by Vikram Bhatt
We kissed, we made love, we looked into each other’s eyes, we cried, we laughed and then made love again. It was much like those images in films that dissolve into one another, seamlessly.
I woke up to a feeling, a feeling that I was being enveloped in a sea of love. I had never felt that way before. I have no words to describe the feeling. I have always believed that we wake up twice. First, when the body wakes up, and then crashing into the body the consciousness awakens; our pains, our hopes and our regrets all wake up with us in that one moment. On that day, I woke up to joy. If it was a colour, then it was like waking up to a rainbow, and then when I saw her face I knew why I had woken up that way.
She was looking at me, her eyes moist, a slight smile playing on her lips.
‘Good morning, baby,’ she whispered.
‘Good morning! Have you been guarding me while I slept?’ I asked her teasingly.
She allowed the smile on her face to grow and shook her head like a little girl, ‘No, I have been watching the soft light play on your face and wondering how along the way I lost my handful of sunshine.’
I could feel her pain, and in that my pain.
‘Well, we are here now. Let’s not think of what has passed us by.’
She nodded.
‘You know, the only way to bury bad memories is by making some beautiful new ones.’
She kissed me tenderly on my lips. ‘You have become quite the philosopher, Mr Veer Rai.’
‘And a bit of a schemer, if truth be told,’ I grinned and played with a lock of her hair as it fruitlessly tried to eclipse the brightness of her eyes.
‘Ah! I see! So what is the scheme, pray tell?’ she grinned back.
‘Me at the hotel and you at the trade fair is not the best way to make beautiful memories.’ My finger curled around a lock of her hair. It was an exquisite feeling.
‘Oh! You are so late in coming up with that scheme, Veer. I have already cancelled. My managers can go and learn about Indian spices. I have the sunshine in my hand and I am not letting go . . .’
She loves me as much as I love her!
Her eyes seemed to understand what I was thinking for they twinkled magically.
On that cold morning in New York, I saw a sight that for me will remain the most beautiful sight in the world. It is not a great waterfall or the highest peak, not a coral reef or whales in the North Pacific, not the Great Pyramid or the Taj Mahal—but the beatific face of a woman in love. There is nothing more awe-inspiring than the way a woman in love with you looks at you. It is to live for. It is to die for.
‘In that case, you might have decided what we are going to do to make those memories?’ I quizzed her.
She nodded, smiling mischievously. ‘I have booked us a room at a quaint bed and breakfast at Lake Placid. It is going to be you and me and a lot of beautiful nothingness for the weekend. Approve?’
‘How can I not?’
I pulled her close to me and kissed her neck. She moaned ever so softly.
‘This is no bed and breakfast!’ I gasped, looking at the beautiful Mirror Lake Lodge on Lake Placid.
The snow had already made its place in upstate New York and the quaint resort made in the old American style of wood-beamed exteriors looked straight out of a fairy tale. It was a resort for people who knew love, and we were definitely the front runners.
The interiors had cosy rug-covered halls with cast-iron fireplaces. I was certain I was going to see Snow White and the seven dwarves appear soon.
Mira had booked us into a suite that overlooked the beautiful snow-covered greens. It was too large for just the two of us, but I could see what she was trying to do. She was trying to create a world for us that was far from the real one—where the people and pressures of the other world did not invade. She was making us an island and trying to burn down the boat that got us there.
‘Mrs Mira Varma and Mr Varma, I presume?’ I imitated the receptionist when we were in the privacy of our suite.
Mira laughed. ‘Well, in this little world of ours that is the truth.’
I nodded and smiled. She smiled back.
‘Don’t let the world come into this place, Veer. . . Akhil and Kavita and all the promises we have made to other people and our responsibilities . . . Let’s just please leave them behind. Being with you feels so right and cheating on them feels so wrong. I just want to pretend that this is a dream and when it is time for us to go back we shall wake up, but until then please let’s just be here, like in a dream, not responsible for what we dream.’
I could see the pain in her eyes, everything that she was going through to be with me. I walked up to her, held her face in my hands and kissed her gently.
‘My love, this is real life, the rest is the dream.’
She grabbed me and held me tight. ‘I love you, Veer. I love you so much!’
The trail went all round, circling Lake Placid, and through the trees one could see that the lake was threatening to freeze fast. A light snow fell on us as we held hands and walked down the trail. A few trees that wanted to hold on to their leaves had to make do with them turning flaming red and orange, while the ones that agreed to give their leaves away were bare but stoic as ever. There were also the ones that kept their leaves and kept the colour, and on them the snow looked the best.
The forest floor was filled with a rich tapestry of red and green. Mira and I walked in silence, our shoes making a soft, wet, crunching sound as they fell against the ground.
‘What news of your friend Prady?’ Mira asked.
‘Oh Prady, I lost touch with him when I came to London. I heard from the agency in Mumbai that he did not stick around too long after I left. Went back to Kolkata, I was told. I do get the odd Diwali greeting from him on email but he still refuses to be on Facebook so there is no way of stalking him.’
‘Hmmm, how people play a part in our lives and then disappear when their bit is done . . .’ Mira was obviously tracking our journeys down the years.
