All bills shared, a common friend circle, extra effort to keep each other's interests in mind, a mutual and conscious decision to make each moment enjoyable and sex on demand. Make that good sex on demand. Sounds like a perfect relationship? It is. Almost. They say marriages are made in Heaven, And you're lucky IF you find The One. We say get smart and live as one, It's called live-in, and it's simply fun! Or at least that was the scenario some time back. Living-in was for people who did not believe in marriage, or who wanted to try things out before taking the final plunge or those who wanted to live together till the time they married. Basically, it was about two people in love, wanting to be together, with or without the desire to get hitched. And then something happened. Marriages that were fragile from the beginning, could not stand the strain of corporate pressures, increased deadlines, bloated expectations and no time to meet those expectations. Six months, two months, a year, three weeks... the 'I do' began taking much less time to change into an 'I won't'. All you got was unhappy people. And then someone, somewhere decided that to live with the person you love, you really don't have to marry them. So couples in love started living together. They were together, and yet unlike marriage, which by its very nature adds a sense of "you can't escape the situation" kind of inevitability to it, living-in seemed cool. All was fine with living-in till one four-letter word blew the lid of that utopian existance. Live-in started with Love and that's what the trouble was. If you weren't falling out of love after seeing the 'real' person you stay with, there was one partner suddenly wanting to get married, or wanting babies or suddenly thinking biological clock. Generally, love spoilt it for living-in because even without the marriage, love demanded some sort of a permanency. Even with living-in suddenly, all you got was unhappy people. The solution? Living-in without the love. Living-in together to share costs of survival. Knowing that you are not in love, but understanding and appreciating the differences and the similarities. Making conscious decisions to discuss what works and what doesn't. More than anything else, not talking love, commitment or anything else and simply being together till the going is good... But while there is lust, sex, fun and everything else... will this mean happy people? Or are we still waiting for that elusive Love (who we can marry or be with happily ever after?) and simply playing pretend games till then?

Would you understand love if it stared you in the face? How do they -- those who claim to recognise and understand love -- claim to do so? On what basis?

Every new association is a new nuance, a hitherto unexplored dimension.

The drawing closer of personal boundaries of compromise and yet a simultaneous softening or broadening of the ego to be able to see another beyond the 'I'. The appreciation of another's company and yet the fierce guarding of your own space. The other does it too. A promise of adventure and yet a borne-of-experiences hesitation to venture uninhibited. But perhaps 'inhibited' is too strong a word.

Growing up and maturity is the perhaps the ability to wait a little while longer before making the mistake. But have no doubts that you will make the mistake. Or is seeing an emotional bond as a mistake also a part of the same growing up and maturity?

Is love 'love' if it's physical too or has aspects of it? Or isn't that pure enough? Is love or does love incorporate looking out for yourself -- may be termed selfishness by the putirtans? Or does love have to mean losing yourself completely? Isn't that stupid?

Hell, when do you realise that whatever you are feeling/going through/expreiencing is not just a lucky spell but whatever-real-supposed-thing? What the fcuk. Such a time waste to be thinking about inane things.

What is love? A bloody time waste.

Who will answer these questions?
What makes Salman Khan the country’s most wanted celebrity today? The fact that he has allegedly been taped talking to some of the underworld’s men? Or the fact that he seems to be the only one stupid enough to have been caught?

Or the one unfortunate enough to have called his then-girlfriend Aishwarya Rai to discuss his issues, only to have their personal chat tapped?

Were the stars still in a relationship when their conversation was taped/ tapped? If they were still a pair when this alleged conversation took place, what was Aishwarya thinking?

“Your phone is tapped,” says Aishwarya to Salman in the Ash-Salman tapes.

Does that mean that she knew why his phone was tapped?

Was she alluding to the police and/or RAW being on to his case? If she knew that he had links with the underworld, why didn’t Aishwarya come out and inform the police? Or is it that she did inform the authorities and the latter have kept it quiet?

But if suppose Aishwarya had gone to the police four years back, why is a probe into Salman’s alleged underworld links being announced now? Why didn’t the authorities act earlier?

What was Aishwarya thinking?

