Now That You're Rich: Let's fall in Love!

by Datta, Durjoy

  ‘Shut up, Abhijeet, you are sick and need to shut up right now.’

  ‘What sick? Ask her.’

  ‘For God’s sake! He was her boyfriend.’

  ‘So what is the fucking difference? Why the double standards? Shruti slept with Dinesh to keep her job safe and that is so not acceptable to you, but when your girl sleeps with her awesomely rich boyfriend just to keep him from going away, that is acceptable?’

  ‘What the hell? She did not sleep with him. And even if she did, I don’t give a damn.’

  ‘Guys!’ Garima shouted to keep them from shouting.

  ‘No, let him speak, Garima. I didn’t know Abhijeet could say such nice things about his friends. Maybe tomorrow he will say the same about you and me and everyone he is friends with today!’

  ‘Friends, my foot! She is not my friend. Never was. She doesn’t even know what friendship is. That bitch! And how dare you fucking say anything about Garima.’

  ‘You are such a bastard, Abhijeet,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Fuck off, man! You will come to know when she leaves you some day and we won’t be here.’

  ‘She won’t leave me and you need to shut that fucking mouth of yours or I am going to fuck you up,’ Saurav said and turned around to leave.

  ‘I wish she does leave you. And where are you going? Oh, to her? Don’t forget to fuck her. She will be ready to do it. Just tell her you will dump her otherwise.’

  Saurav turned back and rushed towards Abhijeet and rammed his head onto Abhijeet’s chest. Abhijeet staggered and moved backwards towards the wall, stepped on a glass which broke beneath his feet and banged his head on the wall. He fell on the ground and immediately a pool of blood formed where his head lay.

  ‘That is what you deserve, bastard,’ Saurav said as he looked down at him. The very next second he realized that Abhijeet was hurt. As he bent to see the damage, he was slapped hard by Garima, who was now in tears.

  ‘Get the hell away from him!’

  ‘But!’

  ‘Just go away,’ she wailed out loud and bent down on Abhijeet who had almost blanked out.

  ‘Ga—’

  ‘Get out! Get out!’ She stood up and grabbed Saurav by his hand. ‘Get the hell out of my house and don’t come back here again.’ She pushed him outside the door and shouted, ‘Don’t ever come near him or me. Ever again.’ She banged the door on his face and went back to see Abhijeet. He was helping himself up against the wall, his head smashed and glass pieces lodged inside the bottom of his feet.

  Garima kept herself from fainting, seeing all the blood around. Her stomach churned to see the glass pieces sticking out of Abhijeet’s feet.

  It took half an hour for the paramedics to arrive. Till then, Garima cradled Abhijeet’s head—which was no longer bleeding in spite of a deep wound—and kept crying.

  Neither the shattered glass nor the wound hurt as much as … their shattered family.

  Abhijeet spent the next day in hospital. There were thirteen stitches on his feet and four on his head. A bandage was wrapped around his head like a bandana and he was asked not to keep his foot down for the next week or so. Neither Saurav nor Shruti asked how Abhijeet was, or visited the hospital. Dinesh had texted though and wished for a speedy recovery. Sameer, Avantika and I had gone to visit him to see how he was.

  Garima also took off for the next two days, but came back to the office on the third. Whenever Garima saw Dinesh now, she had an uncontrollable urge to snuff the life out of him.

  Finally, on the fourth day, Abhijeet had recovered enough to join office. He was limping on one foot, and had a hockey stick in hand. Sameer had asked him to stay at home but he would not listen. It was partly because his job was on the line and mostly because Garima had once called from office and cried because she had no one else to talk to. She had filled up Abhijeet’s inbox with mails about how much she missed him. Abhijeet told her that if they were to lose this job, they would do it together.

  The four of them did not meet that day.

  They took different seats in the cafeteria.

