In addition to his lack of initiative to promote himself and adhere to his two-book contract, considering we launched him in good faith, he has been behaving unprofessionally on a consistent basis.
His attitude towards his work-in-progress has been completely lazy and he is becoming uncouth in his interactions with me.
He has not responded to emails from me or Farah regarding the book’s status.
When spoken to in person, he is rude and unforthcoming about the book.
I have never worked with an author so egotistic. I refuse to work on any project related to him and urge that he be relieved of his contract so I can work with better authors with better sensibilities.
Oh god . Shit . What had she done? I couldn’t believe my eyes.
What the fuck had Ruhi done?
The email from Farah’s personal account was timed at 1 a.m., the night Ruhi had come over.
Tejas,
I just had a chat with Ruhi. She told me what transpired between the two of you all year long and I am sorry I ever signed you on.
We are not interested in pursuing a second book with you. The royalties and print run of Carnival of Dreams stand as before.
You will get a revised contract by the end of the week.
Regards,
Farah
All this … because of Aisha. Ruhi was not like this a year ago.
Aisha had created a monster. Had she been sitting and planning this at home with Ruhi? Did she really even break her leg or was that all a fucking story?
I finished half the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and went into the bedroom and sat and looked at the character sketches and notes, what I had been unable to build into anything for a book. I saw pages and pages of work left incomplete, like ghosts of writing past. I saw copies of my book. I hated it. I fucking hated it for putting me in this position. I was done. This was quits.
I locked the room. I poured whiskey from the bottle over the books and papers. My life was ruined because of them. I lit it and watched it burn.
Burn. Burn. Burn.
Burning my life away.
The flames crackled and hissed. There was smoke.
I saw the glint of paper, ‘torrents of wastepaper baskets and sounds of heels’. That was the publishing house’s description.
My work, all the little things I had been collecting and writing.
I could just let it go and walk away from all this forever. The room was black with smoke. I knew I would pass out if I didn’t do anything.
I took a blanket and managed to stop the flames. No staff woke up, thankfully.
I opened a window and switched on the fan. The carpet’s corner had burned too. Well, I didn’t care about that.
I sat outside and smoked a joint. I sat and watched the smoke of the fire that I built leave from the window.
Last night was unbelievable.
It was 6 a.m. The alcohol was gone.
I began to clean. Not a shred of the book I wrote remained.
There was a hole, a black hole in my desk. I began to laugh.
I sat at my desk and it just happened. I picked up a pen and I wrote. I wrote for six hours straight. I filled three notebooks.
I wrote about the past few months, I wrote about Aisha and Ruhi.
I wrote about myself.
I didn’t stop to eat, drink, nothing. It just poured out. It all just poured out. There was so much I had to say. These weren’t stories, but they were the stories I had been building up in my head. More real than the ones on paper, but God it felt so good just to get it all down.
I functioned better from being Tejas than being Tejas the writer.
I wondered if I would pick up the pen tomorrow. I decided I was going to. Even if it was shit.
When I stepped outside the house for some air, I saw a magazine posted under my door. It was an anthology of short stories and my submission was in print. I’d never sent it – it must have been Ruhi. Looking at my story in those pages I knew what my next book was going to be. All my writing over the past many days was pointing towards exactly that.
My next stop was at Litracy to see Ruhi and show her the magazine.
It was office lunchtime and when I got out of my car, who did I see but Ruhi with Rahul trailing along behind her. He lit what looked like a joint and passed it to Ruhi.
‘I come in peace,’ I said, startling her. She gave the joint back to the guy.
‘It’s a cigarette,’ she said.
‘Of course it is.’
‘I’m not talking to you. I’ll call security,’ Ruhi said, turning away from me.
‘Ruhi, Litracy doesn’t have security. Don’t freak out, I’m not angry.’
‘I thought you’d want to kill me with your bare hands.’
‘I’m not evil.’
She scowled.
‘I came here to show you this.’ She wasn’t even looking at me.
‘You were right, Ruhi. I was stuck.’
‘You didn’t have to come all the way here to tell me that.’
‘Look.’ I shoved the magazine under her nose. ‘Tell me this doesn’t make you happy.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘You sent it.’
‘Tejas. If you have something to say, say it.’ She glanced at Rahul.
‘I don’t blame you for what you did. In fact, I came to apologise. I was in a block. And now I’m out. And this,’ I waved the magazine in front of her, ‘has given me the idea for my next book.’
‘Okay. We done?’
‘I just wanted to thank you.’
‘After everything, I don’t have time for you. And I didn’t send your work to that place,’ Ruhi said, now flanked by Rahul. He put his arm around her, and they disappeared up into the Litracy building.
Of course, it was Aisha. Aisha showed me the light, when I didn’t want to see it. Now it was my turn.
23
Monster in the Mirror
– AISHA –
Sunday, 30 November
Forty-nine kilos. The number shone at me from the weighing scale, which I’d somehow managed to balance on with my cast. It had to be a record of some kind, to lose ten kilos in six weeks.
