2.m

“Do you know that famous chikkiwala?” Shamita asked inquisitively.
“Yeah re” I replied taking a painful bite of my Medu-Vada.
“You are sure na?” one more query.
“Yes ma’m!”
“And you know the Resort near it na?”
“Yes!”
“And you know its main gate na?”
“Yes of course….and if we don’t find it…we will ask someone” I said firmly.
“Ask??...why do we need to ask when you know it??...are you sure you know it??”

“No” I felt like saying aloud enough to shatter the glasses of the place, crack the walls and break the furniture into pieces. But I control myself. I don’t want to make her go berserk in this hyperemotional state. A liitle high pitch and I know she would break into tears. This is one of the time when she is happy, sad, anxious, guilty and excited at the same time. Humans are supposed to behave panicky at such times and then break into a pang of extreme happiness or extreme sadness. I couldn’t handle any of her state in that matter.

I politely said “Yes dear…don’t worry…put some more ice in the juice!”

“Shut up!” she said playfully and dissolved it into laughter. I thank god for it.

“I can’t believe that I am going to meet him again…..when he said that he will coming to the hill station…I went crazy…” She began speaking. I nodded after her each line. To take myself away from her blabber, I look outside the window at the bike stand. The bike is safe. But my ears aren’t. She keeps talking. I keep nodding looking outside the window. I see some shady moments near the bike. I look more intently. I see someone familiar looking at Piyush’s bike’s number. He turns and sees another person on the bike. He too looks at Piyush’s bike. They look at the hotel board and then they look at each other. It’s the moment I recognize them. It’s Rahul and Gaurav. Harshad’s roommates. The one whom I call Aditya Panscholi and the other who is always flabbergasted when I visit their room with beer. I am surprised to see them here at the moment. For a moment I have an instinct to wave out to them. I am about to raise my hand and something stops me. I see them looking at Piyush’s bike particularly out of the entire lot. And they don’t seem to be surprised by it. They look as if they are probing into something. Like cops investigate a murder. Staring at some evidence. Taking close looks at it. Discussing something amongst themselves. Something strikes me hard.

“Behenchoad!” I say to myself in revelation. Bastards are following me! Bloody shit! Damn the arseholes. They are following me.

“Shitholes” I blurt in a hearable tone.
“What happened?” Shamita asks me.
I take a long pause as if to say something and I say “Nothing!”

I look out of the window again. They settle down on their bike near the exit of the restaurant. Below the tree where the exit meets the Highway.

“What are you thinking then?” She asks.
“I am thinking of having one more tea…” I want to spend some more time here. I don’t want to leave as long as they are there. That will give them a clear opportunity to follow me. I stretch out in my seat.

“Are you in a hurry?” I ask Shamita.
“Not as long as I am not late” She says.
“We’ve left early…you won’t be late.” I reply confidently.
“Then have another tea…”

I ask the waiter to get me another tea. My eyes are still on them. They are smoking a cigarette. They stare at the hotel board time and again and discuss something amongst themselves.
My tea arrives. Shamita keeps talking. I keep humming and nodding. She actually doesn’t need me as an audience. She is talking to herself. Telling herself how things are, were and will be. I don’t really care about them. And she doesn’t really care if I am listening or not.

Another tea arrives. I sip it idly. Trying hard to stretch the passage of time. And they don’t seem to budge.

I am done with my tea. Having another one would look stupid. It’s funny that humans even in their moments of distress care about how they present themselves. Or maybe it is an attempt to show that everything is normal.

I think of a way to extend the stay in the place. As I fondle with this thought, the waiter comes with the check. Sometimes people read your mind. And Ticket Checkers and Waiters top the list. They rightly know what you are thinking and they know when to assault. We should consider their consultation while planning our distant strategies. But the problem is that they would have to serve them before. However, that does not take away the honor of sending them as spies into our enemy territories.

I pay the bill. Leaving the place becomes inevitable. I keep thinking of ways to keep us within these walls. I find a strong one.

“Do you need to go to the loo?...go now if you want to…we won’t be stopping anywhere on the road now ” I tell Shamita. There was the idea.

