Ohh Yes, I'm Single: And so is my Girlfriend

by Datta, Durjoy

  I miss the confinement of your arms,

  When I cross a road, I yearn to hold your hand,

  When I hear my name, it sounds incomplete when it doesn’t have your voice!

  You’ve taken me over totally and I have surrendered myself wilfully to you …

  ‘It’s very nicely written,’ I said. ‘For an eighteen-year-old.’

  ‘I know. I was nuts. Anyone would be,’ he sighed. ‘She was very cute. The kind of cute you would see naked and still not be turned on by it, she was that cute, like a naked teddy bear.’

  ‘Isshh, that’s gross! And I don’t even know if it’s a compliment!’ I said.

  ‘What makes you think it’s not a compliment!’

  ‘It’s not. I will feel insulted if someone sees me … you know … and is not … whatever … Anyway. Continue.’

  Joy smoothed out the picture and put it back in the album, took a deep breath and said, ‘I didn’t get through any of the engineering exams that year. As if I didn’t already feel like I was the dumbest, ugliest bastard, I had to screw up my exams too.’

  The First Love

  I didn’t get through any of the engineering exams that year, and I blamed it on my obsession with Nisha. So the next one year, I spent at home and prepared for the exams, which I should have cleared the first time around.

  It is strange to think of it now, but I had totally lost touch with everybody. My old classmates had started to go to college and moved on with their lives, and to be very frank, I was never very popular amongst my friends; I had like two friends and they weren’t friends, they were more like study partners. They promptly forgot me, and I forgot them. It worked for me though for it gave me more time to bury myself in Quantum Physics and Integration.

  Sitting at home, I was getting even fatter; eating was the only way out of the labyrinth of self-pity and depression and loneliness. After six months of staying at home, I weighed close to ninety kilograms and our family physician told me I would soon be obese and diabetic. My mom, concerned and panicked, thinking it was her fault that her son was flabby and dying, put me on a healthy diet and forced me to jog every morning.

  Although I hated fruits and sweating in my tracksuit every morning, six months later, I was lighter by twenty pounds. I was still was pretty heavy—weighed around eighty kilograms in a five-ten frame—that was still better than weighing a hundred and ten.

  Soon, I cleared the engineering college entrance examinations. College started on a diametrically different style than how school had ended. All my jeans were loose now, so they hung low. And unintentionally, I was among the first ones in college to have caught on to the low-waist baggy jeans phenomenon that had just hit the country!

  Nobody knew now what an ugly nerd I used to be. Ugly, I still was, but not as nerdy as I used to be. Everyone took me as a quiet well-dressed guy; some people mistook my quietness as attitude, and they said I was a snob, something that I didn’t mind.

  Weeks later, I found myself hanging around with the coolest, hippest people in the college although more often than not, I found myself out of place as I lacked the skill to converse! I had never talked to people. I didn’t know the places they hung out. And I never spent money on recreation. I was a misfit.

  ‘Man! Why don’t you say something?’ Arnab said, miffed that I had stood there like a dumb statue while he was talking to two girls from the dance team of our college. He, on the other hand, had been doing a remarkable job at keeping them entertained. They had kept giggling and laughing at his stupid small jokes. And frankly, I was a little jealous.

  Who was Arnab?

  I had known him for long … he had been in another section in our school and though I was sure he didn’t know I existed, I knew all about him. House Captain, captain of the football team et cetera … Though he was not very remarkable looking, he was certainly one of the smartest people I had ever met. He was one of the few guys in our school who had a girlfriend.

  ‘I didn’t have anything to say,’ I said.

  ‘Such an attitude doesn’t work with a girl, man! I know they weren’t hot or anything, but they weren’t very bad either. You should have talked to them!’ he said.

  What he thought was attitude, was actually sheer inability. He had no idea how badly I wanted to be like him. Centre of attention of all the girls, great conversational skills, the stupid jokes, the works … I wanted all that. Desperately.

  ‘Anyway, I need to talk to you,’ he said and led me to the canteen. ‘You know about Sarah, don’t you?’

