by Sid Bahri
“Hi,” I said, extending my hand out to him. I could’ve been warmer but in that formal setting, I wasn’t. I think it was the unfamiliarity that existed between us that stopped me. It had been five years and I wasn’t sure if we had changed.
“Hi, what a pleasant surprise,” he said, holding on to my hand.
“I know. It’s a small world,” I said.
“So, where…” we both started, and stopped simultaneously. He smiled sheepishly.
“Where are you staying?” he asked me.
“At the Citi guest house in Vasant….” I said.
I couldn’t remember what the place was called. “Vihar?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“It’s a short break; let’s meet for coffee after the training and we can catch up. I’m stepping out for a smoke. See ya,” he said and stepped away.
“You smoke?” I wish I could’ve seen my expression then. No one in my family smoked and it was just strange for me.
“Yes, bye,” he said, unperturbed with that expression. It must be the same whenever he told a woman he smoked.
The day stretched on – the HR head was unforgiving. Most policies and benefits that he outlined that day would come into force after ten years of continued service: the sabbatical and the superannuation. It was ironical that he would speak of the separation policy at the induction, but he did it with disdain. The day wore on until it was nearly six – a day completely wasted by Mr Kumar. The truth was that if it had taken a test of the entire group, most people would have failed miserably.
We stepped out of the Radisson to see that the rush hour traffic was jamming up the highway in front of the Radisson. Aditya went past the many rows of parked cars until he reached the inconspicuous parking lot for two-wheelers. The architect who had designed the building was wily – the parked motorcycles and scooters could hardly be seen, leaving the majesty of the five-star hotel intact.
He kick started the bike into action and drove to the main porch where I stood with a couple of our colleagues. We bid our goodbyes and I sat on the back seat of his bike. Weaving dangerously through the rush hour traffic, we reached Basant Lok: A shopping complex in Vasant Vihar, where the newest store of Barista had just opened. We parked and strolled through the crowd of movie goers until we reached Barista.
He ordered a café latte for himself and I was content to sip on an iced tea. We recounted from the time when we had last seen each other at the notice board. He told me that it had taken a lot out of him to go back home and announce the results to his parents. He was afraid of their wrath. It was only when he got admission to St. Stephens in Delhi that they were a little happy. The soccer that had so contributed to his poor result had been his eventual saviour. He got through a reserved seat on the basis of his sporting abilities.
He moved to Delhi in ’94, living in a hostel that provided food, water and shelter and hardly anything besides that.
“Life was tough then. I used to work weekends as a waiter for the embassies,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“My father wouldn’t pay my alcohol bill,” he replied straight faced. He was funny.
It wasn’t a difficult choice for him to abandon accountancy. He had majored in Psychology.
He said, “The good part about the subject was that you can get away with a little ambiguity. It’s not like a balance sheet where the Assets and the Liabilities have to work in tandem.” I laughed remembering the disaster that he was when he would try and make sense of journal entries.
I always knew that he would do well. He was too smart to be bogged down by accountancy. He had excelled and had gone onto to do an MBA. In the final year, he had been selected off the campus by Citibank and offered a Management Trainee position out of the New Delhi branch. He had joined a week before me and had been thrust into the induction program that we were attending together.
We ordered another round of coffee and I told him my story of the hiatus. He dropped me back to the Citi guest house and rode back home. I was still standing at the gate when he left making me wonder if my meeting with Aditya could be called a date.
Aditya
Back in Chandigarh, I dwell on the possibilities in front of me. I can either move to Delhi and work as a gigolo or continue to be in Chandigarh. I can continue to live the low life which I have been used to living. The lure of money is stirring, especially coming off a lean period. I know that the more practical option is to move to Delhi but how can I ever explain this to my wife.
Despite my hardest tries, my conscience refuses to die. Often, it throws up strange words that I don’t want to listen. Guilty, cheat, immoral and illegal it says. Whenever these words sound in my ears, I turn on the music a little louder. It drowns out the sounds of the soul.
I came back from Delhi yesterday but haven’t had a chance to talk to Jasleen. I decide to approach her while she sits in the lobby, sipping on a huge mug of tea. I pull up a chair and try my best to appear confident.
“I got the job,” I lie.
“That’s great news, when do you start?” she asks me. Her words and her expression don’t match. She doesn’t seem excited about my employment. I guess she’s not used to seeing me as an equal. I will be an equal if I start earning again.
“In a week’s time, I’ll have to move to Delhi,” I say.
“I won’t be able to come; it’s not a great time to ask. My employers are letting people go,” she says. I haven’t asked her to move but she’s telling me that she won’t.
I think I know this already. I am happy that it will mean a break away from her. It will mean that I have the freedom of prolonging my career.
It takes me two days to pack everything that I will need for a bachelor’s abode – a thin cotton mattress and a blanket that will help me fight the November chill. I put in more than a few clothes. I don’t know when I will next be in Chandigarh. I book my tickets on the train to Delhi. I have a little more money on me this time and I choose to travel by the Shatabadi express. I have things planned; I will initially go and stay with an old friend until I can find a place for myself.
