Kashti went out the next morning around her usual time, 8 a.m. Kiyan acted sleepy when she left. When he heard the door lock, Kiyan immediately went to the kitchen. Behind the door was a small shelf he had discovered the day he had shifted. Kashti kept all kinds of things there, including a small hammer. He picked it up and went straight to the wardrobe in Kashti’s room. He took a picture of the tiny lock with his phone so that he could replace it later with an identical lock. With one blow, he broke the lock in half. Kiyan opened the wardrobe to find it totally empty, except for a file. He took out the file and opened it. There were a few documents inside, including a medical prescription. But the patient name wasn’t Kashti. The name made him frown.
16
Tina Awasthi.
Kiyan read the name of the patient on the prescription again. He couldn’t believe it. Was it the same Tina he had met while doing research for Handcuffs? The one who had inspired it? But she never had any mental illness. And what was her prescription doing in Kashti’s cupboard? He quickly took out his phone, clicked a picture of the prescription and checked for Tina’s number on his contact list. He had no contact under the alphabet T. Kiyan remembered he had changed his phone a year ago and lost some contacts. Since then, he had never had Tina’s number. As he stood by the cupboard, wondering, his phone rang. It was Kashti. He picked up.
‘Hey baby. Our morning always goes by in a rush. I just reached. What’s your plan for the day?’
Go look for Tina first at her place and then figure out how you know her, Kiyan thought and said, ‘Nothing much. Will probably go to some café and write.’
‘Great. I’ll come home and read whatever you write,’ she said, as if she was his mom who wanted to check her child’s homework.
‘Sure,’ he said nonchalantly and hung up.
Kiyan took a quick shower, finished the breakfast that Kashti had made for him and left for Tina’s place. He had last met her in her flat in Lajpat Nagar. He took the Metro and reached Lajpat Nagar an hour and a half later. Tina’s apartment was a five-minute walk away from the Metro station. The security guard beamed at him. He responded with a tight smile. He took the elevator and went to the second floor. The prescription in Tina’s name couldn’t be a coincidence. Kashti had to be connected to her in some way. But why had she kept it a secret from him? The elevator stopped, and Kiyan headed for Tina’s flat, when he heard a voice, ‘She isn’t there.’
Kiyan turned around to see the old neighbour he had always exchanged a smile with whenever he used to visit Tina. The old lady was handing over some clothes to a laundry boy.
‘Tina isn’t here?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her of late. I think she has shifted.’
Kiyan stared at the locked door. Waiting seemed futile, so he decided to leave.
‘You have come here after a long time,’ the old lady remarked. She always had an I-know-what-you-are-up-to smile on her face that made Kiyan uncomfortable.
‘Yeah, I was busy. Take care,’ he said and took the stairs down. He was wondering how he could track Tina, and if it was even necessary to do so, when he froze. Kashti was standing by the entrance of the building.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said, not able to hide his amazement.
‘Don’t use my line. I want to know what you are doing here.’
‘Wait. How did you know I was here?’
‘I know your Apple ID. So I tracked your iPhone. When I realized you weren’t in a cafe as you said you would be, I came here. Moreover . . .’
Kiyan waited for her to finish even though he couldn’t fathom how ridiculous it was for this girl to keep following him around.
‘This is where my sister used to live.’
‘Your sister?’
‘Tina Awasthi is my elder sister. I’m Kashti Awasthi.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘I told you, she is in the US with my parents.’ A pause later she added, ‘She is undergoing a check-up for mental illness.’
‘What for?’
‘Some guy shit. He betrayed her. And she couldn’t take it.’
Kiyan swallowed a lump in his throat. He knew who the guy was. But the question was—did anyone else know?
‘Now tell me, Kiyan, what are you doing here?’ Kashti asked. Kiyan knew he had little less than a few seconds to conjure up a story.
17
‘An old friend used to live here,’ Kiyan blurted out. ‘Used to?’ Kashti frowned and said, ‘Then why are you here?’
