Ohh Yes, I'm Single: And so is my Girlfriend

by Datta, Durjoy

  ‘It’s okay. She is as much to blame, and you were high so you didn’t know any better. She’s an addict,’ she said and took a long drag, an uneasy silence descended.

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘Apart from accompany my sister to raves and see her getting kissed by raging perverts, I am a journalist,’ she said.

  Right! Journalist. That is not what she looked like. Though she was dressed in a simple T-shirt and jeans like everyone that night, the kohl was still there, as if she was trying to support the cliché of ‘journalist with kohl in her eyes’. Her hair hung open loosely over her shoulders, thick as the night itself. She was very alluring and pleasing to look at beyond all the cigarette smoke. Her lips had a natural pout and she wore a very faint shade of pink lipstick; she was skinny, and yet not so. She looked more like a newsreader, the kind the channels choose to keep the TRPs up, knowing that millions would lose themselves every night watching her talk. Her eyes were immensely seductive, a little dreamy, but still very big and attention catching, a light shade of brown accentuated by the kohl in her eyes; I wondered if I was still high. Her left ear was pierced at three places and she wore three rings on each hand.

  Standing in front of her, I could feel the motions of going from being intrigued to having a crush to falling in love, in a matter of a few brief minutes.

  ‘So, your sister is an addict, eh?’

  ‘It’s been almost a year since she dropped out of college. She was in St. Stephen’s. She was really good at academics. She took the same course as I did.’

  St. Stephen’s. Fuck. Be less impressive, girl!

  ‘It didn’t take us long to find out what was happening to her. We managed to convince her, and that’s the only good part about it,’ she mumbled, lighting up the cigarette dangling from her lips, her second.

  It was amazing how her expression had not changed in the whole conversation, whereas I had gone from being amazed to being sad to being surprised to being shocked. And dumb at times, when I was checking her out. And that was almost all the time.

  ‘This is where it all started?’ I asked, out of sheer curiosity.

  ‘This is where she first tried it.’

  ‘… and kept coming back?’

  ‘No, you have to be a certified junkie to get in here. No one here wants a rookie who will just come once, click pictures and put them on the Internet. These places are for the needy. For people who come here for the drugs. The music, the sex and everything else is just secondary,’ she explained.

  ‘It must be a great story for a journalist, such clubs. I would have never believed they exist, had I not seen this one today.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a great story that must never be published, unless of course, someone wants to be found dead under mysterious circumstances. Everyone powerful is in on it. Three people tried it and all of them lost their jobs and the stories never got printed. And anyway, I not an investigative journalist, I write about books and food and art. Sometimes, when I really get bored, I also cover page three,’ she sounded mysterious, sexy, friendly, authoritative … everything good, all at the same time.

  ‘Scary,’ I said and realized I just can’t stop being a scared-ass wimp. ‘I mean not the other part, the first part, about the raves.’

  ‘Seeing your sister make out with a black bouncer is scary. Seeing her cry out in the middle of the night for drugs is scarier,’ she said. This time, I saw tears in her eyes. ‘Anyway, what do you do?’

  ‘I’m still studying, second year, Engineering.’

  ‘Ohh, you’re a kid,’ she said condescendingly.

  ‘Not really. I dropped a year in between. You don’t look all that old yourself,’ I was a little offended by the comment.

  ‘I am twenty-two,’ she said.

  ‘You sound thirty,’ I said.

  ‘Not funny.’

  ‘Neither were you.’

  ‘Aha! The kid has teeth,’ she said and laughed. ‘I like that in a boy.’

  ‘I will look out for your articles in the newspapers and see how grown-up you are!’ I said.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand. I review literary books. You wouldn’t get anything. You should stick with your calculus books,’ she smirked.

  ‘What! I read books. I mean, a few,’ I said. ‘Oh, don’t pull that I-am-from-St-Stephens-so-I-am-so-much-smarter-than-you thing on me!’

  She laughed and said, ‘But I am.’

  We talked for a few more minutes, after which the skies started getting clearer and we headed back to the dark garage, much to my disappointment. It was pretty much the same, only that a lot more people had passed out and were sleeping heaped over one another in corners. She looked around for her sister, while I looked around for Sidharth amongst the bodies.

