Bombay Heights- Sleepless in the City of Dreams

by Adite Banerjie

  He swaggered in and plastered a most charming smile on his face. “Mrs. Wadia, I’m extremely sorry. It should never have happened and it won’t again.”

  “Young man, you’re trespassing. Do you want me to call the police?”

  “Mrs. Wadia, please don’t break my heart. You have the most beautiful house I have ever set eyes on.”

  The lady’s chin—with a few strands of grey hair sticking out of it—wobbled. “You call this crumbling old ruin the most beautiful house you have seen? Tera doka toh phirela nahi hai?”

  Sanjana was only too glad not to be at the receiving end of Mrs Wadia’s ire. But she was curious to see how Ash would handle the situation.

  “Believe me, Mrs. Wadia. These staircase railings are identical to those at Esplanade House. And that ceiling… once it’s been cleaned up and restored, it will be even more spectacular than the one that Jamshetji Tata built.”

  Sanjana gaped at Ashwin, wondering whether he had simply pulled a fast one or he actually knew what he was talking about. Feeling her gaze on him he grinned at her before adding for Mrs Wadia’s benefit, “If I’m lying, you can cut my head off—or should I say doka?”

  At that Mrs. Wadia let out a loud belly laugh that echoed through the vast room. “First you try to ruin my tiles and then you try to charm the pants off me! But be very careful, I am the great granddaughter of Dorabji Dokawala.”

  Jeroobai’s chin was now wobbling with laughter. “We Dokawalas got our name because we come from a place called Dokawadi in Surat where many heads rolled after a battle between the Mughals and the Marathas. Trust me, I will make your doka roll if you don’t toe the line.”

  With that she howled with laughter and waved at them to follow her.

  For the rest of the day Mrs Wadia put the two of them to work: making them plough through piles of dust-streaked, dog-eared architectural plans, paper clippings and photographs she had amassed over the years. She had called the renovation work to a halt as she was not happy with the plans. Sanjana tried to reason with Mrs Wadia that since the original plans were not available it wasn’t possible to do an exact restoration of the mansion as built by her ancestor. But Jeroobai was in no mind to listen to reason.

  “So what if the originals have been lost,” she thundered. “You need to move your butts from those fancy-pants offices that you work in.”

  She waved at the pile of old papers that they had unearthed. “There is more than enough material to work with. Kanitkar’s plans are rubbish.”

  “You mean, Mr. Khandekar?”

  “Arrey baba, yes, yes!” she snorted as she pulled open another chest of drawers.

  Sanjana stared at the heap of documents in despair. What was she supposed to do with this pile of junk?

  “Ma’am…but...”

  “No but’s,” Mrs Wadia snorted, “You can tell Kakotkar that I will not pay a single rupee until he can come up with something better.”

  Ashwin cleared his throat to catch their attention. Sanjana had almost forgotten about him. “We can go through these documents and in the mean time the work can continue in a different wing of the house?”

  Sanjana nodded. “Yes, and we can take these back to the office…”

  “No, no, no, no.” Jeroobai’s head was bobbing from side to side and Sanjana feared she would crick her neck if she continued shaking it so hard. “These papers are not leaving my property.”

  She sneaked a peek at Ashwin and her eyes asked: Any bright ideas, Genius?

  To which he simply wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Mrs Wadia, I need to discuss this with my boss before we can proceed.”

  Mrs Wadia seemed to have lost interest in them as she shuffled off to the lobby yelling, “Pestonji, iddhar aao.”

  “Beware,” Ashwin’s voice whispered in her ears. “I think she is calling Pestonji to off our dokas.”

  She snapped back at him, “Stop fooling around.”

  When the stooping Pestonji emerged, Mrs Wadia instructed him to show Ashwin and Sanjana out.

  As a parting shot, Jeroobai Wadia said, “Please tell Kasurikar, I expect an experienced architect to handle the restoration work.”

