When I bought a
bike a few months later, I gave rides to all my friends, but she
was afraid to sit astride. She had never sat on a bicycle even, she
said. I asked her to ride side-saddle but she laughed away the idea
saying she didn’t want to look like a village belle. All the same,
I kept after her and one evening, after study hours at the
institute, she agreed to try it once our classmates had left. I
brought the bike alongside a high pavement, and gripping my
shoulders as though her survival depended on it, she swung her
right leg over the saddle, letting out a whelp of surprise on
finding out it was so easy. We rode to the library deep inside the
campus but couldn’t find another high pavement there and I had to
twist around and hold her under the left arm to help her off. Her
cheeks were flushed after the ride and there was a touch of
embarrassment in her laugh, perhaps because we were alone, away
from the others, on a dimly lit street, or was it the unaccustomed
physical closeness? I felt very awkward myself and hoped she
wouldn’t notice.
I had feared it
would be our last ride together but she liked it so much that we
started riding around the campus more often, whenever she had some
work or I an excuse. One day, I asked the others if they were game
for a trip to Tughlaqabad Fort, a sprawling ruin with a bad
reputation on the city’s outskirts. I really wanted to see it
because its walls have a rugged appeal that Purana Qila matches to
an extent but Red Fort lacks entirely. By then, they had grown
bored of monuments and only one agreed to go. She.
I picked her from
her hostel in the morning. It must have been early February, I
think, because there was no fog yet both of us were wearing thick
jackets. She didn’t crack a joke on seeing me and patted a small
bag she had slung across. “Sandwiches,” she said. I still used to
look away when she got up on the saddle with one hand on my
shoulder but she didn’t seem uneasy anymore. It should have been
clear to me that day that she loved me, for why else would a woman
offer to go see ruins swarming with goats, urchins and worse at the
edge of the city, alone with a man? But I was so convinced of her
superiority, utterly blinded by the belief, that this possibility
did not enter my mind.
It was a long ride
and the air was cold. Her gloved hands were on my shoulder but I
also felt her head dig into my back to keep the wind out of her
eyes, and all the way I wished it were something more than
necessity that made her do it.
We walked a lot
that morning, went over every remaining pillar and arch inside the
citadel of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, then walked across the road,
up a causeway and into his splendid tomb, and from there, across a
rough stone-covered ground, to a smaller fort called Adilabad built
by the sultan’s successor, Muhammad bin Tughlaq. At times the walls
and stones in our path were too high for her and I had to haul her
up, but I did it dutifully, mechanically, determined not to betray
my feelings by sign or word.
***
After that
trip, I knew I would have to tell her. I reasoned with myself that
not telling also amounted to deception. It was very difficult, of
course, but I attempted it in a roundabout manner. She called it
B-A-T-B: beating about the bush.
We were sitting in
our amphitheatre after lunch, enjoying a rare blue sky and warm
mid-February sunshine. The other three had gone to return books to
the library. I started confidently since I wasn’t going to reveal
my feelings at once.
“I need your
advice about something important,” I told her, and she was all
ears. “Say, I have something precious, very dear, something that’s
good and I dearly value.” I had to stop because she burst out
laughing. “Sorry, go on, just don’t be so theatrical,” she said
patting my shoulder with her fingers. She always kept a tiny
handkerchief pressed into that palm with the thumb. Then my heart
beat quickened. How could I avoid the roundabout manner when it was
the safer path to truth?
“I’ll try,” I
said. “So there’s this great thing in my life. And then there’s
something I wish for that could make it even better. But there’s a
risk in trying for it. I might not get it, and if I don’t, I will
also lose what I have. What should I do?”
“I don’t get you,”
she whispered, her eyes trying to penetrate my soul, “I wish you
would not talk in riddles.” I chickened out. “Forget it,” I said
hurriedly and looked away, “you know how muddled my mind is. Just
forget it”.
“No, I don’t think
you are a muddlehead,” she said but didn’t press me then.