  ‘There,’ she shouted and pointed to a corner, where Sidharth lay with his mouth open over a white-skinned girl who was still bobbing her head to the music. As I walked towards him, the mysterious journalist girl walked up to an equally good-looking girl … Wait, they almost looked alike! They had a short argument and a few moments later, she dragged her sister out of the place. She passed me a fleeting smile as she passed by.

  Fuck! And then, it struck me, I didn’t ask her name, or where she worked or anything about it. Though, the full realization struck much later. I had dragged Sidharth out of that club, into an auto, then into the car and then onto his bed. I must have slapped him, punched him, threatened to leave him on the road a zillion times to make him wake up, but nothing worked.

  Had it not been for that rude girl from St. Stephen’s, it would’ve been a horrible night. And an even more horrible morning, carrying a huge unconscious man around. I was lucky Sidharth’s mom didn’t catch me carrying her son upstairs to his room.

  As he lay unconscious, I tried sleeping, but couldn’t fall asleep. Probably attributed to her face that I just couldn’t get out of my head. I switched on the laptop and mindlessly searched for porn on Sidharth’s laptop to kill time. Her words echoed in my ears, ‘You’re a deprived pervert!’ No I am not, I said to myself, and clicked on the play button. The girl in the porn had just started unbuckling the belt of the buffed up guy, when slowly her face transformed into her face—the journalist girl! Darn! Fuck. I clicked on another. And the same thing happened again. Am I still high?

  I wasn’t. I went on to the Internet as I thought about her and relived the conversation. To feel better, I even added to it, imagining that I had asked for her name or her phone number. I lay back daydreaming about her. That dense wavy flowing hair, those eyes that seemed even bigger with the kohl around them, the smoky-fair complexion was as exotic as it was pleasing. I imagined her in her journalist attire and she looked awesome.

  Within moments, I was onto the page three columns and book review columns of about a dozen newspapers. I noted down all the names of the female correspondents that I could and started searching them on Facebook. An hour and half later, and after checking out hundreds of profiles, I came up blank. Nothing. Tired and with hurting eyes, I lay down on the bed, thinking about her, and drifted off. She was there, in my dreams, laughing at me for being a crude engineer-to-be, and was throwing her big, literary books at me.

  ‘You couldn’t find her?’ I said, almost a little frustrated. ‘And why the fuck didn’t you ask her name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Joy answered, a little foxed himself. ‘I was just too lost, I guess. She was excessively beautiful, Neeti. And frankly, it didn’t cross my mind. I really didn’t think it would get so hard to get her out of my head.’

  ‘And why didn’t you tell her that you read a lot of books too! I mean you’re always surrounded by books, you’re obsessed with them. You had something common there, didn’t you?’

  ‘I guess I was a little intimidated. And even though I read a lot, I am not sure I understand them totally,’ he said. As usual, he was pulling himself down and being self-deprecating.

  ‘Then how did you meet her again? Did you go back there again? Ohh … wait �
� you visited rehabilitation centres to see who checked in and that’s how you got it? Oh … wait, wait, wait, the bouncer, he knew her? Didn’t he?’ I kept guessing.

  ‘Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.’

  ‘Then what?’ I asked, impatiently.

  ‘It was a lot less dramatic,’ he said. ‘I guess I was just insanely lucky again. Or maybe it was fate.’

  The First True and Everlasting Love—Part 2

  ‘Wake up! Wake up, asshole.’ My ears rung for five minutes before I opened my eyes and saw Sidharth shouting at me.

  ‘Are you fucking out of your mind?’ I shouted and turned around. I would have punched him but I didn’t want to get punched in return.

  I must have slept for another hour or so, after which I woke up to the aroma of smoking hot pizzas that Sidharth had ordered. Almost immediately, I forgave him and dug in, stuffing whole slices inside my mouth. The pizza disappeared in seconds, almost as if they never existed.

  ‘I am sorry for last night,’ he said, not even meaning it.

  ‘Glad you realized.’