Going back four years, one wonders, did Aishwarya know about Salman’s alleged underworld links when the two started dating each other? Did she know at all? But if she did not, how did she know that his phone was being tapped?

Isn’t it alleged that CBI members had approached her and told her they were keeping a tab on Salman? Did she believe them? Did she believe Salman? Did she tell Salman that he was being watched and tapped?

When she tells Salman on the phone that he’s being tapped — is it to warn him, or is it to extricate herself from what could turn into a sticky situation? If the two were dating when Salman made that call, why was Aishwarya being so monosyllabic on the phone?

If Aishwarya knew that Salman had a propensity to get into problematic situations and dangerous liaisons, why did she get into a relationship with him? When did she realise that Salman had so-called links with the underworld? And when she did, why didn’t she get out of the association?

Was it fear from Salman’s notorious ‘friends’ that kept her in the relationship? Was this fear the reason she was continuing with Salman’s ‘emotional, physical and mental’ abuse of her?

Or was it Aishwarya’s refusal to accept Salman’s alleged nefarious links that led to their relationship breaking apart? If that was the case, why again did not Aishwarya go to the police earlier? 
 
The dilemma of a woman in love?

Aishwarya Rai is India’s self-acclaimed international ambassador, but do her duties as a citizen end with posing on the red carpet and giving interviews alone? Isn’t she, as a celebrity, as a role model for people and as a star who sets examples (whether she likes it or not) responsible for doing the right thing?

If Salman is a ‘culprit’ for harbouring links with the underworld, aren’t people who knew about his liaisons, equally responsible (or guilty) as well? Aishwarya’s mentioning the phone could be tapped shows she knew or had inkling of what was happening, why then did she keep quiet when Salman boasted about his being ‘friends’ with the dons?

And why, oh why, did she keep repeating “Yes Salman Khan, no Salman Khan” on the phone? Did she know that that particular conversation was being tapped? Is that why she was being circumspect while talking? Is that why she seemed in great haste to wrap the conversation? But then why would she wait for it to be made public four years later? Or was keeping quiet about it just the natural reaction of a woman who did not know how to handle a drunk, abusive, self-destructive boyfriend?

Why did they break up? Did she leave him after she learnt about his dubious connections? If she knew about his links, why did she stick around?

What does a person do when someone close to them does something illegal?

Didn’t Aishwarya know that the police were on the look-out for links between the Industry and the underworld? Did she warn Salman? Had they discussed the ramifications of what his links could do to their relationship? Or did Aishwarya bail out at the first signs of legal trouble?

Was she right in leaving the one she loved (or we presume she did) and moving on because he was doing something wrong? Was the dacoit and murderer Ratnakara’s wife wrong when she told him she would not be party to his sins? Would Ratnakara have gone on to become Rishi Valmiki and write the Ramayana had his family not shown him the right way?

But then Salman is no Ratnakara, is he? But is he the only one answerable?

What happens next?

So the police is now investigating, Salman’s advocate denies the voice is his and Aishwarya is waiting and watching, but is Salman the only one answerable?

What about Aishwarya’s complacence as a citizen in not informing the police earlier? What stopped her back then?

What happens to Aishwarya now? Will she rat against Salman now? Will it be called ‘ratting’ or will it be her doing the right thing?

What if Salman was as much a victim of the underworld’s alleged calls, threats and abuses as many other top stars are supposed to be? What if Salman was not a willing accomplice and was scared?

Where does all this leave Aishwarya? At a time when she is trying to spread her wings internationally, will this debacle prove a hindrance in her career?

How long will she maintain her silence? What is going on in her mind right now? Was Aishwarya a hapless victim, caught between the police and her lover, or was she a participant, knowing the extent of her boyfriend’s involvement and yet keeping quiet about it?

And lastly, how much did or does Aishwarya Rai really know?

 

“Rescue me, help me, won't you reach for me, hold me, lead the way for me, show me, how to love?”

The lyrics of a song, and if you apply it to your own life, a very tall order for any man, or even human being to meet. But that's the thing about expectations.