‘I got to know only now.’
‘Oh. You could have called him . . . or is it a her?’ The last part came out quite threateningly.
‘Him.’
‘Okay. What’s his name? I may know him.’
‘Forget it. It’s not important.’ Kiyan said and started walking away, followed by Kashti. He stopped suddenly, struck by the thought that he had never seen Kashti when he had visited Tina. Moreover, she never told me she had a younger sister.
‘Funny we never met even though I used to visit often and you lived here.’ That was the best way Kiyan could think of to frame his original thought.
‘Who told you I lived here? I was in a boarding school in Dehradun.’
‘Okay,’ he said, not willing to believe her.
‘Let’s take the Metro home.’
Kiyan was quiet for most of the journey while Kashti was busy replying to his fans whose messages had poured in on their couple page on Facebook. While he kept glancing at her from time to time, he tried to decide if Tina’s relation to Kashti was just a coincidence
‘Where did you say your parents were?’
‘Huh?’ Kashti seemed taken aback. Kiyan repeated himself.
‘They are in the US.’
‘Where in the US?’
‘Atlanta.’
‘Is it because . . .’
Kashti nodded and replied before Kiyan could complete,‘It’s because of my sister’s treatment.’
‘What exactly has happened to her?’
‘The fact that the guy betrayed her simply got to her. It was too traumatic for her.’
‘Didn’t your parents find out who the guy was?’ Kiyan asked casually, trying to put across the question in a thoughtful manner.
Kashti gave him a sharp glance and said, ‘They tried, but in vain. Tina Di literally turned dumb.’
Kiyan was yet again lost in thought when he felt Kashti’s hands around him and her head on his shoulder.
‘I feel so lonely at times, Kiyan. I know you must be wondering why I’m so possessive. My previous boyfriend also thought like that and left me.’
Is that why you gave me that ‘gift’, so that I don’t ever leave you? Kiyan thought and heard Kashti continue, ‘Even my parents kept me in a boarding school from the beginning because they thought I was difficult. Maybe staying alone has made me so particular about the things I like, love,’ she said and hugged him closer.
‘But now I have you,’ she said and kissed him on his neck.
PDA had never been Kiyan’s thing. His discomfort was evident as he glanced at the people in the Metro looking at them.
‘Kashti, people are looking,’ he whispered. She looked up at him and kissed him right on his lips.
‘Do you think I give a fuck?’ she asked and winked at him. Kiyan didn’t know where to look. He simply unlocked his phone and stared at it.
Once they reached Gurgaon, Kiyan excused himself to go to a café to write while Kashti went to their flat. Taking cues from what was happening around him, a new plot assembled itself in his mind. What if a girl’s younger sister approached a bestselling author as his fan to avenge her sister and punish the author who left the sister? The thought excited Kiyan, and he immediately wrote a one-page synopsis and mailed it to Natasha. After a long time, the author in him was happy. To use one’s reality as a trigger to knit a fictional tale is an innate talent. Everyone believes that authors are creative people, but Kiyan’s own experience had taught him
that authors are experts at recycling. He left the café the moment Natasha messaged him that she had received the synopsis and would reply over the weekend.
Use your key. I’m in the shower. Kiyan read Kashti’s message for him on his way home. Before unlocking the door to Kashti’s flat, he glanced at Anaysha’s door and noticed a lock on it. He pushed open the door, calling out to Kashti, but there was no response. Instead, he heard moans and grunts. He became alert and noticed Kashti’s laptop was on. A video of one of their sexual escapades in Goa was playing. He was about to call out to Kashti again when he heard her voice. He followed it to the bedroom. He saw Kashti, wrapped in a towel, drying her hair with a dryer by the mirror and talking on the phone with her back to him.
‘I’m not sure, but I think he has his doubts. Why else would he visit her apartment? No, he hasn’t come home yet.’
