It Wasn't Love at First Shalini and I

by Prashant Sharma

  These questions were in my head when she took the mic again and said “Before, I leave for a little break. I will leave you with some lines from a pretty old hindi movie which somehow have meant a lot to me.”

  “Tum aaye to aaya mujhe yaad, gali me aaj chand nikla. Jaane kitne dino ke baad, gali me aaj chand nikla.”

  “Thank you everyone.”

  There was a huge round of applause. No matter how sophisticated we want to project ourselves, all Indians prefer a hindi song to any fusion. But that was besides the point.

  A drunk Hari looked at me and I knew that he understood. I had told him about the entire episode with Shalini when Pooja had dumped me. He did not say anything. But his eyes told me to let her go. I was now engaged and meeting Shalini could not help me in any possible manner. I looked at him and I guess he could see it in my eyes. I just had to go.

  He nodded, I don’t know whether in agreement or in disapproval. But whatever it was, he understood. I had to go.

  I slipped my engagement ring in my pocket. I did not know why I did that. If Shalini would ask, I would obviously tell her that I had found someone. I would tell her that I could not wait for her when I see her only once in 6 years, I could not wait for her when she had so easily walked out on me, I could not wait for her if she had never wanted me to wait.

  I walked out of the bar. I was still not sure whether she had seen me or not. There was nobody in site. Just then I heard “Let’s go.” She had a cigarette in her hand, and a small little smile on her face. We left the bar together.

  Gurgaon has tried to develop itself as downtown New York with huge buildings, office space, expensive homes and traffic jams. And it has kind of succeeded. But unlike Manhattan, a lively cosmopolitan nightlife does not exist once the office gates are closed. What exists here is a scary uninhabited palace of glass with no one in site. And therein lies the difference and the beauty.

  The bar where Shalini was singing and I was drinking with my friends was one of few such places in the Gurgaon corporate parks. We kept on walking in between the huge buildings with the lit up National Highway on one side of us. For ten minutes, there was no conversation between us. Just serene silence. It was not that we did not have anything to say, it was just that there was so much we did not know how to begin. She started.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “I won’t say that whatever little I have achieved is because of you and that night we spent together. But that night helped me get rid of one very important thing. Self doubt.”

  I gave a sarcastic comment “So is that why you are here again? To let me help you solve some other problems.”

  She smiled. A genuine one. I could tell from the eyes. “No, I just wanted to thank you before you started off with the questions. But surprisingly, you started off with sarcasm.” I gave her a smile. One which started with sarcasm but as I looked into those eyes, it transformed to a genuine one.

  “Why did you just leave?”

  “Because I did not want you to feel that I was a loser.” “But I never felt you were a loser.”

  “That is because I left before you could think that.” “Wait, I am confused.”

  She smiled again.

  “Chicken and egg isn’t it. I was in a pretty bad condition at that point in life. I had met you after 7 years and that meant something to me. We could have stayed in touch and I could have told you how sucky my life is and then instead of excitement, surprise, joy and honestly, a little bit of lust which I see in your eyes today, I would have seen scorn, irritation and the feeling that oh no, not her again. Had we been in touch, I would have just seen pity. I left so that we could meet again. And we have. And I always knew we would.”

  “First of all, there is no lust in my eyes.”

  “Does that mean I am not pretty?”

  “When did I say that?”

  “So that means I am pretty.”

  “I did not say that either, but yes. You are pretty.” “So you admit, there is a little bit of lust in your eyes.” “Never mind that. What I was saying is that..”

  “What you were saying is that I am pretty and you have lusty eyes.”

  “Shalini!!”

  “Okay, sorry. Please continue.”

  “No. You spoiled the moment. It was such a sweet and deep and emotional moment. And you spoiled it.”

  “No no no. Let’s try again. So you were saying.”

  “I was saying that..”

  “That I am pretty and you are lusty. Hahahahah”

  “I am not talking to you.”

  “Sorry last time. I promise.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “Well, okay. What I was saying is that you have not met me for the last what, 6 years, so that when we meet after six years, that is today, we have a perfect date?”

  “First of all, don’t get too full of yourself- this is not a date. And second, yes.”

  “Pretty weird aren’t you?” “Pretty, definitely yes. Weird, yeah, maybe a little.”

  I touched her hand. Then I held it. She did not shove it away, and neither did she embrace it. We walked, hand in hand, for the first time, in between empty offices in Gurgaon. Silently, both of us taking in the fact what this meant to us. Both of us unsure why it meant so much.

  “So after we saw each other in London, and I completely ignored you, did you try to look for me? By the way, did you notice that I did see you?”

  “Obviously I knew you saw me. Madam, you are not as subtle as you think. You looked back and our eyes met.”

  “Damn, I had controlled myself all the way when you were jumping on the other side of the glass.”

  “Why did you ignore me?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “You know right that I am a human being. And human beings are hurt on being ignored. Not on being embraced.”