You know, all that about finding yourself is making a weird kind of sense to me. But in the sequence of things, what comes first? The 'who am I' or the 'what do I want'? Because doesn't what I want make me who I am? Or do I want what I want because of who I am? Mmm.

Independence is irritating. Because the moment you are 'independent' people expect you to be a superwoman. Strange that there was a time when I wanted to manage all, handle all, be capable of all...

Have I really become that image I have always projected? The woman who can handle anything, endure anything, manage everything? Where did the woman who craves to be cherished, vanish? It's so strange.

And why is it that even when we have people in our lives who mean something we seek for more? There are people who 'cherish' me.

One finds me vulnerable yet unvanquishable and says that my instant messenger handles give him a daily high. The other thinks of me as this gorgeous, exotic or alien woman who he wants to protect but feels intimidated by as well.

Sigh. But I dont want to be alone. The hope to be cherished by the right person is there.

In fact perhaps that is my entire existence -- travelling and journeying, doing my own thing and yet having someone to share it all with me.

Why am I not like other smart women who can make men dance to their tunes? Correction. I can make men dance to my tunes... usually most of them have two left feet, so there.

Should I read all the 'wrong numbers' as sign that I am coming across too many things that rubbish the existence of a soulmate and compromise by sticking to a 'committment'?

Phew. Mumbled thoughts for sure. Is there somewhere one can apply for a soulmate? How many people  have found theirs and are happy? How many have given up? How many know they are not with their soulmates but are still carrying on with their relationships? How many such carry-on-couples are happy? How many are alone because they refuse to compromise and settle down with someone who is not his/her soulmate? Why do I want guarantees?

Why do I ask so many questions?

I stood on the new office balcony, pulling at the cancer stick, thinking about figures of the numeral kind.

The weather is still kind enough to allow one five minutes out of the airconditioner without the heat scorching up the skin. But what even an almost-pleasant weather cant control are the thoughts that sear the soul.

As I pulled and looked far beyond, the eyes resting on the silhoutte of a tall building, passing over dug up land and dry fauna that too will give way to more tall buildings, I saw two lone figures sitting amid all the dug up earth.

Two of the girls from office were sitting there quietly, talking, smiling, bonding. I was standing in the shade looking down at them from one of the higher floors and I wondered if they weren't bothered about suntan or the heat (under the sun it is hot).

And then I thought, Young girls, wouldn't feel a thing. Just enjoying some quiet moments away from work. And thats when something hit home somewhere... “young girls“.

When did I stop being a young girl? Just a couple of years back I was being called the “wild child“, the “untamable“, the one who would not be reigned in by conventions, a good worker but worked best when left alone, the one who would not stop at anything, for anything, who could do anything. And now suddenly my boss comes to me with problems, expecting solutions because he will get them, my colleagues come with ideas to make them work, with their problems for me to understand if not solve, because I will.

There's a new girl in office. After a long while am seeing a woman who knows she is sexy. Feels good to see women who are aware of their sexuality and more importantly, their sensuality. But...

No, I am not jealous, am far too comfortable with my own being (except perhaps for the tummy!) to be jealous... but... Another male colleague and my smoking partner happened to mention the new girl and how all heads (male and female) turn when she walks down the aisle. How she has oomph, and we laughed and discussed some other chicks (i can be quite the “guy“ at this)... and then he suddenly added, “You're not doing badly either“. I winked and said yes, I am downplaying my oomph. We laughed and exchanged see you laters till the next cigarette.

But my own words stayed with me. Am I really downplaying my natural self? The Husband keeps mentioning how my temperament needs to be checked, how I would have risen much earlier had it not been for my impulsive self. My mother celebrates my having “matured“. My father says I am more “responsible“. My juniors say I am more “controlled“.

What happened to the rebel? The girl who wouldnt bow down to anyone or anything? The girl who survived on Marie biscuits and a spot of sauce for months? The girl who went to office with a bag of clothes and a sleeping bag, not afraid, ready for anything? The girl who spoke her mind when she was sure she was right? The girl who had a thirst for the beyond.

Where is she? Who is it who stares back at me from the mirror? That girl was never scared of flaunting her mind, her being, her sensuality... why is this woman....inhibited? Is this growing up? She wanted to buy a motorcycle....rode around at 4am on Delhi streets on a borrowed Enticer....whatever happened to her?

