchen. ‘It is probably French but I make an Indian version. It’s spicy and works well with ketchup. Just wait.’
‘So, what is it?’
‘You might have heard about it. It is very popularly known as Maggi.’
‘Ugh! LOSER!’ she said out loud and started to hit him playfully. They got into a cute little mock fight, which ended when she felt like grabbing him and thrusting her lips onto his. She stepped back and blushed.
‘Okay, I will sit here while you cook,’ she said and climbed up the slab, right next to the stove.
He proceeded to crush the cakes into small pieces and added them to the steaming water. All this time, Garima sat there, looking at him, as he did very carefully what people could do with their eyes closed. It took ten minutes for the noodles to cook, and he slathered it with ketchup, and he served it in the utensil he cooked it in.
‘You are sweet.’
‘I know,’ he said as he rolled a noodle around a fork and made her eat it.
He told her that he was full and made her finish the Maggi, and found an apple in the fridge for her to eat. She didn’t want to talk about the incident in the parking lot, or her past, and she just talked about how much they missed Delhi and their parents. She talked endlessly, and Abhijeet listened patiently.
After that, he led her into her bedroom and tucked her inside. She had already started missing him. She remembered the last time he had left. It had seemed like her flat’s walls had exploded, that it had grown twice in size, and it was a huge empty space, and she felt lonely and alone.
As soon as he left the bedroom and was about to disappear behind the door, she said, ‘Please stay.’
‘But.’
‘Sorry, you can go.’
‘I will stay.’
He bolted the door and sat on the bed next to her. She put her arms around him and her eyes welled up, and she barely suppressed an urge to tell him that she never wanted him to go out of her sight.
‘Thanks for staying.’ Garima clutched his hand and kept her head on his shoulder.
‘I wanted to stay. I like your flat better than mine. It is so much nicer and smells like you.’
She smiled. She grabbed his hand and put it across her shoulder and asked him, ‘Is there anything that you wanted to say?’
‘What? Me? No. I don’t think so,’ he said, shocked.
‘Saurav told me.’
‘What, what? What did he tell you?’
‘That, you know, that you like me,’ she purred.
‘He is such a …’
‘You didn’t want me to know?’
‘No, I did, but not like this. It would have been better had I told you.’
‘So, you have your chance today. You already know what I am going to say, so you can stop being nervous and tell me whatever you want to.’
‘You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Garima.’
‘Go on. Just one line? No wonder you have been single all your life,’ she said and punched his arm.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Then find something to say.’
‘I don’t know, Garima. The thing is, I really like you. I don’t know what to call this, but I feel I can be myself in front of you. Awkward, geeky and with no social skills. I know it’s been just a little while but I have never felt so comfort
able around anyone. This seems natural. I love you, I think?’
‘See? You found something so sweet to say.’
‘Not really the response I was looking for.’
‘Aww … I love you, too. I think?’ She pulled him near and pecked him.
‘Thank you, but not really the kiss I was looking for either,’ he smirked.
‘Is it so?’ she smirked back.
She bent over and he pulled her over him. Her lips touched his and they kissed, exploring each other as if to make up for all the time they hadn’t kissed. His hands ran through her fuzzy hair, her flawless skin. She grabbed his hair and pulled at them. The kiss lasted till they were out of breath and they parted and started to smile, and then laughed. Many more small kisses followed thereafter. Abhijeet was hooked to her honey-sweet lips.
Abhijeet pumped his fist and said, ‘First kiss.’
‘How mean!’
‘You should be happy it is with you,’ he said.
‘With Riya?’
‘That was just a peck and it was just because I had done her assignment.’
‘Okay. And it wasn’t bad for the first time. Come here. Let’s try it again,’ she said. They kissed again.
The mention of Riya and first kiss brought back memories for both of them. Memories they would rather forget. They spent the day in each other’s arms, thinking that this would be a new beginning.
14
‘Yes, Thapar,’ Sumita said as she entered his room.
‘Things are looking down,’ he said. Thapar’s tone never showed the urgency of any situation, breezing through entire life-changing discussions as if he was deciding what to eat for lunch.
‘I heard there were discussions in the US office. Did they call?’
‘Yes. The subprime thing has really started to hit. Too early to say, but pundits fear the worst. We need to be prepared.’
‘What is the worst?’
‘We are looking at halving the workforce and it could happen overnight.’
‘Are you serious?’ Sumita was sweating now. She pulled up a chair to sit.
Now That You're Rich: Let's fall in Love! Page 11