  Sanjana’s ears turned hot at the implied insult but she politely said, “I will pass on your message to Mr. Khandekar.”

  The meeting had been a total, unmitigated disaster and Sanjana wondered how she would break the news to Sunrita and Sir.

  “Where to now? Office? ” Ashwin’s voice cut through her cluttered thoughts.

  “It’s too late to go back to office.”

  “Okey dokey.” Swiftly turning the car around, Ashwin negotiated the traffic. “How about stopping for a cup of coffee?”

  “No, just drop me off here. I’ll take a bus home.”

  “So coffee at my place, then?”

  His eyes were twinkling merrily as if he loved this arrangement even better.

  She snapped at him testily. “Jeroobai has definitely put you in a good mood.”

  “Jeroobai has definitely got your doka in a noose.”

  “Very funny!”

  “I need to buy some fags.” He spotted a cigarette vendor and swerved the car away towards the kerb.

  Sanjana’s phone pinged. Pulling it out of her handbag, she saw the text from Chetan: ‘Coming over to your place in twenty. Wear something hot and sexy.”

  She texted back, “Please don’t. Am busy.”

  A series of ‘crying’ emojis came flying back followed by the words: Please babe, don’t be like that. Another rash of the digital smileys.

  This only made her more mad. She wished Chetan would just leave her alone. She simply didn’t have the energy or the desire to deal with Chetan’s tantrums today. She needed to stop him in his tracks and right now. As she mulled over what she should say, she saw Ashwin lighting up a cigarette as he joked with the vendor.

  The phone pinged again. “I’m on my way, babe.”

  As panic hit, she typed, “I’m going out on a date.”

  The answer came back. “I know…with me.”

  “With Ashwin.”

  As soon as she had typed the text, she wished she could un-do it. Oh my God. What had she done! But before she could delete it, the door swung open and Ashwin slid into the driver’s seat. “Missed me?”

  “Let’s get some coffee,” she said.

  Her heart hammered away as she avoided his eyes.

  “Change of heart?”

  “Nothing to do with my heart—it’s actually my head. Jeroobai has given me a roaring headache.”

  “Of course, if it is the Jeroobai connection, it has to be the doka.”

  The withering look that Sanjana gave him caused him to hurriedly turn the ignition and glide the car away from the kerb and into the stream of honking cars on the main road.

  “I have a bottle of Tiger balm in the dashboard somewhere,” he offered after a few minutes of silence.

  “Never mind. The coffee should help.”

  Her phone pinged and she glanced at it and saw Chetan’s next words: “That bloody neighbour!”

  She switched off her phone and jammed it back in her bag. This was one headache that wasn’t likely to be eased with a strong dose of caffeine.

  Ashwin had brought her to a pub and not a café, thought Sanjana, as she settled into the comfortable settee in the lavish yet cosy ambience. She was too tired to argue about it even though at some level she did realize that she should protest. This was turning out to be more like a date than a quick cup of coffee. By the time he got their drinks to the table, she had whipped herself into a frenzy of conflicting emotions.

  “Here you go,” said Ash as he settled next to her and placed a tall cocktail in front of her.

  “This is not a café, and that is not coffee,” she said sternly.

  Two bright spots gleamed in Ash’s eyes – she wasn’t quite sure whether it was due to the lighting in the pub or just that his damnably attractive orifices were alight with amusement.

 
“Take a sip of that and you can say goodbye to your headache.”

  “What is in that drink? It looks a little too fancy for a cappuccino.” She eyed the delicious looking concoction suspiciously.

  “It ain’t poison!” he sighed. “Just a coffee cocktail, with a teeny weeny bit of rum and amaretto.”

  “And a liberal dash of whipped cream,” she added.

  She gingerly picked up the cocktail glass and licked the frothy cream off the rim of the glass. Delicious!

  Ash’s gaze on her made her feel a bit self-conscious and she stopped herself from behaving like a seven-year old with an ice candy. A demure sip of the drink and her taste buds were in coffee heaven!

