Part-Time Devdaas... (25 page)

“And I love you,” I stared at her with love-struck eyes. “A lot.”

“Cheesy sala, come here...” she pulled me close and bit my cheek. I held her close.

“How’s office?” I asked.

“Oh that reminds me, where is my phone?” She hopped off the bed.

“It’s fun as usual,” she said as she rummaged through her purse to find the phone. “Ah, finally!”

“What are you doing?” I sat up folding my legs.

“Putting up a mail for tomorrow’s leave. I wanna spend as much time with you till you are free.”

“Hrida, wait.”

“What?”

“I have to tell you something.” The bitter reality came back.

“What’s wrong?” After a brief pause, she asked again, “Hello? What?”

“Rizwan fired me last night.”

“Shit! But why?” She sat on the bed.

“I kinda screwed up.” The rancidness of humiliation resurfaced as I told her what happened.

“What an asshole! I can’t believe he pushed you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“How can someone be such a dick?

She climbed up and sat facing me folding her legs.

“I think it’s something to do with me, people just hate me.” I stared at her cuspated fingernails as I pressed my thumbs against them to inflict pain.

“I know how you feel right now. Had I been you, I might have killed myself. You are still doing good, I’m proud of you.”

“I thought I’d learn something and find some footing after this job, but all I did was clear dirty plates and get nowhere. What’s worse is that he fucked me in front of all the contacts I made, so even if they give me a job, I’ll always be the guy who got publicly screwed by Rizwan Qureshi.”

“Oh come on, lose the crap. No one remembers.
b
ig deal man, you lost one you’ll find another one.”

“You know I thought I’ll never have to lie to Mom and Dad about anything again, but now I have to.”

“So don’t lie, tell them what happened.”

“What do you think will happen then?” She looked at me blankly.

“Last thing I need right now is a I-told-you-so lecture from Mom.” I was so frustrated that tears poured out of my eyes without permission.

“Arjun, listen to me.” She pulled my head up to level with hers, “What happened has happened, you cannot undo it, it was your fault but you didn’t deserve what happened, and this possibly is not the last time something like that will happen. I mean come on, it’s the industry, it is known to do cruel things to people.”

“I bloody burnt myself for two years to get it.” My tears continued rolling out.

“I know that job meant a lot, but that’s not what you want to become in life. You’ll find another that will inch you forward.”

I nodded yes wiping my tears. “Come here!” She pulled me to hug. I dabbed my nose with my sleeve to wipe the snot away.

“I love you,” I said.

“This is gonna cost you much more that a plain love you,” she said planting a kiss on my cheek. “Yum,
thoda namak zyada hai
but I’ll make do with it!!” She goofed.

I held her face with my shivering fingers and rested my nose on hers. The dumb heart of mine as usual began its somersaults as my lips brushed hers. It had been four years with her but I could never figure what about her turned my life upside down. The effect that she had on me was inexplicable: one look, one smile, one kiss from her is all it took for the internal architecture of my body to crumble. I shifted my hand from her face to her hair for the grip and kissed her upper lip. Shivers ran down me as she reciprocated by nibbling my lower lip. I slumped on the bed and she slid herself on top of me. She pinned my hands and tussled with my t-shirt to kiss my collar bone; a while later, in a fit of excitement, she pulled it off me and threw it on the floor. My eyes squinted as she came closer to kiss me. I unzipped her dress, unhooked her bra, and held her down by her bare back. The smell and feel of her body rubbing against mine created an everlasting trance.

“Please stop...” Hrida whispered to me as I began to undo the rest of her clothes. I was so god damned zonked out of my mind that I didn’t pay heed to her request, though now I wished I had stopped. What started as gentle snugly comforting intimacy turned into wild primal wanting. My eyes stared at hers while our bodies moved in sync. Finally the thing I had saved myself for from all the girls in my past happened. I lost my virginity, but somehow it wasn’t the way I imagined it to be. It was far from a good feeling. Knowing that Hrida didn’t want it, filled me with guilt more than any kind of pleasure. A part of me broke as I saw tears seep away from her eyes after we were done. I had asked her to trust me blindly which she did, and I blew it up. She awkwardly responded as I stretched my arm to hug. I prayed that Hrida was ready for whatever happened and I had not hurt her, but prayers are not always heard.

