by Durjoy Datta
‘And yet, they are with you, willing to change their books for you. Aren’t you a witch?’ said the girl and winked at Jayanti.
‘Witch is one of the better words that have come to describe me.’
‘Don’t forget me when you successfully make Daman into a Karthik Iyer clone,’ said the girl.
‘I didn’t think we meant to remember each other,’ said Jayanti. Just then their drinks came. As they walked back, Jayanti put her hand on the exposed small of Shreyasi’s back. She wouldn’t have stopped at that if they were back at her place. She would have pushed her on to her bed.
‘I get lonely when my husband travels.’
‘And when he doesn’t?’ asked Jayanti.
A smile passed between the two of them. They spent the rest of the night together.
19
‘Did you read it?’ asked Daman, too excited to sit.
Daman’s fingers still ached from all the typing. The pain was sharp in the first week and he would have to dip his fingers in hot water to rest the joints. But by the second week it had reduced to a slow, niggling thrum. It was like a little taste of arthritis before time. He had typed furiously for a fortnight, hunched over his laptop, leaving his writing post only to shit and bathe and collect food from the door. He hadn’t visited his parents or seen Avni. He had switched off his phone and all his calls had gone to voicemail. He hadn’t checked his mails or Facebook or Twitter. The newspapers lay stacked and untouched in the corner. The kitchen stank from the mould that had gathered over the unfinished pizza slices. Once finished, he had read and edited and rewritten endlessly till his ten-page synopsis of the sequel to The Girl of My Dreams read like a story. After running a spelling and a grammar check, he shot it across to Avni.
He couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about it. ‘I did,’ said Avni. ‘It’s very good.’ She stared at her coffee, stirring it.
‘You don’t have to lie. It’s only an abstract. I can still juggle a few things around. What’s wrong with it? If you can just tell me I will mark it out.’ Daman took a pad and a pen out of the drawer and sat next to Avni. He scratched out NOTES in a scraggly hand on the page.
Avni took the pad from his hand and kept it away. ‘I’m not a writer. Whatever I say might not be of any value.’
Daman took the pad again. ‘But you are a reader and that matters. Now tell me?’
‘Daman. I should first probably apologize. You’re a good writer and I should have read your first book earlier. The synopsis was brilliant.’ She smiled.
‘Are you serious?’
‘I loved it. Apart from certain stretches which I think can be made crisper, it was extraordinary.
I wanted to read more.’
Daman saw Avni’s eyes light up when she said that. Daman didn’t think her words would matter as much as they did. He felt confident, happy.
‘But then I read it over and over again,’ she said in a small voice.
Of course she did, she’s a stickler, thought Daman. No wonder she took so much time to revert.
‘I also read a few other books in the same genre, books that have sold millions of copies worldwide and have good reviews.’
‘You did that for me?’
‘Of course I did. Who else would I do this for?’ She smiled and put her hand on Daman’s.
‘Anyway, I made a list of things I thought worked for me in those books and what didn’t. I picked the books that were closest to your genre and I made some notes. I will mail you the other points.
But there’s just one glaring problem with the book and I know you’re going to flip when I say it.’
‘What is it?’
‘Shreyasi.’ Daman rolled his eyes. ‘See, you’re already getting defensive. Hear me out . . .
Don’t walk away. The girl Shreyasi isn’t the problem.’ Daman turned. She said, ‘The problem lies somewhere else.’
Daman’s face darkened. He pulled a chair and sat down.
‘I read The Girl of My Dreams as well. Both the book version and the one in the posts. Do you know some forums have all those posts? Anyway, I never thought I would say this but I actually liked Shreyasi’s character. She’s fun, she’s crazy and the main guy seems to be in love with her. It’s all a little mental but it works.’
Daman was surprised to see her smile; it was hard to digest she was the one who wrote a scathing review of the book a few months ago.
‘Then what’s the problem in the sequel?’
She sighed. ‘The guy doesn’t seem to be in love with her. The first book was perfect. But the conviction seems to be missing in the second. I read through the synopsis over and over again. I thought I was being biased because, you know, reading your boyfriend’s name with another girl isn’t every girl’s dream. But I loved the first book, the posts, everything. All that is missing in this synopsis of the second book. Daman isn’t in love with Shreyasi. It couldn’t feel it at all. It felt like you’re trying too hard. It just feels a little clunky. The character is still brilliant, it’s their relationship that’s the problem. It feels a little make-believe. Maybe you will iron it out when you start writing the chapters.’
She’s got it right, thought Daman. This thought had bothered him as well when he wrote the synopsis. The first few days he had been sporadically distracted by thoughts of Shreyasi. He had battled, often fruitlessly, to not think of Shreyasi’s face when he wrote about the character. He had thought he had done a decent job keeping the real person and the character separate but it looked like he had failed. There’s no conviction because Shreyasi is back and I’m not in love with her, he thought.
‘Is there anything else?’ asked Daman.
‘Yes. Now I was thinking about the book over the past few days and I might have found an answer to the Shreyasi problem.’ Daman leant forward. She continued, ‘Keep Shreyasi as she is.
Don’t change her. Let her be in her own space but add another character. A nice girl. Beautiful.
