Now That You're Rich: Let's fall in Love!

by Datta, Durjoy

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are coming to my place today.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re that nice. Just kidding, but I really can’t.’

  ‘Oh, c’mon!’

  ‘But I can’t, maybe we can go some other time. Or we can go out to this really nice place in Banjara where they serve really nice pasta, and we can go shopping tomorrow.’

  ‘I am not forcing you. I am requesting you. Next, I will be begging you.’

  ‘Please don’t. I have to go.’

  ‘Now that you are acting extremely stubborn, I will have to tell you, I have planned a big surprise at my place and if you don’t come along it will all go waste, and I will be pretty disappointed with that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, a big surprise.’

  ‘That is not going to work, Saurav. I am going home. You’re acting smart with me, aren’t you?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes,’ Saurav nodded.

  ‘And I have to come?’

  ‘Yes, obviously. It is for you.’

  ‘It had better be a good one,’ she said and smiled at him.

  Saurav asked for the cheque and paid it, and then they took a cab for his place and he didn’t talk the entire way, instead rubbed his hands in anticipation and in obvious delight. They reached his place and he was unlocking the door, when he said, ‘See, I planned it well. If something goes wrong, it would not be because of me, but people who helped me out in this.’

  They walked into the flat, and nothing had gone wrong; it was looking exactly the way he wanted it to.

  His huge drawing room was bathed in yellow light from the candles placed all across the perimeter of the room. The candles were of multitude of colours and were of different sizes and were kept on different levels. Big thick red candles were on the TV stand where there was no TV now. A table was placed bang in the centre of the room. There was a huge cake on the table waiting alongside a glass trough filled with water, which had green and red floating candles in it.

  ‘Nice. It is so nice. But …’ she said, covering her mouth in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, go on, you can say nice things about this. I am listening.’

  ‘I really like it! It is so … nice and … lovely!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because,’ he turned her around and faced her. ‘I really love you and some day, I would like to have your life as lit up as this room is right now. I hope to make each day of your life as special as this day is. I hope to make you the happiest you can be, happier than you have ever been. But before I do it, I want to give you something that will remind you of this day,’ he said and started to dig in his pocket for something, and after fumbling for a few brief seconds, he fetched a small squarish box.

  ‘DO NOT tell me,’ she said and looked heavenwards. ‘Please tell me you’re not doing this! Please!’

  ‘Miss Riya Sharma, will you some day—if I prove to be a good boyfriend and all that stuff—and we complete very many years of courtship, marry me?’ he asked, half bent.

  ‘Are you crazy? Look at that ring, Saurav. I can’t take that. It looks so damn expensive. What will I tell my mom? Which one is it? Oh God! It’s a Tiffany. But, no! I can’t take this!’

  ‘Is that a yes or a no?’

  ‘NO! I can’t take that ring, Saurav. Seriously.’

  ‘Answer THE QUESTION! The ring is not important. I will throw it away right this moment.’

  ‘Oh! What? Okay,’ she said, too distracted by the look of the ring. It was a gold ring with a flower-shaped diamond that was at least one carat. ‘I mean, yes. I mean, I love you too. I do. I mean, I think I do.’

  ‘That will do,’ Saurav said and got up. ‘And you have to accept this.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Let us drop this utterly futile discussion about a stupid ring.’

  ‘It is not stupid. It is beautiful!’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You are so cute. Come here,’ she said and wrapped her arms around him.

  ‘The cake,’ Saurav muttered.

  ‘The stupid cake,’ she said and hugged him tighter.

  ‘It is a chocolate cake.’

  ‘You are my chocolate cake,’ she said and kissed him on his cheek.

  They always say it is better to be with someone who loves you than to be with someone whom you love. It helps when your boyfriend whips out a gigantic diamond ring to propose to you. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.

  Avantika and I entered the plush Taj Banjara Hotel for a quiet dinner, all by ourselves, to celebrate my new job. It had been quite a while since the two of us had gone out for a dinner date and I relished the opportunity to do something couple-like for a change.

