The Homing Pigeons...

by Sid Bahri

  He wasn’t there. I went back to the curtain and stole another look outside. There was nothing; absolutely no hint that he was here or intended to be. Maybe, he had just sent the message as a teaser. A sadists attempt to see if his victim was suffering enough. I came back to my room and turned off the lights. It was important that I get some sleep. I would have to join the Lucknow branch next week, which left less than five days to wrap up.

  I thought if I should ask my parents, if I had made a good choice in moving to Lucknow. But, why even bother when I had nearly been estranged. Maybe, I didn’t deserve happiness. Maybe, I was the creation of a lesser God whose creative abilities hadn’t been developed enough to add happiness or colour into this life.

  Aditya

  I can’t help feeling lucky with the offer letter in hand. It is a handsome salary that Axis bank is offering me. I know that being lucky and being happy are two different things. I remember when my boss gave me the promotion letter, right after my conversation with Radhika. I went to his room, still wondering if I could’ve been a little politer in that conversation. I had been harsh but if I hadn’t been, it would’ve been detrimental. It would’ve made her feel that there was still room for reconciliation and I didn’t want it. I had made my choice and my plan had been executed. Why else had I sat on the chair in the balcony when Radhika writhed in pain? Why else had I told Robin to tell her that I was at work?

  For the first time, I looked down at the letter that my boss had given me. It was a handsome raise and I thought that now was a good time to buy a car. I imagined the car of my dreams and it’s all shiny and bright, but it came with a vacant passenger seat. Suddenly, the letter was nothing but a piece of paper. It was meaningless and even in being able to break away from her, I hated my parents and myself.

  I left the office early. My manager thought that I was going to celebrate my promotion. He couldn’t quite understand why I still had a forlorn expression when I should have been rejoicing. I parked the car below the apartment and went upstairs. I knew she wouldn’t be around, not after all that I had said. Robin answered the door. “Has she left?” I was half hoping that he would say no.

  “Yes. She left in the afternoon.” I nodded as if she had told me and it was all planned.

  I changed into shorts and sneakers. There was so much negative energy that had to be drained. I had almost stopped running and I wanted to run today. Run until the last bit of energy was drained, until I would collapse, until I died. The emotions of anger, guilt, frustration and shame mixed up in a heady cocktail that kept me running. I ran away from a reality that I had been unable to face. It was past ten when I came back and crashed on the chair in the balcony and drank as I once had very long ago. In all the things that had changed since then, one thing remained. I was still without her.

  The next day, I didn’t go to office. I was expected to attend training. Through the morning, I had been unable to concentrate, preferring to doodle and think when the trainer had the others’ rapt attention.

  “It is your marriage next week, you want to look ravishing, and you walk into a store and look at about fifty suits. You find five in your size that you like enough to buy. You boil down the choice to two – the charcoal grey Armani and the navy blue Calvin Klein. Money’s not a constraint, even though the Armani is a little more expensive.” He continued, “You try on both, they’re a perfect fit, but you are still indecisive. You settle for the Armani. You walk down to the teller, happy that you’re about to buy what you wanted. The teller swipes the card, you sign for it and just as you are about to enter your car, creating images of yourself in the charcoal grey suit – a strange voice in your head tells you, ‘you should’ve bought the blue one’. That is cognitive dissonance,” the tall, cynical trainer said.

  Now, with that last example, he had told me my situation. I wanted the Calvin Klein suit. I had broken up with her, and played the truant and the ideal son, but I wasn’t sure where that left me. I thought that a breakup would help ease the stress, yet, it had only aggravated it. I longed for a date with her. I longed to meet her. Hell, I even longed to see her. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to take it to a point of no return. I was annoyed with myself that I had driven the relationship to this dead end.

  I walked out of the conference hall at the Taj Hotel, the venue of the training. The trainer stared at me. Maybe he wasn’t used to people walk out of his training. I didn’t care to explain where I was going. On the way out, I grabbed my cell phone that had been kept aside this morning to deter deviant minds from reaching out to that distraction.

