It Wasn't Love at First Shalini and I

by Prashant Sharma

  2011

  T

  here was a huge line at the security check as I heard the announcement for my name: “This is the last call for RN Kapoor, I repeat, this is the last call for Mr. RN Kapoor on board Virgin Atlantic flight VS301 to London. “

  Damn, this was the opportunity I had waited for my whole life, a job in London, not only a job, a very high paying job and somehow I had managed to screw it up by partying all night and reaching late for my flight. That flight, which would take me away from all the confusions of this country and these relationships and the gym, the damn gym which had absolutely no effect on my body but had made my life living hell. Yes, this flight would take me away from the gym and into a country where life would have a meaning.

  I struggled my way up the line, begging, pleading, coercing but somehow convincing everyone ahead of me that my time was more important than theirs. There was a pretty girl in the line, I almost stopped to say a ‘hi’ but controlled myself. She could wait, the way I had waited in this country, there would be lots of pretty girls in line for me when I landed in London.

  I removed my shoes, took out my laptop and put it though the scanner. The security guy checked me as if he would actually find something. Bugger, they always let the terrorists go and held up the dreams of helpless people like me.

  He checked me and said a ‘thank you sir’. Rather polite for a Haryanvi in the Delhi international airport but then, this was the international terminal and I guess he had reserved his manners for the international people. People like me.

  I heard the announcement again. The last call again. I ran my guts out and reached the terminal 1A. And in front of my eyes, was the Virgin Atlantic VS301 to which I had an economy ticket H58.

  I looked at the plane, a Boeing something and I admired her beauty. Just then it began to move.

  I panicked, I shouted but it seemed no one cared. No one cared that the flight took along with it my dreams of a better car, a better job, a better future, a hotter if not better girl. I looked at it, one arm stretched and the other holding my laptop, and gradually falling on my knees in slow motion.

  The plane was now on its way to the runway and there I was watching it in pain through the glass doors. Just then it hit me, I had to get on that plane no matter what.

  I got up, made my laptop bag a shield and ran. I ran into the glass walls, tearing them apart with the sheer power of my will. I had broken the windows and was now floating in the air, 30 metres above the ground. I put out my hand and an umbrella miraculously appeared in my hand, gliding me to safety. The plane was 500 metres ahead of me and was gaining in speed and was approaching the runaway. I looked behind, an entire battery of policemen was behind me but I could only see the plane. I got up, again in slow motion, and I ran.

  I ran and I ran with my wavy hair flowing and the my shirt clinging on to my ripped muscles. I ran until the police cars behind me appeared like a speck of dust and the plane appeared like, well it appeared like a plane.

  I had reached the rear tyres, the plane was on the runway and was accelerating and so was I. I overtook the rear tyres, and was now running parallel to the entrance when the girl who I bypassed in the security check opened the door, looked at me and smiled. She gave out her hand and I jumped. Miraculously, my umbrella turned into a flying disc and helped me get the elevation. The girl held her hand out. I reached out, held her hand.

  But surprisingly, it was hairy. Just then I heard a chicken go KukdooKuu and a slap came my way. Hari: You jackass, leave my chest hair. My girlfriend really likes them.

  Two things about that. One, the whole airport thing was a dream,I guess ou would have made that out by now, and the kukdookuu was my alarm. And two, Hari had no girlfriend, he had a wife. And also a kid.

  I woke up, flustered. I ran a hand across my hair, which were not wavy. But they were still there and at my age and with my lineage, that really mattered. I had missed my plane, had missed the girl and had in fact missed a whole career in London. All I had to show for was an iPhone which I had purchased from Palika and a hairy friend who was no longer my roommate after his marriage but had taken permission from his wife to spend the night at my place. After all, I was getting married and having such night outs would not be really possible when both of us had nagging women at home.

  I looked at my phone. It was 6:45 am. Time to get up and goto the gym and get into shape for my marriage pics. I looked at Hari. The jackass was already married. He could skip gym as much as he wanted.

  Jackass.

  I kicked him in retaliation of the slap which he had awarded me.

  He groaned. I switched on the light, he took my pillow and covered his eyes. He was not getting up for atleast 2 more hours, and would then leave for home. And I had to make the journey, the long journey to the gym, even on a Saturday. I rubbed my eyes, yawned and tried to look forward to the day but failed miserably. I felt my body to see if the gym sessions had made any affect. Again, no ripped muscles, just a little paunch which was growing by the day.

  I then thought about my dream. In all my dreams, I addressed myself as RN Kapoor. My name was not RN Kapoor, it was nowhere close to RN Kapoor.

  I groaned, picked up the magazine section of the newspaper, that always made me smile, and went into the toilet to get ready for what was going to be another battle. Battle as I had maggi last night and that did not go well with my bowel movements.

  I sat in there for half an hour, reading about all the gossip about what one girl, atleast five years younger than me, had to say about same sex marriages. Then I read about a boy, five years younger than that girl, and how he had again managed to sell out Madisson Square Garden within five minutes of tickets going on sale. This was news which I really did not care about, but the newspaper magazine printed it, put really hot girls photos along with it, and hence I read it. I switched to the cartoon section, read what Archie and the gang were upto and then browsed through the page three hoping that none of my friends were there in it.