“Yeah re….I will go and come back quickly!” she assures me. I don’t need it.
“Take your time” I say.

She rushes into the loo. I take a position behind the gate to keep an eye on them. They keep sitting there. Shamita doesn’t come back from the loo.

They smoke two cigarettes each. One after another. Then they share a cigarette amongst them. Maybe the last one they had. They finish it. They throw away the box and prepare to leave. They both look at the board of the hotel, say something and nod. Gaurav starts the motorcycle and they leave. I keep looking in their direction to assure that they won’t return. They don’t.
I feel relieved. I have a strong urge to go to the loo. I wait for Shamita to come out. She doesn’t. It becomes difficult for me to control the outburst of my bladders. I drop her a message on her phone and leave for the loo.

As I pee, a thought encircles in my mind. What if Shamita stands there alone and they return with a new pack of cigarettes. What if they see her. I pressurize my entire urinary system to finish the task faster and rush back to the point where we separated. Shamita isn’t there still. I wait for some time. I have a crazy thought of her being abducted by them. I call her up. She doesn’t pick up. Instead her stupid caller tune keeps going on in a loop. I keep trying. She picks up the 287657896th call. And all she says before cutting it again is “Coming baba coming!...one sec!”

And she comes.

I am taken aback. Shamita is different now. Her top and denims have transformed into a yellow Punjabi suit. Her earrings have changed to yellow hanging stones. Yellow bangles congregate in neat lines on the wrist and a yellow ring on her finger. I wonder how her bag didn’t transform into yellow. He walks up to me.

“What’s this?...yellow metamorphosis?” I ask.

“He likes to see me in yellow!”

My face broadens into a smile. I make it appear like an appreciation. I am actually finding it ludicrous. I smile in appreciation of the effort.

“Sorry….I took a bit of time…but you know…I want to surprise him!!!”

Yes! Yellow will surprise him. In fact it will surprise anybody.

And I do forgive you for the time taken. You saved us from spies. But they won’t be able to forgive you. Because they finished an entire box of cigarettes because of you. And they were prone to have nicotine lungs because of you.

We walk back to our bike. I start it. As I turn it towards the road, the board of the hotel catches my eye. I connect with the minds of the spies. The last line was an epitome of doubtraisers.

The board says:

Hotel Rajat Kaksha

Lodging & Boarding

ROOMS AVAILABLE

2.l

We took a halt at the passably decent hotel on our way to the hill station. The moment Shamita got down from the motorbike, she rushed to the ‘Ladies Toilet’ as they are known popularly on the Indian roads.

I settled down at a place with the view to the road and the ‘two -wheeler’ parking lot. I am very dubious about leaving somebody else’s bike at a parking lot 100 meters away from the place I would be sitting at. There is a constant fear which grows in my mind like a tumor that the bike would be stolen and I would have to pay for it. The fear keeps me uncomfortable and anxious through the time I spend away from the motorcycle. I keep my eyes glued on it. Every human movement near the bike sent my fears rising.

Shamita came and sat before me. As attractive as ever. I regretted not realizing this charm in the years when winning over it was possible. And easier too. It happens a number of time. A simple unattractive girl from your school or college, meets you again in your later life, appearing as attractive as ever. The moment when you instantaneously fall for them, realizing what enormous blunder you had committed as you had neglected them over other fair skinned beauties. You want to go to them and apologise your behaviour. You want to say that you were sorry that you had neglected them in those times. You want to bend down on your knees. You want to lie that you had noticed their beautiful eyes then. You want to bluff that you always like them within the restrictions of your heart but couldn’t express your feelings. You want to tell them that you love them. You want to make them yours in any condition. You want to give your right arm for it. But by then its too late. Too late realize they had wiped you off their memory long ago and begun completely new lives, with new people and new voices around them. They actually defeat you.