  I reached the lobby that led to the many banquet halls. It was empty, even though the banquet halls seem to be occupied. I dialled her number; she didn’t answer. I dialled her number again. No Answer. I dialled it a third time. A strange woman said in a sing-song voice, “The subscriber you’re trying to reach is busy at this time”. I dialled a fourth time, the same thing happened. The fifth time, the same woman said, “The number you are trying to reach is switched off”.

  I went back inside, momentarily, to retrieve the car keys from my table. The trainer didn’t stare at me this time; he made a note and carried on. I drove like crazy from the Taj, almost running over the labourers who were busy trying to construct a fly-over at Dhaula Kuan. I had to see her. I would apologize; I would beg her to take me back. I would promise to never be a bastard again. If she agreed, I would marry her tonight. I knew that I had dug my own grave. In wishing that I spoil my relations with her, I had hurt her so grievously that she refused to speak to me.

  *

  It was over three days that I had not seen her, nor spoken to her. Even when we would pretend to be strangers in office, we would bump into each other – sometimes in the corridors, sometimes in the cafeteria. But it seemed that she had virtually become invisible. I went to the floor where she worked, but she wasn’t there. I thought about waiting below her house when she entered, but what would that achieve. It was best for time to heal some wounds before I approached her again. I hated myself, not only because of my fickle mindedness, but also for my abjectly gross behaviour.

  Radhika

  There is something about Ranikhet that leaves me awestruck. I grew up in the hills, so it isn’t unfamiliar to be in the hills, but Ranikhet is different. It has to be the snow-clad peaks in the distance, the forests around town and that wild leopard that crossed us one night. It leaves me enchanted.

  A large part of me wants to stay here. I know that I can stay here and do everything that I am doing back in Delhi. I will be closer to Shipra, for sure. I chide myself that this is just a dream that will take a long time to accomplish. It isn’t real. Very long ago, I stopped believing in dreams.

  The last two weeks at Shipra’s home were heavenly. Each morning would begin with a cup of tea on the lawns of her house and each day would end with drinks. I still don’t drink, even though Divya was pushing me.

  It has taken a lot to go back to reality. My reality is a makeshift school that I run out of the Gulmohar Park house. I bid my goodbyes and just as we leave the cantonment, Divya’s phone rings. It has to be another one of her shady calls because she is talking about her commission.

  I ignore her again as I had done on my way in, but this time she is adamant to tell me about it.

  “I think it’s important to have sex. It’s human,” she says.

  I didn’t know why she has vaguely and abruptly brought up this conversation with me.

  “I couldn’t live with my ex-husband, but that doesn’t mean that I deprive myself. I even checked with the gynaecologist. She agrees,” Divya continues.

  I nod my head but don’t say anything.

  “You know, there are so many women who are faced with this same problem. I just help them,” she says.

  I wonder if the cause is so noble, why she is talking about her commission.

  “You should try it too,” she says.

  This time, I don’t nod. I’ll be honest; it does cross my mind
as an option.

  Aditya

  Finally, I saw her walking out of office on the fourth day. I walked up towards her, to accost her, to fall down on one knee and confess that I had been a fool for not understanding my emotions in time, beg her for forgiveness and to let me be a part of her life again. She saw me coming and instantly turned around, walking back into the crowd of people that would insulate her from me.

  My ego should’ve died that instant and I should’ve followed her and done what I intended to do. I didn’t. She walked with the crowd and I saw her leaving. I would have to wait for another chance. That chance never came.

  I didn’t know that when she walked away from there, she was leaving the city for good. I still didn’t know that would be the end of my love story. I didn’t even know that you could call this a love story. I didn’t see her for a few more days. I thought that she was on vacation, to take time off work and to recuperate from my actions. It was much later that I discovered that she had taken up a posting in Lucknow. It was bizarre that she chose Lucknow when almost everyone in our generation wanted to move away from that city.

