EX

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  With bated breath, Neel slowly approaches the gents’ washroom. He pauses, turns back, and sees there’s no one around except Nivrita. Few people go past the washroom on either direction but nobody goes in.

  Neel enters the washroom. There’s nobody inside. Apart from the urinals, there are two toilets. Neel goes ahead and opens one of the two toilets’ door. It’s empty. He is about to unlock the other toilet door when he hears a sound. As if someone hit the door from inside. Suddenly he hears a girl moan out with pleasure from inside the toilet. Next he hears a male groan. Neel shuts his eyes tightly. He can’t take the moans anymore. He feels weak in his knees. Neel wants to die. He feels he shouldn’t have listened to Nivrita and tried to follow Titiksha. He will have to live with these moans haunting him for the rest of his life. Neel’s head is aching hard. He opens his eyes unable to bear the on-goings but sees nothing.

  There’s a sudden power cut. The disturbing rhythmic noises coming from the toilet stop with the power cut. Neel feels someone groping him all over. It’s too dark to see who it is. He wants to retaliate but can’t. He is pushed and he falls down. He feels weight on his lap. The lights come back on. He finds himself inside a toilet, sitting on a sink with Nivrita sitting atop him. She has her mouth pursed with his while one of her hand is pinching his nose. Neel is unable to breathe. He starts moving his legs vigorously, thus hitting the toilet door. The disturbing rhythmic noise starts again similar to how it was before the power cut, till Nivrita releases his nose. Neel is gasping for air now. He coughs feeling choked. He looks up at Nivrita who is standing now panting and adjusting her dress.

  ‘Wash yourself Neel. You are sweating way too much. I’ll be outside.’

  She unlocks the toilet door and moves out. Neel still sits on the toilet sink. Is Titiksha still there inside the other toilet? He somehow manages to stand up only to realize that his pants and underwear are tugged down till his knees. When did he strip? He quickly pulls up his pants and underwear feeling stupid.

  As he moves out of the toilet, there is still nobody in sight. He notices a mobile phone on the floor. The phone set has split itself open with the battery lying under one of the urinals. Neel picks it up. It’s Titiksha’s. So she indeed was inside the toilet fucking some dude! He wants to throttle Titiksha to death right now. If she is done with him, she should have told him. Nobody has given her the right to humiliate him the way she is by being involved with some other guy and giving him clues about it.

  This has to end. This will end! Before Titiksha terminates their relationship, he will do it himself. Neel decides.

  He goes to the washbasin and splashes his face with water. He pulls out some tissue paper and is about to rub his face when he notices something written on it with what looks like a black eyeliner.

  It says, If you are accustomed to see only black and white then you’ll never see me.

  ‘How did I get into the toilet with you? Why were my pants down? When did Titiksha move out?’

  It’s 9.05 pm. Both of them are on a boat floating on the river Hooghly. Nivrita has intentionally got him here because the first thing Neel told her after he came out of the mall washroom was, ‘Take me to a lonely place.’

  Thus they are here—at Princep Ghat—and she is rowing the boat herself. They are sitting by the edge of the two ends of the boat. Above them is the majestic looking Vidyasagar Setu.

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t remember!’ Nivrita replies. Neel, perhaps for the first time after he came out of the washroom, looks at Nivrita.

  ‘I only remember that the lights in the washroom went off.’ His claim sounds genuine. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘As I entered the washroom, there was a power cut but thankfully I got to you before you got to the door behind which Titiksha and the other guy was. In fact, they too came out of the toilet when the power cut happened.’

  ‘You mean the four of us were there in the washroom when the power cut happened?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  Neel thanked his stars. If the power had come then, what an awkward situation it would have been: Titiksha with the other guy and Neel with Nivrita—all inside the washroom looking at each other, clueless what to talk about.

  ‘You pushed me inside the other toilet. I think it was then that the two escaped,’ Nivrita says letting go of the oars. The boat now floats on its own in the river.

  I pushed her? Neel tries hard to think what really happened and says, ‘They escaped.’