Lovable. I’m not saying you have to love the character but put it in because people will like that.
Think of it like an insurance, even if they don’t like Daman and Shreyasi in the book, they might like Daman’s new best friend. What do you say?’
This would please Jayanti, thought Daman. For the next half an hour, Avni sold him the idea even better than Jayanti could. But what do I do about Shreyasi? Why the fuck did she have to come back? Avni pressed on.
‘It’s not that bad an idea,’ said Daman. ‘All I need to do is make the main guy like this new girl and we are done.’
Avni blinked at him. ‘I have thought of a name as well for the new character. It starts with an A.
Just saying.’
‘Oh, c’mon.’
‘What? That’s the least any boyfriend could do!’
‘Fine. I will think about it,’ said Daman.
An hour later, Avni left Daman so that he could start rewriting the synopsis with two aims in mind—to make the love story of Daman–Shreyasi credible and add a new character, Avni. The first few sentences were tough. After thirty minutes of tapping around unsuccessfully, he started writing about Avni. It came easy to him. The character Avni, the supposedly perfect girl—loosely based on his girlfriend—was sweet tongued but opinionated, wily but cute, ambitious and successful, and she was in love with the main guy. He spent the next few hours writing feverishly to fuse Avni into the storyline without changing the DNA of the book. It was morning by the time he finished writing it. The first thought that came to his mind was what Shreyasi would think about another girl stealing the thunder from her. After unsuccessfully trying to shake that thought off, he logged into his mail and checked if Shreyasi had mailed him in the preceding days. And there it was, buried between mails from Amazon, Flipkart and every website he had ever made an account on, a mail from Shreyasi.
From : [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Hi.
I hope you do a good job with the s
ynopsis. Don’t disappoint me. Don’t listen to Jayanti or Avni. Do justice to my character and our love story. That’s all I ask for. Best of luck, baby.
Shreyasi, The Girl of Your Dreams
Well, fuck her, he thought and went to sleep.
20
‘Is she there yet?’ asked Avni.
‘She’s stuck in traffic. Where have you reached?’ asked Daman. ‘You better reach here before I sign the stupid contract.’
Avni laughed. ‘You will be okay, Daman. I will reach there in fifteen. I can see a constable staring right at me. Bye.’ She disconnected the call.
Daman kept the phone aside and buried himself in the book he had brought with him. He had been on the same page for long, reading and rereading a certain passage when his concentration, or the lack of it, was punctuated by the sound of the chair scraping against the cold, hardwood floor.
He looked up. Before he could form a sentence, Shreyasi had already slipped into the chair, her bag was on the table, and she was sitting cross-legged in front of him.
‘You?’
‘C’mon. You can’t be completely surprised to see me. I’m sure a day doesn’t go by when you don’t think about me. You have been waiting for us to meet and talk, haven’t you? You must have questions. Many, I suppose.’
‘Shreyasi, you—’
‘I’m a little overdressed for this cafe. Akash and I are going to his friends’ house for a lunch. I didn’t want to be the bedraggled wife. Being married is quite tiring. Tell me, are you having those nightmares still?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ said Daman and slammed the table with his fist. ‘You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late for whatever you’re trying to achieve. You can’t just walk out and walk into my life whenever the fuck you want to. I don’t remember anything about you and I don’t want to.
Do you get that?’
Shreyasi’s brows knitted together. She breathed in, her face flushed with anger. She smiled beneath the anger and said, ‘You’re angry because of those mails I sent you when you woke up from the coma? Or are you pissed that I’m married now?’
‘All I know is you shouldn’t be here, okay? You presence is fucking jeopardizing my book.
Whatever the fuck happened between us, it’s too late now. Just leave and don’t ever contact me again.’
Shreyasi’s eyes had turned red. A tear escaped one of her eyes and traced its way from her cheek to her chin. She said, her voice low as a whisper, sodden with guilt, ‘I know you’re angry with me, baby. But I was engaged when I met you in Goa. You were dying the time I left the hospital. I tried my best to stall the wedding but my parents didn’t listen. You were still in a coma when I completed four months of my marriage. The doctors said you could wake up as a child or a paraplegic if you do at all. What was I supposed to do? I prayed to God every day for you to wake up. And then you did and remembered my name. Since then all I lived for was what you used to
write in those stories using my name and yours. The Shreyasi in those posts was me, Daman was you. I thought that’s going to be our love story.’
‘What does this even mean now?’ said Daman. ‘I just used your name. That’s it. That’s where it ends. I wasn’t thinking about you when I was writing before, okay? I don’t remember anything about you. You need to stop doing whatever you are doing.’
She shook her head and wiped her tears. ‘Daman, how much do you remember from the night of the accident?’
Daman looked at her. Every time their eyes met, he searched in vain for a trigger that would fill all the blank spaces in his memories, open the floodgates of lost time, and remind him of what exactly happened that night. For months he had sought a face in those faint remembrances, the dreams, the nightmares, but now when the face was staring back at him, he couldn’t place it in the stories in his head. It was peculiar and disappointing. The girl he had fantasized and dreamt about, with whom he had imagined a vivid love story, with whom he had conjured up a past and future, made him feel nothing. NOTHING. Except a little niggling fear.
