Of Course I Love You!: Till I find someone better…

by Durjoy Datta

  We entered her place. The lights lit up the room.

  And I froze, yet again.

  ‘I knew they would be here! I know this BASTARD. I knew they would be here.’

  The very next second I was ducking the savage punches Tanmay was throwing at my face. All I could see was Vernita shouting at Avantika across the room.

  ‘What did you think, Avantika? Why? What were you thinking? What the hell are you doing with him?’ Vernita rained a flurry of questions.

  I would come to know later that a friend of Shawar had spotted Avantika and me, and Shawar had asked Tanmay to check on Avantika. Vernita and Tanmay were smart enough to put two and two together.

  ‘Didn’t I ask you to stay away from him? This guy is a bastard, didn’t I tell you that? He is going out with Smriti and still sleeping with you? Why Avantika? Why? What were you thinking? You want to get back to your shitty life? He will do just that—fuck you and leave you. He has done that before and he won’t even think twice before he does that to you. And you, asshole,’ Tanmay said. He came charging at me and slapped me right out of my senses. He started punching me again. I ducked but he kept going at me until he got a few jabs right in my face. I cut a lip and started to bleed. He backed off seeing that. Going to the gym helps, I thought.

  ‘Yogi was right all along. He always said you were a selfish guy. You lied to me? Deb? You are such a bastard. I can’t believe it. I warned you a million times not to go near her, didn’t I?’ Vernita asked.

  Vernita was visibly hurt. But I still feel she overreacted. I could have done without her moral lecture. She wasn’t a nun herself.

  The high-emotion, high-energy drama seemed a little childish for me; it was a small price to pay to be with Avantika. Any price was a price too little. It was just that Avantika was crying now. I didn’t quite like that. Moreover, Avantika was old enough to decide whom she slept with, though I knew this wasn’t a point I could have raised.

  ‘Avantika, I didn’t expect this from you. Tanmay hasn’t slept for the last few days. He loves you more than he loves anyone and this is what you do to him? Lie to him? Do you think we are fools? For the last so many days, both your phones were busy. Did you think we didn’t know what was going on? Deb, didn’t I ask you to leave her alone? Didn’t you fucking think what would happen if we got to know about this? Fuck you, Deb, I can’t believe you dagged me in the back,’ Vernita shouted at me. Every time my phone was busy, she never forgot to ask whom was I talking to. I would take some arbitrary name and hope she would believe it.

  ‘Stabbed,’ I corrected Vernita. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do but everybody except Avantika did have a smile on their faces for a fleeting second, before Tanmay resumed.

  ‘Vernita, give me your phone. Let’s call Smriti. Right now.’ He walked up to Vernita and started dialling the number.

  ‘You are not doing that. I will tell her tomorrow,’ I said. I could have dumped her any time, but I didn’t want to do it like this.

  ‘Why do you think I care, asshole? You didn’t care about Vernita. You didn’t care about Avantika. Why do you think I would care about your girlfriend?’ Tanmay shouted. He spat while he did so.

  ‘Hi Smriti … Tanmay here … talk to Vernita, she has something to tell you,’ Tanmay had called Smriti and put the phone on loudspeaker.

  ‘Hi, Smriti. We came to Tanmay’s flat and Deb is here. With Avantika. God knows what’s up with these two.’

  ‘What?’ she said from the other side.

  ‘Yes. He cheated on you. He fucking lied to us and lied to you. Talk to your boyfriend,’ she gave the phone to me. I disconnected the line.

  ‘I hope you‘ll listen to what I am about to say, this time at least. This guy will destroy you. I don’t want you to be hurt again. It’s either him or me. Don’t ever talk to me if you intend to see him again. You have the night to decide. It’s either him or me,’ Tanmay said to Avantika.

  ‘Deb, it’s over. You are after all a bastard of a guy. You couldn’t even respect my boyfriend’s sister,’ Vernita said. She was crying too.

  They went into Tanmay’s dad’s bedroom and bolted it. Smriti kept calling me. Finally, I answered her call.