Kiyan felt his heart thudding. His doubt seemed to have been correct. He thought back to the time Kashti had come into his life, from the photographs to the pub dance and the gym in Bangalore to the beach in Goa. He started walking backwards and slowly exited the flat. With shaking hands, he pressed the elevator button. It was on the same floor. He pressed the ground floor button, and the moment the door closed, Kiyan felt weak in his knees. He slid to the floor with tears in his eyes. It was a game of revenge. Looking at the gift he had correctly guessed she must have recorded their escapades. And she had. He held his head and was about to break down when the elevator reached the ground floor. The doors opened. He saw a pair of sandal-encased feet enter the lift.
‘What happened?’ It was Anaysha.
Kiyan looked up at her. And started crying like a baby.
* * *
Anaysha’s Diary
Finally, I know why Kiyan broke up with me. I didn’t know how to react when I found him wailing in the elevator. He said he wanted to talk. I hadn’t seen him like this ever. I thought of avoiding him but I couldn’t. We went to the emergency exit stairwell of our building, which was quite secluded. I had some water with me. After he had gulped some down, he relaxed. Then he told me how Kashti had lured him during the book tour. In Bangalore they hadn’t had sex, but in Goa they did . . . by the beach. It was always my fantasy . . . to do Kiyan by the beach on our honeymoon. Hearing he had done it with someone else made my mind go blank. I controlled myself somehow as he told me how Kashti had taken him to her shack on the beach and gifted him something. Even Kiyan was surprised by it. He unwrapped it to find Kashti’s birth certificate. Initially he thought it was her way of telling him it was her birthday since it was 20 March. But then she asked him to look at the year. 1999. It was then that Kiyan understood what a mess he was in. He had had sex with a fucking underage girl! Sex with a minor is a punishable offence. It would destroy his career and reputation forever. And of course, Kashti had recorded their beach sex in night mode on her DSLR.
Kashti’s first demand was that he would have to call off our engagement and abandon me. Kiyan really had no options. Finally, I could understand everything, but I was hurt that he hadn’t even tried to tell me the real reason. I would have cancelled the engagement myself with some excuse, and we would have dealt with the situation together. He had nothing to say. He did what he thought was best—to keep quiet and follow Kashti’s ‘demands’. All she wanted was Kiyan. Wiping his tears, he went up to his flat. Though I felt bad that he had fallen for Kashti’s charms, my heart went out to him in his present condition. It disturbed me and told me he needed me.
Since I had heard Kiyan confess, my heart had been asking me only one thing—can you trust him? Can’t a person who weaves stories for a living simply weave another one only to appease me? But why would he appease me now? Unless he needed me by his side for something. There’s no way I’ll ever know if he told me the truth this evening. His confession did make me realize that lust really can lead someone astray. What I want to know is if love can win the same person back.
Part 3: Destroy
18
Kiyan had gone back to his flat after talking to Anaysha. Sharing his feelings had made him feel lighter. And he only hoped Anaysha understood why he had called off the engagement. He had been forced to. Kiyan wasn’t a child who hadn’t understood what Kashti had implied when she gifted him the birth certificate. Once he was with Kashti in their flat, he didn’t know what to talk about, what to ask and how to behave. Should he ask her outright what was she up to? Was trapping him with her birth certificate the first step to whatever she was up to? It was certainly not what she had told him earlier. She had boldly told him in Goa after giving him her birth certificate, ‘I did this to keep you bound to me. I’m an acutely insecure and fiercely possessive girl, Kiyan. And that can make me a difficult girlfriend, I know, but also an amazing lover, which you will come to know soon.’
Now he knew it wasn’t just that. There was more to the story. Kiyan behaved as normally as he could with Kashti over dinner. When she fell asleep, he tried to guess Kashti’s phone password and check who she had been talking to earlier in the evening, but had no luck. Disappointed, he returned the phone to its place beside her pillow.