  We picked a window seat in the café and I told her that she looked beautiful, and then I said this over and over again because I like the way she smiles and thanks me for saying nice things to her.

  ‘You know what?’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘I am jealous of your new job. I wish I could join your firm too,’ she conceded.

  ‘You are jealous? Why? It hardly pays.’

  ‘When did you start caring about the money?’

  ‘I don’t, but you are so well paid there and the dip is not worth it. You have worked hard for this, Avantika.’

  ‘That is why. I don’t want to work hard any more,’ Avantika said.

  ‘Very early retirement?’

  ‘I wish.’

  ‘And what do plan to do post-retirement?’

  ‘Stay at home,’ she answered.

  ‘Stay at home and do what?’ I asked.

  ‘I will let you know that tonight, Mr Deb.’ She looked into my eyes as if she would eat me up and I wouldn’t have any problem with that.

  ‘Let me know right now about your devious plans. I am so anxious.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want a problem in your pants,’ she said and moved her fingers up my thigh.

  ‘I would love a problem in my pants,’ I said, trying to mimic a sexy tone but failing miserably.

  ‘I would not. Let’s order. Keep something for the night,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  We went through the whole menu to choose what we always ordered, Chicken Lasagne, Mint and Chocolate Oreo shakes and a Penne Arabiatta.

  We sat and talked about my new job, about how lucky I was, and how the subprime losses would affect both the companies, and then I got bored and I told her that I wanted to see her naked and she told me that I was the biggest pervert she had ever seen. A little later, food was served and we dug in.

  ‘Shit! I knew this!’ Avantika exclaimed as she dropped her fork onto her plate, and looked far into the distance.

  ‘What?’ I looked up.

  ‘Look there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There! There!’

  ‘What? what? What the fuck? Is she …? Oh shit!’

  In the distance, we saw what we all had feared. We saw Dinesh walking with a beautiful girl in a short skirt, entering the club that was adjacent to the restaurant we were eating in. The girl, Shruti, disappeared behind the metal detectors, the bouncers, and the intricately patterned gate of the club.

  18

  Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt.

  AIG in deep trouble.

  Barclays in deeper trouble.

  The news screamed out loud.

  All investment banks had taken a hit. Twenty-two thousand employees of Lehman were thrown out in a space of a week. All of them were dollar millionaires.

  AIG had cut ten thousand jobs. Citigroup had laid off twenty thousand workers.

  Silverman Finance was next.

  Despite trying hard to keep her feelings in check, Riya couldn’t help but reciprocate Saurav’s feelings. Saurav had really turned on the charm after the surprise he had given her at his place and she was no longer wary of acting as
his girlfriend. Earlier, she had avoided talking to him in the office for the simple reason that Abhijeet might spot them, but now, she hardly thought twice before hugging him.

  Abhijeet had noticed them more than once. He felt his stomach churn whenever he saw the two of them together. It had been almost a month that he and Saurav had talked and it didn’t seem like they would again any time soon.

  Abhijeet and Garima chose a different seat from where Saurav and Riya were sitting. Shruti was nowhere to be seen. She was probably working. They had started noticing that Shruti and Dinesh left for home within a few minutes of one another every day. Abhijeet had followed her once but he saw her getting into the cab she always went home in. Maybe they meet somewhere else, they thought. Abhi and Garima were disgusted with her behaviour, and they often thought of asking her, but after her cafeteria outburst, they didn’t have the courage. It was her life after all and she had the right to make her own decisions.

  Everyone was eating peacefully at the cafeteria when the volume of the TV set was turned on loud. Everybody looked up to see what was happening. A nice-looking female on Headlines Today was reading out the Breaking News from a teleprompter.

  Close on the heels of banking giant Citibank’s decision to eliminate around 20,000 jobs worldwide, Silverman Finance is reported to be planning to cut around 10,000 jobs from its investment banking business in the coming weeks.