  “I know, but I just wanted you to believe that it was not me but someone else you saw. I told you right, at that stage in my life, I could not let you come close to me because I did not want you to feel pity for me.”

  “So what did you want me to feel?”

  “So did you try and look for me?”

  “Where could I? I mean, it’s not that I would travel all around the world looking for you. I did not even know which country you were in!”

  “You mean nothing? You did not try locate me on Facebook, twitter or anything like that?”

  “I wanted to. Five years ago, these things were not that popular. And as time went by..”

  “As time went by, you forgot me.”

  “As time went by, I tried to convince myself that I was better off without knowing. That if we had to meet, it would not be through twitter or Facebook. It would be like this.”

  “Big believer in destiny?”

  “You have made me.”

  Some more silence.

  “So honestly, you never looked me up?”

  “Okay, I did. But I never found you. In fact, I do it every day. What name are you registered under?”

  “My singing name. Shaila.”

  “Did you ever try to look me up?”

  “I am a very strong person. I left you in New York when I needed you the most. I never looked you up. I do believe in destiny. And I knew we would meet.”

  Some more silence.

  “Not even once? I mean, I am pretty easy to find on Facebook. I have a pretty uncommon name.”

  “Not even once.”

  I felt a little relief on this. If she had not visited my Facebook page, she did not know I was getting engaged. It made me feel a little relieved and in some time, a little guilty as well. We kept on walking.

  “So what made you come back to India?”

  “Would it make you happy if I said that you made me come back?” “I guess it will. But I know better.”

  “Work. Work made me come back to India. I am decently famous in US now singing fusion music. My manager got me some shows here, so I t
hought, why not. It had been a long time since I had been here anyways. Not after my mother died.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be. So yes, I am back here for work. Leave that. You tell me. How is your life going? Everything according to plan is it? Good college, good job, good car, good wife?”

  “Well, almost on track. I did MBA after we met.”

  “Good college?” “Tier one.” “As expected of you.”

  “So yes, I did MBA, then took up a job. Have been working in the same company ever since. So good college- yes, good job- yes, good car- car can be better.”

  “And.”

  “And what?”

  “And good wife?”

  I put my hands in my pocket and felt the ring.

  “I am not married yet. Maybe haven’t had the time so far, or maybe haven’t found the right person.”

  “Haha. Right person.”

  “What is so wrong in ‘right person.’”

  “Nothing. It’s just that ‘right person’ is so typically you. Everything has to be perfect, doesn’t it? Good college, good job, good girl.” “So what is wrong in that?”

  “I am not saying there is anything wrong. How about selecting something which is not right for once in life, and then seeing what happens after that?”

  “You are weird. I like things the way they are.”

  “Ok then. So the search for the right girl continues is it?”

  “At times yes, at times no. I don’t know. Maybe, I have left it to destiny like you have left so many things to it.”

  I looked down. I was lying, and I did not want her to catch hold of me. I tried to change the topic.

  “Life has been pretty much similar to the last time we met. It’s just that the job is different, the money is more, but the routine is pretty much the same.”

  “That’s not good is it? That in the last six years, your life has not changed one bit.”

  “I have gained a few kgs.”

  “Okay, it’s sad that there has been no positive change in your life in the last six years. And I bet you are going to the gym to lose them.”

  “How did you know? Does it show?” I flexed my muscles to check if it did actually show.

  “No you idiot- it does not show at all. I knew that you goto a gym because you don’t like change. Even if you gain weight, you will like to get back to the stage you were in before.”

  “Now that you put it that way, it is quite boring. You tell me, what interesting things have you been upto.”

  “Well, the last time we met, I was in a real low stage in life. But after meeting you, I don’t know how, but things changed. It’s not that you did wonders or anything, it’s just that, I started feeling better again. The confidence was back. When we saw each other at London, that time, I was headed to Paris for an interview. I had this call from a University to study art but I always doubted myself that I would fail the interview as I knew nothing about the French or their tastes. But after we met, I called the university and arranged an interview and guess what?”

  “You got through.”

  “No, I did not. They rejected me. A simple and straight rejection. But it just didn’t matter to me anymore. I did not care. I knew I was destined for better things in the field I loved so much.”

  “And that is music.”

  “Yes, and that is music. So I came back to the US and just started singing. I would sing at subway stations, I would sing at small gatherings, I would open for unknown bands, but I would sing. And that was what made me happy.”

  “So you became famous or something?”

  “No, not overnight. I told you right. I started off in subways and parties. But I soon had a whole group of people who liked my singing. It just picked from there.”

  “So why the name change?”

  “So that you could not find me. I wanted destiny to make us meet.”

  She just said that. Said that with such a straight face, not knowing, or not wanting to know, what affect that line had on me. She had changed her name because of me. She had changed her identity so that I could not find her. I was confused. What was this? Why was she so scared if I found out where she was? Was she scared that I would follow her, or was she scared that she was not as strong as she thought she was.