I limped to the mantelpiece, tossed the empty food delivery boxes to the ground and lit a candle. I’d started feeding a stray cat that visited my garden. I opened the door and the cat attacked the leftovers. He was getting fatter and I was getting thinner.
Unlike the procession of diyas and rangoli that the help put up for Diwali parties, it was going to be a lonely one for me.
I’d planned out a lush evening for myself. I’d ordered in Chinese and a bottle of white wine was chilling in the fridge. I’d lined up The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl and Gilmore Girls on my computer and had the latest issues of Vogue, Cosmo and Elle waiting for me patiently. I was beginning to look like the girls on the shows and in the magazines, and some of my old clothes were fitting me too!
I was hungry most of the time, but I’d found a way to eat and not put on weight. I was on a steady diet of coffee, cigarettes and one meal a day.
I’d just settled in on my bed when the doorbell rang. I decided to ignore it. I wasn’t in a state to be seen and the house was a mess. My parents’s friends knew they were away and there was no one I was expecting. Ruhi was supposed to drop by but had too much work and so had cancelled last minute. Work was driving her mad, she’d said.
I heard a noise. Maybe the cat was going through the garbage again, he was already jittery because of the crackers.
‘Hey there pussycat,’ I heard a voice say.
‘Tejas, is that you?’ I called out. He had a key.
‘The one and only.’
‘Hang on a sec.’ I looked for a gown, a shawl, something to cover up over the tank top and shorts I was wearing and threw the blanket over myself. ‘Come in now.’
‘Hiding something?’ he said, leaning on the doorframe.
‘No, just old clothes. You, wow. You’re here.’
/> ‘Yes. Are you still upset?’
He enveloped me in a tight wrap. He smelled and looked so much better than I could remember.
‘You look…’
‘Fractured?’
‘Ill. Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone?’ he said, touching my forehead. ‘You’re a bit warm. And thin.’
‘I’m fine. Just strong painkillers.’
‘Still?’ He gave me a goofy smile. ‘And the mess in the kitchen?
You had a party again, didn’t you?’
I hadn’t met anyone since I broke my leg and the mess was all me, but of course I didn’t tell him that.
‘Why are you here?’
‘It’s Diwali.’
‘You’re not angry with me anymore?’
‘Look.’ He showed me the anthology of young Indian writers.
‘They published you? Oh my God!’
‘Yes. All thanks to you. Let’s sit and talk. Should I make coffee?’
‘I have wine here.’
‘It’s four in the afternoon.’
‘We have something to toast.’
‘Okay, I’ll dig up glasses.’
‘Hang on, I got some right here.’ I put my hand under the bed and pulled out a couple of water glasses. I wiped the dust off of them with a tissue.
‘What are we toasting to? The story?’ I asked.
‘My second book.’
‘Really? It’s done?’
‘No it’s begun. And my writer’s block has vanished.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘One draft. Stop second-guessing me.’
‘Okay, fine, fine.’ I was too tired to argue. He took my hand.
‘Thank you, Aisha.’
‘I would have done it all over again to see this day,’ I said.
‘I’m grateful,’ Tejas said. ‘And glad to see you. Though you’ve lost a hell lot of weight. I mean I thought you would be–’
‘Fatter?’
‘Healthier.’
‘Cigarette?’ I asked, fishing for an ashtray under my bed.
‘Here?’
‘Just open that window.’
‘The room will smell of cracker smoke.’
‘It already does. I don’t mind.’
‘Do you have a decent diet, Aisha? What about your dietician?’
‘She’s travelling.’
‘Your maid cooks for you, right?’
‘I fired the maid.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t ask. PMS.’
‘What do you eat?’
‘I tend to order in.’
‘That’s it. I’m going to stay here with you.’
‘Tonight? Because...?’
‘Because you need help. Till your cast comes off.’
‘I can take care of myself. I always take care of myself. And it’s just a few weeks away.’
‘I need to be away from my house. There was a small fire. I need a break from that room.’
‘Aren’t there enough rooms in your mansion for you to hide in?’
‘This will be perfect and so much fun.’
‘I guess.’
‘I’ll go right now and bring my stuff.’
‘Right now?’ I asked.
‘Right now. Don’t worry about a thing.’
Sunday, 7 December
Dear Diary,
I feel like an old woman. Tejas is treating me like one too. I’ve stopped asking him for anything but he’s so enthusiastic . He insisted on taking me to and from the loo and this morning he helped me have a bath . It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before
but I felt helpless. More so because of how he looks at me, with pity. I mean, it’s just a broken leg.
Maybe he was feeling guilty for everything.
Today he made me get up and go to the kitchen too. He had cleaned the entire thing. Spotless.
Contrary to what I thought having him around would be like –
watching movies all day, drinking wine and smoking – he spends all day writing and cooking and makes me eat two big meals in front of him. He hardly smokes up or drinks anymore and gives me a look when I ask for a second glass of wine.
When he’s not reading me drafts of his new book, he’s reading me literature, seriously.