  They never were, but still I checked.

  But nothing happened on the toilet front so I got up. I would go again in the gym, that would help me pass time. Kriti only took note of how much time I spent there, not what I did. I smiled at the thought and brushed my teeth and I then lay on my bed again.

  I heard the same irritating tone of the alarm. I tried to ignore it but I knew that the alarm would win the battle- as it had for the last infinite years. I put it on snooze and slept for five more minutes.

  The alarm tone went off again. It was 7:20 am. Even though it was a Saturday and it was off at office, I still had to getup. I had gained 10 kgs in the last one year and if things continued going the way they were, a heart problem was just around the corner. That is the problem with these managerial jobs, you just sit and stare into the computer, and the size of the computer keeps on getting smaller, but the size of your belly keeps on increasing. Maybe Kriti was right in forcing me to the gym.

  Unwittingly I got up and went into the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror. I still looked young. I was 30 but could any day pass for 29 and a half. I still had the typical Indian skin color, no matter how many fairness cream tubes I had emptied on my face- my skin was the same wheatish brown it had been since birth, my height was the five feet something, I had for all reasons stopped growing after 16, but I was 80 kgs now instead of the 60 I had been some years ago and the 50 kgs I had been when I was 16. It seemed as if all the fat had gone into my belly. The rest of me was fine, it was only the belly which was protruding. And I did not even drink a lot of beer. Still, the belly looked swollen as if I were pregnant. I played around with it a little, it was jiggly. Some would find it cut
e, I found it fun, but not Kriti. She hated it.

  The belly had ensured that I could not wear t shirts anymore so even when I was going to the gym, I put on a shirt.

  A loose shirt. Most of my hair were still there, they had started receding but it was not time for alarm bells yet. Plus, the good thing was that they were not everywhere. I had a pretty clean back so that was good. The color of the hair was also fine. Some greys, but not enough to warrant usage of hair color. I put on my spectacles, a rimless frame with thin lens, another recent addition to my body and looked at myself. I looked fairly presentable if not overtly handsome. This thought, every day, made me want to skip gym but Kriti, my fiancé, had told me that I had to get in shape before the marriage. Her logic was that marriage photographs were clicked only once in life and I had to look good in them for her sake.

  So I made the effort. Not that I had any choice.

  The phone rang. It was her, she called me every morning at 7:30 to ensure that I had got up and was on my way to lose weight. She was always sleeping at that time but that was besides the point. We said our good mornings, she in a groggy voice and me trying to be as cheerful as a guy forsaking his sleep to give pain to his own body by lifting weights can. I put on my shoes, plugged in my iPod, gave Hari a disgusting look, he would be gone by the time I got back, got into my car and took the road towards the gym which was around 5 kms.

  On the way I wondered where life was taking me. The early days of job seemed like only yesterday. There was no longer any getting up and not remembering how I reached home, there was no sleeping till noon on weekends, and there was definitely no running away from commitment anymore. Life had come a full circle. I was 30 years old, had completed post graduation- MBA, from a tier one business school, was at a good managerial level at work, was making good money and was engaged to get married to a girl of my parent’s choice. Not that I could complain. I was too scared to ask any girl I had dated to marry me, and no matter how young I looked (twenty nine and a half ), age was no longer on my side. If I did not get married now, there could be problems finding me a bride later on in life.

  A nice Saturday evening now meant ordering in from a restaurant, having a couple of beers with friends, and talking about the share market movement along with the usual topic that all guys have- girls. The same old conversations which we used to have even at 25, but they seemed a lot more fun back then.

  Work meanwhile was still in Delhi. After completing post grad, my parents had finally agreed to leave the small town and come and live with me. But they could not adjust to the life of the city. I used to leave at 8 and come back at around the same time at night. My parents knew nobody in the city and at that age, it is difficult to make new friends, so they decided to move back. So I was again alone in the city with some friends and colleagues for company.

  Hari, my only real friend who I had known for 13 years now, had decided that he had studied enough and did not try for post graduation. He continued working and got married at 27. At 29 he had a kid, a baby boy who luckily took to his wife and not him. Hari became busy with the usual chores of life and we used to meet less often, but the friendship was as good as ever. I remembered it was his kid’s birthday soon and I had to buy him something. I noted it on my notepad which always stayed in my car. The drive was 5 km but even in the empty morning roads, I ensured that it took me atleast 25 minutes.

  I reached the gym and went straight to the treadmill. The gym had the usual crowd at this time. There would be old people who would sweat it out for around an hour on the treadmill, then there would be people in their early twenties who would be drinking protein shakes and lifting weights which people with their body structure should not be lifting. And there would be the ladies who all the gym trainers would try and impress, and at times succeed. And there would be people like me, who had still not given up hope of having a six pack yet, but knew their limitations and hence divided their time between all exercises.