Or is it just the Celtic music?

 

As the water poured over her in cold needles, she let her mind drift... drift to when it had all started. To the day she had received another letter....her mind drifted to 11 March, 2005... 

Flashback 

She sat thinking. Did she know the anonymous man? He was not important, but the fact that he had come into her mind unbidden, was. The man who had sent her that strange letter. Or was it a letter at all?

Dear Misha,

What goes on in that turbulent mind of yours?

To you,

Trips

And she drifted. Through the sands and the sands through her toes. Slowly, grain by grain slipping through, falling.

Falling like little drops off water that might trickle off a green, wet, leaf. A lead on a green shrub next a lilting spring that had gently whirling eddies — The sun glinting off them in many radiant rainbows with little baby dragonflies shimmering over them. Extremely Enid Blyton!

Forgive me. Practicality at times interferes with prose… or attempts at it. The mind though is quiet helplessly romantic (you wouldn’t catch me accepting that in a more controlled environment!)

But then suddenly, the mind is like a bumble bee, flitting over flowers, in step with Vivaldi’s Spring Allegro. Or is it the other one?

Then it suddenly asks — Why are you so mortally scared Misha? Or of who? Or is it what?

I guess your mind does not want to answer. Vivaldi is slowly picking up tempo. The mind runs, hurtling on ever unmindful of tragedies or sorrows. Hurtling, ready to embrace the head on collision with reality. Is that what you are scared of?

The violin is going crazy — striving, getting caught, being tamed, straining all along, trying to follow the composer’s mellow ways. But the angst! It quivers to a deafening silence only to rise in a rich alto again.

How many people thought why a car is called ‘Alto’, Misha? How and why should Harry and Hermione go the way Rowling wants them to? Do you wonder when you read your Harry Potters, Misha? What goes on in Rowling’s mind?

Once an author creates and gives her characters a personality, why should he/she have control over them? The characters have their own mind — provided the author is worth anything! And more than the author, if the characters are worth anything.

Why is the mind so scared of being left alone with its thoughts? Why does the mind want someone to be always there to share its thoughts with… by hook or by crook?

Why does the mind — in this case yours Misha — have any like-minded friends? Or has the mind just learnt to get into things and other minds peripherally and will then simply fade away into oblivion?

Are you scared of oblivion? Is that why you party with a new batch of people everyday, the party animal, the ‘life’ of a gathering, only to come back to your books and your single room?

Oblivion is not just a fancy word with you, is it Misha? Oblivion from hearts, minds, memories. An entry in an encyclopedia, nothing else.

I don’t want to get up to shut off the comp.

Are you scared of me Misha? The violin lulls to sleep…

She read the typed letter again. Some of it was quite, err, not right. Some of it was downright weird. But a little of it was shockingly true. Oblivion… how did he know so much? Who was he?

 

October 2004

Just then the phone rang...

She let it carry on its shrill call as she sat in just her T-shirt, staring at the message on her monitor. As she re-read it, she pulled her knees closer to her chest, and sunk in deeper into the leather. It was still moderately warm with winters still a month away, but the goose bumps erupting on her skin told a different story. She was chilled within.

Ok, I know you are shocked to see a mail from me. Now breathe. I know it's a year and a half too late. But I am sorry. It is not easy for me to be sorry. But I am. I am extending my hand in friendship. Will you?

The phone had stopped ringing, not that she had noticed. "Friendship" she read again and again. She was rocking gently, more like reassuring herself as she began to rub off the goose bumps, unaware she was doing it, hypnotised by that one word. The phone rang again. She went still, absolutely motionless, not even daring to breathe, something deep within her telling her she should not answer the call.
She did.

"Bo Peep", drawled the voice into her ear. She whimpered silently, biting her lower lip with an effort not to cry out and clutching the cellphone close to her ear, afraid she would flung it far or faint.
"Babe, you there? Talk to me."
"You...," she barely whispered.
"You got my email? Bet it surprised you. So when are we meeting?"