  Abhijeet and Garima sat in one corner. Saurav sat in one with Riya, who was crying softly. Shruti was in another with the team. Sometimes, they exchanged glances but when they saw the other person looking their way, they turned away. Everybody had found people to bitch about the others.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about them. Can we talk about something else?’ Shruti asked. This was her fourth conversation with the Silverman Finanace guy who lived next door. He was a few years senior to her and although he had tried asking her out a couple of time, Shruti had played smart and found a way to wriggle out of it. That day, Shruti was home earlier than usual and the guy, Rahul, invited himself over. Since she was bored and depressed and lost, she thought she could do with some company for a while.

  ‘No please. You’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I don’t want to. I need to know,’ he tried the sympathy card.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I need to know what is bothering you so much,’ the guy said.

  ‘Nothing. It is just that they thought I was sleeping with my boss. All I wanted to do was help myself. And they didn’t even bother to ask how I was doing … all those months!’

  ‘Maybe you should have talked to them.’

  ‘What talk to them? I don’t need to tell them everything. And I don’t need to tell you everything.’

  ‘Why don’t you talk to them now?’

  ‘That chapter is over. Forever. I don’t want to talk to them ever. Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She dozed off twenty minutes later. Rahul could do nothing but depress her further. She saw him leave the room. Then, she got up and wrecked the room, throwing everything around and shouting out loud before she sank on the floor and cried the night away. She stared at the kitchen and the knife that was there …

  It wasn’t over yet. She cried a little more.

  Abhijeet and Garima had tried to avoid talking about Saurav or Shruti, following that day.

  ‘You have nothing to say?’ Garima asked.

  ‘About?’

  ‘About that day and what happened.’

  ‘No.’

  They stayed silent for a while, and then Abhijeet said, ‘It is Saurav’s birthday today.’

  ‘I know,’ Garima said. ‘I don’t think we are wishing him. I am not. After what he did to you, he didn’t even have the decency to at least come and see you once.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘No, I am serious, Abhijeet. He saw what happened. You were bleeding from everywhere and it is not like he doesn’t know. And that friend of yours, Riya, she didn’t even think once to ask how you were doing.’

  ‘Even Shruti didn’t, but I think we said a little too much. But she didn’t do the right thing. I mean, it is unimaginable …’

  ‘I do not know. That was the last day I talked to them. I so hate them. It’s not as if they don’t matter to me. They do. And that is why I hate them more,’ Garima said, as she adjusted Abhijeet’s bandage.

  ‘But where is Shruti? I haven’t seen her in the office,’ Abhijeet asked.

  ‘Maybe Dinesh knows. Who cares?’

  Saurav spent the night consoling Riya, saying that it was not her fault and that Abhijeet was a selfish, jealous bastard. Not that it made any difference to her or her crying, but it made Saurav hate Abhijeet even more with every passing second that she spent crying. He didn’t like the fact that Riya was crying because of him. Moreover, he knew that he would have to choose between her and Abhijeet. And a million times over, he would choose Riya.

  The buzz about layoffs was gaining ground as days passed by. It was now official; half the teams would go. People who had eternally hated their jobs with all their heart were now mortally scared.

  Some of the new joinees had started looking for new houses. Small, affordable ones. Many had updated their CVs and had started forwar
ding it to their friends in lesser organizations who were having a field day seeing these overpaid pigs suffer. Everyone applied for premium accounts on job-hunting websites and stared at the inboxes, waiting for interview calls.

  Tragedy brings people closer and this was happening in Silverman Finance long before it actually struck. People who sat in adjacent cabins but never talked were now talking about everything from which schools their children went to and whether they had applied to any place else, just in case they lost this job.

  Nobody had anything else to do in those fifteen days.

  Abhijeet had panicked and freaked out, after reading the official announcement of the layoffs, but Garima said he could join her father’s business if he wanted to. Garima had already told her parents about Abhijeet and they were only too happy to hear their daughter sound happy again.