He keeps asking me what I’m going to do with my life and if any blogs have hired me yet. He’s even been complaining that I should cut back on smoking as I was getting irritable. Yes I was, but anyone would be if they had a foot in a cast for days on end .
In other news, I can see my cheekbones, I’m losing inches rapidly and will be back to normal in no time. If I am to reach my goal of forty kilos, I’ll have to stop all this food I’ve been eating.
I cannot bloat up again and go back to that monster in the mirror.
There’s only one way I can reach my size by the end of this month and that is to not digest it. I can do that. Tejas will never find out .
I feel deceptive but no one asked him to be here. I know it’s not the right thing to do but I have no choice.
24
Sorry Not Sorry
– RUHI –
Thursday, 7 December
To Do:
Consolidate who is staying where for JLF + assign intern to this Media coverage con-call
Art and installation tie-ins
Restaurants & cafes in Jaipur to partner this year Meeting to finalise panel
Check with designers & interns on Litracy’s goings-on Life was a drug. You couldn’t do it forever. You needed to cut back. Go to rehab every once in a while to keep sane. They called them holidays, retreats where we’d abuse alcohol, but our drug was always the real world.
The routine of working for something which does nobody any real good is what would get us high. Peer pressure and acceptance, the adoration from the eyes of others, not within, is what would keep us high.
Is that why so many people who got the adoration, wasted away with drugs? Is it drugs or is it that they spent their lives living from the outside rather than the inside…
‘Holiday rejected huh?’ Rahul said, sitting beside me, interrupting my thoughts. The half of the edit room which was mine was more cluttered than ever before. It looked like the desk of a government office.
‘I applied for this six months ago,’ I told him. ‘My mother knows my cousin’s tickets are booked.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Singapore.’
‘Food haven.’
‘Is it? I’ll never know.’
‘Don’t do that to yourself. You got a good enough reason to go for this. She didn’t even give you Diwali off. You missed my party.’ He gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. I was beginning to think he liked me. ‘If I were you, I’d write back marking her boss. You didn’t even get selected for the JLF team in the first place.’
‘Thanks for reminding me.’
‘Do this later. Let’s grab a smoke.’
‘No thanks.’
I was standoffish but I hoped he’d understand. I had a lot on my mind. I set up my Skype and got ready to sign in, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Ever since I took a leap of faith and told my mother what happened between Tejas and I over the past few months, her demeanour changed. She went from being concerned about my workload and stress, to callous and judgemental overnight.
Because my issues were ‘guy-related’, she deemed them non-existent.
The aftermath of Tejas’s release from his contract within Litracy’s walls was negligible. Except Farah seemed to have taken it personally, that I had disappointed her, that it made her look bad Tejas didn’t meet his deadlines. She made it evident whenever she got the chance.
The meeting I was conferencing in was to finalise the last remaining panelists with room for changes and backups. I called Ani instead of Farah, so that she couldn’t chat and nag me at the same time.
The CEO led the discussion and then passed it over to Farah.
‘Ruhi can write the panelists�
��s bios and come up with the topics for the brochure,’ Farah told the room. ‘There are about three hundred panels.’
‘I’m working on the blogging competition for the delegates and also selecting and assigning all volunteers their tasks. This is something the five interns can finish in a few days.’
‘I will decide what the interns are to do. You please do what you’ve been asked.’
I could barely keep my head straight for the rest of the meeting.
I don’t know how I got through the questions and answers Her Highness put me through, and I got home and smoked the joint Rahul had given me, to use alone in case of emergency.
I had the house to myself. I put on a little light music and lit a few candles. The joint was supposed to help me relax and sleep but I just fell into deep thought. Of why I’d joined the publishing house, why I’d picked science in eleventh and twelfth grade but done Mass Communication in college.
It was because I wanted to find books I loved and share them with the world. Maybe they would help young people who felt like misfits like they’d helped me in school.
Just because I was the editor of the college paper and loved books, didn’t mean I was too dumb to do anything else. I’d joined this place because I wanted to handle projects and books from beginning to the end. I had a professional degree. I hadn’t signed up to be an editor to hide behind my glasses and my desk.
As part of the JLF team, I could be leading the social media division or marketing or PR if I chose. I’d been denigrated to the tasks that were in an intern’s job description.
Carnival of Dreams , the copy from my box, was lying next to the candle. That’s how it all began with Tejas. Now it was over. It gave me goose bumps to think I’d done all that on my own.
Then I lost my bearings even though I was in my own house. I felt like I was falling. I made my way to my bed and lay down.
I was guilty. I felt like Farah’s behaviour was retribution for my actions to have Aisha and Tejas kicked off Litracy. Tejas’s words echoed in my ears. Had I really turned out to be a bigger bitch than her? I didn’t care where my mind took me. What was a
‘bitch’ anyway? A man in power who behaved like that would be called rude or curt at the most and people would back off.
Whereas a woman in charge who employed professionalism over sweetness to keep peers and juniors in check would be subject to backbiting and judgement.
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