She untied her jet black silk and let it loose. I wondered how an hour of bike ride hadn’t soiled the freshness on her face yet. She kept her bag on the table and took out a lip gloss from it and rubbed it on her lips. That was the moment she served me my answer on a platter of convenience. I realized that she had rushed to the loo the moment we entered the restaurant. And she must’ve had had loads of stuff to do, except the purpose for what she rushed there. Maybe, what I considered to be the reason for the rush, would not have been the reason for rush at all. There was so much for a girl to do in the loo. Face wash. Face wipe. Quick cleansing. Kohl, Combing, Sun guard, This guard, That Guard, Fairness cream, anti ageing cream, Orange peel off, mango peel offs, Papaya nourishment, Watermelon hydration and numerous other things which make them appear, as attractive as ever, before they present themselves to the people outside the loo. Right from the stray ant outside the loo, to the manager of the restaurant. Everybody in that space of contact. And yes, the accompanying person too. To keep them wondering.

The waiter comes to our table. I ask her what she would like to have. She says Orange juice. I laugh on her face. I find it ridiculous when people come to such low profile restaurants and ask for juices. The waiter turns to me. I say “One Medu-Vada Sambar and Tea to follow”. Waiter leaves. Shamita sits looking at me annoyed.

“What happened?” I ask her.
“Why did you laugh???”
“Orange juice!” I start laughing again.
“What’s so funny in it?”
“What’s not?...of all the things you only ask for Orange juice!!”
“That’s the only thing I can trust here.”
“Trust??...as in??...sedatives??”
“Nope yaar…hygiene!”
“oops!” I withdraw my argument. I still have a question to ask her “but still…eat something na…aren’t you hungry?”

“The only thing I am hungry of….is meeting him” she says. Films have a deep impact on our society. Someone said, ‘Cinema is the mirror of the society’. I feel he should have quoted it the other way round. ‘Society is the mirror of the cinema.’ Or maybe Cinema is different from Hindi films.

The waiter returns with Medu-Vada Sambar. I take the first bite. My lip hurts. Bad enough for me to stop chewing.

“Bitch!...” I say to myself silently.

Shriya had bit me on the lip while kissing me last nite. I thought it would pass off as an ordinary lesion. But it had begun giving problem since morning. It pained on drinking water. It pained on brushing my teeth. It pained on having tea and it pained on smoking. I wasn’t able to recognize if it was love or retribution.

We sat there lip-locked for quite some time. I wasn’t in state to start the stop watch and stop it when we ended making out. We also had intermediate breaks for the players to relax. These were utilized by her to button up her night shirt unbuttoned by me in the miasma of fervor and pull back her shorts back to her knees. While I used it to wipe out the creases she had put on my T-Shirt. We stopped when she pushed me away on finding my lips loosing their path down her neck, crawling towards her bosom. The move made her realize that it was too late and we had to leave. Or maybe she came back from her trance and realized that those were the wrong lips she was nibbling. We walked back hurriedly to Shamita’s room. Neither of us said a word to each other on our way back. An awkward silence clogged the conversation between us. A silence of unfulfilled desires trapped in the mesh of morality.

On reaching, Shriya ran into the compound without any farewell. I turned back bearing the weight of my guilt. She called out to me, returning to the gate. I went back to her. He stared at me with fiery eyes. I felt strangely uncomfortable standing before her that moment.

“What?” I asked.
“You can’t give me what I want” she said in cold voice. Her words pounded heavily on my chest. I was about to loose my balance and fall off. She turned and disappeared into the darkness inside the gate.

I was walking back to my room, when Shamita called up. I told her that I had arranged for a bike. She shouted in a pitch that tore apart my ear drums on phone.

W decided to leave early in the morning. A journey of love for her. A journey of friendship for me. A two hour bike ride to the hill station from the arse hole of the world.

(Contd.)

2. k

“You can’t give me what I want.” Her voice changes as she says this.

That was actually a wrong statement that a girl should speak before me. I can give the girl what she wants. Except things which require monetary transactions of course. In other cases, there is nothing that I can’t provide a girl with. Happiness being the primary element of my provision. Being the second largest demand on a girl’s wish list, it is something difficult to attain through monetary means. That is where I come in. I am a benefactor of this word, which most women yearn for. And I know it is my forte. They can go on a long drive with their respective male preys. But moments of tenderness are something that only my shop sells. And I am sure Shriya has one such demand. All I have to do is to make her voice it out. And that doesn’t seem like a difficult task.