Out of duty, I kiss Jasleen in a passionless way. She is equally cold in her response. I say my goodbyes and walk to the waiting auto rickshaw. She doesn’t bother walking out and quickly shuts the door on my back. I am not sure who amongst us is happier.
The auto rickshaw drops me at the train station. I enter the station and look up the leader board. The train is late by about half an hour which isn’t abnormal. I sit at the Chandigarh railway station thinking about what lies ahead of me. Not in my wildest dreams have I ever seen myself as a gigolo and even then it is my truth. It must have been destined that I be at the bar when Divya was there. It had to be fate that I am looking forward to moving back to Delhi.
The train arrives and despite the short stop and the swarming crowd that wants to enter simultaneously, I am able to enter. I arrange the luggage on the overhead racks. Before I sit, I take another look at the train ticket to reconfirm that I am on the right seat. I take off the blazer that I have on and prepare for a nap on the way to Delhi. I sit down and recline my seat. The seat next to me is empty until a middle aged lady comes and sits on it. She is one of those eager souls who look for company on train journeys. The sorts, who see this as a chance to befriend their co-passengers.
She has no respect for my plans of sleeping and chatters away to glory. In the first five minutes of meeting her, I know that her husband is in Chandigarh. She is going to visit her son in Delhi who works as a software engineer in a multi- national company.
She asks me, “Where do you work, beta?”
My mother is estranged and I am not used to be called beta. Her question makes it apparent that I will have to lie again. It will be too scandalous to stay with the truth. On the other hand, the truth will also stop her from elongating the conversation. It will help me get a nap that I want. I choose to be truthful.
“I work as a freelance gigolo,”
I say with a straight face. I almost make it sound like I am a copywriter.
“What is that?” She obviously hasn’t heard the word before.
“A male prostitute,” I tell her in earnest.
“You mail prostitutes? How?” she looks bewildered.
“Just like you have female prostitutes, I am a male prostitute,” I reply, still looking her in the eyes.
This time she understands. I see her expressions change –shock, that turns to bewilderment and then to disgust.
The train has started moving and there are still a few empty seats in the compartment. She makes a beeline for the one seat farthest from where I am sitting. Often, she turns back to see me, as if I am a Martian that has attacked Earth. Notwithstanding her stares, I now have more space to stretch my long legs and sleep on the way to New Delhi.
I reach New Delhi station and promptly make my way to the address that my friend Birendra Singh Bhatoliya had given me. The address in West Delhi is a small apartment on the second floor of an independent house. The way to the apartment is almost like an obstacles race. First, the gates – there is a small gate nestled within a locked ugly iron gate. It is about four feet high and I have to double over to get my six feet something frame through it. With the luggage in hand, it is an even more arduous task. Then, the stairs – a steep flight of stairs stand ahead of me. I can either take my luggage or myself upstairs. I almost feel like my father’s old scooter. A few years after the farewell in school, it would stop running if anyone sat on it.
I make two trips upstairs, taking a bag each time I go up the stairs. I ring the bell. A man in boxer shorts and a vest, quite underdressed for this November morning, stands in front of me. He opens the door and hugs me. I am a little taken aback by his sudden show of emotion. Yes, we were close in college and a few years after, but that was a while ago. I was very hesitant in asking him for a favour. Given my circumstances, I had unashamedly asked him if I could stay with him.
Birendra Singh Bhatoliya was a subject of ridicule from the moment he had stated his name on the campus. In a college filled with urban, common names, Bhatoliya was unique because the weighty, royal name belonged to a meek, thin and tall human being. His parents were thinking wishfully when they had given him the name. In the twelve years that had passed by since college, the name still tickles my funny bone. Especially, when I associate the name with the man standing in front of me, clad in boxer shorts and a thin, worn-out vest.
“How’ve you been?” he asks me.
“Very well. You?” I ask in return.
“Hanging in there buddy. Each day I walk out of this house and make my way to the office. I know that it could be the last day I’m going there,” he says.
His story is the same as mine; just that what had happened to me isn’t somebody’s reality yet.
“I know what you’re saying, it’s a tough economic situation we’re in,” I make a feeble attempt at consolation.
“Where is this company that you’ve found a job? I am really interested in knowing which company is still hiring,” he asks me.
I want to tell him the truth that there isn’t such a company. There isn’t a whiff of a chance that any offer letters are being printed. There isn’t a tree being felled to make the paper that the potential offer letter will get printed on. I don’t.
“It’s a company in Gurgaon, Aztec software. They are just venturing out into the BPO space and think that the recession will be over by the time that they have the project off the ground. I sure hope that they are right.” I have prepared this part well. Over the past couple of days, I have practiced it to make it sound more authentic than it actually is.
“Yes, I hope so too. My job is at risk; maybe you can send them my resume,” he says.
This is unexpected, so, I just nod. He shows me around the house, not that there is too much to show around. It is a small one bedroom apartment. It has a single couch in the drawing room and a rickety bed in the bedroom; there is hardly any other furniture except the two plastic chairs and a table that rocks.