  I said the usual hellos and started my one hour work out session. The gym would be the only ‘me’ time I had during the day as the rest of it was to be spent on shopping for my marriage. I extended the session by fifteen minutes, obviously not because I liked exercise, and took a long cold shower. I changed and called Kriti telling her that I would pick her in fifteen minutes from her place. We would then head to my place for breakfast and then have a marathon of a shopping day. Not fun, I know, but wait till you have a fiancé and an impending marriage.

  I put on a jeans and a shirt and looked at my belly. After one hour and fifteen minutes of workout it was still jiggly. I played with it a little, smiled, tucked in the shirt, got back into the car and reached Kriti’s apartment.

  Kriti shared her apartment with one other girl and both of them hated each other. So Kriti always looked for a chance to get out of her house and into mine. She said she did that because she loved me and at times I also thought that was the actual reason. But love was too strong a word. Love is too strong a word, and a word which is overly used.

  I parked the car at the gate of her colony and called her again. “Kriti dear, am there.”

  “Honey, it will take me just five minutes. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I didn’t know why it always took her five minutes. I had called her 30 minutes ago and at that time, she said she was perfectly ready. She just had to put on make up. But now again, she said it would take five more minutes. Five minutes were still fine, but her five minutes always meant fifteen. I had not brought forward the point of her never being on time and I used to always smile when she came. But I had decided that today I would atleast mention it that I did not like waiting alone in the car.

  I pulled back the driver seat, and tried to sleep. Five minutes passed by, then fifteen, then thirty. I could not sleep. I did not know what she was doing up there. I had called her a couple of times in between but she did not receive the calls. I was about to getup and goto her place when I saw her running down the stairs. I pulled up the seat and was ready to give her a piece of my mind, but then I saw her and the testosterone part of me took over.

  She was wearing very casual clothes, a yellow top and a blue jeans teemed with a scarf, but she was looking out of this world pretty. She was fair, very fair, had shoulder length hair, a small pointed nose, rosy lips and cheeks and a small dimple on both sides. She was five feet four, was a little plump, not fat, just the right plump an Indian girl is and had an angelic look to her. I was mesmerised every time I saw her and I thanked my parents silently in my head. They were the ones who had introduced me to her in the first place.

  She opened the car door “Sorry honey, it took me a little more time than what I had said. Hope you don’t mind.”

  I had a goofy smile on my face. “Mind, not at all. In fact, I took a little nap as I was tired from the gym.” I chickened out of shouting at her for being late- well, obviously, she was so pretty. She sat down and gave me a little peck on the cheek. “Good boy. Am so proud you went to the gym.”

  I was being treated like a dog but I did not really mind. She was just so pretty. The dog patting got a smile on my face and we headed back to my place.

  Kriti was an architect by profession. So basically, I did not understand her work. She had been a typical Delhi girl who studied in one of the DPS schools, which I hear also have a branch in Nepal but again, that is besides the point. After her class 12 got completed, parents had moved to Chandigarh but she went to architecture school in Delhi and had been working for the last two years after passing out from there.

  And there in lied our biggest difference.

  She was 25, I was 30. It seemed as if she was from another planet altogether. Right now, she was in the phase of the weekday parties, the binge drinking, the dancing, the movie marathons and all the other things you expect from a typical 25 year old Delhi girl. And I had already been through that phase and reliving it did not seem to be that great an idea. Plus, all her friends were also 25 and I felt so out of place when we met them. They
looked like little kids drooling over Shah Rukh Khan and trying to tease me to make me uncomfortable. It used to be weird in front of her friends. Once I kissed her by mistake in front of them, that too a normal peck on the cheek, and I had to hear about that for the next 20 days on all sorts of platforms.

  I had met Kriti through an online portal. As soon as I crossed 29, my parents got sick worried about my marriage. They kept on asking me whether I had already found someone. They said they would not be happy about it but would still accept and get me married to her. I did have some female friends, but the last real relationship I had was with Pooja who had left me for her ex fiancé. After that there had been some minor flirtations, some steady dates, but no one marriage material. Or maybe, none of the girls who I went out with found me marriage material. Whatever the case, I was 30, earning well, not bad to look at and unmarried.

  The last part became a huge cause of concern for my parents.

  My parents, even though completely computer illiterate, had managed to create a profile for me on one of those marriage sites. They even uploaded a nice photo of me and made me look like the most eligible bachelor in the profile. I don’t know how they managed it, but I think they used photoshop and all to make me look more fair. What those tubes of fairness creams could not manage in a decade was done in ten minutes by the computer.

  I got approached by quite a few people and ended up meeting around 4 girls before Kriti came into the picture. I just saw her and said yes. It was not that I would get to know any of the girls by just meeting them for a few times, and I was sure I would never get anyone as pretty as Kriti. It was not love at first sight or anything of that sort. It was just that she was so beautiful. So I had said yes.

  My parents had then come over to Delhi and had met with her parents. I still remember she was wearing a red kurta the day my parents had come to visit. She was looking so pretty that it was impossible to say no to her. The marriage was finalised, but was fixed for a date 8 months ahead as there was no mahurat till then. Four out of the eight months had passed. We also got time to know each other.