‘What? No! I never hated my school. I said I hated what I was in school! I was ugly and shy and detestable, and I think I am still those things,’ I said, winked and got back to watching the play.
‘Whatever,’ she said.
And suddenly, I heard my name being called from the back. Once. Twice. Thrice. It was a familiar female voice, soft and gentle and haunting.
‘Joy!’
‘What?’ I said and looked behind. ‘What? What? Nisha?’
‘Heeyyyy!’ she said as she walked up to me and we hugged. I still don’t know why we did that, but we did. Now, ‘the hug’ was the maximum extent of my physical contact with the longest crush of my life. It had been preceded by Nisha and I shaking hands (a long, long time ago).
‘You have changed!’ Nisha said.
‘And you are still the same! A little older perhaps. But yes, more or less!’ I said. ‘Still very cute!’
‘Oh, so you can say that now? You had problems saying that in school! You used to be so shy, Joy!’ she said and giggled.
‘Very funny,’ I said.
‘And this must be Manika!’ she said in her still chirpy voice.
‘Hi,’ Manika said and Nisha literally hugged the life out of her. Manika looked at me in sheer surprise.
‘But how do you know?’ I asked, very surprised.
‘Hmmm, it’s a small story. An interesting one, though,’ Nisha said. ‘See that guy?’ she pointed to a guy laughing and frolicking around with a few girls I remembered from my class; they had all got older. They were Nisha’s friends, I recalled. ‘He is my boyfriend. And you know what the first thing he gifted me was?’
‘Umm?’ I said.
‘Your book!’ she exclaimed. ‘And he said he wanted our relationship to be like Deboshree and Avik! That means, you two!’
‘No kidding,’ I said.
‘I am not. And it was such a beautiful book! I have read all three. Many times over! They are all brilliant, though I like the first one the most. It is so touching and honest and refreshing!’
‘You are being generous,’ I said.
‘Anyway, so that’s how I know you,’ she said and held Manika’s hand. ‘You guys are such an inspiration. The perfect couple! I wish I and Himanshu could be like you,’ she giggled.
Manika smiled.
‘Okay listen,’ she said. ‘I need to go now, but here is my card. Give me a call and we can all go out sometime? The four of us! It will be so much FUN!’ she shrieked. ‘And Manika, I can tell you about how he had a crush on me when we were little!’
‘I would love to hear that,’ Manika said and gave her a fake smile.
‘Okay now. Ciao!’ She said, handed over her business card, hugged us both and left.
Phew! Did this girl giggle a lot or what?
‘Joy,’ Manika said as soon as Nisha walked away, ‘you had a crush on her?’
‘Seems strange now. It’s like she is yet to grow up,’ I said.
‘I can see that!’ Manika said.
‘But back then, I was nuts about her.’
‘She is kinda adorable, though. But what’s with the constant giggling? You liked that, Joy?’
‘It seemed charming to me then. And you have to admit the giggling would have sounded endearing on a small girl, wouldn’t it? But now, I would kill myself.’
‘That’s rude,’ Manika said. ‘She just said such good things about you!’
‘Screw her,’ I said.
She winked at me and clutched my hand. She whispered in my ear, ‘Now that’s called moving on!’
‘Now that was strange!’ I said.
‘I know, ask me. The longest crush of my life turns out to be such a freak! Well, not a freak, but she was so insanely girlish and giggly. She was still the little girl I had had a crush on. Anyway, I was over her. But I have to give her some credit, she had my heart in her palms when I was kid. It still gives me the shivers thinking about how obsessed I was back then,’ Joy said.
‘Talking about obsession, what about Sidharth and Liss? They sounded pretty serious about each other.’
‘Yeah. Even I was shocked. I remember, one night when Sidharth and Manika had drifted off to sleep, we found ourselves talking and Liss said …’
Joy’s narration continued.