  And to think of it, losing the job was no longer that bad an option for him. He had his life set, a business of his own. Having a rich girlfriend helps. Abhijeet now had one … just like he had once mentioned to Saurav that he had wanted one.

  20

  It was the first time that she was doing this. And it wasn’t Delhi or Chandigarh where there were alcohol shops in malls and in markets right next to convenience stores. The people jostling for bottles were rickshaw pullers and labourers, half of whom had forgotten what they had ordered when they saw her approaching. She pulled down her T-shirt and tried to be extremely loud and confident.

  ‘Smirnoff vodka. Two. Full.’ She took out her cell phone and yakked loudly. ‘Haan, bring the car around. Ask Amit and Rajat to come. Make it quick, man.’ She then went ahead and ordered five beers, too. It lent more weight to the story that there were three guys coming to join her.

  She put them all in her huge red and golden handbag and quickly turned around the corner. She took an autorickshaw and headed home.

  A senior had come up to her earlier that day and asked whether it was fun doing it with Dinesh, whether they did it in the parking lot in his car, or he came over to his house. While he walked away, he told Shruti that it was her friend who had told him everything about her and Dinesh. She kept sitting there, open-mouthed, waiting for it to register. She turned towards the computer as tears trickled down her cheek. She could see it in the reflection of her computer screen. A group formed around that guy who had just talked to her and then everyone looked at her and either smiled, smirked or expressed shock. She felt all those eyes on her. As if they were stripping her, there and then, and imagining her with Dinesh.

  She had never expected her friends, the friends she had treated and trusted like a family, could indulge is such malicious gossip about her. She clenched her fist till her nails clawed inside her palms.

  She prayed for the driver to drive fast. The crowns were peeking from the top of her bag as she clutched on to it tightly. The speed breaker clanged the bottles together and made the driver look at her in the rear mirror. It was a sweating Shruti that he saw.

  As soon as she reached the apartment complex’s gate, she gave the driver a hundred-rupee note and rushed into her flat.

  She missed Saurav. Abhijeet. Garima. She wanted to fight it. She wanted to tell herself she could do without them, and that she didn’t need friends like them.

  That’s when she decided to drink that night. Alone.

  She took out the bottles and kept them on the table. She never drank beer. It is a guys’ drink, Saurav had once told her. Chauvinistic pig, she thought. And wondered why she had not seen that before. He was nothing but a female-bashing asshole. Shruti opened the bottle and the stench made her crook her nose. She held the bottle in both her hands and took a long gulp. She coughed and cringed, while the yellow liquid made its way down her throat, spoiling the taste of her tongue for the rest of the night. She got hold of the bottle again and gulped it down in three huge sips.

  She felt nauseous. And tipsy.

  Shruti ran over her phone list. She looked for Abhijeet’s number. It wasn’t in the last dialled numbers. Or received. Nor missed calls. Neither was Saurav’s or Garima’s.

  She found Garima’s number in the phone book and pressed the dial button. And cut the phone.

  She redialled thrice and then flung it. It hit the skirting of the room. The battery and the keypad spilled out. She had expected Garima to call. She had expected Avantika to call. Nobody did. She wouldn’t call either. The two remaining bottles were opened and a glass was filled—half with vodka and the rest with beer. She drank it down. It tasted terrible and it felt terrible. Her throat burned. Her stomach churned, but she felt her troubles dissolve.

  She was doing fine. She could do without them. She could sleep with Dinesh. Why should they care? She made herself another one. It burned her insides. She felt hot in her stomach. She felt good in her mind. She was free. She kept smiling incessantly. Thinking of all the times they had spent together. And thinking about how much she hated them now.

  With the third drink in, she puked. The next day, she resigned.

  21

  It had been three days and three nights since Shruti had been drinking. It was the same time after which Abhijeet and Garima had noticed that her table was empty. At first, they didn’t think anything of it because it was a day before New Year’s Eve and a lot of people had taken a day off. Also, it was already late evening so they thought she might have left early, but then they noticed that everything from the mug which had the photograph of the four of them together to the photo of Shruti with her brother was gone. They looked across the computer and Dinesh knew what they would ask.

