‘That? You got me all wrong, Saurav. We all knew Thapar wanted Shruti. I asked him to leave her for me and he did that as a return favour for all the times he had used my car for … whatever. I just wanted Thapar to know that I was with her. I didn’t want her to go through what the other girls went through so I told Thapar I wanted her. But it seems like fate had something else decided for her. I am sorry for her.’
‘We spotted you at Taj, you and her.’
‘She treated me when I broke the news of recommending her for the post of Subjunior Analyst.’
Hearing this, Saurav rushed downstairs, after shouting a loud thank you to him and hugging the life out of him.
He came down the stairs and said, ‘We were wrong. Dinesh is the good guy.’
They left for Shruti’s place and Saurav explained what he knew to the other two, who were now neck-deep in guilt, and thinking how wrong they had been about Shruti and Dinesh.
Nobody exchanged a word in car.
They trudged up the stairs to her apartment. Everyone was thinking of what they would say to her. Abhijeet and Saurav wished they were Garima because she was already in tears and they knew she would just sit in front of Shruti and cry her heart out. They were a few feet away and nobody took the lead to go ahead and press the bell.
Garima pushed Abhijeet to go ahead. He fumbled a few steps and walked up the door. The door was slightly ajar. Abhijeet hit the bell and waited. No answer. He hit the bell a few more times and there was still no answer. Abhijeet pushed the door open and a strange putrid stench hit their noses … the kind that makes you launch into physical convulsions.
As soon as it reached Saurav’s nose, he barged in, half out of reflex and half out of fear, and he looked around in the drawing room for Shruti and couldn’t find her. Her phone lay smashed in a corner, and then scared out of his mind, he ran to her bedroom, shouting her name frantically. She wasn’t there and the room was unlocked. Fearing the worst, he barged into the washroom. It was empty.
Saurav came back to the living room and they stared at each other, clueless. They stood there for a while, confused what to do next.
Abhijeet and Saurav started to rummage through her stuff to find anything substantial.
They went to the drawing room and noticed the mess, and realized that they had trampled all over the dried remains of Shruti’s puke, and there were lots of it. There were neatly stacked bottles of vodka and beer in the corner. The alcohol was too much for just one person. They sat down on the couch and waited for her to return.
‘She does have her other phone with her? The one with the Delhi number?’ Garima asked, and then frantically dialled her number, but it was switched off. Saurav and Abhijeet searched for the phone in the flat and couldn’t find it, and they wanted to believe she had taken the phone along and would switch it on.
Shruti had gone out clubbing with Rahul that night.
22
During the last three days, there was hardly a moment when Shruti wasn’t drunk. And though Rahul had not been able to do anything that he intended to do with her, often eliciting abuses from a sloshed Shruti, he was still sticking around, trying for the last day and a half to slip a hand in, or get close to her any which way possible.
That day, they were in Elan, the grandest night club in the whole of Hyderabad. Two of its floors were complete and after the third, it would be the the club with the biggest dance floor in terms of square footage. It was a day before the big bash of New Year’s Eve, and the club was brimming with people. It had already sold all the passes for the party on 31 December, touted to be the biggest in Hyderabad, and Shruti remembered reading somewhere about Elan and the man behind the idea.
‘Why are so many people here? I think I am still drunk from yesterday,’ Shruti shouted. ‘Shouldn’t they be partying out tomorrow? Rahul!’
‘Yes, Shruti?’ Rahul said.
‘What are your New Year’s plans? Where are you partying tomorrow?’ she asked and put her head down on the table, not waiting for Rahul to answer.
Blue lights, short skirts and a huge bar—Rahul fancied his chances here. There was so much snogging around that Rahul thought this was the place where he could seduce her into something silly. They sat down on a corner table and she slumped on the table immediately.
‘Are you okay?’ he shouted above the din.
‘I need something to drink,’ Shruti answered.
‘What will you have?
‘Vodka. Large. With nothing,’ she looked at him and laughed aloud. ‘Vodka, asshole, jaldi.’
‘Shruti, don’t swear.’