  Ash watched her like a hawk. “Like it?”

  “Mmm…” she nodded, trying to sound blasé. “Interesting.”

  “Wow, you really are the Queen of Understatement, aren’t you? Anyway, cheers!” He raised his beer in salute.

  “I want to make one thing clear,” she pressed on.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah… Please can you give it a rest?”

  “How do you even know what I’m going to say?”

  “Believe it, or not, you are as predictable as my morning alarm.”

  She tried to control her irritation at his smug behaviour.

  “Frankly,” he continued, “your this-is-not-a-date spiel is getting a little too boring. Instead, let’s talk about something more interesting.”

  “Like what?”

  “For a start, why don’t you tell me what exactly is bothering you?”

  She opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. Why was the man so infuriating, she wondered for the umpteenth time.

  “Nothing is bothering me.”

  “Oh, so it’s just PMT?”

  She nearly spilled the drink in her agitation and glared at him.

  “You are the major cause of my headache.”

  “Ah okay,” he smiled back as if she had paid him a compliment. “But I’m a bit confused. In the car when you were texting, you looked like you would bust a blood vessel. And I’m 100% certain I wasn’t exchanging any communication with you.”

  She counted slowly till ten, took a large sip of her drink and smiled sweetly. “What’s this drink called?”

  “Café Caribbean.”

  “It’s nice.”

  “That’s a neat way of ducking my question.” That lopsided cat-who-got-its-cream grin was back.

  “What exactly was your question?”

  “Who were you texting and why did you look so angry?”

  “Is that any of your business?”

  “Actually, it is. I’m just making sure I don’t have to deal with an aggressive boyfriend who has the mistaken notion that we’re out on a date.”

  “Wh—who are you talking about?”

  “Your boyfriend…the dude in orange shirt.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Ex, then?”

  “No…yes!”

  “A bit confused about your relationship?”

  She was tempted to throw the drink in his smug face but that would have been a sheer waste of a fabulous cocktail. Taking a deep breath she said, “For the last time, Chetan is not my boyfriend. He and I were together when I was in Nagpur but we stopped seeing each other after I moved to Mumbai.”

  His eyebrows shot up and nearly touched his hairline. For a brief moment she saw something akin to anger fill his eyes before it was gone. He lifted the mug to his lips and drained his beer.

  “Seems like I may have to watch over my shoulder.”

  “Could you please stop talking in riddles?”

  At the next table, a group of girls had just moved in, laughing and talking loudly.

  He placed the beer mug down and slid closer to her. The length of his thigh brushed against hers and she felt her blood heat up in instant response.

  His warm breath fanned her cheek as he whispered hoarsely in her ear. “I hope you are not using me to make your friend jealous.”

  She turned her head a little too abruptly, a denial ready on her lips. But the words froze as his mouth brushed her cheek. Her breath hitched at the near-kiss. Instead of wanting to push away from him, she almost leaned in, managing to stop herself at the very last moment.

  Her breathing was shallow and the intensity of his gaze drove away every thought from her befuddled brain. The buzz of the lounge faded into the background and all she could hear was her heart beating way too hard and fast. She wondered what it would be like to feel those lips on hers and that hard bristly jawline against her cheeks.

  The moments stretched interminably before she heard herself blurt out. “Actually, I did tell him I was dating you…so that he would stay away from me.”

  “Are you prepared for the consequences?”

  His voice was a bare whisper but the undertone was one that held immeasurable promise.

  Feeling reckless she asked, “What do you mean?”

  He chose to answer that with action.

  Cupping her face in his hands his lips swooped down on hers. They explored hers with a touch that was gentle and yet firm. Closing her eyes to the sensations flooding through her she was swept away as he deepened the kiss. Soon her tongue was entangling with his, her heart thumping wildly and a slow heat burning up her insides. Turning her body towards him, she felt the hard planes of his chest press into her soft curves sending shockwaves of awareness through her. She felt singed by desire and yet wanted to be consumed by it.