  ‘But it was a one-time go, you have to admit that! C’mon, you had fun, and I didn’t know you would grind and do all those dirty moves. You’re such a pervert!’ Sidharth smirked.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I said and flipped the newspaper. Am I a pervert?

  ‘But you did like it?’ he winked.

  ‘I met someone,’ I said.

  ‘I saw! You met many someones! You kissed at least three girls yesterday, Joy.’

  ‘ Can we stop talking about what I did after I was drunk? And you weren’t the perfect model of sincerity either! Anyway, I meant I talked to someone yesterday after I came to my senses.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know her name. But I intend to find out soon.

  She’s a journalist and writes about books and art and page three parties.’

  ‘You don’t know her? You didn’t ask her name? Anyway, Joy, you better stay away from these junkie girls. They are real twisted. Don’t get into all this. Soon, you will be paying for their drugs!’

  ‘She wasn’t a junkie. She came there with her sister,’ I said, casually flipping through the paper.

  ‘What’s so special about her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, not knowing what to say. And then, suddenly—when I wasn’t even looking for it, or even if anyone was, I don’t think they would have found it—in a hazy picture on page three, somewhere in the background, I saw a familiar face. There she was! There she fucking was! Oh my fucking god! Unreal!

  Barely visible, but I was sure it was her. Sure as hell, it was her. I noted the email-id in my head, rechecked and rechecked … it was she. All this time, Sidharth looked at me, clueless as to what I was doing.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Sidharth shouted, as I rushed to get his laptop.

  I read it a zillion times before sending it.

  Hi

  It’s me. The new guy in the club. How did I find you? Pure chance, if you would believe it. How’s the sister?

  Joy Datta

  P.S.—0967999996

  ‘You met her yesterday? And you are mailing her? Have you gone totally nuts? Mailing a junkie? And you do know that the mail was a little desperate!’ he said, his eyes glued to the newspaper, trying to see what I saw.

  ‘Firstly, she is not a junkie, her sister is. I think she was very pretty. I liked her. And was the mail too desperate? Was it?’

  ‘Maybe. You so sound like you are going to fall in love,’ he said. ‘You do know what love does to guys like us, right? It ends in tears and it feels like the world is ending!’

  ‘Shut up, dude.’

  ‘And moreover I think she is too good for you,’ Sidharth said, as he munched on a biscuit. ‘She is a journalist and writes high-brow stuff, and you’re, like, nothing. You’re not even good-looking!’

  ‘Says the guy who is ten kilograms overweight. And how can you say she’s out of my league? You haven’t even met her.’

  ‘You tell me that she is good-looking. Now, you have always been with women you don’t deserve. Sarah—out of your league. Sheeny—out of your league. So looks-wise—she is out of your league. And she is a journalist, older and wiser, and earning. And she had the balls to be there, at that party … that means she definitely has more balls than you have,’ he said, as he gulped his coffee down.

  ‘You are ridiculous. I mean, she is … well, out of my league, but it’s not that she is un-gettable. I mean, why are we talking about it? I just want to meet her once. I found her nice. And that’s it. End of story,’ I said and he laughed aloud.

  ‘Whatever, man,’ Sidharth said. ‘I hope you get her. Which obviously you won’t.’

  I spent the rest of the day at his place checking my mail inbox as frequently as anyone could. It was all I could do. Mom called up and asked when I would come home, and I gave her some lame excuse and she disconnected the call. Sidharth was obviously not impressed with my freaky behaviour. It was early evening when it bore fruit.

  The subject line said—Hi.

  The body of the mail said—0798989889.

  If anything, the mail was a little disturbing. Nothing else? Just a number. Almost involuntarily, I looked around for my cell phone. Not calling would have looked cooler, I guess, but as soon as I saw the number, I didn’t give a shit. I just had to call her. It was a reflex!

  ‘Hey,’ I said, my voice almost shaking initially.

  ‘Who’s this?’ her voice boomed from the other side.

  ‘Joy.’

  ‘Hey, hi! How are you? By the way, I LOVE your name. It’s so Bengali, and it’s too intelligent for you,’ she chuckled.