  Sarah? Who didn’t? Sarah was the goddess of our batch and another claim to fame for Arnab. They had been dating since the last three years and everybody knew about them. Sarah’s short skirts, long never-ending legs and Arnab’s achievements were like daily news for us in school.

  ‘Yes. I do,’ I said, as my mind raced with images of Sarah in the short school skirt and the snugly fitting shirt. She was one of the first girls I had seen a tattoo on. On her left leg. She always made sure her socks were pulled down and her scorpion tattoo peeked out. Guys used to line up outside her class whenever she sat on the first seat, just to see her legs glisten in the sunlight that poured in through the windows; her body was one of the most talked about in hushed tones amongst boys and girls alike. Her hair was always in a studied mess, as if she had just woken up after a night of rough lovemaking. The slight brownish streaks in her hair only made her more desirable.

  ‘When we were in school, everything was fine … I mean it still is,’ Arnab said. ‘I still care about her, she is very sweet and nice and I can’t see her cry or anything, but I think I need to break up with her,’ he added in his guilt soaked voice. This was 2004, these things happened. Guys thought twice before breaking up.

  ‘Umm … why?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘You have had girlfriends, right?’ he said. ‘You know how it is. After a while, it just fizzles out. The excitement is just not there anymore’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I lied. I didn’t want to tell him that I was yet to have a proper conversation with a girl. Plus, now that I had stopped dressing up in hideous trousers with sports shoes or brown open-toed sandals, it was almost believable that I might have had a girlfriend in school.

  ‘I am just bored. Plus there is so much to see here. I mean the girls here. They are cute, and I am getting all their attention, I can’t lose out on that. And Sarah has a problem when I hang out with them, it’s very stifling and restricting. And of late, she has been so possessive. All she says is that ever since we have left school, all I think about is college, and it’s so irritating,’ he said.

  Obviously, I didn’t know what to say to that. I wish I could tell him that all I wanted to do was to have a bunch of kids with Sarah and keep her away from the world because she was so god darn hot, but I decided to go with something cooler.

  ‘Break up with her,’ I said, as dispassionately as I could.

  ‘Yes! That’s what. Everyone has been telling me otherwise. But I knew you would say something different. You get me. Those fucking nerds, I tell you. I mean, Sarah is good, but I can get better, right? This is college! I’ve got to move on.’

  ‘Yes, you do!’ We shook hands and smiled at each other.

  I patted myself on the back. I was not a nerd. Certified by someone who himself wasn’t. Red-letter day for me. He’s breaking up with Sarah! He’s crazy!

  A week later, he broke up with her. Many conversations followed, and though he never wanted to go back to her, he often felt guilty and sad about the whole incident. In the next few days, I knew everything about their relationship. Sarah used to call up Arnab and remind him of all the times they had spent together in an attempt to get him back. But Arnab didn’t budge. It was cool to have broken up. I had told him that. I—the cool guy who had never ever had a conversation with a girl.

  Though I have to admit that the day he told me that they had kissed, I was shocked. (Let me remind y
ou again—2004.) For many days after that, I had replaced him in the kissing scene with myself and fantasized about Sarah.

  ‘You have kissed?’ I asked, shell-shocked.

  ‘So? I am sure you have, too,’ he said.

  ‘Umm … yeah … but … then you shouldn’t have broken up so brutally.’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘We have done other things beyond that too … but I am not going to tell you that.’ He nudged me with his elbow and smirked at me. He looks stupid; I am a mix of shocked and jealous and nauseous.

  ‘What? What have you done?’ I asked, almost sweating.

  ‘I won’t tell you. And neither would she,’ he said.

  ‘But won’t her next boyfriend mind?’ I said, innocently. I forgot to be cool. How could I have been cool? The guy in front of me was hinting that he had seen his super-hot girlfriend, like, without her shirt, or whatever! I was freaking out. Or something close to that. My mind was in shambles.