‘I remember most of it.’
‘Who was driving?’ asked Shreyasi.
‘You were,’ said Daman. ‘If you are Shreyasi that is.’
‘Why would you still doubt that I’m Shreyasi if you remember most of it?’
Daman felt trapped. He said, ‘I just don’t remember your face.’
Shreyasi shook her head derisively. ‘And what do you remember from before the day we went on the drive?’ Daman drew a blank. We just spent a little time in the car. Nothing more. Or did we?
‘You do remember, baby. It’s all in your subconscious, hidden,’ she said. ‘Otherwise how did you write what you wrote in those Facebook posts? The ones that were set in Goa? Those precise incidents?’
‘I imagined them. That’s what writers do.’
‘Yes, writers imagine but not you. The nightmares aren’t the only dreams you see about me, am I right?’
Yes. I have other nightmares. Or dreams if you can call them. But I don’t see your face in them either. ‘I think you should go,’ said Daman.
The waiter got Shreyasi’s coffee and placed it in front of her. ‘I am here to tell you something,’ she said. Her phone beeped. She took it out from her handbag, replied to the text and put it back in.
‘That was Akash. He was asking me if I was done. He’s picking me up in five minutes. I don’t want to be late and you wouldn’t want Avni to catch me here with you. How embarrassing it would be for her to know that she’s just a mistress and that the girl she thought was a fan was your muse and soulmate and lover.’
‘And what does that make your husband?’ retorted Daman.
‘A fool. He thinks I’m in love with him and I’m fine by that. As long as you keep our love alive in the books you write I want nothing else, baby. Even if it means spending the rest of my days with a man I don’t love or even like. That’s all I want, baby,’ said Shreyasi and then added after a pause, ‘And so when Jayanti is going to offer more money than you had asked for you’re going to turn her down, do you understand?’
‘What are talking about? How—’
‘She will ask you to drop my character in the next book. She will ask you to stop writing about me.’
‘That’s preposterous. She is the one who suggested to keep Shreyasi and Daman as the names in the first book,’ argued Daman. ‘All this is nonsense, Shreyasi. No one cares whose name I use in the book!’
‘Didn’t she make you use my name in the first book? Today, she will make you use Avni’s and
Avni is going to support her. Isn’t Avni too coming today?’
‘What has that to do with anything?’
‘Who suggested that Avni be a part of this meeting? You? Avni? Or did Jayanti plant the seed inside your head? Think? What did she say? Was it . . . “Why don’t you get Avni along? We can sign the contract and then head over to a nice place for lunch. It’s a Saturday so she wouldn’t be working.” Is that what she said? Or was it . . . “Go through the contract thoroughly this time? Make someone read it? Someone from your family? Or maybe that girlfriend of yours?” Who planted the idea?’
‘I wanted Avni to be with me,’ lied Daman.
‘It’s a surprise you’re a writer when you make for such a bad liar. Anyway, let’s just assume
Jayanti puts forward the notion. What will your answer be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Your answer will be NO, baby. Are you not listening to me? Didn’t you just hear what I said before? I will not suffer the humiliation again. Do you hear me, Daman? I will not have that bitch replace me in the book. I will—’
‘ENOUGH! That girl is my girlfriend. And you’re . . . no one,’ grumbled Daman.
‘No one? I’m the love of your life, Daman. You know that. I love you, baby. You’re the only part of my life that I like and treasure. What will I do if even your words abandon me? That’s all I care about.’ Her eyes burned red and glistened with tears.
‘What are you even talking about? I will do whatever I feel like.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Shreyasi, her voice stern. Tears streamed down her face. ‘I’m asking you nicely to not test my patience and my love for you. Don’t make me the bad person in this. I’m trying to help.’
‘You should leave.’
‘You don’t have any manners left now, do you?’ said Shreyasi, picking up her bag. She wiped her tears. She got up and took a step closer to Daman. She bent and placed a soft kiss on Daman’s right cheek. ‘I love you, baby. Reject her proposal or . . .’ she whispered in his ears. Then she turned and left the cafe, sobbing. Daman remembered what his mother had told him continually over the months—getting into that car with her was a mistake. Shreyasi was crazy.
21
When Avni walked in and sat where Shreyasi had fifteen minutes ago, she didn’t notice the cup of coffee Shreyasi had ordered and not touched. The waiter whisked it away at Daman’s behest.
‘Are you nervous?’ asked Avni.
‘A little.’
Avni shifted her chair close to Daman and warmed his hands till Jayanti came striding in twenty minutes later and apologized profusely for being late. She told them she got caught in an early- morning meeting with her boss.
‘Do you want something?’ asked Avni.
‘I’m good. It’s so good to see you again, Avni. How have you been? Good?’
Avni nodded. ‘I hope you have got good news for us.’
‘Only good news,’ said Jayanti and smiled at Daman who grinned weakly. She continued, ‘I talked to my seniors and we are committed to making Daman our next big author. The first book is doing well and all we need is to work towards making sure all the subsequent books work. You are one of our biggest talents and we want to treat you as such.’