‘How is your friend Natasha?’ I asked Mira. It seemed a natural progression to the Prady question.
‘Natasha is married to a really sweet chap—Shelly they call him. I suspect his real name is Sailesh. Lives in Sydney. They have two daughters, Avni and Aarti. Nice happy family!’ Mira seemed almost disapproving of Natasha and her happy family. I laughed.
‘What are you laughing about?’ she asked.
‘You said nice happy family like it was not really a good thing to have one.’
She laughed as well, ‘Yeah, well, it’s not that. I just don’t understand how anyone can live without ambition. Natasha is happy being a mother and a wife and doing nothing more through the day. Is that not a wasted life?’
‘Depends on what you want out of life,’ I responded, almost cryptically.
‘What do you mean?’ Mira asked. I held her hand while she jumped across a gurgling brook.
‘Mira, why can’t ambition be of a different kind? When we say ambition we always mean getting ahead of everyone at work or in popularity or in power but why can’t love be ambition? Why can’t being the best housewife or the best mother be an ambition?’
Mira said nothing for a moment and then slowly nodded. ‘You are right, Veer. That is a beautiful way of looking at it. Never thought of it that way.’
I smiled at her.
‘But let me tell you, Natasha has no ambition to be even that!’ Mira laughed out loud as she said that and I joined in.
‘Perhaps Natasha’s ambition is to be ambitious at nothing!’ I joked.
‘Yes! Yes! Now that sounds about right!’
Something had changed in the way she laughed. There was a time when she laughed with abandon, now she laughed like she was afraid that she might not be able to laugh again. I have no idea why that thought made my eyes tear up. Perhaps it was the knowledge that when you see too many tragedies you begin to distrust happiness.
MIRA
Saturday evening
We decided on a restaur
ant that served Italian food by the lakeside. Veer thought it was a fitting tribute to Italian cuisine and to Café Solenzo that had brought us together in the first place. This one was called ‘Venice by the Lake’—not very imaginative, but the concierge at the lodge did swear that the food here was great.
Veer wanted to raise the romantic ante, suggesting we sit at a table outside by the lake. I protested. Romance was great, but dying of hypothermia for romance was not. He laughed and acquiesced.
There were not too many people in the restaurant. I looked around and was suddenly seized by a thought.
What if someone from the trade fair decided to come to Lake Placid and found me there having a romantic dinner with a man who was not my husband?
I began to panic.
‘Are you all right?’ Veer asked me, catching on that something was wrong.
‘Yes, of course,’ I lied, allowing myself a moment to rein in my unfounded fear. I took a deep breath and told myself that I was allowed happiness. I was allowed Veer. My rapidly beating heart listened to me this once and did a quick job of calming down.
Veer ordered his Caesar salad and pasta, I went for the risotto. The choice of wine was excellent; it helped me relax further.
‘Do you know about the two-slit experiment?’ Veer asked, a naughty smile on his face.
I had no clue what he was talking about and told him as much.
‘It’s quantum physics, Mira. To cut a long story short, it proves that reality as you and I perceive it is not reality but just one of the probabilities.’
‘Do you not work as a copywriter for an advertising agency?’ I asked rather sincerely. He burst out laughing.
‘I do. But isn’t that amazing, Mira?’ He pressed on.
‘What is amazing, Veer?’
‘That there can be another you and me somewhere in a parallel universe? A you and me that made different choices and are living those choices?’ There was still something so boyish about Veer. It was endearing to an extremely dangerous level. I wanted to jump across the table and kiss him in front of everyone.
‘So what choices did we make in the other universe? We got married? And now we are not getting along so we are fighting a terrible divorce battle?’ I asked teasing him.
‘Not that one. That is another universe. This one is filled with our love.’
I could see that he believed in this.
‘Really? Tell me about it.’ I leaned forward and held his hand and looked into his eyes. He smiled lovingly and indulged me. ‘In that universe, you and I are married but we don’t live in London. We live in New York, in Manhattan. You are still the CEO of the Indian Food Company but I have my own advertising agency, and Jim Jonas, the ass, works for me!’
I laughed out loud at how Jim Jonas had found a way into our universe.
‘We have two children,’ Veer said with a loving smile.
This universe, that universe, any bloody universe . . . when Veer spoke about having children with him it snatched my breath away and threw me into a space between delight and regret.
‘Don’t you want to know them?’ he queried naughtily.
I nodded. I most definitely did.
‘They are both girls. Nothing to do with Natasha and her achievements, mind you!’
I laughed and asked him to go on.
‘The older one is Riya. She is quite like you, very proper. A quick temper, but quicker to calm down, like you, she also has the capacity to love like no one else can. She is a cross between you and me in the looks department. Has your hair, complexion and lips, but my nose and eyes.’
‘Smart girl,’ I had to accept. Grabbed the best of both.
‘The younger one is Reema. She is naughty, very naughty, but in a very stealthy way. Almost makes us believe that Riya did everything that she does wrong. She is a topper though, and wants to be a physicist.’