  I thought about chasing her, going to Lucknow and telling her everything that I wanted to in Gurgaon. It did cross my mind that she would be unwilling to talk to me in Lucknow, when she was hesitant to talk to me in Gurgaon. I just waited for the wounds to heal before I could approach her again.

  It was a Saturday that I went back home and rang the bell. Robin answered the door, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t used to seeing me come home alone on Saturdays. I didn’t go out to drink. I switched the television on, surfing channels mindlessly. Nothing held my fancy. I switched off the TV as abruptly as I had started it. Nothing seemed good.

  I had been here earlier, but I had someone to blame back then. It wasn’t my folly that I had been left alone then. Now, there was no one else that I could blame. I picked up my cell phone and dialled her Delhi number, knowing that she wasn’t here. But still, fervently praying that she had made a weekend trip to Delhi and switched on her cell phone. I wasn’t lucky.

  The days passed, abysmally slowly. It was nearly three months since she was gone. It wasn’t only her going away that hurt so much; it was my guilt that burnt me inside out. I owed her an apology at the very least. I sat on my desk typing an e-mail. I had never been eloquent but when you write from the heart, it usually comes out well. I read it and re-read it. It was everything that I wanted to tell her. I explained my actions, my failures, my reasons. I apologized. I promised that I would never ever let her down again if she just forgave me. It was complete. In the global address list, I typed the surname Kapila; her name didn’t come up. I typed Kapila, R; still no matches. I typed Kapila, Radhika; the name didn’t exist in the Citigroup global address list. A little over three hundred thousand e-mail IDs were listed, but that elusive one that I needed to send the mail to, was missing. There was only one conclusion that could be drawn – she no longer worked for Citibank. And if she didn’t, where was she? In Lucknow? Chandigarh? Abroad?

  Radhika

  I go back to the porch of the Gulmohar Park house. The children don’t come here very often. It’s the middle of their Diwali vacation and they’ve gone back to their native. This setting is familiar. The weeds over grew in the monsoons and they still remain. They make me think about the weeds that grew in my brain when I decided to marry Vimal. The only reason that I got married a second time was to spite Aditya. There was no other reason that would justify my marrying a forty-three-year-old man. It had been a season of self-discovery. The ego that I never knew existed in me raised its ugly head. I had been scorned, demeaned and hurt. Aditya had left me for his career, for money and for everything materialistic. I was an impediment and a liability. I had played out every reason why he had left me and reached this conclusion. I wanted to show him that I could be richer than he ever would be and so, when I found Vimal Ahuja, an affluent businessman and a client of Citibank, I manipulated him to marry me.

  It had been sudden and notwithstanding that he had a daughter Meera, who was just eight years younger than me, it was my chance to prove to Aditya that if money had ever been my motivation to love him, he was inferior. Stupidly, I had never been able to do that either. I had made a trip to Delhi three months after the wedding, about six months after I had moved to Lucknow to come face to face with him and enact the scene that I had played out in my mind, every day of those six months. He wasn’t there. From my colleagues, I learnt that he had moved abroad on a foreign posting. I think he went to the Philippines. So, I was now caught in a loveless marriage that had ended with Vimal’s death, leaving me an heiress of a large bungalow in Delhi – in love at various points in time with one man, twice married to men I didn’t love, once divorced, once widowed.

  It had happened so long ago, nearly eight years ago and yet, the memories are so fresh, as if it has happened only yesterday. Strangely, what I had thought of as improbable and impossible has happened. I have forgiven him. In the years that went by, time has done what it does best – heal.

  In many ways, I have relived our relationship in my mind and even though the end was so bitter and disappointing, our moments of love always overshadow the bitterness. So many times, I am tempted to go back to him. I want to find him and tell him that he has been forgiven just like he forgave me. I looked for him on the Internet. There is only a LinkedIn profile that says that he used to work at Citibank. It’s almost like he has disappeared. I wonder where he is and what he is doing.