  ‘Why? Deb? Why?’ Smriti said as she broke down. Not again. ‘What do I do now? Why did you do it? Weren’t you happy? Why, Deb? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, Smriti. It just happened. I am sorry. You know things weren’t right between us. I wanted to love you, but then you were not making it any easier for me. It was not working out and you know that. Things were not the way they were before.’

  At this, Avantika came and sat near me and switched on the speaker.

  ‘Don’t you love me any more? Please say you do. I will forgive you. Please come back. I am begging you. I will love you. I will never let you down, I promise. Please don’t leave me, Deb,’ her sobs gave way to full-scale wailing.

  ‘It will be tough, Smriti. I loved you. But I don’t know now. We will remain friends. I promise. Our relationship was not working. If we don’t break up now, I don’t think we can even remain friends,’ I said. I felt the guilt seep in. But it wouldn’t go deeper; my body had developed enough resistance to fight against these situations. The friendship part had never happened, and I hardly ever cared.

  ‘Don’t give me that, Deb. Avantika? Why didn’t you tell me? Please come back. I need you. You can’t leave me like this. I can’t believe all this is happening to me. Please come back. You said we would work things out.’

  ‘I can’t, Smriti. Please understand. I know I have wronged you, but there is nothing that I can do now.’

  ‘Wronged? You bloody slept with her! Why? Deb, I am willing to wait for you. Tell me how long. When would you feel like continuing it? Give me a time. I will wait, damn it. We will start afresh. Please don’t go. Please don’t go.’

  This went on for hours. She cursed, she cried, she wailed, she begged and she shouted. I contemplated going back to her, but leaving Avantika was not a choice. Eventually, we broke up. She was in tears when we disconnected the line. It wasn’t as if I was untouched by her crying. We had been together for more than six months and I cared about her. It may not have been the handsomest of break-ups but maybe it came at the right time. She would now have an answer to her parents’ questions. She wasn’t bad, I thought. But Avantika was great, sexy, good-looking, smart and I loved her. You don’t let go of the person you love easily, do you?

  Avantika and I spent the night balled up in an embrace, looking into each other’s eyes.

  ‘So, what have you thought?’ Avantika said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Smriti or me?’

  ‘I have decided. It’s over with Smriti.’

  ‘And me? You think you can be with me? Do you even know whether I love you or not? And Tanmay?’

  ‘Yes. It hardly matters to me what Vernita or Tanmay think. As long as you’re with me. If you don’t love me, that’s another matter, but I am ready to wait,’ I said.

  ‘I think you should go back. It happened with me once. I can’t do this to another girl. It’s painful. Believe me. I don’t want to be responsible for her pain.’

  ‘It’s not you who did this. I did this. And this had to happen some day. It’s good that it happened sooner than later.’

  ‘But … I don’t know whether I have the strength to get into another relationship. You know what I have been through.’

  ‘I will keep you safe. I know it’s too much, too soon, but you can put your trust in me and I will not break it.’

  ‘I was expecting something more,’ she said.

  ‘Love you.’ For the first time I wasn’t getting anything for saying those words. I wasn’t unhooking or unzipping in a car with tinted windows. I was longing for her to reciprocate.

  ‘Love you, too. Thanks for everything, Sri Guru,’ she said and looked heavenwards and softly cried the night away. All calls from Shawar were dutifully rejected throughout the night. Some sixty-five of them.
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  I grinned the night away. I was in love! It had (supposedly) happened to me before, but it meant so much more this time.

  It was 20 May … the day that changed it all.

  Shrey looked around at the people lugging their suitcases in the trolleys outside the Indira Gandhi International Airport. It was roughly a two-month long trip to Paris and he was just carrying a single backpack.

  ‘Take care, Shrey.’ We hugged. I didn’t want him to go. Vernita wouldn’t be talking to me ever again and I would have no one to kill time with. I hated goodbyes and this was one very discomforting one. ‘Get me something from France.’

  ‘I will try. Actually, I am on a strict budget. But I will try and steal the university hard disks for you. Bye,’ he said as he disappeared behind the clearance gates. He wouldn’t be back before the seventh semester. Long time. Two damned months.