  ‘She won’t tell the next guy, for sure …’

  ‘Who knows?’ I said. I figured it was the right thing to say, remembering suddenly that I wasn’t a nerd anymore, except that I really was. I reminded myself that I had kissed and done stuff, and with time, I had started believing in my own lies. My false confidence had gone sky high, and I had started using words like fuck, fucking, asshole, fuck it with unmatched gusto, as the popular kids did.

  Days passed and Arnab got increasingly irritated with Sarah’s calls and her constant crying. Often, I used to pick up her call and tell her that Arnab was busy somewhere. I should mention here that Sarah was the first girl I ever talked to, over the phone; the first few times were terrifying.

  And then, Sarah asked for my number. She knew I would be the only one who would know about Arnab’s whereabouts.

  ‘Joy?’ I could barely hear her amidst all the sobs.

  ‘Sarah?’ I said. I looked at the watch. It was eleven-thirty. Night calling, I guessed. Those were the days when a minute of extra day calling cost two bucks. I was whispering for I didn’t want to wake my parents up; I wondered if they could hear Sarah’s sobs over the phone.

  ‘Is Arnab going out with somebody? Please don’t lie to me.’

  ‘Arnab? No!’ I said. I had realized that talking over the phone was a lot easier because no one is staring at my hideous face, no one is noticing how I shift my feet, or how I look here and there and look like I am going to faint.

  ‘Then why isn’t he picking up my calls?’ she asked, still crying.

  ‘He must be busy.’

  ‘Stop defending him. He was never this busy earlier. Not a single message the entire day? No one can be that busy!’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know what to say …’

  From there on, I didn’t have to say too much. Eight hours. Eight straight hours, she went about every detail in their relationship. Hour by hour, day by day and month by month. She conveniently skipped some portions, the kisses and stuff portions, but apart from that she missed nothing.

  Though there was a lot of crying and sobbing and consoling in the entire phone call, it was my first received phone call from a girl and I enjoyed every moment of it. For the first time, I realized how soothing a girl’s voice was, even seductive at times. Well, most of the times!

  The following morning, I was greeted by an enthusiastic and an extremely happy Arnab.

  ‘Hey!’ he said.

  ‘Hi …’

  ‘Thank you, man! For talking to her. I think I can finally breathe easy. If you talk to her, I am sure she will do the crying in front of you and save me the pain of going through it every day.’

  ‘Hmmm …’ I smirked.

  ‘Sorry, if she troubled you too much!’ he apologized, as he shook my hand.

  He walked away and I pressed the send button. It was our thirtieth exchanged text that day, Sarah and I. She had just texted me that she was waiting for the clock to strike eleven so that she could talk to me again. I had replied with a smiley.

  A girl wants to talk to me. That was another first. Usually, girls only wanted to get away from me, or pretend that I didn’t exist.

  For the next one week, the same schedule followed. We exchanged texts throughout the day about how our day was going, every single detail … and it was strange how interested she was in what I had to say; it was another first, someone was interested in my life. It was also my first tryst with writing. They were only texts, though some used to be really long, but Sarah was the first one to tell me that I wrote well. I never texted using shortened words and she liked that.

  And at nights, she talked about how devastated she was; she couldn’t stop talking about the break-up.

  And after a few days, I no longer sweated when I talked to her. It had started coming to me naturally. She once said that I almost sounded like Arnab … and that was why she talked to me. Though that was a little derogatory, it still sounded like a compliment to me, at least initially.

  Days passed by and though we hadn’t even met, I started getting possessive about her and asked her to stop telling me how much I reminded her of Arnab. I even asked her to stop talking about Arnab all the time. Things were getting serious from my side. It wasn’t love, but there were territorial issues. Sarah was my territory now. And I hated to imagine that Arnab was still around anywhere near.

  ‘You think we should meet sometime?’ I said.