The ba-stard. The bloody ba-stard. She was shaking, with the effort to avoid screaming into the phone and with the sheer effrontery of the voice.

"I know you are thinking that I have some nerve to call you after a year-and-a-half and ask you to meet me. I have been thinking, babe. Meet me and I will tell you. Even if you dont meet me, I will meet you. I know you go for you salsa class every evening. Know what? I have joined too. I HAVE to meet you. I was wrong. Things will be better now. Trust me."

Trust me. That was very funny. She laughed.
"At the Barista in the market opposite IIT. Today at 5 pm. Does that suit you?" she asked, still laughing.
"You betcha! And why are you...?"
"I am laughing because you have not changed a bit," she said and paused.
"Oh no, I have... I have..."
"I meant that... in a positive way. I will see you this evening. Bye."
She hung up. It felt good to lie.

She looked at the clock on her wall - one that she bought for 150 bucks but which was a steal according to her. An oval frame in white metal, given a very rustic look with the srtaight rectangular hands that had Egyptian carvings. A steal, she thought as she lookd at the time, 3.45 pm. She had to bathe.

She took out her clothes, stripped off her Tee and picked up the towel as she walked towards the bath. As she crossed the mirror, she stopped. She looked at her naked body. Not bad at all. Except for... She touched the scar on her lower abdomen.... Ugly, ugly, ugly. As her eyes clouded over with some faraway thought, she forced herself to be calm.

So far and yet so near... I am meeting you again this evening, Raman. Again.

She looked at her phone and switched it off. She wanted an unhurried bath, she didn't want it to ring again. Not yet.

Also Read
Till Death Do Us Apart - Prologue
Till Death Do Us Apart - Part One
Till Death Do Us Apart - Part Two

The little things that make life.

The early morning alarm on your cellphone that you can so easily avoid by forgetting to keep the phone next to you. Feeding the fish, which refuses to recognise you no matter how many times you say "here, fishy fishy fishy". The maid who comes in late despite daily screamings and daily apologies. And the husband who despite having observed for a year and three months now, still cant match his socks with his trousers...And then there is office.

Leaves me quite bewildered at times -- where do I figure?

Am I the homemaker who has to keep everything in working order -- I fail desperately at keeping the rooms clean, no matter how hard I try, whenever anyone comes home, the standard line, a remnant of my bacholerette days, is still , "Sorry the room's in a mess."

Or the professional who has her work filed neatly into separate folders and can rattle ideas and stories and numbers without a moment's notice? The state of the desk does not hamper efficiency at work (or at home).

There are days when after a hard day's work at office, a hard evening's work at home -- i either dont want to go to work or dont want to come back home and work. And thats when i wonder if life was not much better when our mothers and aunts were considered extremely efficient if they had given birth to a couple of kids and brought them up well.

And then there are the big things in life.

The ambition. Do i regret it --- wanting to be a good wife and a good worker at the same time? Not one bit, just that it can be tiring at times. I want to run a smooth house and I want to be darned good at my work. I want that spotlight to be on me, I want to earn it. I want people to say that my brownies are the gooiest they have ever had and I want people to know that my work cannot be duplicated. I want it all.

I hunger for my place in the sun. I have nothing against those who just want to lead a decent life and be happy. But I want to lead a decent life, be happy, get famous, go places, be someone. I am very aware that without winning any award too, all of us have our designated niches in life.... but hell, I want to carve my niche... in stone.....

Why am i rambling about niche and a place under the spotlight? Because now I have been given the opportunity... and it is scaring me. What if I cannot? Will this opportunity -- like my attempts at keeping a "neat" living room -- be a failure? Hell, my living room is messy because i like a place to look "lived in" (my favourite reasoning). But this is the Big O. I NEED it. I WANT it. I will GET it. The Husband says that he cant understand me at times --- how i can love pottering away with my plants and burn with a desire to be someone at the same time. "How do you manage to think of owning the world when you are romping in your dangris?"

Because that is just me. Perhaps it is unreal to want it all. Sometimes it scares me too (like now) --- will I be on my deathbed and think, oh but I could have done that? Or will it be the other way round -- "I wish I had not wanted it all and concentrated on one small thing." But then who says you cant do it all -- or almost all? And who decides what is the small thing or the big thing in life? I want life!