She had divined
the truth already but needed to hear it from my lips. A couple of
days later, we were walking in the lawn after class hours. The sun
had set and the sky was awash in an orange-pink dye. The breeze was
refreshingly cold and bracing. “Did you find your answer?” she
said. “To what,” I asked evasively. She stopped and looked at me
with arms folded purposefully. “Don’t fool around with me.”
“With you, never,
impossible,” I said grinning.
“Have I told you
you have an ugly grin?” she said.
“More than a few
times,” I said laughing.
“Out with it now,
what is this thing you want?”
It was a short
enough answer if only I had the courage to say it: “You”.
But I waved my
hand and tried to wriggle out with what seemed to me a plausible
answer. “Oh, it was about my bike.”
Her dismayed look
forced me to lie more. “I love my bike, you know that. I was just
thinking of adding fog lamps to it, but what if they damage the
electricals?”
“You wanted
technical advice from me! YOU!”
I saw the folly of
my tack. “Forget it, please, it’s nothing, and why do you
care?”
“But I do, and I
want to know it now.”
I stood silent,
weighing the possibilities and grinding the grass with my heel.
“Let’s sit somewhere,” I said at last. She led the way to a bench
under a fluorescent light, and we talked.
“Promise first
that if you don’t like what I say, you will laugh it off and not
feel hurt or angry ... You will not allow it to stand between us,
ever.”
She knitted her
brows and nodded slowly. This was certainly no laughing matter for
her.
A couple walked
past us and I remained silent till they were out of earshot. Then I
began: “You are the best friend I have had in years. I value your
friendship very much. I wouldn’t want to lose it for anything”.
She had shifted to
the edge of the bench to better watch my face as I veered closer to
the truth, and seemed to be holding her breath. At that moment she
looked more beautiful than ever and I found myself losing courage
till she whispered: “Don’t stop”.
“I love you,” I
said and then sat petrified. Would she cry, yell at me, walk away?
Better shout than walk away. Just stay, do whatever you want to but
don’t leave me, I prayed, silently watching her.
She shifted back
in the bench and crossed her arms. Now she wasn’t looking at
me.
“And?” she
said.
“And what?” I
said.
“So, is that all?”
she said and burst out laughing.
I felt silly,
embarrassed.
“Yes. No, I
mean...”
“You expect an
answer?” her voice was stern and cold and I was very uneasy till
she laughed again and ruffled my hair. “Don’t be silly. I am way
older than you. You don’t want people to call me a cradle snatcher,
do you?”
“Never mind
people, tell me what you want.”
“I like you, but I
don’t think it will work. You will change your mind when you go out
of the institute in another month.”
“Maybe I won’t.
Try me if you don’t trust me.”
“I will think
about it.”
It was more than I
had expected and I was happy. When we walked into the computer lab
after that I noticed she was beaming and friendlier than usual with
the few classmates who had come in to surf as the internet speed
used to go up at night.
She never said “I
love you” in the four weeks we were together till our final exams,
and I would have laughed had she said it, because it wouldn’t have
been like her at all. But we both understood and felt that
something had changed after that evening. We became a group of two
in our already small group of five. The others understood, it was
clear, but never mentioned it. We started spending most of our
evenings together. I used to walk with her till after dark. We
talked about our folks, she had an extended family she was very
fond of and I was happy to hear their tales, rather her singsong
laughing voice.
I had been placed
before the final exams and took them easy, but she was edgy through
them because she was counting the days to my departure. I had to
leave the morning after my last exam but delayed it by a day to
cheer her up. That was the day we hugged in my room. And then,
early next morning, I left for home and did not see her again these
past 26 months.
***
There was more
rumbling and grumbling on the street below. The curtains had begun
to glow with the light outside. I checked my watch, it was 6am, and
the time to sleep had passed. She might be stirring in bed now to
rush to me, I thought. Maybe she had not slept a wink, in which
case she would be grumpy and I would have to be careful with what I
said, or did.