Next morning, I woke up to an empty bed. No message, no note from her.

She was gone.

Shit.

7
:30. I checked the clock when the blaring sound of the alarm woke me. I snoozed it and went back to sleep. It had been three months now that I moved in with Gayatri, and that meant I could afford sleeping an extra hour every day. Traffic in LA no more bothered me since I could walk to college and could party as long as I wanted, without the sword of commuting back home to Artesia hanging over my head. After Radhika’s baby had come, her place was always buzzing with her in-laws and guests, making it highly tiring to live there. So when Gayatri suggested that I share the apartment with her, I readily agreed.

The alarm went off again, finally forcing me to pull myself out of bed, but sleep refused to leave my eyes. Only coffee can help now, I told myself and sauntered to the kitchen. I was so sleepy that I wished I could walk with my eyes closed.

“If it’s coffee you are making, then I’ll love to have some too.” A heavily British accented male voice said startling me so much that it threw me off balance, leaving me grappling for grip on kitchen platform.

“Who are you?” I asked irritated.

“Eric, I…I was with your roomie last night,” he said.

“H-hi...” I said and half smiled.

Going by his partial nudity and freshly minted hickeys on his body, he was definitely not just a friend of Gay.

Shit! she was cheating on Aneesh with this gora. Maybe not. Gay wasn’t one of the girls who’d stray. He could just be her friend, or… Shit!

With all the random thoughts whirling in my morning mind, I handed Eric a mug of coffee.

“Why are you still here?” Gay asked as she walked out of her room.

“I have to have a coffee in the morning to help my bowels,” Eric said animatedly.

“OK, whatever, just make it fast. I have to go to work.”

The guy took his time to leave. Gay meanwhile ran on the treadmill, behaving as if he was invisible.

“I thought you were working today?” I asked, realising her treadmill run went beyond her usual schedule.

“It’s Saturday na today, beta.”

“Ya but you told Eric you had to, so I thought...”

“Oh yes his name was Eric, I was trying to remember.”

She said panting “I lied...”

“OK.” I had an intense urge to ask her about what she was up to with the gora, but it was none of my business. I got back to my workout. Yes workout. Another good thing that happened after moving in with her. I had initially evaded it, but Gayatri’s persistent nagging forced me to give up. So much was the persuasive power of her nagging that she harrowed me into quitting smoking as well. But I had no qualms about it. I never felt better.

“You suck at telepathy...” she said.

“Huh?” I said pausing the push-ups, sweat dripping off my nose.

“I had to read your face to know...”

“Know what?”

“That you are itching to shoot me down with your questions,” she said as she jumped off the treadmill and caved in on the couch wiping her sweat. I sat on the floor folding my legs. “So?” She asked.

“So... Umm... I don’t mean to intrude.”

“Skip the preface please.”

“Who was the guy?”

“He was my attempt to give my body the physical attention it needs.”

“You mean you slept with him behind your boyfriend’s back.”

“Wow, when you put it like that, it feels like I’m a premium quality slut.”

“I’m sorry I…”

She began to giggle.

“It’s alright, but yeah, it’s pretty much what you said. Just that Aneesh knows about him and others if I do that.”

“But I thought you guys loved each other.”

“So?”

“So ideally are you not supposed be loyal to the person you love?”

“Ideally. Not when you stay five thousand kilometres away and meet only twice a year.
v
ideo chats don’t satisfy you sexually, you know. Sex and feelings are mutually exclusive.”

“Then why be in a relationship? Stay single till you find someone who lives closer.”

“Love?”

“Your concepts are a bit ridiculous...”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Look, all my life the society preached me to save myself for the one true love, and when I found him, I have to stay away from him. It’s been five years that we’ve been living away from each other. I am thirty-two and he is thirty-five and by the time life is gracious enough to bring us together, our bodies will be menopausal.

“So quit your job and go stay with him.”

“Both of us have slogged our asses off to get where we are today, so giving up on either one of our careers is seriously stupid. We tried breaking up, but that didn’t work. We kept getting back to each other every time we tried, but this open relationship thing worked for us.”

“Ya, but doesn’t it bother you?”