  Words now came to me naturally. I was getting better. I could make her smile, make her laugh her guts out, make her feel better … all by talking. At least, I had finally started to realize, that talking to the opposite sex wasn’t exactly rocket science. Though sometimes, it was really hard not to get, like, a little turned on when she used to whisper on the phone. Sometimes I found myself thinking about what it would be like to kiss her, just as Arnab had. I often imagined the two of us on the last seat of an empty classroom, in her school uniform, the short skirt and the tight shirt, her inviting smile and the irresistible pout would call out to me. Goosebumps.

  ‘Sure, we should,’ she said. ‘We should have met even before I met Arnab,’ she said flirtatiously. So. Totally. Hot.

  The day when I had to meet her finally came; she wasn’t sure at first whether she should meet me but then she said she really wanted to see me in person. I was shivering in my pants. I had never been out with a girl alone. I didn’t know how to keep them entertained. I remembered the time when I wouldn’t even dare to look at her long enough, let alone talk to her. But things were different now, I told myself.

  That day, it took me more than two hours to get ready. It included brushing twice, changing my shirt thrice, changing my shoes, forgetting my wallet at home … et cetera. My pocket money used to be a paltry sum of six hundred bucks and I did a mental calculation over a hundred times as to whether it would be enough or not.

  We were to watch a movie together; it was my plan. A dark movie hall to hide my fidgety self and Dolby-surround sound noise to drown out my stammering speech. That’s what I needed first … just to get my confidence going, before I could look into her eyes and talk.

  I reached the Cineplex exactly five minutes before the movie was scheduled. I didn’t want to spend too much time outside trying to make conversation with her. She still hadn’t reached. Jackpot!

  I bought the tickets and stood at the gate. Within the next thirty seconds, she came and smiled at me. We were frisked and rushed in. Not a word exchanged. Not a look exchanged! Things were going well for me.

  She looked fabulous in her tights and a long sweater. The sweater curved perfectly over her breasts and I tried hard not to stare. I looked at her legs, and even in those tights, they looked awesome. I wondered what it would be like to run my trembling hands over them; I sweated. She was irritatingly hot.

  My respect for Arnab multiplied as I walked with Sarah into that movie hall. He had kissed Sarah and done stuff while I was shaking, and trembling and holding on to railings for support. I also hated him a little. We we were shown our seats by the usher. The
movie had already started; it was a movie starring Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan, and it was based on a Bengali novel: Parineeta.

  Slowly, we started talking about the movie; the proximity of her body bothered me.

  Ain’t Vidya Balan fat?

  Oh, that’s a Bengali song.

  She looks good.

  Almost as good as you.

  Thank you.

  The innocuous truncated little dialogues went on for a while. Muffled snickers. Laughs. A few stolen glances. Things were going fine up until … they started becoming great. Slowly and steadily, we had leaned into each other and our shoulders touched; I wondered if it was intentional. Every time she spoke or I did, our lips were hardly a few centimetres apart. I breathed heavily and my heart pounded with nervous energy every time the inches between us decreased.

  I don’t know what exactly happened, or how it did, but just like that, she leaned over to say something and stopped … I found myself staring at her lipstick-stained lips. Barely inches away, her breath heavy on mine, the words that came out of her mouth were slowly reduced to mumbles and her lips came nearer till they hovered close to mine and quivered, and then my lips brushed against hers, the wetness of hers on mine and I enveloped her lips within mine as I always imagined I would, and felt them one at a time. They were like marshmallows, never-ending soft, sweet marshmallows.

  Soon, our tongues played with each other’s. My hands were wrapped around her head and her fingers were in my hair. Slowly my hands slipped onto her neck and around her ears and she started writhing and moaning softly. My hands slipped further down onto her sweater, the moans got louder, she grabbed and clawed at my thigh, and we totally made out.

  I hadn’t even known how to kiss … or do anything else … before this, but everything just happened and it felt incredible. She must have done it a zillion times before, but I hadn’t, so my smile was a gazillion times wider than hers was, and I didn’t care. A little later, the usher spotted us and stood right near our seats, and we sunk into our seats, smiling, and we watched the rest of the movie without uttering a word. There was a constant grin on my face. Without a doubt, this was love, nothing else can feel so good.