Meet Me In the Middle

by Vani Mahesh

  To cut a long story short, Sameer paid five-thousand rupees to one of the men in Khakhi to avoid getting booked and Sanju came forty kilometres to pick them up. The next morning the Times Today magazine had published two rather flattering photos of Anu—one releasing a parrot and another looking in bewilderment at the horse on hind legs. The journalist had written about how Anupama Rao, an animal activist from Hebbal had got wind of animals in captivity and had come rushing in the middle of the night to release them. Anu was quite thrilled with her photos in the paper and duly bought ten copies of the same. Then she bought five more for good measure. She had to give them to a lot of people.

  Even after this crisis was over, when Sanju did not utter a single word of anger or disgust about that dramatic night, Anu felt guilt flow through her veins. When she was guilty, Anu’s brain turned into mush. So she not only agreed to see the houses in Hebbal but also promised Sanju that she was going to move. Why do women get on the guilt-trip so quickly? The destination of that trip is only disasterville.

  The coming weekends were plain dreadful for Anu when they had to drive a good twenty kilometres to look at the houses. Even after a month, they hadn’t found anything that appealed to both her and Sanju, some were too big for her and some not posh enough for Sanju.

  As they inched through the Yashwanthpur traffic yet again that Saturday afternoon, Anu kept quiet. Now that the guilt had faded, she had turned a little cold and sinister towards Sanju to express her displeasure at the house-hunting trips. In a bid to humour her, Sanju was trying his hands at small talk. Mind you, he loathed talking while driving. But Anu had gone all monosyllable in her responses to him. He asked her if they could have dinner after seeing the houses which she immediately turned down.

  After a few more minutes of silence, Anu glanced at Sanju, who was braving that horrendous traffic without a complaint. Again, very unusual of him. Although he didn’t fancy talking while at the wheels, he did curse the fellow drivers eloquently. Anu felt a twinge of guilt. Why was she making him so miserable and out of character? What is he proposing that was so evil after all?

  Anu touched his hand gently. ‘Hey, Sanju. Today we will finalize a place, okay? If it means so much to you, let us do it.’

  8

  ‘Sir, ma’am, a house won’t get better than this.’ The smooth-talking thirty-something real estate agent referred by Dave cooed dramatically, pointing at a Villa.

  ‘This house costs five crores to buy and two lakhs to rent.’

  Anu almost tripped and fell. ‘Oh, that is a bit too low for us,’ she whispered to Sanju eliciting a silencing glare from him.

  ‘But, sir, ma’am,’ the man was now purring. ‘You are so in luck. I can’t tell you how lucky you are.’

  You can stop repeating yourself. Anu felt her irritation raise. If not two lakhs, what is it? One lakh eighty thousand? Now that will be very affordable for us.

  ‘Let us look at the place, sir, ma’am.’ The man bowed dramatically like a butler in an old English household.

  Anu butted in. ‘Can you tell us how lucky we are before we see the place?’

  The man gave the fakest laughter she had heard in recent times. ‘No, ma’am, no! I want you to fall in love with the place first.’

  As they stepped in, Anu gasped. They stood in a living room as big as their current house. It had a wall-to-wall glass window that overlooked a lush lawn. The rest of the tour seemed surreal to her. It was like the villas the Greek tycoons or the Sheiks owned in romance novels. They strolled upstairs, and Sanju had forgotten to close his mouth. The agent disappeared for a few minutes to take a phone call, leaving them in the massive master bedroom.

  While Sanju sauntered to the French window, Anu finally found her voice. Her head spun from the tour. ‘Anu,’ Sanju’s voice had gone all husky. ‘This house is straight out of my dreams. I want to live here right this moment.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? This house is not where people live. This is where celebrities live! I can see myself turning this into a large messy junkyard within a month!’ Anu could not believe Sanju wanted to live in an unreal world like that!

  ‘Now, sir, ma’am,’ the agent walked in, and his addressing them thus started to grate on Anu’s nerves. ‘You have seen the house. Shall we see the property now? Verdant Green boasts of five pools, two tennis courts …’

  ‘Multiple clubhouses and at least ten five-star restaurants.’ Anu completed the sentence for him, with her best sarcastic smile. ‘Can you please tell us the rent?’ She could feel Sanju cringe even without looking at him. He was certainly going to tell her later that she was way too crass in the way she spoke. She did not care. She wanted to get out of there before Sanju fell even more deeply in love with the house.