“Tell me…there is nothing that I can’t give” I say it playfully. I do recognize the vulnerability of the situation. But revealing this would be loosing the chance to make her speak.

“No Anay…you can’t!” she looks away gulping down the lump in her throat.

Now I have a fair idea of what she would say. The magic word is hidden behind a closed door.

“Hey…what happened?” I say taking her chin in my hand and turning her face towards me gently. My voice softens involuntarily as I look touch her chin.

She just nods her head.

“Come on…tell me na...” Persuasion is the answer to persistence.
“Nothing re….can we sit somewhere?...some quiet and peaceful place?”

Ahoy there! The act is about to begin.

I take her to the garden near the temple. No garden near any temple is open at this time of the night. But every garden does have some secret routes to enter it. There is a broken fence at the rear of the garden. The legend says there was an accident which had broken it once. It hadn’t been mended since then. Who cares to mend the fence of a municipal garden?

I show her the way in. Even in that moment of distress, she can’t resist smiling.

The entire garden is open for us. The people in this place aren’t as enthusiastic to creep into the garden late at night.

“Where do you want to sit?” Ask an emotioned woman to make a decision. And you get your question rephrased as an indefinite statement.

“Wherever” she says maintaining her moroseness.

“Come here” I take her to the seat in the farthermost corner of the garden.

We sit.

“Now tell me…what happened?” Coming back to the point is extremely important.
“Nothing!”
“Are you sure?” I say a bit strongly.

She bends down hiding her face in her palms and begins sobbing. I gently put my hand around her shoulder bring her closer. She rests her head on my shoulder. I stroke her arm softly.

“I want Dilip Ani…” She says.

I always knew it. I knew that the answer was behind a closed door. I also knew I could give her Dilip. But I usually don’t help women to get a man.

“Calm down Shriya…Dilip belongs to Priyanka.”

She cries further. I stroke her back to comfort her.

From the day the chemistries formed in the classroom, the strongest one was seen forming between Dilip and Shriya. It was almost clear that they were a potential pair. Of course Dilip also had a bond with Priyanka. But it wasn’t as visible as the linking between Dilip and Shriya. But one evening, Priyanka took Dilip to buy curriculum books to the city and that day onwards entire set up changed drastically. Dilip was seen more with Priyanka. Shriya was purely sidelined. And the world wondered what Priyanka did that evening to drastically divert Dilip from Shriya. It always remained a mystery. She proposed him and nailed the relationship. Shriya stood aside watching the celebration.

Being a close friend of Priyanka, this move had shattered Shriya. This had significantly distanced both of them along with distancing Shriya and Dilip from each other.

“Why?” she says crying more. I stroke her more. I feel no obstacles on it. I wild thought runs through my mind.

“Because not everything that we desire…is what we get!” my own line leaves me abruptly restless. I remember all that I had desired of when I was in love. I suddenly connect with her and a lump forms in my throat. Moisture gathers in my eyes. I pull up the mucous rolling down my nose.

She hugs me tight and cries. My arm curls up around her tighter.

“Don’t cry Shriya…that’s way of life…don’t cry for someone who doesn’t shed a tear for you…” I appreciate my own line. Feeding your brain on romantic Hindi films through childhood, helps you cook such lines instantaneously.

She controls her tears. She had found it sensible. Sadness comes with a stark sense of humour. Upholding a sharp urge, I wipe her tears.

The tear strains on my cheeks surprise her. She wipes them for me. She kisses my cheek. Her breath draws a line of desire on my cheek. My hand on her back enrages the wild thoughts in me. I kiss her on her cheek in return. She looks at me bewildered. A mix of emotions gathered in her eyes.

I moved closer to her. She stayed unmoved. The burning desire in me takes me her to her lips. I touch them gently with mine.

(Contd.)

2. j

I try calling Shamita. Her number is busy. The epitome of irritation in inter-human relations is this. A busy number. In modern times, whenever you are at the peak of an emotional state, the first thing you do before contemplating over it is call up someone and bombard them with the excess emotions you are unable to hold within yourself. And at such times, the opposite person is always busy. The next situation when the ‘number busy’ message can be a prime irritant is when you need to desperately talk to someone regarding some imperative matter and you find the message arrogantly being spoken into your ears by some dame in a posh accent. Some crotchety souls also face an impulse to enter the phone through the voice hole and smash the messenger’s head with a semiconductor inside the phone.