  After any of my relationships ended, I kicked myself for getting into it in the first place. I felt bad for the girl and made up my mind to never repeat such a thing. But then within a few days or months things were back to square one. The girl I had dumped would be smiling and I would be robbed of the guilt.

  Smriti was dumped. Though I couldn’t say I loved her, it still wasn’t very easy for me. For no fault of hers, I had given her a torrid time. Not only had I broken up with her, it was a terrible break-up. I had cheated on her. She wasn’t actually going through a great phase and ditching her wasn’t very sensitive of me. I cursed myself for it but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t intended to cheat on her.

  In fact, all this time I had wanted her to break up with me. For the break-up to be a mutual decision. I hated to think of her crying.

  Over the next few days, I couldn’t keep Smriti’s wails out of my mind, often pulling back from the brink of shedding a few tears myself. She was the only girl who had considered me a good boyfriend even after what I had done to her. I missed her. I missed her bugging calls. I missed her irritating messages. I missed being with her. I missed her imperfections.

  But I was with Avantika now. I loved her. I loved her ‘perfectness’ more. And I was sure this time.

  I was in a relationship. I was committed—not just in words, but in my actions too. But the most glaring fact of all was that I accepted this gleefully. This automatically meant I was unavailable, but it hardly mattered. I was neither single nor in any mood to be so. I still loved tinted car windows, empty movie halls and the like, but now the phone calls meant more than anything else. The short sweet messages meant more. Holding hands meant more than a lot of other things I had craved for in my previous relationships.

  Though it would have been a little strange for the people who saw us together. I am sure about what they had to say—‘Shit man, that girl is actually with that guy.’ Or ‘Damn man, the girl has shitty taste in men.’

  I was way too ugly to be with her.

  ‘Hi, Avantika. Where are you?’

  ‘I am on my way. Where will you pick me up from? I am about to reach Kashmere Gate,’ she said.

  Even though I had to eventually reach where she already was, we still met midway and travelled the remaining distance again. It gave us more time together; I hated every moment not spent with her.

  I had come to be very dependent on Avantika. With no Shrey and Vernita around, there was no one else I could talk to. Not that I even wanted to. Yogi and Viru had gone back to their hometowns and I found no sense in spending money on STD calls to discuss why girls from Punjab have better breasts.

  Where people were scrambling for internships that would see them through to great jobs, I spent my days with Avantika, trying not to think about the fact that I would not get any. I was faking my internship. Mom and Dad occasionally asked me where I intended to apply for a job when the seventh semester started. I could do nothing but avoid their eyes, brimming with expectations and enthusiasm.

  Avantika saw me through all my mood swings and there were many. Sad, for I had lost one of my friends … agitated, because another was away in France … jealous, for people were gearing up for their job interviews … angry, because I was letting my parents down … and worthless, as I was letting myself down.

  ‘Hi, Avantika, what a surprise! It’s been so long.’ We hugged as we met. Tanmay wasn’t talking to her any more. But she said he would be okay and the bigger problem was his ego and not me.

  ‘True. It’s been eighteen hours, I suppose, since we last met. Very long. We should meet more often!’ She smiled.

  ‘Where to?’ I asked.

  ‘North Campus, where else? Oh, wait! Take the Civil Lines route. There is a deserted place there. It’s called Bhoot Bangla. We used to go there often. It’s sealed now. It will be fun.’

  ‘As you say, baby.’ I always hated using terms of endearment, but things had changed now. And this was one of them.

  ‘So where is it? There?’

  Driving had become insanely tough now. She used to look at me while I drove and it was hard not to look back at her.

  We reached where she wanted us to. It did look like a haunted place. It was a modestly big clock tower surrounded by overgrown trees from an adjacent park. I remembered spotting it once from the metro. Big thing jutting out from a vegetated area reminded me of only one thing. Ugh.

  We climbed the fence and reached the main tower. It was locked. I was not a National Geographic lover and never did want to spread my arms and swirl around a mountain edge and try to fly. But the place was beautiful. And so was she.