‘Don’t you think that is cool? Saurav thought it was cool for girls to swear,’ she said, as she put her chin on her hand, outstretched on the table.
‘I will get your drink.’
Shruti was already drunk and dizzy when they had reached the club, and went off to sleep by the time he got her the drink. He kept the drink on the table and came and sat very close to her, and then put a hand across her shoulder and leaned onto her. She pushed him away as he angled further in.
This happened a few more times, and then finally Rahul, overcome by lust and stupidity, let his hand slip down from her neck and into her T-shirt. It woke her up, just as he was trying to get more comfortable. Shruti leaned away and slapped him right across his face.
‘What the fuck?’ Rahul shouted and tried to catch hold of her hands, which she was now swaying wildly in the air.
‘Stay away from me, you asshole!’ she shouted, as he tried to rein her in. The small crowd around their table started looking at them.
‘Bitch. Such a slut, you are! You can sleep with that oldie, but not with me. You whore,’ he shouted.
‘I did not sleep with him,’ she shouted back and hit him across the face.
‘Fuck off. The whole office knows it. He dropped you home once. I saw it. I fucking saw it. And you say you fucking didn’t fuck him?’
‘NO!’
‘You think we are nuts? You used to work late and now you leave office by eight. Do you think we are all fools? Everyone suspected it, bitch. It was a matter of time. The day I talked about you in the office, your game was over, bitch.’
‘You told everyone? YOU?’ She opened her eyes and pointed her finger at him. ‘I told you that I didn’t sleep with him!’
‘And you think I will believe a whore like you. I saw you in his car …’
At this point, Shruti put her head down and started sobbing. A few painful minutes passed. Rahul placed a tentative hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Sorry …’ It was the proverbial touch that broke her back. She got up and in a very swift motion sent her hand flying to his face, getting him right in the nose. Bull’s eye. He was knocked off his chair, bleeding profusely from his nostrils.
Before Rahul knew what hit him, two bouncers, both double his size, walked up to them.
‘What is the matter here?’
‘She is drunk. Everything is fine,’ Rahul said and flashed his best innocent smile. He was desperately trying not to get his teeth knocked in by seven-foot giants, while clutching at his bleeding nose. The blow had broken his nose bridge.
‘I am not drunk. And he is trying to …’ she said and covered her face and started crying. At this, one bouncer grabbed him by his collar and pulled him up till only his toes were on the ground.
‘Please. I am sorry. She is drunk. She is talking trash. She is a friend of mine. We are very good friends.’
‘Are you two friends, ma’am?’ The other bouncer asked, his arms crossed on his chest.
‘No. Not at all.’
‘Oh yes, we are,’ Rahul pleaded weakly, a pathetic smile plastered on his battered face.
‘Ask him my phone number,’ Shruti said to the bouncers.
He did not have it. The bouncers looked at him to see if he had any answer.
After stuttering for a while, he spluttered, ‘Umm … I have a new phone with me … that is why …’
‘That does not look li
ke a new phone.’ A man of authority appeared. He was more or less Rahul’s age and Shruti didn’t catch his face with all the lights flashing behind his head. The face became clearer and Shruti felt like she had seen the face somewhere, and then she remembered and forgot, and cried.
‘I can explain,’ Rahul said.
‘Come with us,’ the bouncers said and grabbed him by his arm and led him away.
‘I can’t leave her here,’ he said while they were dragging him away.
‘She is more safe here than with you, sir,’ the guy, who seemed to be the manager, said and motioned the bouncer to take him away.
This was the last thing he heard before the bouncer punched him unconscious and dumped him outside the back door of the club.
Then they helped Shruti out of her chair and led her to the waiting lounge which accommodated single guests who had blacked out until they came back to their senses and could be transported home. She was the only one that day, and they put her on the couch and she fell asleep.
The manager sat by her side. His gaze didn’t leave her face for one moment. She looked beautiful. And she was mumbling something.