  The agent flashed another fake polite smile. ‘Yes, ma’am. I was going to get to that. As I was saying, it is a six-crore rupees house and costs two-lakhs in rent. But the owner is relocating to Kuwait, and he is in a hurry to rent it out. So,’ he paused dramatically. ‘I can’t even believe what he is willing to accept.’

  Anu got up to leave; she had had enough of the man’s theatrics. Sanju could handle the rest of the drama. The agent blurted sensing Anu’s determined steps. ‘He is willing it to rent it out at one lakh! I can’t believe it myself!’

  Anu looked at Sanju, who had a silly smile plastered on his face. She genuinely hoped it was the smile of refusal. ‘We will take it.’

  ‘Sanju! It is a lakh a month! What do we eat after paying the rent?’ Anu didn’t care anymore that the agent was around. ‘We can’t—’

  Sanju cut her off quickly. ‘Ma’am is nervous for no reason. We will take it. Please draw up the papers, and we are ready to move in by the first.’ The first was only ten days away!

  ‘Excellent decision, sir. You are the first one that I have shown the house to.’

  ‘Why did you do that favour, sir? Why did you choose to like us so much?’ Anu asked the agent sarcastically. ‘Do we have a past life connection with you? For you to bestow this favour on us?’

  She knew the agent was doing his job, and she was being a complete bitch, but it was too big a shock to digest. How could Sanju decide on the spot without even talking to her in private?

  ‘Ma’am, I showed you the place because Dave sir referred you to me.’ Now the agent sounded pissed. So, was he going to withdraw his grace on them? She sure hoped so!

  But there was no such luck. The agent turned to Sanju and started explaining. ‘Sir, there is a small maintenance fee of twenty-two thousand a month.’

  Oh, that is very small! But Anu said nothing. All she wanted was to get out of there, settle on her cosy sofa in her small apartment and watch Friends. Why should everyone dream big? There is nothing wrong with small and easily achievable dreams like buy ice cream and watch TV.

  ‘Anu, I know it is a bit of a stretch for us. But I can manage. It is such a beautiful house. We deserve to live there. We will not be able to save much, but we can live a comfortable life.’ Sanju was now almost pleading.

  ‘I am not a finance whiz, Sanju. But something in me says we will be downgrading our lives with this upgrade. We won’t be able to afford even a decent dinner or a vacation if we pay so much in rent.’ Anu’s eyes started welling up. ‘Why do you hate our house? Is it because my dad gifted the apartment to me? I can change the ownership. Right away. I will make you the owner. Please let us stay here.’

  Sanju looked wounded. ‘Hey Anu, is that how much you have understood me? I have no problem that this house is yours. I want to try living differently. We are too young to settle down yet.’

  Before she burst into full-blown tears, Anu put on her shoes and stepped out. A good run might fill her with some happy hormones. She had to pour her woes to someone and who better than Kavitha?

  Abandoning the run, Anu walked with Kavitha digging into a bag of Potato fritters from their favourite street vendor. Managing not to burst into tears, Anu narrated her tale of two localities, the one s
he loved and the other she dreaded.

  Kavitha took the news much better than Anu had anticipated, at least for the first five minutes. ‘Anu,’ she spoke swallowing the fritter and taking a sip of Pepsi. ‘I will miss you, Anu. You know how much I love you. I love you more than I love myself, much much more than I love my husband. I love you as much as I love my son and my dog.’ She stopped for some extra effect. ‘But this will be good for you. You are a princess and you deserve to live in a castle.’

  Okay, that was the thing about Kavitha. When angsty, she became overly dramatic. ‘Go, my love. Go. Rule your kingdom in Hebbal. Leave this place for peasants like us.’

  Then she started sobbing. The good thing was, Anu in the process of consoling Kavitha, forgot her woes.

  Kavitha recovering after a good ten minutes scrunched up her face. ‘I feel queasy, Anu. From almost a week. As terrible as when I was pregnant with Adi.’