Just One of Those Nights
‘Is he fine now?’ I asked. Sidharth had spent the last few hours visiting the washroom repeatedly and made a plethora of noises from inside there. He had had a little too much to drink. He puked almost everything he had eaten for the last three days. Even for a regular drinker, mixing beer with whisky and vodka always spells disaster.
‘I think so. He is sleeping now,’ Liss said, sighing.
‘I don’t understand why the hell he keeps competing with you,’ I said. It was one of the many times that he had lost a drinking contest to Liss. Still, he never gave up.
‘Yes. He should know by now Indians can’t drink as much as we do!’ Liss smiled.
‘That’s nothing to be proud of!’ I smirked.
‘Sour grapes, Joy?’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Hey, you know this story is from the Panchatantra. Indian fantasy stories. We all read them when we were kids.’
‘Oh. Like Harry Potter?’
‘Something like that.’ I said. ‘But a lot older. Like, thousands of years older.’
‘Hmm … Sidharth told me …’
‘Nice. What else did he tell you?’ I asked her.
‘Mai Hindi seekh raha hai,’ she said.
I burst out laughing. Not at the grammar of course, I instantly forgave her for that, but the way she said it, it was hilarious! I still remember that accent.
‘What!’ she said.
‘No nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just very cute and it’s Mai Hindi seekh rahi hu, since you are a girl. I know the gender is a little hard to get in our language, but the way you said it was charming!’
And then she made me repeat the sentence about ten times, checked and rechecked the verb, the tense and the gender in the sentence. She was really serious about it.
‘You are not that bad. Seriously. It’s considerable progress in three months. I am impressed!’
‘Languages were my minor in graduation. I have a thing for them. Muje accha lagti hai!’
I didn’t correct her this time. I didn’t want to repeat the sentence another twenty times and make her understand the gender of things. Anyway, she was turning out to be too delightful for her size.
‘Is that why you’re learning Hindi? Your love for languages or your love for a guy who’s shorter and considerably inferior looking?’
She laughed and said, ‘I love him. And I love this country. When I grew up there in Hungary and then Poland, I had no family, nowhere to call home, but when I came here and I met you, your sister and Manika. All of you guys embraced me even after you knew what I used to do. For once in my life, I was a part of something. I had friends. And a loving guy by my side. I am just too selfish too lose all this,’ she said, and looked out of the window to hide the tears streaming down her face.
‘You are family here,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.
‘Thank you,’ she said, wiped off her tears and smiled.
‘You are always welcome. And it would be nice to have an ex-stripper in the family. Makes it exotic,’ I winked. ‘And maybe you can teach my future wife a few of your moves. That would be fun for me!’
‘Right!’ she said, paused and continued, ‘Can I ask you something, if you don’t mind?’
‘We just established we are family, didn’t we?’ I said. ‘Go ahead!’
‘Do you love her? Manika?’
‘C’mon,’ I said, trying to hide the obvious.
‘Kya tum Manika se pyaar karti ho?’
I suppressed a smile. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because I think she does,’ she said. ‘I can sense it.’
‘You’re wrong, she doesn’t. She has a boyfriend and she loves him and t
hey are serious and committed. I really have no business spoiling what they have.’
‘And yet, she is living with you?’
‘That’s because she likes it here. Plus we are all together. It’s fun living here.’
‘You think that’s the reason?’
‘I don’t know. But she is happy with that guy and I don’t want to ruin that for her. We were together before and I ruined it.’
‘I think you had already ruined Manika for others,’ she said. ‘She told me that you were a great boyfriend while you were with her. She never stops talking about you.’
‘Well yes, we were pretty awesome. I think we still are,’ I mumbled.
‘See,’ she said and smiled at me.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she said and sipped on her coffee, still looking at me as if trying to hint at something. A little later, Sidharth came looking for Liss and they went off to sleep. I tossed and turned in bed for quite some time. What Liss had said kept troubling me.
Over the last few weeks, life had been perfect. There was nothing missing and I missed no one.