“The customer you are tring to call is currently busy!”

Busy my arse!

I have a clear idea of the reason behind this. I try Preeti’s number. She doesn’t pick it up. She comes to the terrace instead. She is about to shout when she realizes that it is dark around. She picks up the phone then.

“Shamita??”
“Busy…on phone.” She shows it with a hand gesture. It somehow looks funny to me. A real phone in one hand and a gesture in another. I smile.
“Tell her I have to talk to her…and it’s urgent” I say.

It is the same when Shriya joins her. She waves to me. I wave back. She takes the phone away from Preeti. I wish it was bright. I would have enjoyed catching the look on Preeti’s face. It merely passes off as a frown in the darkness.

Hey…Ani Honey…what’s you doing here so late?”
“I should be asking you this”

Shriya is a localite. Just like Dilip’s girl Priyanka. Born and brought up in this crazy city. As crazy as it. That’s the reason, finding her at Shamita’s room stuns me.

“Night out!” she says giggling.
“Cool…how’s it going?”
“Boring!....Shammy’s stuck on her phone…and rest are planning to sleep!”
“Sad!” I just say that. That is the only adjective I can use for a night out like this.
“What are you doing?” She asks. I feel a mild tickle a few inches below my belt.
“Nothing…just wanted to talk to Shammy about something”
“But she is busy…now?”
“Now I will roam around, comeback and talk to her… and then go back to my room”
“Ohh kay…”
“Wanna join in?” There goes the indecent proposal in disguise of a boredom buster. I know the assent is on its way. It is not because she is bored. It is a feminine ego clash. And there is an analysis to it.

Analysis:
Shamita calls Shriya for a night out. Excited Shriya comes for a night out. They start having fun. They finish the dinner. And Shamita gets a call. Others expect it to end in ten minutes. It longs for an hour and doesn’t seem to end. They know who is on line. They murmur amongst themselves
Level 1: “Can’t she understand it’s our night out?”
Level 2: “Even we have boyfriends…if we want…even we can talk to them…but it’s a time reserved for us…”
Level 3: “Such a bitch…she spoilt the entire night out”
Level 4: “What the fuck does she think of herself?”

They all decide to go to bed bored and pissed off. Including Shriya.

Enter me.

Shriya’s mind: Bitch is still stuck with the boy on phone. I came here for her…and she’s showing off her man to me. Look here Shammy….I too have got a man now….I don’t need to wait for you to cut that call and entertain me.

“Could be” she says. The analysis is right.
“The roaming could be extended to an Ice Cream treat…” I raised my bid. I still had a last hundred in my wallet.
“Strawberry Surprise…” she says
“Chocolate Seduction…” I say.

She disappears from the terrace handing over the phone to Preeti. I request Preeti to tell Shamita that I would be coming back.

Shriya is at the gate in her night suit. A shirt filled with small teddy bear and matching shorts. He ego trip didn’t even allow her to change.

We start walking.

“So…how come a night out today….I mean tonight?”
“Wanted to live like you guys for a night…”
“And..?”
“Didn’t work out!”
“Well…it works out only when people know you are here…”
“As if it was going to be different”
“It could still be different…”
“How?”
“Ice cream…”
“Just that?”
“And a race too…because the shop would be closing by now”
“Now?”
“On your marks…”
“Wait…I’m not even…”
“Get set…”
“Ani…”
“Go…” I start running. She follows up. I run slow for her to catch up. She overtakes me. I run behind her. She runs faster. I get near her. I am about to over take her. We are at the shop. The shopkeeper turns the key and locks the outer safety grill.

“Fuck!” she says panting. She is sweating badly after the arduous run. She needs an ice cream.
I go up to the shopkeeper and request him for ice creams. He agrees without much resistance. The smile effect! Also if you provide a shopkeeper with a business of atleast one hundred and fifty rupees per day, he is bound to do it for you.