Birendra has wisely, never married. While most friends have put it down to his inability to woo a girl, the truth is that he is still independent. He can still make his own decisions and he can still, at a moment’s notice, move a city or a job. Unlike the rest of us, who are weighed down by our marriages and the baggage that comes with it, he is a free man.
“What’ll you have for lunch?” he asks me as if he is a culinary genius
“Beef Stroganoff,” I reply.
He doesn’t know how to make it and we settle for yellow dal and rice. I cut a raw onion into pieces and serve it with green chillies to mask the ostensibly bad taste.
Radhika
After he had dropped me at the gate of the guest house, I went past the landlord’s fierce Alsatian tied to the trunk of a large palm tree. I went upstairs to the first floor of the large bungalow that had been leased by Citibank to cater to the many visitors that would throng the headquarters of the bank. I changed and came out to find Roshni, the girl from Chandigarh, sitting on the dining table
“Good date?” she asked.
“Date?” I questioned her and myself.
“Ya, that’s what we thought,” she said. The length of the ‘ya’ was directly proportional to her eagerness to pry into my personal life
“He’s just an old friend from school,” I clarified. I didn’t sound very convincing when I said it.
She looked at me; a little disappointed and deeply saddened. She had lost out on a bedtime story and promptly went into the other room leaving me alone in the drawing room.
I sat on the couch, surfing through some of the most ridiculous television programs ever created. There was nothing that held my attention and I called out to the caretaker to make me a cup of tea. It was a habit that I followed from the nights when I would study.
I bolted the bedroom door and turned off the lights. At the train station, I had picked up a novel by Sidney Sheldon. I snuggled under the covers and started reading in the light of the table lamp that rested on the bedside table. Like most characters in his novels, the ones that I was reading about were in bed, making wild, passionate love. I loved reading Sheldon, even though he would always turn his characters into bunnies that were ready to reproduce. It wasn’t long before I closed the book; I was too distracted. I turned off the table lamp and attempted to sleep.
My thoughts went back to Aditya – he was even more handsome than what I remembered of him. He was tall, lean, and athletic. His skin had a richer tan than what he had in school. It was almost the colour of that rich caramel sauce that I had had with ice cream. He wore his jet black hair differently now. They were longer than the mushroom cut that he would sport in school. The new hairstyle matured him. The baby face had matured too, making him a man worth dying for. I wasn’t sure if he knew that he could arouse a woman’s sexuality. I think he did, for why else would he have that air of arrogance. Alone on the bed, I thought of him walking into the training room. He had worn a light tan trouser and a spotless white shirt. Unconsciously, I fantasized about his body under the white shirt until we were the characters of the Sidney Sheldon novel, making uninhibited, unbridled love.
The crush that I thought had passed when we passed out of school was still alive and I was feeling it. Despite the tiredness and lack of sleep the night before, sleep refused to come. Maybe, this was what love did to you. I didn’t know the feeling; I had never experienced it but it must be this. I had a sudden longing to call him. I looked at the watch; it was a little after midnight, a trifle too late to listen to the heart’s whims. I tossed and turned some more, looking at the watch intermittently, calculating the time that I would have to sleep, if sleep did come.
It wasn’t unnatural to wake up tired and lifeless. I’d had less than four hours of sleep. Already late, I rushed into the bathroom and got dressed. Roshni sat at the breakfast table and eyed my swollen eyes suspiciously.
“Didn’t get too much sleep,
did you?” she smirked. It was the smirk of someone who understood what had kept me awake all night.
“No, it’s the new bed. Always have trouble adjusting on the first couple of nights,” I lied.
“He’s quite a looker, your friend,” she said laying special impetus on friend. Either she was a psychic or could see right through me. She reached the darkest corners of my soul where I hid my little secret.
I ignored her comment; not knowing if that would fuel her anxiety or kill it. We made our way to the waiting car and were at least fifteen minutes late for the training. Today’s training was being conducted by the head of branch banking. He was a surly man with thin, vicious-looking lips. He was to give us a brief overview of the products and services that the branch offered to its customers. He looked at us from above the rimless glasses that he wore on the edge of his nose. It was a discerning look to signal that he did not appreciate our unpunctuality. I apologized, and found my way to the empty chair at the back of the room on the table where Aditya sat.
He looked at me, feigning that he was still interested in the lecture. A small smile appeared on his face, a genuine smile to indicate that he was happy to have me for company on his table.
He scribbled on the thin notepad that hotels provide and turned it towards me. It read “What happened?”
I pulled the notebook in my direction and scribbled on it, “Didn’t sleep very well. Woke up late.”
“You look tired,” he scribbled back on the sheet. “I am. Tough night,” I wrote back.
“If the two of you have stopped exchanging notes, I’d like you to give me the names of three liability products that Citibank offers,” Mr Garg, the head of branch banking hollered.
Fortunately, I remembered, but the virtual rap on the knuckles succeeded in keeping me away from the notepad. At least for the rest of the morning session, we stayed away.