  ‘She resigned,’ Dinesh said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘It’s been three days.’

  ‘Why?’ they both asked.

  ‘You should know. She wasn’t looking very good and was mumbling something about you guys. I really don’t know and she is not picking up my calls. But you should ask her.’

  Garima covered her mouth, her eyes open wide in shock, and barely kept from crying. Tears ran down her cheeks and Abhijeet whisked her away.

  ‘We were wrong,’ she said, not looking at Abhijeet.

  ‘But why did she resign?’ Abhijeet asked.

  ‘Can’t you see it? She wanted to show us that we were wrong.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Abhijeet, can’t you see it?’ she shouted. Everyone snapped their heads up at them. She mellowed down and continued, ‘We were wrong. Then and even now. Can’t you see it? Put your ego aside and open your eyes. Had she been sucking up to Dinesh, she would have done it even now. Why should she leave the job? You know this for a fact that she would die but not give up this job. If she were sleeping with Dinesh, if she were doing it to save this job, she wouldn’t have given a shit about our fight and would have still kept this job!’

  ‘Maybe …’ Abhijeet mumbled trying to process the information.

  ‘Abhijeet! Think. She left because of us! We had each other and Saurav had Riya. She was the only one alone. She was the one who wanted us the most. And we know that she needed the job more than each and every one of us. She was the only one who wasn’t tired of getting fucked here day and night. She was the only one who didn’t complain. She couldn’t have resigned for any other reason.’

  ‘But she doesn’t look the type who would?’

  ‘How can you still not see it? Leave it. You don’t look the type who would fight with your best friend over a girl,’ Garima said, exasperated.

  ‘What the fuck? He was the one who started it.’

  ‘Leave that, I am sorry.’

  ‘So? What do we do now?’ Abhijeet asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Abhijeet. You and Saurav need to talk to her. Salvage whatever is left, if there is anything left.’

  ‘You go talk to Saurav. I will order a cab and we will go to Shruti’s place and talk to her.’

  ‘No, Abhijeet. You talk to Saurav. I will order a cab.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Abhijeet! Wil
l you stop acting selfish now? Put your stupid ego aside and call Saurav up. Look where it got us.’ She got up and left to order the cab.

  Abhijeet fiddled with the phone for the next ten minutes, as he tried to string together the words. He still did not want to call up Saurav. When he eventually did, images of what had happened that day came rushing back to him. Saurav disconnected the first two calls and answered the third one.

  ‘Bol,’ Saurav said. He still sounded pissed, though he was relieved to get a call from Abhi after so many days.

  ‘Shruti has resigned.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So?’ Saurav tried to contain his shock.

  ‘Garima says it’s because of us.’

  ‘What the fuck? This is bullshit. Why would she resign because of us?…’

  ‘I think what Garima is saying is right.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Their tones were becoming normal with every sentence they exchanged. ‘We are going to her place. Now. Garima has ordered a cab. See you at the main gate.’

  ‘Okay.’

  On the way to the gate, Saurav went to Dinesh’s seat. He turned his chair and looked into his eyes and asked furiously, ‘What did you do with her? Tell me or I am going to smash your head into the computer screen. Did you ever ever ever ever touch Shruti?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Tell me!’ Saurav bellowed.

  ‘Are you nuts or what? She has always been like my sister. She always reminded me of her. I am really sorry for her resignation. She really needed the job. I wanted to help her out,’ he mumbled in response to a really angry Saurav.

  ‘How the fuck do you know?’

  ‘She told me. She is a sweet kid. I was thinking of making her the sub-junior analyst. That is why I piled her with work, but it seems like she had more issues at hand.’

  ‘What? Then why did you ask her once to leave with you? In your car, the one which Thapar uses? We know about it, sir. Why?’