Two cones. Chocolate seduction. Dark chocolate with Chocó chips and Chocolate filling. Total chocolate. Total seduction.

I pass on the first cone to her. I open mine.

I am impressed” she says taking a bite.

“Me too…dunno how they make it so great!” Get cocky!
“I was saying that for you stupid…”
“Me too!”
“Shut up!”
Bulls eye!

We walk some steps with our ice creams. I walk by her side.

“That’s it?” She asks.
“What do you want?”

She takes a long pause. And then says….

(Contd.)

2.i

(Content Deleted)

2.h

One of my biggest handicaps at this place is an unavailability of a vehicle called motorcycle.
It is a two-wheeler with a motor between the wheels, which is run by an engine, which again is between the two wheels. But world would have been a lot better place if it had just been a vehicle. In this place it is a way of being.

People here don’t walk. They merge their feet with the vehicle. They make the wheels out of their legs and they walk, rolling them with horsepower. You need motorcycle to go to work. You need a motorcycle to go to the chowk. You need a motorcycle to go to the grocery shop. You need a motorcycle for your morning walk. You need a motorcycle to buy a pack of biscuits from the shop below your home. You need a motorcycle to eat on you dining table. You need a motorcycle to shit and then you need a motorcycle to wash it off your arse too. The local residents lived on the motorbike. And the migrant male students died on it. They rode their bikes day in and day out. From one end of the city to other. And then rammed it into a milestone, a truck or a tanker. And died on it. Female students managed to stay alive. They were always awed by machos who commanded these roaring machines and fell for them instantly. Or did they fall for the involved convenience regarding traveling, was a matter of reflection. But they merrily took up the role of pillion riders, keeping aside their otherwise feminist ideology and jumped to safety in such situations. They escaped with minor injuries like a fracture or a broken spine, which could be mended later. But they lived to see their flourishing careers and set up families. That was the circle of life. Some sadists amongst the survived women, also named their kids after the dead guys. This choice of name could be called ironic. Passing on the same fate of a dead man in your past life to your own child which is about to begin its life.

Being deficient of a motorbike narrows down the chances of getting a woman in this place. And not having a woman, brings down the chances of being sane in this place. Almost every arse here has a motorcycle seat to rest itself upon. Except some like me, who overcome this deficiency by maintaining strong relationships. Especially with people who have a motorbike but don’t have anybody to ride on the pillion seat.

“Harshad…I wanted your bike for a day.” I lit him a cigarette.
“Don’t ask for permission fucker…It’s yours”
“Thanks..”
“Dam??” He asks taking a puff from the lit cigarette.
“Hill Station”
“Ohh!....weekend??”
“I said a day bro…”
“Yeah…24 hrs…”He smiles naughtily.

That is the problem with the virgins. The thought of someone else getting laid, excites them more than the person getting laid. They will pull your leg. They will encourage you. They will give you concessions. They will exaggerate the situation. They will drive you crazy by showering goodwill. They will also imagine the scenes to themselves and enjoy them. Even jerk over it. They will praise you. They will respect you. They will despise you. They will bloat up the situation and burst it all over you. Even when it’s not the way they imagine it to be. Like now.

“Arey yaar…Shamita’s brother is coming there for a conference…she wants to meet him…have to take her yaar…”
He suddenly looses the mischievous glow on his face.
“Ohh…kay!” He tediously utters the word.
“When is it??” He asks spuriously.
“Day after tomorrow…” I answer.
“Arey I have to go to meet my Mama….when do you want it exactly??”
“No issue boss…will send her by train…will ask her brother to collect her from the station…” I speak before he ends.
“Arey…it’s not like that..”
“Chill dude….no worries!!” I throw a fake smile and punch his belly playfully.

I never guessed. I was not shocked. Not because he did it. Because I couldn’t guess that he could do that. I didn’t prepare myself for this. Complete failure. I had missed this line as I was chalking out the design. An important line. The darkest and the thickest one. Sometimes relations you maintain with people make you forget the obvious. The obvious way they could behave when you touched their delicate impulses. You forget that before they are whoever they are to you, they are individuals. Stand alone human beings with their true disposition. And when you scrape off the layer of your relation off them, you experience the true humans in them. The humans which you had been neglecting when you were busy living these relationships. Love, friendship, family or anything else, these primal instincts form the base for each of them. Just that we are unaware of them And when we come across them in these relationships, they purely shock us. Devastating us, destroying our faith in them. But the truth is, people are just being one their real self at such moments.