“At first it did bother us both, but now we’ve gotten used to it. If we had an option, we would have taken it but there isn’t any, and sex with different people doesn’t lessen our affection for each other. We are as much in love as any other couple. It’s just sex that we outsource.” She shrugged.

“Plus, it’s not as if we’ll be like this forever. For now, we are happy with this. We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it.

“Honestly, it’s too much to process.”

“There is nothing to process... it’s just sex.”

“Hmmm... Who was the guy anyway?”

“Management trainee.”

“Looked pretty gay.”

“I know. Aneesh said the same thing.”

“When did Aneesh meet him?”

“Ahh...”

She blew out air and took a dramatic pause. “Well, we have a ritual. Before and when we do it, we send each other snaps of the person...”

“Are you guys for real?” She took a bow. I laughed.

“Family is supposed to welcome the guests and not otherwise.” Radhika said standing in my way placing her right hand on the door. The baby in her left arm blocked the other side.

“Sorry, I got traffucked,” I smiled.

“Language... please... around the kid at least?” she said and handed me ‘The Niece’ and dragged me deeper into the dense forest of the guests.

Good food was one of the many perks of coming back to Radhika’s house. Not that I couldn’t take care of my sinner stomach but years of diligently standing besides ‘The Mother’ while she cooked brushed off some serious culinary skills on “The Sister”. So the buffet that was laid graced such a variety of dishes that the watering mouths could fill enough buckets to bathe the whole of Los Angeles. The occasion was the sixth month birthday of the eight pound piece of flesh – my niece Kiara. The name was a bit wannabe for me, plus naming your kid after a cartoon character was supremely lame, but Radhika had fought off my disapproval and went ahead with the name.

As I roved my eyes around the party, I found nothing interesting. I looked at the decorated house, bunny shaped cake, delicious smelling buffet, enthusiastic neighbours, their riotous kids, desi relatives of Viren attempting an accent, lame birthday party games. Everything but what I was looking for – alcohol. Food, soft drinks and confectioneries weren’t exactly my definition of a party. If it wasn’t for the tutu-wearing baby Kiara, I would have made a run for it.

“What beta, you are not taking anything only? Your mother will think we
derived
you of food here?” Deprived, Kamal Aunty, Radhika’s mother-in-law meant, “Take, take, how will you get
allergy
(energy)?”

“Yes I am. I am, wait I’ll help you with the gravy,” I smilingly said.

“Oh, no no beta, I am a
vegetable
(vegetarian).”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know.” I can speak Marathi too, Kamal Aunty, I thought of adding.

“By the way, beta I’m sorry the girl break your hard (heart).” What!! My sister’s mother-in-law also knew about my devastation over a three-year-old break-up!

“But you don’t worry, you are so young, I will find you a suitable groom (bride) here in Amreeka. And that too with a green card.” She winked at me as she left.

I suddenly felt like all the eyes in the room shifted their focus on me, staring at me sympathetically. Had I become that guy who needs help to lead a normal life? I thought I was doing good with the moving on in life. I probably needed to exhibit my happy emotions a bit more openly.

Smile fool, smile. I told myself.

“What’s wrong with you?” Radhika asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You are smiling.”

“So, is that a problem?”

“No. Looks like you are faking it.”

“Oh god! You need to stop dissecting every little thing...”

“Tell me when you are done pretending everything is alright.”

“Everything is fine!”

“You probably think no one notices, but you’ve changed, Poncho...”

“Ya, because you can’t be the same person all your life.”

“I didn’t mean it in a good way.”

“What is wrong with you all of a sudden?”

“Because the person that I’ve been with in past one year is not the brother I grew up with. It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to me about what happened with Hrida, but you need to talk to her and get a closure. You think I don’t know why you came here? Running away from Mom, Dad and everyone who loves you is not going to bring you peace. Arjun, throwing tantrums is not going to bring her back.”

“Tantrums? Are you seriously kidding me?”

“Speak to her and sort your life when you go back, Arjun. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Speak about what, Didi?
I
broke up with her. I am not going back to her. It’s the one thing I’ve promised her and I’m keeping my promise. Mom was right. I had to accept we were not meant to be together and I finally have. Don’t worry, I’m fine...” I lied, but the last part of my argument finally scored Radhika’s silence.
w
hen in an argument, quotes of people your opponent worships always help you win.