23
Abhijeet and Saurav, scared out of their wits, went crazy running from door to door, asking people if they had seen Shruti, or had any idea where she would be. It took them two hours, and they had asked everybody in the building, but no one had a clue where she was. It was 2 a.m. when they, luckily, spotted Rahul’s flatmate returning from his office and he told them that Rahul and Shruti were out clubbing, and they wouldn’t be home until the next morning. Saurav took Rahul’s number and dialled it, but it was out of reach. They told Garima about it and they decided to wait for her in her apartment.
‘Why?’ Garima looked at both of them and asked.
Saurav and Abhijeet were standing at two corners of the room and she was sitting on the television trolley she had bought for Shruti all those weeks ago.
They both looked at her, puzzled, waiting for her to say more.
‘What?’ they echoed.
‘I mean this. Why this? You two are standing where you are. Shruti is God knows where with the guy she hardly knows. What did we do wrong to deserve this? Why did we have to go through this? After years, just when I thought things would be alright, it is back to where I started from. I trusted you guys with everything. Everything. I so loved you guys, and you …’ She broke down and covered her face. ‘I was so lucky I found you. I was so lucky. You finally made my life worth living. For the first time in years, I felt good about myself. I was so happy and you guys ruined it all. You and you. Maybe me, too.’ She kept sobbing.
‘Everything will be okay,’ Abhijeet said as he came near her.
‘Nothing will be alright. Nothing will be alright! What will be alright? You were the one who drove her out. It is because of you that she isn’t here. It is you. You started it with Saurav. Why? Why, Abhijeet? I was so happy and for no fault of mine, I am all alone again.’
‘You have me.’
‘Whatever, Abhijeet.’
‘Garima,’ Saurav said for the first time that evening. ‘It is my fault, too. I was the one who drove Shruti away from you. And I was wrong about Riya, too. I should have waited till they had sorted things out, Riya and Abhijeet.’
‘No, Saurav,’ Abhijeet said. ‘I was wrong with that. I should have acted more maturely. I took it a little too far. I should have given you your space. Sorry for that. But you were ignoring us for her. I mean, you should have at least talked to me about it, and I thought you would, you know.’
‘I should have asked and talked to you about it. I didn’t know what the deal was between the two of you.’ Saurav came near and stood near Abhijeet. ‘I was so fucking into her that I forgot about you guys, you, Garima … and even Shruti. I don’t even remember the last time I talked to her. Damn, I so miss her. I am sorry, Abhijeet.’
‘I am sorry, too, Saurav. I screwed it up. I am sorry for whatever I said about you and Riya,’ Abhijeet mumbled.
‘It is okay. I incited you to do so.’
‘Still, it was me who crossed the line.’
‘But I made you do so,’ Saurav argued. ‘What you did was understandable.’
‘No, dude, it was silly.’
‘What I did was silly.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘I am sorry too.’
They hugged. They realized it could go on and on so they stopped and hugged each other, and Garima broke out in a smile and said, ‘I almost felt you guys would kiss in the end.’ She rolled over laughing.
All three of them slumped down on the floor, onto the part which was not soiled up. Garima sat between them and put both her hands on their heads, which were on each of her shoulders and she patted them.
‘I miss her. You?’ she asked and Abhijeet nodded. It was still late night and they had no idea when Shruti would be back.
‘Never missed anybody like this. It would have been so nice to have her here today,’ Saurav said.
‘It would have been so nice if the four of us were together tomorrow. Shruti and I made plans for New Year’s a few weeks back. I never thought we would grow so apart when the time came. I had never wanted or looked forward to celebrating the New Year, but this time I kind of was,’ Garima said.
‘Damn? It’s the 31st tomorrow? I had totally skipped my mind. Riya kept asking me last week about our plans, and I ignored it and now it’s here? This would be my worst New Year’s ever,’ Saurav said.
‘I have never really celebrated it anyway,’ Abhijeet added, ‘but this sucks.’
The three of them sat there, dejected and forlorn, and talked about Shruti and what they did to her and how unfair life had been to her, and then as the night progressed they opened up the last of Shruti’s vodka and passed it around, making faces as they took long, painfully bad-tasting shots. They talked over a game of monopoly that no one concentrated on, and over the Maggi that Abhijeet cooked and it was raw, and then they drank some more.