  Silverman Finance is planning a reduction of 10,000 staff in the coming weeks, mostly from its global banking and markets workforce that spans around 50 countries, including India.

  It said that jobs were likely to be cut in the city of Hyderabad, adding that Silverman Finance’s high street operations and that of its subsidiary Natwon would remain unaffected. Silverman Finance employs around 1.7 lakh people, of which around a 4,000 are in India.

  The newspaper also reported that Silverman Finance would cut around 15 per cent of its global banking and markets work force, while saying that the move would not affect employees from the US, and would mainly centre on Silverman Finance’s investment banking arm.

  The report of planned job cuts …

  There was pin-drop silence in the room for the next few minutes, the room turned cold and conversations stopped. An uneasy silence gripped the room. Every look turned into a stare. The feeling of who will be sacked and who will stay, gripped everyone.

  Everybody in Silverman Finance may have done a million things, but out of those, one thing was common—they had cribbed about their job. But now, everyone realized how much they loved their job. One in every two employees would go, lose his or her job, lose the life he or she was accustomed to.

  Thapar had been right that I was lucky, and I had had more time than others to look for a job. And less competition.

  Within the next few minutes, a meeting of IBD was called.

  Thereafter, Thapar gave an awful speech about how things would be fine and left no impact whatsoever on anyone who was listening in. The tension and anticipation was palpable. The respect now shown to Sumita was seen to be believed. Everyone who saw her didn’t forget to tell her how young she looked or how pleased they were to talk to her. They believed, if anyone could save them from being sacked, it was her.

  19

  ‘I don’t know,’ Abhijeet said. ‘If they throw us out, which they probably will, I have no idea what I will do.’

  Garima had called up Saurav and Shruti and had forced them to take time off for this night at Abhijeet’s place. They were all there, but there were hardly any words exchanged before Garima asked this question.

  ‘Nothing will happen. It will do us no good to think about it,’ Garima said.

  ‘Saurav will go to Delhi, of course.’ Abhijeet said sarcastically. ‘So will you,’ he looked at Garima and said.

  ‘Whatever,’ Saurav said as he sipped his beer.

  ‘I can’t go back,’ Shruti said.

  Abhijeet and Garima exchanged a wry expression, for they knew that she had kept her manager in her pocket, however she might have done it. Dinesh would make sure Shruti stayed.

  ‘You don’t need to go back to Delhi, Shruti. Dinesh would do anything to keep you in the company,’ Abhijeet said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Why are you saying that?’ she asked, perplexed.

  ‘You know why. I am not talking about this.’

  ‘No, tell me,’ she demanded.

  ‘You know it, Shruti. Deb sir saw you with Dinesh at the Taj. You were entering a club with him. What do we make of that?’

  ‘What?’ Saurav butted in, shocked.

  ‘Yes, so?’ Shruti asked.

  ‘Is it true?’ Saurav asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Abhijeet said. ‘And leaving with him every day? Every single day you left within minutes of him leaving the office. What’s up with that? Do you think we didn’t notice that?’

  ‘So what? Don’t you go out with Garima? And Saurav and that new intern, Riya? If you can go out, then why not me? It has been a month since we hung out together. Every one of you was busy. Why should I be alone? Why should I be the one sitting at home and waiting for the three of you to at least pick up my calls? But no, you are either with Garima, Saurav with Riya or your phones are busy. You guys don’t even call back.’

  ‘We were just a little caught up and busy,’ Garima clarified.

  ‘Garima, you were so busy that Abhijeet stayed over at your place night after night. And Saurav, when was the last time you came to my seat? I don’t even want to talk about it. I just don’t. Anyway, Dinesh is not as bad as we thought him to be. He helped me. And he helped you, too.’

  ‘Helped us? What the fuck do you mean?’ Saurav bellowed.

  ‘Don’t swear, Saurav. I requested him to keep the load down on us. Can’t you see it? I asked him as a friend and he did it.’

  ‘I don’t want the load to be down if it had be in that way. And you call him a friend?’