In the morning once she went to school, in Noida, Kiyan went to Starbucks in Cyber Hub to think through his next step. He was a caged animal who could only pace the perimeter he was fenced into. After ordering himself a frappé, Kiyan sat down in a corner inside Starbucks. For the next few minutes, he tried hard but couldn’t surmise what Kashti’s agenda was to have trapped him like this. The best answer (apart from the obvious but not plausible one of revenge) he could come up with was that Kashti coveted his fame. Fame was a drug for today’s youngsters. And it is the only drug that alters moral and emotional fibres even before a person has had a taste of it. How could she really be Tina’s sister? He had never heard her mention Kashti at all.
Kiyan’s musing was interrupted when someone set down a cappuccino on his table. He looked up and saw Anaysha. Though he had thought of messaging her after his outburst in the stairwell, he was sure he didn’t have the right to request her to be his emotional solace any more. She took a seat beside him.
‘I followed Kashti to her school today,’ she said. Kiyan couldn’t hide his incredulity.
‘The bad thing is, she is indeed in school, which means her birth certificate is genuine. She is underage. And she can take you to the police any time.’
The fact Anaysha still cared made him feel worse about himself and his behaviour. ‘I know, that’s why I . . .’ Kiyan knew Anaysha would understand the rest of it.
Neither spoke. Kiyan didn’t know what exactly he should say first—sorry or all the other things that he wanted to say. On the other hand, Anaysha didn’t know what to ask first—what were you doing sleeping with an underage girl or why did you sleep with anyone in the first place when you were in a relationship with me?
‘I’m sorry,’ Kiyan said. His eyes and expression showed he really meant it. Anaysha didn’t say a word. She simply mixed the brown sugar in her cappuccino and took a sip. Then she pushed the cappuccino towards him.
‘Can you take the sugar out of this coffee?’ she asked. Kiyan glanced at her as she continued stirring the cappuccino. He understood her point. Some things couldn’t be undone. He remained quiet.
‘I followed Kashti today because I can’t see you like this. Trapped. It may surprise you because you haven’t loved me the way I have loved you,’ she said.
‘I . . .’ Kiyan started, moistened his dry lips and continued with awkwardness, ‘I can’t even say it was a mistake because it wasn’t. I chose to sleep with her. I chose to cheat on you. I chose to . . .’
‘Kiyan, I’m not trying to help you realize how great my love was for you or make you feel pathetic for cheating on me. I just want to help you this one final time because I know I won’t be able to rest in peace now that I know what made you break off our engagement. Once I help you get rid of Kashti, I shall be out of your life forever.’
‘But I need you.’
&n
bsp; They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment.
‘Don’t say that again,’ she said threateningly but didn’t look away. Kiyan’s name was called at the counter. He fetched his frappé. Once he had taken his seat again, Anaysha said, ‘I only have one question for you. What if Kashti had not given you the birth certificate? What if she had not trapped you the way she has? Would you have told me about your dalliance or would you have quietly married me, saying ‘I love you’ the way you did before Kashti happened to you?’
Kiyan knew the answer. Hence he couldn’t say it aloud. After a few seconds of silence, Anaysha too knew the answer and didn’t wait for him to speak.
‘Yesterday you told me you found another girl’s medical prescription in the cupboard?’ Anaysha asked.
Kiyan nodded.
‘Is the girl related to Kashti?’
Kiyan took few seconds before he said, ‘I don’t know. Kashti said she is her sister.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Tina Awasthi.’
‘You know her?’
Kiyan nodded.
‘Who is Tina Awasthi? I have never heard this name before,’ Anaysha said.
‘She used to work in a software MNC in Cyber City. We met via a common friend. And . . .’ A pause and an eye lock later he added, ‘She wanted to marry me. She was mad about me.’
‘When was this?’
‘Been a year and a half.’
‘And then?’
‘I told her I was committed, but she simply couldn’t accept the fact. Then one day she stopped coming to office. I tried to check if she was okay, but her number wasn’t working. I haven’t met or heard anything about her since till I saw her name on the psychiatrist’s prescription in Kashti’s cupboard. She told me Tina is being treated in the US since she is mentally ill.’
Black Suits You Page 12