Was I too busy to notice that I was falling in love with her again? Was I too busy to realize that she was all I needed? This can’t be, I told myself. I can’t take a chance with her again; I ruin everything every time; I sort of have a hundred per cent record.
I had been selfish before and I hated what I’d done to her. I had given her way too many crying nights to give her any more of them. She had been happy with Ravi before. And she would be again, I tried to convince myself. I had no right to spoil it. I had to lose her to make sure she was happy.
Liss had unwittingly destroyed everything. She had put the last nail in the coffin. I had been avoiding thinking about Manika and me but she had now drilled it into my head!
The following days were troublesome and it only worsened after Liss and Sidharth left for Paris. Sidharth had to report to the university and register himself for the next semester, so they cut their trip short, and they took the first flight they could get from Delhi. Liss’s words kept haunting me.
‘Don’t fucking tell me!’ I said. ‘Did you tell her you wanted another shot?’
‘I wanted to. It was hard not to love her and want her to be around me,’ Joy said.
‘Don’t tell me you spoiled her relationship with Ravi, you retarded fuck-up!’ I exclaimed.
The door creaked and both of us looked at it slam against the wall, and she entered in all her splendour. She came in and smiled at us.
‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘He is retarded. Ask me! I have been putting up with his bullshit for the last so many years now.’
‘Hi, Manika!’ I said and went and hugged her. She looked as stunning as ever. She is one of those girls you don’t even feel jealous of because she is so far ahead of you in terms of looks, panache and style that all you can do is look at her, smile, admire and wish you would be like her. That’s a lot of expectation from a girl. But Manika evoked such emotions.
‘Hi, Neeti,’ she said, ‘and hi, baby. I have been calling you since morning, where is your phone?’
‘I don’t know,’ Joy said as he looked around for his cell phone. ‘Oh, it’s on silent. I am sorry, baby.’
‘Shut up, Joy. This “baby” business won’t work on me. What the heck were you so busy with?’ Manika scolded him. It sounded so sweet, mostly because, for the first time, I had seen Joy at a loss for words. And scared, too.
‘Nothing! I was just telling Neeti our story,’ he said.
‘Was he?’ Manika asked.
‘Yes, he was.’ I said.
‘Then it is fine,’ she said and hugged Joy and they sat in front of me. They looked so much in love!
‘So where had he reached?’ she asked me.
‘Where Liss left and he realized that he loved you,’ I said.
‘Continue,’ Manika asked Joy.
‘Why don’t you tell her rest of it?’ Joy said as he snuggled up to her.
‘Yes! That should be fun,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you continue, Manika?’
‘If you insist! From the part where Liss left, right?’ Manika said. ‘Okay, so ever since they left, Joy had been behaving a little strangely.’
It was Manika’s turn to start narrating.
Manika’s Side
‘The house looks a little empty without them doesn’t it?’ I said, as Joy looked around, clueless. He had been acting a little strange of late and I hadn’t bothered asking why.
‘Yes. It sure does, Manika,’ he said, after a long pause.
I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. Joy and I had spent the last night drinking but I still couldn’t get any sleep. I checked my phone for any messages. No messages. It had been three days since Ravi had called or messaged me and I hadn’t missed it or him for that matter. I hadn’t missed the lack of communication for the last many, many days. Anyway, these days he called only to call me a slut or a whore, depending on how he felt that day. I don’t blame him for that. It was my fault. But the day I told him that I would stay with Joy in Delhi, I knew that sooner or later it would be over between the two of us. And deep inside my heart, I wished that would come true.
Ravi had been great. He had been loyal and loving, and had never given me a single chance to complain, and for a moment, I thought I loved him, too. I had convinced myself that he was the guy I could be with. But it was just not to be. As I heard somewhere, the heart wants what it wants. For all the time I was with Ravi, I tried my best to love him, recreate the magic I had with Joy, but it was never the same. I told myself that it would come with time, but it didn’t. I wasn’t even sure whether I still loved Joy. I was sure that I hated Joy and hated him a lot, but I wasn’t sure if my love for him was greater than that.