  ‘So this is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘I see that I see nothing. I see that there is no one around. Which means that no matter what we do here, no one is going to notice!’

  That was enough encouragement for our frenzied hormones. We lunged at each other and within seconds, we were all over each other, searching for things inside each other’s T-shirts. She hadn’t quite left her wild streak at the Spirit of Living conventions. We were very much in love but who says you can’t be in lust too?

  ‘Hey there!’ a big voice boomed behind us.

  ‘Oh! Fuck!’ I whispered as we separated and pulled down our shirts.

  He was a huge guy. Or a small guy with a huge paunch. He was the most dreaded creature under the circumstances—dishevelled sparse hair, untrimmed moustache, red-stained and decayed teeth, and a pumpkin-sized face—the Delhi Police!

  The only thing worse than being caught pants down by your parents is to be caught by the cops.

  Not that it was within their right to do anything about it, but they always played the we-will-tell-your-parents card. Traffic policemen were getting richer by the day thanks to the exorbitant fines, so the others type of cops didn’t quite relish being left behind. It became expensive to get caught.

  ‘Sir, we are sorry.’ I almost broke down and bent down to catch hold of his feet. I pulled back just in time. Overacting wasn’t cool. As I was getting up, Avantika put her hand in my back pocket.

  ‘Sorry? What the hell do you think you are doing here? What if somebody puts a knife through you here? Who will save you then? There is nobody within a mile from here,’ he shouted.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Give your names and your addresses,’ he said as he came closer and sprayed bits of the betel he was chewing on me. He was still a metre away from me, the closest his paunch would allow him to come. ‘I will have to inform your parents about this.’

  Aww! C’mon! At least say something new!

  ‘Sorry, sir. We will never do it again,’ Avantika said apologetically. We will never get caught again. She was a natural, finding time to blow kisses and winking at me in between. Not to mention sticking her hand down my pocket and squeezing my butt again.

  ‘No, nothing will do. You will have to come to the police station with me. Give me your names. Right now,’ he said and whipped out his notepad. He was taking it too far. He went through the full motion of writing dow
n our names and addresses, not even bothering to look up our identity cards even once. It was a sham.

  ‘Sir, we are sorry. Can’t we just settle the matter here?’ she said in a cut-the-crap-and-get-to-the-point fashion, bent backwards and placed her hands on her waist. His big moustached face lit up. I was sure we were the first ones to get caught today.

  ‘No, that won’t do. Give me your names. Right now. You can’t be let off easily,’ he said, trying to make it sound like a big offence.

  ‘Sir … we told you we are sorry. Let’s forget it, sir. I am sure something can be done,’ she said.

  ‘I know how you kids behave. Your parents should be told about this. Let your parents come here and then we will decide.’

  ‘Please don’t do that, sir. Let us settle things between us. Why drag parents into this? Sorry, sir,’ she said. She was the man again. I would have sobbed my way out of that, with the same result. The act was over and it was time for some money to exchange hands.

  ‘Okay, if you promise that you will never do such a thing ever again, then I will leave you.’

  Oh. You fucking saint!

  ‘We promise, sir,’ we echoed. We were being preached at by someone who had unlawfully caught us and would unlawfully accept a bribe. Sweet.

  ‘Where is your car?’ he asked.

  ‘There.’ I was thankful the game was cut short by Avantika. It was getting boring and the stench of his sweat was getting unbearable.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said and asked me to follow. Avantika followed us. ‘How long have you two been doing this?’ he asked, as he climbed into the car, which seemed too small for his two-hundred-pound frame.

  ‘I …’

  ‘Anyway, how much do you have? Take out your wallet.’ He was getting impatient with the preaching.

  ‘Sir, not much. Plus, we are students, sir, and we don’t have much. It’s the end of the month …’ I said, as I brought out my wallet.

  ‘Show that to me.’ He snatched it from me. As expected, there were just a hundred bucks in there. I was shocked and impressed. Good job done, Avantika.

  Avantika was not squeezing my butt earlier. She was squeezing out the wallet from my back pocket and all the money in it!