She had promised
to be with me by 8am, but I felt sure she would come sooner. Then
the front desk would call me, and I, what was I to say? Send the
guest up, or ask her to wait in the lobby? How could I ask her to
wait when she had rushed across town just to be with me? But what
would happen if I asked her to come up? Just another hug?
What would we do
before she started asking me questions? THE question. We would hold
hands, for sure, and hug impetuously. That was a given in the
privacy of the room. And then, a kiss? After all, we were lovers
meeting in complete privacy. What would she make of me if I just
ushered her in and sat down to talk as though she were an unwelcome
neighbour? Yet, wouldn’t it be better—safer for me—if we sat at
arm’s length on the bed that I hadn’t slept in? Would she remark
that and laugh? I felt weak, and unsure, faced by the imminence of
her arrival.
I shut my eyes and
tried to think hard, see just how our meeting would pass. Would she
resist if I pulled her down on the bed wrapping my arms tightly
about her? Or would she mind if I didn’t? Would her womanly
instinct warn her to be on the guard about our relationship if I
behaved with reserve? If only she would make the first move! But
that was unlikely. I couldn’t imagine her entwining arms around my
neck to smooch and then pushing me down on the bed to ... No, that
would only complicate matters, although, to come so far and deny
both of us that which we both desired was a shame as well.
I checked the
time, it was racing when I wanted it to pause.
Okay, one last
time, I told myself and went over the possibilities again. Hugging
and kissing was inevitable and I was certain to commit an
indiscretion or two besides, which she would pardon indulgently.
But what after that, when she brought up the question? THE
QUESTION. How would I say no—not that I was planning or wanted to?
But come, let’s drop this pretense. If I had to say yes, I would
have said it long ago. I simply wasn’t going to marry at 25. Now I
saw it clearly: I did not want to get married. And then, I worked
the meeting backwards from that answer and realized that it would
be best to make her wait in the lobby. Better still, I could check
out early and go wait for her, so that there would be no
awkwardness about the room awaiting us upstairs.
And so, I washed
quickly, brushed my clothes straight and came down to check
out.
***
The lobby was
two steps lower than the rest of the hotel reception and along its
walls were arranged blue velvet-upholstered sofas. Sunlight
streamed in through the fixed glass windows and the light outside
was already whitish rather than yellow. It was going to be a very
hot journey back home. I picked a sofa directly under an AC vent
that also gave me a clear view of the entrance and settled down to
wait for her. Unusually for a hotel, the lobby did not have a TV.
There was a screen, of course, but it ran a news ticker instead of
video, and I liked it because it was less distracting.
It wasn’t a big
news day and all the breaks were about such and such minister or
business leader saying something or the other. My eyes followed the
rolling lines but my mind kept going over what could have been. Now
that I had handed over my keys and checked out, and closed all
possibilities, I felt a yearning for her. For the first time, I
found myself thinking of the body in which my idol resided. I had
known a few before, but they were all younger, shapelier and more
supple than hers. I baulked at the thought that the soft and plump
form I had worshipped for two years was probably sagging and
shapeless when not bound up in denim and elastic straps. I peeled
off the layers and saw folds of flesh, a round belly, loose breasts
that weren’t the orbs of poetry but pads, thick arms that spread
under their own weight on the bed, a dimpled backside, a waist that
didn’t narrow. I hadn’t ever tried holding it between my hands. I
shuddered to think what it would turn into in a few more years, and
then I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me. Thinking
about sex, rather imagining sex, can make a person look very
stupid. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to read the news more
carefully. Then, catching my chin in a cupped palm I returned to
bed, with her.
I tried to start
from her toes, because they showed fair and shapely through her
sandals, and her laughter rang in my mind. Long ago, I had joked to
her that I formed my first opinion of women from their feet rather
than face, and she always teased me about my foot fetish
afterwards. I remembered then that I had not loved her for her
looks but for her honest heart and capable mind. It was wicked to
dissect her body like this. And then I saw her standing in the
doorway, hesitating.