  “So I changed my name. And kept it a Shaila. Close enough to a Shalini, but far away from a girl who had lost it all.”

  “Shalini. But ..”

  “You know what, it really feels good to hear that name. More so because you are saying it. Over the years I have kind of lost Shalini. I don’t know if it is a good thing or bad. I used to be scared and vulnerable, but I had an identity. This new Shaila is kind of a mystery.”

  “Everything you do is a mystery. Changing your name just like that. That is plain weird.”

  “I know it is. That is what makes it fun. And I think the name changing is what started the transformation as well. From an under confident Shalini who had lost everything she ever had, to a passionate, fiery, ambitious Shaila, who was willing to do whatever it takes to feed her passion, music.”

  I did not ask her what ‘whatever it takes’ implied. I feared the worst, so I just let it hang there as we completed one more round around a huge office building which apparently had parking space for around 2000 cars. Delhi had tried to develop a Manhattan, but in doing so, they had forgotten one small little detail, public transport. Everyone who had to come to office had to drive. The authorities were now looking back at the problem and were trying to build a metro monorail within Gurgaon which had so far only led to more chaos on the roads. I tried to clear my mind and change the question.

  “So are you liking India?”

  “That’s actually a funny question. This is the country where I have spent a major part of my life, in fact, where I had thought I would spend the whole of my life. I thought I would love it. I thought there would be a Swades movie type of feel when I get off the plane and I smell the air of Delhi. But honestly, it was just the same. I had thought that there would be people waiting for me in India. The last time when I was at the airport, I was leaving India. There were too many things occupying my mind back then, but this time, I thought it would be special. I thought it would be grand.”

  “And was it special, was it grand?”

  “I don’t know about grand, but meeting you certainly has made it special.” She smiled at me.

  I knew she meant what she had just said. It made me feel good. When I used to think about Shalini in the last six years, and which was many times, I used to think that I would hit her if she came in front of me. The feeling of hatred was so strong that I was actually willing to hit a girl. But I guess, that was because I had tried to convince myself all these years that I did not care for her. That it did not matter to me that she had left me when I needed her. Yes, that was one thing that she did not realise, at the time we last met, not only did she need me, in fact, I needed her more. I also realised that the feeling of hatred for her had emanated from something else, something which could not make me forget her even though we had only met 3 times before. Was it love? I was not sure. Was it love with Kriti? I was not sure of that either. But one thing I did know for sure was that sitting there, with her, I could be myself without any pretence in the world. And that was a good feeling.

  “You know I really hated you for leaving me like that.” “You did?”

  “Yes, I hated you for the last six years. I did not know how I would react on seeing you but I was pretty sure it would be violent. But when I saw you today, all the hatred vanished. I don’t know why.”

  She left that hanging in the air and we stalled our walk and sat on a bench in front of the building. Hand in hand, just looking at the offices in front of us. Looking at them, but not seeing them. “So you always knew that you would see me.”

  “What?”

  “You always knew that you would see me. I mean, you wanted to vent out your anger when you saw me right? So that means that you were prett
y sure you would see me.”

  “I was pretty sure I wanted to see you. What about you? Did you think we would meet again?”

  “I did not think, I knew.”

  We continued looking ahead, hand in hand. I did not want to look at her eyes at that moment, for Kriti’s sake.

  “So are you like a very big star in US?”

  “Not as big as a Lady Gaga or a Britney Spears, mainly because I prefer my pants on than off, but yeah, decently big.”

  “How big is decently big?”

  “If you listen to my agent, he says that I will be signed on by a Cola major to endorse their drink one day, but as of now, if you are a music lover in the US, you would know me.”

  “I don’t really get how big is that, but I assume big enough.” “Haven’t you visited US anytime after that?”

  “No, I left software and computers after MBA and that is the field in which you really end up in US. Right now I am involved in operations and strategy for an Indian product, so I stay here.” “If I could fake attention, I would ask you more about your work. But I really can’t. It seems pretty boring.”

  “Come on. It’s not that boring.”

  “Can you say that out loud?”

  I got up and stood on the bench.

  “Yes I can shout it out.” I shouted out loud, but I shouted something else

  “Why did you never get back in touch?”

  I looked at her with all seriousness in my eyes. She pointed me to sit down. I did as I was told. I tried taking her hand again. “You have lost all privileges to my hand with that stupidity.”

  She smiled, the smile which reached her eyes. Then she put her head on my shoulder and just lay there for a couple of minutes. And then

  “I am sorry. I was only thinking about me. At that time, I was not in a position to think about anyone else. I know I should have. I am sorry. At that time, I needed you more than you needed me. And I was not ready for that.”

  We sat there for the next fifteen minutes, saying nothing, the moment getting the better of us. Me trying to figure what her last words meant- I needed you more than you needed me.