The first day I heard Joy cry, I bled. I know it’s stupid and uncalled for, but I reckon it was one of the worst days I had ever seen. And it wasn’t because I couldn’t see him cry. It was because I felt cheated. Joy had been seeing other girls and having fun but I always felt and thought that I was special. I used to think that I was the one he only truly loved, that I was the only one he would cry for, that no matter what happens, at the end of the day he would always come back to me.
But that seemed to have changed now. Joy was crying for someone else. I felt violated. I felt bad. And that was the day I finally felt that I had really lost him … forever. I had called up Neeti and she gave me the same picture. Just a few weeks? And this was his state of affairs? It was already shocking enough that he was doing this for someone else. I was broken. I couldn’t help but be by his side. I had my questions to ask him. I wanted to grab him by his collar and ask him—what made him cry for a girl whom he didn’t even love? What had she done that I hadn’t? What was so special about this girl? I wanted answers! If not that, I just wanted to be with him, and see him through it, and understand what did I not do that this girl, Natasha, did.
Ravi had told me that he would never see my face again once I said I would not move out of Joy’s apartment. He broke up with me, and though he said he wouldn’t call or message, he kept doing that for weeks.
‘You’re a bad person and you don’t deserve to be happy.’
That’s what he said most of the times. But I was with the person I loved the most. So I didn’t care.
I cried for the first few weeks that I was with Joy, and I realized that what I was doing to Ravi was outrageous, but after a very long time I was happy, truly happy. Despite the crying, the fights with Ravi and putting up with Joy’s depressing ways, just seeing him every day, seeing him smile once in a while, seeing him wreck the house, seeing him try his hand at cooking again … it made me just so glad. It was back to the way it was always meant to be—Joy and Manika.
I used to tell Joy that Natasha wasn’t worth it, and that he would find better girls in his life, and a whole lot of other things that I just hated telling him, but I still couldn’t help feeling complete with him. Being around him made me complet
e. There were times I felt bad about myself that I needed an asshole like him near me to make me feel complete, a guy who didn’t even care about me. But then, I was in love.
There were times I wished I could shake him and tell him how much I loved him, but I always feared what he would say. And deep in my heart, I would tell myself that he would fall in love with me again. I would pray for it, day after day, night after night.
A month passed and he had not. He said nothing about it.
He even asked me to move back to my apartment after he saw me crying once. More than Ravi, I was crying for myself … for the way I was. I had left a perfectly nice guy who loved me and had come to someone who didn’t even care about me. There were some things that happened I wished he would see and realize that we were great as a couple, but blind as he was, he didn’t. I too stayed shut.
The time I met Arnab and Sarah, I felt jealous. I wished he, too, would see me. Notice me. Hug me. And tell me that I was the one, but he didn’t. The time Nisha met us at the school reunion and told us that we were an inspirational couple, I hoped it would get into some place inside his head and he would realize that we were meant to be together. There was no one I wanted more than him. Yet, there was no one who was less ignorant of my feelings. Things got worse when Sidharth and Liss went back to Germany. He asked me to move to my own place. The truth was that I didn’t have a place in Delhi; I lived in a guest house for a few days close to his apartment and told him I had taken a flat nearby; he never asked further. I came from Bangalore just to live with him.
‘I think you should move back to your own place,’ Joy said.
‘What?’ I said, as my heart crushed into a million pieces. ‘Joy, we have been through this before. I like it here. And Ravi doesn’t have a problem. I told you that, didn’t I?’
‘I don’t think he doesn’t have a problem.’
‘He doesn’t. Didn’t I say I handled the situation? Or is it you who wants me out of here?’
‘No! I love you here. It’s great. But then, now that I am fine, I might start dating, and you being around kills my chances, you see. No girl would like to compete with you,’ he winked and I cried inside.
Ohh Yes, I'm Single: And so is my Girlfriend Page 17