I am writing to you, hey You Up There... thankyou for this chance....its a double edged sword yes, but watch me, guide me and be with me. I have to score.... and I will go and clean the living room too.

Nothing works like good advertising.

I was walking towards the ticket counter in one of Delhi's multiplexes, when a gang of giggling 20-something girls walked in. The customary greeting shrieks out of the way, one of 'em ladies said to another, "You are smelling really nice, new perfume?" The said lady replied, "Nah its the new pad I am using. It has herba-something that keeps the period-stench away," she said, patting her bottom.

I woke up and looked around. My goose-down quilt was hanging half-way down the bed and my husband was sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the bloody dream I had just had.

I immediately put on my glasses and tried to think (glasses and thinking not related). Why did I dream of a menstruating woman, talking about sanitary towels that promised to replace a deodorant?

Now I had read somewhere that what you dream in a particular night is a sum of things you have seen/heard/experience in that particular day. What and how you see it is the tricks of your subconscious. So I tried to think logically. The answer was no divine intervention.

I dreamt what I dreamt thanks to television. Earlier while watching one of the numerous talent hunt shows, I couldn't find the remote and had to watch this ad.

A woman wearing skin-tight, white trousers is shown walking in - what is presumably a cinema hall aisle - with her posterior sticking into the faces of the already-seated men. Friend of the girl in white pants asks her something about "being this close to people when she is having her periods." Girl's response? "Don't worry, I am wearing Stayfree Secure with dash-dash that keeps the period odour, out," followed by the super for the ad.

I am not a prude, I know advertising is (ostensibly) telling the audience/viewer/consumer what new products have been launched, and a sanitary napkin after all, is a product.

But this ad and the other pad-ads are going from informative to offensive. From the chup-chup-baithi-ho days to having bums thrust in your face. Disgusting. From showing the absorbant variety of pads to showing pads all crunched-up with use.

Inform me, for all you please, but please don't thrust the goddarned pad down my throat. I shudder to imagine the next step in informative advertisement (if such a thing does exist).

The innocuous 'blue' liquid will be replaced by red, after all it has to be authentic. To show that the pads are comfortable to wear, they will probably show a woman wearing one. Probably an ad on tampons too is soon to come, with a super saying, "easy to slide in" or something. And of course, since 'dogs and kids make any ad work', they will probably have a cute little boy saying, "Now I get chocolates even when my mom has periods, because she wears such-and-such pad and it keeps her in good spirits."

Or maybe I am the only one pissed off, and for lack of a better word, offended.

Stupid Cupid Chapter Six

To beat or not to beat

I have been on this beat for the last 6 months. ‘Beat’ in journalistic parlance is the supposed area of expertise. But I am not an expert. So why am I on this beat? Because I like wearing bright clothes and because “Do you know another fellow called Cupid?”

That was what my Editor said, Ed for short. He was a handsomely cruel man. And he had mastered the art of tongue lashing to such an extent that you felt it came naturally to him. he loved saying helplessly, “I know I am a snobbish motherfucker.” Only he could say MF. Only he could scream, “Use tact, you idiot.” And only he could say, “Know another fellow called Cupid? If only you had dimples to go with that mole.”

So I had been given this beat. Because Ed felt that I could make “inroads into the elite with my name and that mole.” Because Ed felt that he was “giving me a role to go with that mole.” Because Ed said that “with THAT name, this is your game.” He was not ridiculing me. All editors were supposed to be like that.

So I had to go out every night and cover parties. Mingle with Delhi's ‘social elite’ – by whose definition, it did not matter. It was a fact that the designers and the models, the models with their designs, socialite with equally social causes, liquor barons and political bigwigs, all formed this social elite. The party people. The page 3 people. The fact that we printed the page 3 news on Page 16 did not matter. It was an omissible fact.

It was on Page 16 that the middle class blended with the elite. Now while reading through a lot of dubious fiction – not your Penthouse, Playboy or panty hose variety, but the kind you would read voraciously, but that would never get you labeled as a voracious reader – it was in these novels that I came across the term “nouveau rich”. By definition, those families and people who were not ‘born into’ money, but ‘got into’ money. Now to middle class, money is money and rich is rich. But apparently rich and nouveau rich are two different leagues.