  ‘Saurav, I think you are blowing it out of proportion.’

  ‘Whatever you might say, Shruti. We are concerned about you. We don’t want you to—’ Abhijeet stopped short.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Shruti asked, irritated.

  ‘What is wrong with us? You are bloody sleeping with your bastard boss, that’s what’s wrong with us,’ Saurav said.

  ‘For heaven sake!’ Shruti threw her hands in the air and got up. ‘You really think so? We are just friends. Just friends. Do you get that?’

  Saurav was already pacing around the room, angry and flailing his hands in the air. He said, ‘Friends? Friends who sleep together? You hated him and now you call him your friend? What do you do with him? Play chess? I don’t think so! We all know what happens in the car park. We have seen it. We all have. I told you I would get you a job. I fucking told you. You didn’t have to go to him.’

  ‘Could you have asked me at least?’ Shruti said. ‘How the hell did you even think!’

  ‘What is there to ask? You fucking went out with him! I don’t care whether you slept with him or not. But you fucking hated him! So now … why? And you call him a friend. What are we?’ Abhijeet shouted and looked at Saurav whose face had flushed red with anger.

  Saurav picked up Abhijeet’s line of questioning. ‘I think you really deserve what you are getting, Shruti. The bastard in Delhi you are going to marry. I pity that guy. He should have known better. What the fuck, Shruti? You have let me down … you have let us down … You are so … I don’t want to see your face ever again. Leave this room right now. You have fucking insulted me. Us all. You know what he put us through. And what? You called him a friend? A friend, Shruti? Why the hell did you have to go and sleep with him? I would have given you all the money. I would have, man … just go to hell. It is all about the money, isn’t it? Everything for you … you should have asked me, just once … Dinesh? Everything is about you, isn’t it? Just like your parents said …’

  Shruti looked at the three of them, shocked and in disbelief
, and then her eyes started to well up, and then she tried to look for words to defend herself but she couldn’t find any. She was hurt, not because she couldn’t defend herself and make them understand but because her friends could accuse her of sleeping with Dinesh. And what if she had? Dinesh was around when none of her friends were. Did that mean they would abandon her?

  ‘I had no other choice,’ she said and left the house, banging the door behind her.

  ‘You always have a choice,’ Abhijeet said as she left.

  Silence gripped the room. Everybody looked at each other, as if to ask the question whether they had gone a little too far.

  Abhijeet thought he had not. The very fact that she met their most hated guy outside office angered him beyond limits. Garima was still angry but not so much. Saurav was too dazed to think anything. Only if they had thought about things from her perspective. Only if they had realized that they had left her alone.

  ‘Did we say too much?’ Garima asked.

  ‘No,’ Saurav said.

  ‘I think so. Saurav said too much,’ Abhijeet said.

  ‘I said too much? Are you crazy? And why the hell didn’t you guys tell me about this before? Why didn’t I know about Dinesh and Shruti?’ Saurav asked.

  ‘If only you had had time out for us, away from that girlfriend of yours.’

  ‘Her name is Riya.’

  ‘Whatever her name is, I don’t care,’ Abhijeet said and got up. ‘The bottomline is that you are the one who fucking said too much. That, too, when you hardly knew anything. You think you are very smart because you could land a girl I couldn’t, impressing her with all that money and stupid gifts of yours.’

  ‘Don’t act childish.’

  ‘Will you fight with me for that girl of yours? That fucking little girl of yours?’

  ‘She is Riya. Her name is Riya.’

  ‘I know what she is. I know her. And I know what kind of a girl she is.’

  ‘What the fuck do you mean?’

  ‘What? You wanted a girl to have fun with, and you get a girl exactly like that. Good for you, Saurav, because I have heard she has a lot of experience!’

  ‘I know everything about her.’

  ‘You know shit about her,’ Abhijeet said as his temper peaked. ‘Ask her what all she did with Arjun. All that guy had to do was to ask and she was there for him.’