  Aditya

  “Where are you from?” she asked me.

  “India,” I replied.

  “India, big country?” she asked me, rolling the R in the country like Filipinos do.

  “Yes! Very big country” I replied.

  “Bigger than Luzon?” she asked.

  For God’s sake, give me a break. Luzon was the largest island in the Philippines, a veritable speck on the world map, possibly smaller than India’s smallest state and here I was lying in bed with this cheap whore who was asking me this question.

  I pushed her away in disgust, even more disgusted with myself that I was in bed with this filthy woman, who under the influence of alcohol and the dim light of the shady bar had looked worth picking up.

  In some strange way, hardly patriotic, I was compelled to come back from the Philippines. The country had provided me with employment and the refuge from her memories. Alcohol was cheap, tobacco cheaper and there was an endless supply of women who would pretend to love you for your money. I couldn’t even pretend. A dark, deep hole still existed within my soul, the corner where love used to exist.

  I came back to India and I was coerced into marrying Jasleen, a Sikh girl that my parents had found for me. I had resisted and they had coerced. I had said that I didn’t want to be married to anyone I didn’t love, but they had insisted. I was indifferent and we were married. I eventually became the good son, at the cost of being a poor husband. As if to confirm my derangement, I had estranged my parents soon after I married.

  The bank had a position open – as head of cards sales for north India and I gladly came back to India. I was doing very well professionally, being lauded as the best thing that happened to Citibank in India. My sales figures were the best: I was selling more cards than all the other regions combined. That was until the recession hit. The delinquencies that hit were in the same ratio as the sales. Overnight, I turned from a hero to being a villain. I was the cause why the bank was losing money.

  The recession also brought with it an exodus of NRIs who had left India for greener pastures. The brain drain that had been plaguing India through the eighties and early nineties, was being corrected. A fresh slew of Non Resident Indians were claiming jobs in India that they hadn’t thought were worth their while. Amongst them, was one man who resembled a mouse – Mr Abhinav Chandra. He joined as the head of the cards business in India and was my immediate boss.

  It was an instant recognition for both of us, and the fallout was th
e same as it would’ve been if I had been in his shoes: Restructured.

  Now, here I am, as cheap as the cheapest whore that I had slept with, once married, once divorced and still in love with only one woman, whose ex-husband, by a wicked quirk of fate, has rendered me into a gigolo.

  I turn around to see Bhatoliya standing behind me, “Where are you lost stud?” he asks me.

  “Nah, nothing. Tell me,” I say.

  “You’ve got to speak to this Divya woman. She wants a thirty-five per cent cut on this client that she’s sending you. Our overheads are high, we can’t afford it,” he says.

  Overheads. Wow! I haven’t realized when my best friend turned into a businessman.

  “I will,” I promise.

  Divya’s greed is never-ending. While she is a damn good pimp, providing an endless supply of clients, her commission structure goes up every time there is a new client introduced. I will need to speak to her the next time we met. She is being greedy.

  “And who is this new client? Is she coming over or is it a house call?” I ask Bhatoliya.

  “She’s coming over. Divya just said her name is… I don’t even remember, some Ahuja. She is expected in at 3 this afternoon. First timer. Wants you to be gentle.”

  The business was doing well. Bhatoliya’s dream of not selling toothpaste to make a living seemed on track. He was happy and I was sad. I was now in the trade for over a year and the ignominy of serving as a sex slave to the many women was beginning to take a toll. There are times in one’s life that what you have is not enough and I was feeling like it too. Think about it, I was an out of job banker, who had become a male prostitute, making more money than I would have done at the job. I had craved for freedom from my wife, and I had gotten it. I wanted to be in a big city and I was, and yet, there was sadness. A deep melancholic sadness, that arose out of loneliness. Ironically, I would meet at least two women a day and yet, there was loneliness.