Ditto with the elite and the nouveau elite. The elite would be your erstwhile maharajas, with no state but stately titles, the impoverished polo princes who trotted on borrowed ponies and even your business families ensconced in numerous law suits. But the “real” elites I was yet to meet. It was said that they kept journalists or, I hate the term, hacks, at bay. Unless you were the editor of a national newspaper or magazine. Regional or bhaasha publications were considered low class.

So my dealings and writings were about the doings of the nouveau rich, or simply, the wannabes. They were elites because simply the newspapers had a Page 3 to fill up. Credentials were not needed, credibility was not considered, only the saleability of the news. This elite was formed of the lady who was in her third-marriage-ended-in-divorce. The dubious deejay who was the darling of every party and beat his wife at home. The transvestite who was elite simply because he was the first to come out of the closet. The model who was neither beautiful nor intelligent but could be ‘invited’ to every party by every halwai who could garner enough funds to open a restaurant. This elite also included the shady cigar dealer, who for the life of him could not differentiate between a Russian cigarillo and a Cuban one. And of course the many designers who could “prêt” their way into every party and every newspaper column.

I covered everything and we printed everything. From a pool party where everyone wore cocktail dresses, to a Jack Daniel’s launch where people ordered rum and coke, to cigar tasting where people choked trying to roll the fumes on their tongues. And that's where I met her. Tall, lissome, not beautiful but very arresting and the saddest pair of eyes I had ever seen....

Also Read:

Stupid Cupid Chapter One : Introduction

Stupid Cupid Chapter Two: Genesis

Stupid Cupid Chapter Three: Nomenclature

Stupid Cupid Chapter 4: Numerology

Stupid Cupid Chapter Five: Home is where the dirth is

March ‘02

Just then the phone rang...

She was lying on the floor, curled up. With each shrill note of the phone, her body shivered. Not violently, but a soft spasm traversed her small form.

She curled up further, drawing her knees even closer to herself, whimpering silently.

Blood slowly trickled from the left corner of her lower lip. Tweety was lying next to her, its little yellow feathered bum up in the air, face crushed into the purple rug.

Her jaw was aching. There were bruises on the inside of her right upper arm, just above the elbow. As the phone continued to ring, the dull ache in her head was intensifying.

Suddenly the phone stopped. She was so relieved. She began crying. But she couldn’t. The tears just wouldn’t spill.

Her face was all scrunched up as she let out a howl. It hurt her, it felt as if her rib cage would collapse inwards with the effort – but no scream came out. The effort to cry and scream exhausted her.

She curled up again and let out a moan – a monotonous sound emanating from inside her, her eyes staring up ahead at the upturned Tweety. She could not think, did not want to think.

The phone began ringing again. Suddenly, her arm shot out and snatched the phone that was lying on the pillow. She wanted to scream.

She answered and yelled,“What do you want?”

The phone had been disconnected. She felt anguished, she couldn’t even scream at anyone. She sighed. The phone rang again, vibrating in her hand. It startled her and she dropped the phone on the rug. She looked at it, the backlight was on, but she couldn’t see what number was calling her.

The screen had one single crack line running at its centre from end to end. There was a strange blackish liquid inside, as if the ink that made the digits and letters on the screen had spilled out.

I need a new phone. She was staring at the phone stupidly as it continued to ring. Where will I get the money from? As she thought about money, other problems started fading away.

There was a knock on her door. Her brain freezed and all thoughts fled. He had come back. What do I do?

Raman opened the door slightly and entered the room, taking in the scene. The table lamp was on the floor, the shade separated from the stem as if someone had wrung its neck. Books were scattered, the cover of Harry Potter torn from the book, the front page had spots of blood on it. Raman didn’t give those things a second look. He looked at her, sitting with her knees tucked under her, head hanging, a drop of blood hanging from her chin, falling on her chest, to be replaced by another drop.