‘And in the looks department?’ I was clearly taken in by the story.
‘Gosh, she looks like you all the way! She is a knockout. Just beautiful!’ Then he gently tightened the grip on my hand and whispered, ‘Just beautiful . . .’
My vision blurred a bit and I blinked a couple of times to fight those tears that were becoming a constant companion. I couldn’t bring myself to ask another question about the story. He did not venture further with the fairy tale. I sat there holding his hand across the table. The flickering candle cast a magical light on his face. That was perhaps the only real magic that existed. The rest was just an unbelievable fable. If there was a parallel universe, then why did I not feel the joy come forth from that one to this, the joy of being married to this man I loved and having his children? Quantum physics owed a lot of answers to a woman with a tragic past and an equally painful present.
‘Why don’t you fill this up? I hate these survey things,’ I handed Veer the Mirror Lake Lodge guest survey form.
I sat with my back against his chest while he leaned back against the large armchair that sat in front of the crackling fireplace, a soft red rug under us. A light snow fell outside and I could see the soft whiteness gathering on the angles of the wooden window frames. A soft howling of the wind made its way through the barred windows though.
We had treated ourselves to a bottle of Moët & Chandon, the fizzing of the champagne in the flutes clearly audible in the silence of the night.
Veer read through the form and chuckled. ‘What’s funny?’ I asked him.
‘Why don’t you survey me instead of the Lodge? These guys might get some really peculiar answers in that case!’ he laughed.
‘Veer, are you that bored?’
‘Oh, come on! It will be fun!’ he insisted.
‘All right, ask away then!’
‘How would you rate the service of the Lodge, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being excellent?’
‘Ummm . . . seven,’ I giggled. He smacked me on the head with the survey form and I giggled some more.
‘How likely are you to recommend the services to a friend?’ he posed.
‘Not likely at all!’ That one I was certain of.
‘Poor lodge survey analysts,’ Veer tittered.
‘How would you rate the look and presentation of the lodge?’
‘Ten on ten!’
‘Ah! Finally, something comes my way! How likely are you to repeat the experience?’
I had no answer for him. Veer only realized the enormity of what he had asked once the question was out there.
‘Perhaps I should just sign this damn thing off,’ he said with a smile. He did not want to put me in a spot, or maybe he did not want to ruin the present for the expectations of a future. Either way, it was out there.
What happens when we leave tomorrow?
Veer signed the survey form and put it away. I turned around and looked at him, my eyes swimming in the depths of his.
‘Make love to me all night, Veer. Hold me close, very close.’
He did.
Veer’s flight was a few hours after mine, but we decided it was best for him to stay back at the hotel. My managers and a lot of others from the trade delegation were on my flight, and someone could easily recognize him given that he had come to my office and made a presentation, not to forget the drunken presentation of his emotions a few weeks back.
All through the cab drive on the way to the airport, I had only one image in my mind’s eye, an image that would not leave me—Veer standing in the foyer of the hotel and waving goodbye to me while I looked on through those revolving doors standing outside the hotel. It was like the doors were asking me to change my mind and walk back in. Every door that went by seemed like a chance, an opportunity that we had and were refusing to take.
Such was life. So many open doors that we ignored; so many doors that we walked out of only to look back and find them gone.
I wondered, as the cab pulled up in front of the British Airways departure gate, what was better, to love and to lose or not love at all? For me, it was clear. I was ready to live another eight
years in misery for one more weekend with Veer.
I walked out of Heathrow in the early hours of the morning. It had rained all night, and the streets of London wore a cold, wet look. One good thing that came out of Akhil’s buying a house close to the airport was that I did not have to twiddle my thumbs in traffic for too long after a trip to get home. This time I wished the ride was longer though. I did not want to get into the world of my marriage yet. I was just not ready. Thankfully, Akhil would already be at work considering it was a Monday morning, and I would have an entire day to myself.
I was having an affair with a man I was in love with before I got married to a man I respected more than anyone on the planet. I had always been the righteous kind and quick to judge my friends who felt crushed under the weight of immoral actions, and here I was, the queen of immoral acts.
Guilt, I understood now, was a person inside you, gnawing at you, telling you, ‘You are wrong!’ It was an unshakeable, will-not-go-away kind of person. It was a deaf person that would not and could not hear any of your naive arguments.
Yes, I was wrong, but I loved Veer. I did not want to let him go, damn all the morals of the world.
The first thing I saw as the cab pulled up outside my house was Akhil’s car. He was home. But with that sight came a feeling that something was wrong. I paid the fare and dragged my bags to the front door in a hurry. Akhil answered the door. There was an ugly bandage around his right hand.
He smiled as he saw me. I panicked. ‘Oh my God! What is this bandage? What happened?’
‘Oh it’s nothing. I had a fall at the office on Friday. The doctor thinks I may have pulled a couple of ligaments, but no fracture or such luckily.’ Akhil tried to make it sound like it was no big deal.
He held my stroller with his left hand and tried to drag it in. I pushed his hand away.
‘I can do that.’
‘Now are you going to be angry about this?’ Akhil asked with a sorry grin as he shut the main door behind him.