  Anu gasped. ‘Kavitha! Maybe you are pregnant again! Go get yourself checked.’

  Kavitha smiled in delight. ‘Oh Anu! I never thought of that. You are a genius! If you are right, my treat at Jake’s!’

  9

  Cliché, but the next ten days passed like ten minutes in Anu’s life. Even before she could properly lament her fate before Shwetha and Sameer, they were sitting on their old sofa in the new house, with their furniture looking like tiny lilliputs in that large space.

  Sameer had come along to help them move. The movers had done all the work. They had packed everything and now Sanju was instructing them where to offload everything. At first, Anu tried not to care what went where but then Sameer nudged her. ‘Anu, if you don’t tell them where to keep the stuff, you will end up moving the furniture around yourself.’

  That had made Anu spring out of the sofa quickly. Sanju was about to move her dressing table and clothes boxes into the master bedroom and Anu made a decision on the spot. ‘Move all my stuff into the next room, please.’ She always had a room to herself being an only child and she missed that pleasure after marriage.

  Sanju looked bewildered as if she was divorcing him. Anu smiled at him reassuringly. ‘Why share a room when we can have our own? Look, I am Ms Messy and you Mr Clean. Let us have the liberty to live how we want!’

  Sanju nodded but he didn’t look too thrilled. ‘But Anu, we cannot keep any room unkempt. You have to keep your things tidy.’

  ‘Sanju, relax. If someone wants a tour of the house, we will tell them my room is haunted so we have locked it shut.’ She liked the idea of her own room. Maybe she could begin to draw or write. She hadn’t done either in her life, but she could start now, right?

  Vicky seemed to be the happiest of all, riding his cycle at dangerous speeds all around the house. If Anu didn’t stop him, it was only a matter of time before he banged himself against a wall and wailed for an hour.

  ‘Vicky, come I will show you the garden outside. I saw a swing, I think.’ She was too tired to engage, but the kid needed to be stopped. When Vicky came bounding, Anu picked him up kissing his sweaty, reddened cheeks. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all …

  Deciding on lunch at the restaurant inside the property, Anu walked silently behind Sanju and Sameer. Her mind was a mess with thoughts. Thoughts she could not even distinguish anymore. Vicky kept going off the path into the lawn eliciting polite reprimands from the gardeners. Sighing, Anu picked him up. It was not easy carrying him but then at least she wouldn’t have to worry about him running straight into a giant lawnmower.

  By the time they reached the restaurant (a fifteen-minute walk in the sun), Vicky was asleep on Anu’s shoulders. Sanju settled him on a couch and the three of them took a quick look at the menu. Anu’s heart stopped. It was more expensive than a five-star restaurant! She was not cheap but having to pay five times the regular price for everything seemed highly illogical. She raised a brow at Sanju who was quickly placing an order without meeting her glance. She looked at Sameer who was pretending to be looking all around. He became a different person when Sanju was around, treating her like a stranger.

  Anu took in the scene around her. The waiters almost tiptoed and sophisticated-looking patrons talked and laughed in hushed voices. So it did look like a five-star resort. There were hanging pots, standing pots, statues of all kinds of Buddha, a small waterfall of recycled water flowing down like a curtain of white linen. To complete the look, the restaurant overlooked a gleaming blue pool with nobody swimming in it. She looked at the fellow lunchers—with the number of white folks all around, it almost felt like they were in a foreign land. The few Indians sat looking very posh and suave. Anu felt depressed for not dressing up a bit more. Then again, who expected this level of sophistication in a local restaurant!

  Anu tried to focus on what Sameer and Sanju were discussing. Something about mutual funds. Sameer was quite an enthusiastic investor and Sanju was still thinking about it. Finding their conversation utterly boring, Anu focussed on her drink. For having paid so much, she might as well enjoy it. The food was good too. She slowly started to forget about the uprooting of her life and began to unwind.

  When Sanju excused himself to the restroom, Sameer smiled at her. ‘Feeling better?’

  Anu nodded. ‘For now! Because of alcohol.’

  ‘It won’t be too bad, Anu. Once you settle down, you will like the place. It is like living in a resort.’