”Here, got this for you,” he said. She looked up with a jerk – not at him, but what had been offered. It was a Five Star. She didn’t move, except for her blinking and staring at the extended chocolate bar.

”C’mon, take it. Friends now?”

Slowly she looked at him. “Get out of my room,” she whispered hoarsely.

“What did you say?”

She pointed towards the door.

”Now look here, what happened was a mistake. I want us to be friends. Take this. Eat it and clean this mess. Chandan will be coming back today.”

She snarled then. The anguished, angry cry of an animal trapped. “GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” she screamed and picking up the cellphone, threw it at him. He ducked in time and laughing went out of the room. The phone had smashed against the wall and was lying open. The screen shattered. She looked at it.

Just then, the phone rang…

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Till Death Do Us Apart - Part One

Chapter 5: Home is where the dirth is

However, if I was tortured at school, home was bliss, comparatively. My parents were good people. They had adopted me when I was 2 ½ years old. News was out that an orphanage in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, also the birth place of the legendary Kishore Kumar, had an angelic baby boy up for adoption. “Even his name is that of an angel,” was circulating by word-of-mouth. When younger, I used to thank adults and the phenomenon called word-of-mouth. I thought both were very nice things. But that was then.

I don’t have too many recollections of my early years. Just what was filled in the many forms as I shifted homes. Just some snatches that I am not sure of and that seem like borrowed memories.

For instance the case of my feeding the pacifier to a white cow. I presume it was white, because black would have made it a buffalo and brown spotted ones you only see in Hollywood movies, like the Sound of Music. That was the first time I was beaten. My then parents believed that kids should be taught the value of money right from the beginning.

And my first plane ride – I don’t remember the plane, just a round circle and fluffy, white things through it. I think I was staring out… so there was a time when I was not scared of heights. Then I remember be standing next to the vendor outside school in Calcutta – looking at the miniature Thumbs Up bottles. Every kid had one such bottle. I had asked for one too. That was the second beating. It was 1984 and satellite TV and the Cola wars had not yet arrived. Years later I had my own miniature bottle collection. But it didn’t matter anymore.

No one knew Pepsi then, but James Bond and Spiderman were household names. They would visit us on Sunday evenings, on Doordarshan, in black and white. I remember Spiderman swinging from building to building and me humming the title song – Spiderman, spiderman, friendly neighbourhood spiderman,” the rest of the song I couldn’t understand but simply hummed along.

My earliest memories of James Bond were Sean Connery – I learnt the actors name much later – running from some goons, entering an aunty’s room, getting into bed with her, kissing her on the mouth to dupe the goons, and once they left, jumping out of the window, straight into the hotel pool, with another aunty wearing her undergarments. Mom had shut the TV at that precise moment and had called me an evil child.

After that was the evening my father said I was going to have a baby sister. I also got a new room. The servant’s quarter, the second bedroom being converted into a nursery for the new baby. But I was excited. Once the baby come, I asked a lot of questions about it and Mom always developed a headache when I was around. The baby cried a lot too. So I was asked to be a good child and never come out of my room. It was goodbye Spiderman till 2003 with Toby Maguire, but I didn’t know it then.

I stayed with my first foster parents till I was 6; that’s when my sister came. I don’t remember much about my last day with them except that I was eating a parantha, the baby had gone really red.

I am told that my mother was in the kitchen when she heard the infant howl. It was not the usual I-am-hungry bawl of the baby. It had just been fed. Mom came charging into the room, saw me licking my fingers and looking at the baby, puzzled.

“Did you hit the baby?” asked Mom.

“No.”

“Why is she crying then?”

“I don’t know. I was having parantha with pickle when it looked at me and with her mouth open said “Aa, aa”. She wanted some pickle, so put some mango pickle in her mouth. Then she started crying.”

I remember by mother screaming and shaking me. I don’t remember if she hit me. But I was hospitalized. All I remember is her saying, “You are a bad boy. Bad blood never goes away.”

(End of Part One)

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Stupid Cupid Chapter One : Introduction Genesis

Stupid Cupid Chapter Two: Genesis

Stupid Cupid Chapter Three: Nomenclature

Stupid Cupid Chapter Four: Numerology