  ‘Only you are to be blamed.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. Who asked you to be horny at that time?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why else do you think your pants were down?’

  ‘I tugged my own pants down?’

  ‘That you should ask yourself. All I would say is I enjoyed it. It was unlike you, I must say.’ Nivrita has her eyes fixed on Neel. He averts his eyes to the horizon ahead as if he is trying hard to remember what Nivrita implied, but in vain.

  ‘Can you for once tell me something directly, without puzzling?’ Neel is a little loud than he should have been. Even he knows it. To neutralize his supposed inappropriate behaviour, he says, ‘Please?’

  ‘How do I know why you tugged your pants down, forcefully stripped me half, and fucked me in the toilet? My guess is you got aroused listening to the moans.’

  What rubbish! Neel can’t believe what Nivrita just said. She is lying. Why? He doesn’t know. He would have never done something as wicked as that. He clearly remembers he was burning alive with anger and jealousy after he heard Titiksha’s moans. How can he make love to Nivrita in such a mental state? Neel is sure it must have been Nivrita who forced him to fuck her. And it was her, not him, who was aroused by the moans.

  ‘Did you….’ Neel pauses and then as if summoning some energy says, ‘Did you see the guy?’

  ‘Yes. Just a flash though because it was dark in there,’ Nivrita is quick to respond.

  ‘Was he good looking?’

  Nivrita picks up the oars again.

  ‘Why do you want to know? And how does it matter to you if the other guy was handsome or not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Neel knew why exactly he inquired about the other guy’s looks. Being a guy he can’t bear the fact that Titiksha is going around with someone better than him. It’s a below-the-belt blow for his ego. Neel laments the fact that he should have talked to Titiksha on the first day when he suspected her of having an affair. At least he would have spared his ego from suffering this incurable hurt.

  ‘Just tell me, was he smarter than me?’

  ‘Your ego is hurt, isn’t it?’ Nivrita says.

  Neel feels enraged. Why does Nivrita have to be right every single time? Yes, his male ego is hurt. So what? On the contrary, if he was told that the guy isn’t better than him, Neel would feel happy for Titiksha in a sadistic manner.

  ‘Alright. Could you please row us back now? I want to go to my flat.’ Neel is already having a slight headache. He doesn’t know why his parents have not taken him to the doctor in the last four-five months. He doesn’t have the medicine which he used to take for his headaches.

  Neel decides to spend some time alone and think about what he should do next. Talking to Nivrita seems pointless since she never answers anything the way he wants her to.

  Nivrita starts rowing the boat back towards the shore now.

  ‘One can’t love and be egoistic about it Neel,’ she says.

  ‘I am not being egoistic,’ says Neel half-truthfully.

  ‘Jealous?’

  ‘No!’ Half a lie this time.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Even my parents know Titiksha. We were supposed to get married.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘What would I tell my parents if she leaves me now?’

  ‘I think you are more worried about what you would tell yourself if she leaves you now.’

  This damn woman always gets it right! Neel thinks and says, ‘M
aybe. There has been an emotional investment of five years. I thought I knew everything about her. I thought we were meant to be together, forever.’

  ‘You know why people say “will you be mine forever”? That’s because deep inside we all are insecure. We are a lump of fear. We are shit scared of being so much in love with this one moment when the person we love is there with us. So we want to multiply the moment, fearing the unknown moments that will follow the special moment. Hence, we ask if we will be together forever knowing well ‘forever’ can’t be real. Tell me, do you know everything about yourself, Neel?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ It’s more of a stubborn stance than an assured one. He knows nobody can know everything about oneself. Hence, we need to fall in love and give ourselves a chance to know ourselves more deeply. And Neel is still in love with Titiksha.

  Is he?

  ‘Really? Everything? You knew you would sleep with a woman the moment you get a chance?’

  Neel’s lips are zipped now as he swallows a lump and listens to Nivrita.

  ‘If you really knew it and still continued to be with Titiksha, then I think you know who the real culprit is.’