“Take it in the evening yaar…I will come back by three…I will bring it to you myself after that…”
“Its okay buddy…relax!!!” I say.

Harshad has a small arse. Or else I would have asked him to thrust his bike up his arse. Bhenchod!

Had Shammy not been a friend of mine in this situation, I would have made her fall in love with me. Got her laid and mailed him the pictures of us kissing each other passionately.
And If I had a chance to marry her, then I would have sent him five invitation cards, one for each family member. And would’ve had tweleve kids, just to call him ‘Mama’. Maternal uncle, their mother’s brother. I would have also asked Shamita to send him a Rakhi every Raksha Bandhan. Two of them to tie on two of his wrists.

But then I realize. Its not his fault. It’s his instinct.

2.g

I can feel gentle fingers pressing my eyelids. Still I guess it’s Rahul. I expect a knee in my spine. It doesn’t come for a long time.

“Guess” A feminine voice attacks my ears. I wonder for a moment that Rahul is attacking me in a feminine voice. I am almost saying, “No need to change your voice…” when I recognized the voice. Better late than never. I changed my words to “Shamita…stop it!”

“Fuck!...You caught me!”
“I hear that voice everyday Shammy!”
“But you don’t know the fingers!” she says.
“I would’ve!” I said to myself. Then I was entangled in my questions. Didn’t I? Or did I? I did secretly. But not the way the bastard Aman them. Was I secretly despising him? Or was I a feminist?

She sat before me. Late day charm. She picks the sandwich from my plate and takes a bite. I look at her. Such an overt act means the woman is happy.

“What happened?” I say snatching the Sandwich from her hands. Never let a married man’s girlfriend eat your Sandwich.

“Aman had called up….”

Tell me something new. He does that everyday. Thank god I took my sandwich back at the right time.

“What was (Bastard) saying?” The word Bastard was lost in chewing the sandwich. But trust me, It was there. Just that I couldn’t spit it out.

“He has an idea…” Yeah yeah! Now that he is married, he will have all sorts of ideas.
“What??” I am still eager to know.
“He wants meet me!” She says almost screaming out.
Yes. Why not! Are you sure that he just wants to meet?
“That’s nice!” I say in approbation.
“Isn’t it?....He’s coming to the hill station for two days for a conference…that’s when he will meet me.”

We have a Hill station close to this city. It is close to my city too. Of course, when the two cities are close, the hill station has to be close. But the point here is, being equidistant from both the cities, it is a preferred spot of the lovers from the both cities to go jaunting. Well, everything inclusive. We get cheap to exquisite hotels and romance is added free of cost to the climate. More than climate, it’s the sense of lone togetherness that makes it more quixotic.

It’s flocked with couples on weekends. And yes. Sometimes, some companies hold some conferences there too. Giving its employees a chance to meet their extra marital partners.

“That’s great!” I do say that. But I don’t exclaim the way she does. I merely say it for the sake of it. She probably doesn’t realize this.

“Yeah na???...But I have a problem…”
“What?” I was smelling danger here.
“I want somebody to accompany me there…” The danger was here!
“Take your roommates!” I say insipidly. I play a good arsehole at times.
“They are of no use…” Which means they don’t support her in this. That is an incredible quality of Indian women. They despise all those women who disagree with them. In such cases, only the view beholding women possesses sense and nobody else does. “Only you can understand yaar Anay…please don’t disappoint me!”

I remember that the seed was sown by me itself. Now if the sapling needed water, it would look up to me.

“Please” She held my hand. I felt a warm current running through me. I stole a glance at Sneha. She was staring at us furiously. Someone was going to have sandwich filled with mustard sauce. But the ignition couldn’t be ceased.

“Yes” I say caught between a rage, a temptation and an urge.

(Contd.)