  Ash’s hoarse desire-drenched “let’s go somewhere private” whisper jolted her out of her lust-induced sensations. Tearing herself away from Ash, she raced out of the pub, nearly knocking down a waiter carrying a tray of drinks.

  Chapter Seven

  She ran out of the pub, on to the street and very nearly collided with a speeding car.

  Ash reached her at the right moment and pulled her back, before she could be hit. The driver let loose a string of abuse as he drove off.

  Ash turned her around to face him.

  “Am I such a bad kisser that you want to kill yourself?”

  His words were meant to be a joke but the look in his eyes said he wasn’t the least bit amused.

  Her face was hot and flushed and she wasn’t up to parrying words with him. She pulled her arm away from his hold and kept walking. She wished he wouldn’t follow her but then the way things were going, she knew the Goddess who granted wishes was not likely to humour her.

  “Hey, I’d rather you reach your destination in one piece than…”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal…even though I do wish I could erase what happened back there.”

  He clutched at his heart dramatically. “You’re really bad for my ego. And I’ve a feeling you don’t mean that, but never mind… I’ll let it go. For now.”

  She stopped walking and said, “Listen…That was a mistake and it shouldn’t have happened. So, let’s drop it.”

  He was shaking his head. “Make no mistake. That was a kiss. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it...”

  He paused for a beat and added, “…a mind-blowing twenty. But if you don’t feel the same way, I get it. I swear, I will try to improve my technique.”

  She grew even more flustered and started walking away from him.

  “Okay. I promise not to mention the K-word again. At least let me offer you a lift to wherever you are going.”

  She continued to march away from him. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  He caught up with her with a couple of long strides. “Why do I get the feeling you’re running away from…”

  “I’m not running away from you.”

  “I was about to say, from a heart to heart talk about what just happened back there.” He pointed his thumb in the general direction of the pub.

  “What’s there to discuss? It’s over and done with and it shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Ah, okay. I get it. You belong to the sweep-it-under-the-carpet school.”


  She rolled her eyes and said, “I’m not doing anything of the sort. I want to make it very clear that if you have any notion that one such k-- uh…incident will lead to another, you can kill the thought.”

  She thought she heard low rumbling laughter and she turned to look at him. His shoulders were shaking and he was trying not to laugh out loud.

  “What’s so funny?” She glared at him.

  “You are even scared of using the K-word.”

  “Whatever.’’ She looked away and her gaze halted on an electric blue Audi. “Incidentally, what is your number…?”

  He pretended to do a double take. “Wow, that’s an original pick up line if I heard any.”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “Your car number!”

  Pointing to the car being towed away by a police vehicle, she said, “If I’m not wrong, that car belongs to you.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “Holy Mackerel!”

  And before she could finish saying “who says holy mackerel!” he was sprinting across the road, dodging cars, raising his arm in apology as cars screeched all around him.

  Three hours later, after a trying session at the traffic police department and paying a hefty penalty, Ash managed to rescue his car. The drive back through bumper to bumper traffic did not do much to improve his frayed nerves either. Yet the only thing that seemed to carry him through the ordeal was the memory of the totally smackeroo of a kiss. The passion with which she had kissed him back had taken him totally by surprise and the adrenaline rush he had felt was by no means a figment of his imagination. And yet she’d claimed it was a ‘mistake’. What a load of bull crap! Women! He would never figure them out.

  His phone buzzed and he glanced at it as he waited for the lights to change to green. It was Rakshanda. That’s when he noticed. He had missed five calls from her. He swiped the screen and answered.

  “Hey Raks. What’s up?”

  “I told you to keep away from her, didn’t I, you filthy sonofabitch,” a man answered in crude Hindi.

  The heavy breathing, the slurred words and the string of abusive language—that was all Ash needed to confirm his worst fears.