  Neel crosses his hands placing them on his knees and digs his face deep in them. A moment later, his body subtly shudders as if he is crying.

  ‘Tears won’t help Neel. Tears never help.’

  ‘Then what will?’ Neel asks without lifting his head. His voice is broken.

  ‘Apologize to Titiksha.’

  It’s now that Neel lifts his head and asks himself: is he that brave?

  ‘Why do people cheat, Nivrita?’ he asks with a gaze of a sinner down with guilt.

  One look at him and Nivrita laughs out. The sound of it disturbs Neel as its echo hovers over the lonely river.

  ‘First tell me why do people love Neel?’

  Neel can’t take it anymore. His head is aching way too much for comfort now.

  Nivrita keeps rowing the boat with a still face, without poking Neel any further.

  Neel is back in his flat, waiting for Titiksha to arrive. He wants to talk to her about where their relationship is headed, and then take a decision. It can’t go on like this with her going around with another guy right under his nose. If she has to stay with the other guy, she better get out of his life. In fact Neel decides that the moment she comes, he will initiate an emotional battle, and charge her with infidelity. He will not tell her anything about Nivrita. He slept for business purposes but she slept for pleasure, and that’s why it’s Titiksha who has cheated on him and not the other way round.

  Neel’s conscience knows it’s a lie. He knows he’s being a hypocrite. His conscience knows he has committed something which is unpardonable. Infidelity anyway is a thin line between a physical act and an emotional one. He can’t deny that he is attracted towards Nivrita, and if she says he would again sleep with her. But knowing this, he still thinks Titiksha is to be blamed? Who is he trying to kid?

  The doorbell rings. Neel turns to look at the wall clock. 10 pm. He lets go of a conclusive sigh and gets up, goes and opens the door. It is Titiksha. She is wearing the same grass-green top he saw her wearing in the evening. No, Nivrita saw her wear.

  Titiksha doesn’t even care to look at him. She leaves her sandals by the door and enters the flat exercising her neck as if it’s hurting. Neel can’t guess if it’s intentional or not.

  ‘Who gave you the top?’

  Titiksha stops and turns to look at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This grass-green top. I never gave it to you. Who did?’

  ‘What’s with the attitude, Neel? Who did what?’

  ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that.’ Neel has his index finger pointing at her. ‘Just answer me.’

  Titiksha comes to him in a slow but sure pace and, placing her hands on her hips, stands looking intently at Neel.

  ‘Okay, I shall answer. But first tell me what were you doing with that girl in the hotel room in Jaipur?’

  Neel’s index finger slowly curls back to its original position.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know anything,’ Titiksha says with a mocking smirk.

  Lappan! That scoundrel must have told her everything, Neel infers from the confidence oozing from Titiksha’s face. He should have bribed Lappan more. But it’s useless to think about what he could have done in the past. He can’t change it. But if she knew it all along, why didn’t she question him on the first day itself?

  ‘I didn’t go to any hotel room with any girl.’ Neel’s voice has zero conviction.

  ‘You are such a…’ Titiksha turns and walks towards her room. Neel follows her.

  ‘It was a business deal, Titiksha.’ Neel finds her standing by the window with her back towards him, furiously arranging a Rubik’s Cube. That’s another thing she likes to do whenever she boils inside with rage.

  ‘Business deal?’ Titiksha pauses. The Rubik’s Cube is solved. ‘Go fuck yourself with a lighted candle.’

  ‘I’m serious, Titiksha. It indeed was a business deal.’ Neel is surprised to hear himself talk in a negotiable tone now. This is not how he had imagined the discussion to go.

  ‘If you were not in it with your heart, you would have told me the moment you were back. You hid it from me.’

  ‘And that’s why you are punishing me by screwing a random guy?’

  ‘Have you been following me?’ Titiksha asks and hurls the Rubik’s Cube at Neel, taking him by surprise. He ducks in reflex; it would have hit his forehead otherwise.