  ‘Haha! Very funny. How are you?’ I said, and left it there.

  ‘I am good. I just dropped my sister at the rehab facility. Driving back. The jam near Safdarjung is killing, man. I think I will just park and let it all clear out.’

  ‘Safdarjung? I am in Safdarjung right now, at a friend’s place … umm … err … Can we—?’

  ‘Great then. See you at Barista, SDA market, in five minutes? That’s fine by you?’

  How can it not be fine with me?

  ‘Fine, I will be there,’ I said and cut the phone.

  Sidharth, who had overheard the entire conversation, said, ‘Lucky bastard. Fuck you man. You got yourself a date? I hope you’re run over by a truck. Or wait, I hope you fall in love, that’s much worse.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Fuck you more, fuck you twice, and then fuck you again. I hope you die, man,’ he said.

  ‘I will try not to disappoint you.’

  ‘Whatever. Try not falling in love for a change! It never works out for us,’ he joked.

  Yes. I did fall in love very often, but in my defence, I fell out of it with alarming frequency, too, often finding myself descending into a downward spiral of depression. Anyway, luckily I found something decent from Sidharth’s wardrobe to wear and made a mad dash to the market. SDA market was bang opposite IIT, Delhi, and despite that, the crowd was always decent; the market had a smattering of a few very nice restaurants (expensive!) and though I didn’t go there often, I had heard a lot about it.

  I found her sitting at the corner table, engrossed in a newspaper. She still looked resplendent, even better than the night before. The aura of intrigue and mysteriousness still hung in the air around her, like a shroud. I took a deep breath, put on my most confident smile and walked up to her. You look okay, I lied to myself.

  ‘Hey. Sad traffic, eh?’ I said.

  ‘You bet,’ she said. ‘But then, we wouldn’t have met.’

  ‘True, that,’ I said and pulled myself a chair.

  ‘By the way, I took the liberty of ordering you a cappuccino. I hope you don’t mind. They were about to kick me out. I had to order something. It’s strange that they wouldn’t let a girl sit in their coffee shop, that’s behaviour they reserve for boys.’

  ‘Cappuccino is fine,’ I said.

  ‘But you’re
paying, right?’ she chuckled. ‘Oh wait, you’re still a student! I wouldn’t want you to spend your pocket money.’

  ‘Okay, Mom! Why don’t you buy me stuff or I will hold my breath?’

  ‘That’s a nice comeback, Joy. That’s unexpected.’

  ‘Thank you! I have been practising,’ I said and smiled. So far, so good.

  ‘So, how did you find me?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it’s a little strange to be contacted by a guy who knows nothing about you, exactly one day after you meet him at a rave.’

  ‘It wasn’t that tough. Got up this morning, saw the newspaper, spotted a shadow of yours in the background, and mailed you.’

  ‘Aha? That simple, haan?’ she said.

  I smiled. The way she said it made me feel like she knew that I was lying and there was more to it.

  ‘Okay, not really. I kicked myself all morning for not asking your name. But then, I remembered that you said you cover page three events and book reviews. So, I tracked down every page three journalist and tried to find them on Facebook. Nothing fit. But then, I saw today’s newspaper and saw you in the background!’ I said.

  ‘That’s flattering. And cute,’ she said and chuckled. ‘And you do know that you are desperate, right?’

  ‘Yes, a lot of people say that. But a guy as ugly as me has to take his chances,’ I said.

  ‘C’mon. Joy. You are not ugly. What makes you say so?’

  ‘The mirror,’ I said. ‘I have five mirrors at my place, and all concur.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ she said. ‘I love your name by the way, Joy,’ she said. ‘Joy. Joy. Joy,’ she repeated it a few times. ‘It has a nice ring to it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I smiled sheepishly. ‘So how long does your sister stay in rehab?’

  ‘About six months to start with. Let’s see. It was pretty hard today. If there is one thing in the world that I choose above myself, it is her. And I wonder how I didn’t see it coming … She was right there in front of me, going to parties, I just … and … never … thought …’ her voice cracked.

  ‘I hope everything gets straightened out,’ I said.