  ‘I liked my economy hotel of a house,’ Anu sighed. ‘But I will try not to make Sanju feel bad. He is already punishing himself for having to pay for all the nonsense here!’

  ‘You never make anyone feel bad, kid.’ Sameer patted her head from across the table. A few drinks later Sameer became a tad emotional. ‘You don’t object to things out of ego. Only out of your discomfort. People get that.’

  Anu smiled contentedly. ‘So you are saying I am egoless but self-centred.’

  Sameer raised his mug to hers. ‘Something like that.’ Anu clinked it.

  They walked back towards the house with Vicky still asleep but now on Sanju’s shoulders. Sameer had bid them goodbye right after lunch. He had paid for the lunch before they even had a chance to look at the bill. But that was Sameer for you—generous in both kind and cash.

  ‘I can foresee myself getting lost here multiple times,’ Anu said looking around. All paths looked the same. All the villas looked the same.

  ‘That is how you figure out a place,’ Sanju remarked wryly.

  ‘Sanju, sorry if I am being moody. This is hard for me, you know. I don’t cope well with change.’ Anu genuinely felt bad that she was unable to enjoy being in the lap of luxury. All because a fear lurked inside her that it was not going to end well.

  ‘You will be fine, Anu. We will be fine. Dave lives round the corner. We will visit him in the evening. My other colleague Smitha also lives here. You can call her if you need anything.’

  By the time they reached home, Anu was soaked in sweat. She longed to turn on the AC and take a long nap. But when they were arranging furniture, Sanju had repeatedly remarked how cool the room was. And how they would not need the AC at all there. The future expenses had begun to scare him already! So Anu had refrained from asking why he was sweating buckets if the room was so cool.

  The point was, he wouldn’t like it if she turned on the AC in their large master bedroom. The thrifty life she had dreaded had begun! Every room was massive in that house. Was there a smaller one that didn’t consume as much power to cool down? A servant’s room maybe? Finally, Anu decided to sleep in a ground-floor bedroom that was comparatively cooler. She couldn’t help notice how their two diwan cots had significantly diminished the beauty of that room.

  ‘Is there anything for Vicky to eat when he wakes up?’ Sanju asked putting him down on one of the cots.

  ‘You wake me up. I will make something.’ Anu yawned. She longed yet again for her old life that had Radha who would come and cook. She pined for her books that she always kept on the side table. Now except for the one she had in her bag, she had no clu
e where the rest were. And, she didn’t have her library next door anymore. The very thought was depressing.

  As the fan started whirring, it also started kicking up a thin layer of dust that had accumulated on the floor. ‘The owners got the place cleaned fifteen days back. Now please have it cleaned again before you move in.’ The realtor had smoothly palmed off a dusty house to them.

  As Anu drifted between sneezes and snoozes, she only had nightmares where she had turned into a full-time housekeeper who wore her hair in a bun and lived in a nightie, all day and all night.

  10

  Anu woke up to the voices coming from somewhere. At first, she couldn’t register where she was; then it hit her. The new house! And the voice was her mother’s! She almost ran to the living room. Her mother would make everything all right!

  Vicky looked happy eating his favourite Akki Rotti and chatting away with his grandma. Sanju was sipping coffee. Her father was inspecting a pillar that stood in the middle. Her grandmother who was generally pacing around was the first to spot Anu.

  ‘Anu baby! This is such a beautiful house.’ That was grandma; one who loved luxury in all forms.

  Settling down next to Sanju, Anu sighed. ‘Then stay with me, Ajji. I am sure we can fit you in somewhere here!’

  Her grandmother laughed. ‘I will stay with you, Anu. Soon. I have my kitty parties planned for the whole month.’

  Anu’s mother handed her a cup of steaming coffee. Her mother loved to take control of things, but not without making Anu feel bad. All through her growing up years, Anu’s room was perfectly made and her clothes always washed and ironed. But her mother mentioned every single day how messy the room was before she cleaned it up.

  ‘Anu, your kitchen is not set up at all to even make coffee. I have organized it a little.’

  Anu smiled. Nothing had changed between her and her mother. But she was secretly glad that her mother had this obsessive need to take over Anu’s life. Who cared about a few harmless reprimands here and there!