  ‘You dog! You have been following me!’

  ‘Yes I have. You compelled me to!’ This is the right time, Neel feels, to start the emotional blame game and turn the tables in a way that Titiksha feels she is sorry for what she did, and guilty too, and then perhaps she would do things the way he wants. For any relationship to flourish, one of the two has to be the emotional slave. ‘The day I came back, I saw you being dropped by a guy. You guys even kissed standing by the main door. Standing right by the main door of our flat! Don’t tell me you got a boyfriend after I slept with a girl. You were actually having an affair before I had even met the girl in Jaipur. And by the way, you have no right to be angry for you too have had me followed around Jaipur. I know Lappan is your man.’

  Titiksha comes to Neel and starts hitting him.

  ‘You idiot. I had asked Lappan to take care of you because you had gone out of station for the first time.’

  Neel knows Titiksha is speaking the truth. But he can’t get himself to accept it, because then his argument would have died a certain death. Instead he now knows Titiksha is totally caught in his emotional trap.

  ‘Stop it!’ he holds her hands. ‘I don’t want to live with a person who cheats on me. You have to choose either the other guy or me. It’s your decision,’ he says heaving a sigh of relief. Finally what he had been waiting for since he came to his flat is done. He has successfully made her wear the guilt-jacket and from now on, Neel knows, Titiksha will forget the other guy and be his emotional pet. That’s what people really like to do, isn’t it? Make their loved ones their pets though they never have the balls to accept it lest their egos get deflated. Neel has a problem with Titiksha dating another guy because she is his ‘thing’. If he considered her as a person who has the same needs and desires as him, then he probably would have understood that our heart is not a locality. It’s a world. And every world—every fucking world—has its continents, countries, oceans, mountains and…is it really love if it binds you to one country or ocean or mountain specific? For lack of better options, probably it is. Sometimes love is the most comfortable apparel to cover up the most uncomfortable rashes of desires.

  Neel waits for Titiksha to respond. Titiksha hugs him. Neel knows the hug is a clue to what she may be thinking.

  ‘I choose your parents,’ Titiksha whispers.

  Neel breaks the hug and looks at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I mean is I shall go to your pa
rents and tell them that you slept with a random chick in Jaipur and hence I am breaking up this relationship.’

  Neel feels agonized.

  ‘You won’t do that.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  ‘I will. If you try to boss me, Neel, I definitely will.’

  She will. Neel can read her resolve clearly in her eyes.

  ‘Why are you dragging my parents into this?’

  Titiksha leaves him and picks up her laptop. She sits on the nearby chair keeping the laptop in front of her.

  ‘They should also know what a cheat their lovey-dovey son is.’

  Titiksha averts her attention to her laptop. Her indifference, and an unprecedented arrogance has been the hallmark since Neel’s return from Jaipur.

  For some time Neel stands like a bird who is busy hatching while dreaming about her egg’s future only to turn and realize that there’s no egg. Frustration forces him to storm out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. He takes out a freezing cold bottle of water from the refrigerator and gulps half of it. As the cold water gushes down his throat, Nivrita’s way of humiliating her boyfriend reverberates in his mind. The frustration slowly gives way to an evil grin. Neel takes some time to calm down totally and prepares his mind for the humiliating assault that he will be having on Titiksha.

  Neel stands by the door staring at Titiksha. It takes some time for the latter to avert herself from the laptop screen to him.

  ‘What now?’ she asks.

  Neel tries to look seductive and says, ‘I am sorry baby. I want to make up for whatever bad I told you.’

  He comes close, shuts the laptop screen, and kisses her on the cheek.

  ‘Let’s sort it out the way we did in college?’

  Titiksha seems a tad surprised.

  ‘Well, I don’t mind.’

  She was fucking in the toilet and she still doesn’t mind doing it. In a way, Neel is happy because it only means the other guy didn’t satisfy her thoroughly, and hence her yes to him at this hour.

  He takes her by her hand and together they kneel down on the low lying bed.

  ‘One second.’