They assured each other that everything would be okay, and Saurav would talk to his father and get Shruti a job, and then they brushed aside fears that Shruti would have to get back to her old job.
Slowly, the vodka got absorbed in their system, they got used to the pungent smell in the living room, and they ended up reasonably drunk.
‘I thought a few times to hit on Shruti, especially when we went out the third time. I don’t remember correctly,’ Saurav reminisced.
‘I remember the red dress clearly! She looked very pretty indeed,’ Abhijeet remarked.
‘Pretty? She looked insanely hot! You have no idea what was going on in my head,’ Saurav laughed.
‘I miss her,’ Abhijeet said. ‘It’s been so long since we spent time together and just talked.’ He looked at his watch and realized it was already eight in the morning. It had been six hours since they had been talking and drinking and playing and eating.
Garima then pulled his ear and said, ‘Abhijeet? I miss her, too, but do you remember what I was wearing that day?’
‘Umm, you were wearing something very nice!’ he laughed and gave Saurav a high five. ‘Obviously I remember, Garima. It was a short green dress, wasn’t it? I remember every bit of it,’ he said and pulled her cheeks.
‘What?’ Saurav said. ‘You should have let her think that you had forgotten! Wouldn’t that be fun?’
‘You do that to Riya,’ Garima said and everybody stopped talking. The Riya topic had not been raised for many hours, since the time peace was struck between these two, and before the drinking started.
‘It is okay, guys,’ Abhijeet said. ‘I am okay with Riya. I am serious. I know you guys aren’t buying it but you should. I am over that matter now.’
The other two were still silent. It is one thing to be okay when one is sober and knows one has people around one can hurt. It’s another when one is drunk. This was the real test for truth and character.
‘I will call her right now and prove it to you!
’ he said.
‘It’s early in the morning, Abhijeet. She must be sleeping,’ Saurav argued.
‘It’s eight! For no Silverman employee, eight is early morning,’ he said and called up Riya, smiling at Garima and Saurav.
24
It had been quite some time since Shruti had been sleeping in the lounge. She had talked a lot through the night, and she remembered only pieces of it. She woke up, embarrassed, and rubbed her eyes. The place was dead quiet. The lounge she was sitting in was empty and she tried to piece together events from last night. She checked her phone, but it was switched off and out of battery. She would have panicked but her head was being hammered by a million sledgehammers, and even though she tried, she couldn’t think clearly.
As soon as she was about to get up, a strong male voice said from behind, ‘Sit down. You had a rough night.’
She turned around to see a cup in front of her face. She took the mug and sat back down from her half-standing position. A man, rather a boy, in his mid-twenties came around and sat in front of her. His face came rushing back to her, and she remembered seeing him with two bouncers, and then she recalled the man telling her that she would be okay and she should sleep. But she felt like she had seen the face before somewhere.
‘Drink. It will make you feel better.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked and while she sipped on the coffee, she actually saw him, and what a sight for sore eyes he was. His hair was wet as if he had just taken a shower, and his face clean and smooth, and it looked as if he had just slipped into a crisp blue and black striped shirt tucked into a pair of black trousers that ran across his body lines. He got to his feet, and turned, and the sight of that guy’s cute butt made her burn her tongue.
She let out an oops and he turned back abruptly. ‘Too hot?’ he asked.
‘Very cute. I mean, yes, it’s hot. The coffee. The coffee is hot,’ she said and said no further.
‘I am sorry, I have to take a call. I hope you don’t mind,’ he said and excused himself. Even as he ambled around in the lobby, talking mostly business, Shruti felt inexplicably drawn to the man. His jawline was sharp as a knife and there wasn’t an iota of fat on his body. The shirt clung to places where there were muscles, and she could clearly make out the contours of his striated chest from outside the shirt. He caught her looking at him but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his bluish grey eyes. Have I seen him on the Men’s Health cover? Does this guy moonlight as a model? Where have I seen him? On television?
Now That You're Rich: Let's fall in Love! Page 16
